Trouble was, the joints I kept landing weren’t anything like that. The ritzy places weren’t going to take me. The poor places netted me barely enough to keep going.
I sat on a bench in Atlanta near a mall I’d been to a thousand times with my mother. I was less than two hours from Chattanooga right now, and was seriously thinking of stopping by to sell my truck. Or drive it.
I could probably sell off some things, raise some cash to start over in Cali. I had stuff. Furniture still at Redmond’s. A computer. My old guitar.
The more I thought about it, the better this plan seemed. I’d done my stint hitchhiking. I’d played all over the country. Now I could just go straight to the place I liked best. I could look up the Sonic Kings. They’d bring me on a gig, I knew it. And if I had some cash, I could probably crash with one of them on the cheap, helping out with bills as I figured stuff out.
I stood up. This was a good plan. I just had to make this last stretch back to Chattanooga. An easy hitch. Or hell, I could even call somebody to fetch me. Any one of the old boys would do it, just to hear my tale.
Except…I didn’t want them. I didn’t want any of them.
My past came crashing down on my head, killing all my enthusiasm. If I went back there, I’d have to deal with my mother. And my so-called friends.
And Hannah.
I’d have to look at her again, wasting away. The worst thing she could have ever feared. Her biggest nightmare. She was living it.
Except she wasn’t alive. She was being kept alive. She wouldn’t want that. But I hadn’t been able to change things. I hadn’t done anything at all.
Except be part of what put her there.
I sank back down on the bench. I’d chosen this hard road on purpose. It was my punishment, my penance, what I deserved.
The night of the accident wanted to encroach on my thoughts, but I wouldn’t let it. I’d done enough thinking these past five months to last a lifetime. I knew what I wanted now. Cali. The band. That girl.
Jenny.
Thinking about her pink dreadlocks made me smile. Remembering her spontaneous run down the beach soothed my tortured soul. She was just the ticket. Exactly what I needed.
I had to get there.
I got up, racking my brain for places I knew in Atlanta that might help with the cash situation. I needed a place that wasn’t fancy, but catered to rich people.
I started walking toward downtown, but my phone buzzed. Charlie. I hadn’t talked to her since New York. I should have called. If something had happened to Hannah…
I mashed the button. “Hello?”
“Chance McKenzie, I just met your pink-haired trollop and you probably better get back to Chattanooga.”
For a minute, I just stood there, not sure what I’d just heard.
“Chance, are you listening to me?”
“Are you saying Jenny is in Chattanooga?” I asked.
“Redmond just brought her to the home. They thought they could weasel your phone number out of me.”
I felt giddy and light. Jenny! She had found me!
“Charlie, this is great! Tell her my number! Hell, I’m in Atlanta! I can be there in two hours!” I wanted to laugh at the world, shout into the sky. Jenny was freaking here!
“You’re in Atlanta? What the hell are you doing so close?” She sounded annoyed that I wasn’t in Timbuktu or something.
“It’s just where I wound up, making my way down from New York.” I still couldn’t get over it. Jenny! In Chattanooga.
“You want someone to come get you?” Her voice was full of uncertainty.
“I might have enough money for a bus ticket.” I started walking in the general direction of the station, even though it was miles away. “I don’t want to sit here waiting for two hours.”
“I can’t believe you’re racing here to meet up with that girl,” Charlie said. “Have you already forgotten those articles? The video? She’s trouble, Chance. Big trouble. Trouble you don’t need.”
I stopped walking. “Did you find something else out?” Maybe there was a problem over the news stories. Maybe something had happened with that director.
“Chance! It’s obvious! She played you. I don’t know how or why, but you can’t trust this girl.”
I let seconds tick by as I let this sink in. I had just gotten burned in Virginia. She might be right.
“Chance?” Charlie’s voice was impatient. “What are you going to do?”
The sidewalk was a blur beneath my long rapid steps. It didn’t seem to matter what my brain was thinking, any doubts Charlie was planting. My legs had their own agenda.
“I’m coming home,” I said. “Don’t let her get away.”
Chapter 38: Jenny
As we left the nursing home, Redmond tried once more to convince me to go with him instead of Mrs. McKenzie.
He ducked his head in close. “You sure ’bout this, Jenny?”
Part of me would rather go with Redmond, the part who liked things easy. But if this woman was going to be my baby’s grandmother, I was laying the groundwork for everything ahead.
“I’ll be all right,” I said. “She’s a lovely woman.”