Priscilla Monroe's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

Priscilla walked out of the radio station with a signed copy of the release folded in her pocket and no receipt for the disc. The producer had kept the acetate and the paper both. He said he would call. He did not write down her number. She stopped on the sidewalk and realized she had traded half her future for a promise she could not check. The chihuahua poked her head out of the coat and sniffed the cold air. She went back inside and asked the receptionist for the producer's mailing log. The receptionist said the log was not for visitors. Priscilla asked which studio in the city the disc was going to. The receptionist said she did not know and could not ask. Priscilla stood at the desk until the receptionist picked up the phone and pretended to dial. Then she left before anyone called security. She needed proof the disc had moved. She thought of the community board by the park, the one where people pinned lost dog notes and help-wanted slips. Musicians read it. Session players read it. If a producer in the city had taken in a new demo tonight, someone on that board would know within a day. She wrote a short note in pencil. Heard a duet on acetate this week. Trying to find where it landed. Reward for a straight answer. She pinned the note between a market day flyer and a drawing of a lost cat. By noon the next day a boy in a delivery cap was waiting by the planter near the board. He said his uncle drove tapes for the station. He said last night his uncle had driven exactly one package, and it had gone two blocks, to a back room above a barber shop, and it was sitting on a shelf with a stack of others. No label. No rush note. The producer had not sent it anywhere bigger than Elvis. The producer had not sent it anywhere at all. Priscilla paid the boy a dollar and walked to the barber shop. She went up the back stairs. The room was empty at lunch. She found the shelf. She found her disc. She also found a wooden microphone stand in the corner, cables coiled neat, a working setup someone had abandoned mid-session. She took her disc off the shelf and slid it into her coat beside the dog. She left the release on the shelf in its place, folded once, so the manager's name faced up. She walked down the stairs with the acetate against her ribs. The disc was hers again. The signed release was not. Somewhere in the city a manager she had never met still owned half of anything she recorded next, and now she had stolen back the only copy of what he thought he owned.