The High Notes: A Novel(15)

She stayed on the bus for two hours, got off and took a cab to the nearest used car dealership, and bought an old Ford for seven hundred dollars. It had a hundred thousand miles on it, and the paint was chipping, but she hoped it would get her across the country without giving her any trouble. She had enough savings to cover it, and still be okay until she found a job somewhere. She knew she could make it all the way to New York and be there for a while without working. It was now or never. She was glad she’d done it. Another year of Glen’s insults and abuse would have been too much. She admired Pattie for having the guts to stay, but she had no other choice with her mother and Jimmy to think of.



* * *



—

Pattie and the boys in the band were awake by then. The guys had gone out to breakfast, and Pattie looked at the mess of dye-stained towels in the bathroom and wondered where Iris was now. She met them at the van after they ate, and they looked at her expectantly.

“Where’s Iris?”

“I don’t know,” Pattie said in a subdued voice, and they could tell that something had happened. “She was gone when I got up.” She had to tell them.

“What do you mean gone?” their drummer, Willy Kieffer, asked her. “Did she leave a note?” She shook her head, and Judd looked at Pattie and nodded almost imperceptibly. Iris had done it. It was like knowing that one of their fellow prisoners had tunneled out and escaped, and he was glad for her. She had the least to lose by fleeing, no kids to support, no ex-wives, no sick parents, no one depending on her, not even a boyfriend. She was free. She had nothing to tie her down and no one to answer to.

“Who’s going to tell Hendrix?” Judd asked them after they took off, with the GPS in the van set for Wheatland, Wyoming. It was going to be another long drive, and they were performing the next day.

“I will,” Ben volunteered. He’d never liked him. “It will be a pleasure.”

“He’s going to have a fit,” Willy warned him.

“Let him. I’ll send him a text. We can do it tonight from Wheatland. I’ll tell him I didn’t have cell service till we got there. We can give her a head start before he puts out an alert for her with his scouts.”

“I hope he doesn’t find her,” Pattie said softly, thinking of Iris’s newly dark hair the night before. It was a good disguise, but nothing could hide that voice if she took a job singing somewhere. If she did, someone would hear her and tell him. She’d been touring long enough in the small towns that there were plenty of people who remembered her name. Pattie hoped she’d head for a big city where she could get lost and he wouldn’t find her.

They rode in silence for a long time, each of them thinking about her. They were going to miss her.

“She’ll be a big star one day,” Judd said from the backseat. He hoped she would call Clay Maddox. That was where she belonged, not touring for Glen Hendrix for too little money and too much abuse. It made him feel good just knowing she was free.



* * *



—

The car took off from the used car lot without a problem. Iris had put her suitcase and her guitar in the trunk, and stopped to buy a cup of coffee on the way out of town. The car didn’t have a GPS, but she used the one on her phone. She drove due east, heading across the state toward Nebraska. She had a long trip ahead of her if New York was her final destination. She hadn’t decided yet and she was in no hurry. She was free now. She didn’t have to be anywhere, and the longer she stayed on the road, traveling, the less likely Glen was to find her, if he even cared. Maybe he wouldn’t try. She was just another body, another voice. He had enough performers on the road to draw from to fill in the gap she left. She had almost convinced herself it wouldn’t matter to him, when she checked into a motel just off the highway.

She had bought a salad at a truck stop, set it down, and lay down on the bed, tired from the long day of driving, when her phone started ringing. Glen had just gotten Ben’s text. He spoke to all of them, who claimed they had no idea where she went, which was true. And then he called Iris. She saw his name come up on her iPhone and she didn’t answer. He called her eight times that night. She finally put it on mute, so she didn’t hear the calls when they came in. He sent her several texts too. “Where the hell are you?” “Get your ass back on tour before I fire you.” “I’m going to dock your pay for not working tonight.” “What kind of game are you playing?” There wasn’t a single nice message in the bunch, but she didn’t expect one from him. He sounded frantic and angry. She got a text from Pattie too, asking if she was okay. She texted her back and told her she was fine. Pattie didn’t ask her where she was, and didn’t mention Glen. She missed her but she wanted Iris to make a clean getaway if that was what she wanted. She deserved it. She’d been working like a dog for fifteen years, for people who didn’t appreciate her, and her incredible talent. They just used her.

Iris slept like a baby that night, at a seedy motel. She had the bare necessities and nothing more, but it was cheap, and she wanted to be careful. She didn’t know how long she’d be out of work. Maybe a long time. She started driving the next morning before the sun came up. When it did, it filled the sky with orange and pink and purple. She took it as a sign that she had done the right thing. Even the sky was celebrating her. She got to the Jackson Hole valley that night, and saw the Grand Teton Mountains looming above her. Jackson was a friendly picturesque little tourist town for skiers in the winter and hikers in the summer, and people who rode horses all year long. Some people had fancy homes there and flew in on private planes to get away to natural surroundings. She did none of those things, like riding or skiing. She’d never had an opportunity or the money to develop those skills, or do sports when she was a kid. Skiing and riding horses were for rich people, and she had been dirt poor. Her father couldn’t have paid for horseback riding lessons, or tennis, or skiing. They barely had enough to eat. She remembered those days so clearly, waiting to see if she’d get more than a can of beans for dinner. Some days were better than others, and once she worked at Harry’s, the waitresses had fed her well, and the meals were delicious.