Page 3 of Finding Tane (Foggy Basin Season Two)

Tane

T he day before

“You could change the spelling of your stage name to make it easier to say, easier to remember,” Andrew Lane said. It wasn’t the first time he’d brought this up, and I had told him absolutely not each and every time. “Make it like F — e — t — o — o?”

I shook my head, even though I knew he couldn’t see me. “No, Andrew. It’s staying with the correct spelling. W — h — e — t — u.”

There was a pause on the other end of the call. “Okay I know you care about this, but how about something us Americans can easily say?”

“It’s my culture, my heritage, my name was chosen to reflect that. I’m not going to change it up because you want something easier to say.”

“Come on, Tane, you know I don’t mean it like that, it’s just from a marketing perspective...”

“Next you’ll be suggesting I let people call me ‘Tayne’.”

I rolled my eyes and resisted the urge to hang up on him. He was my manager, I shouldn’t do that, but I really, really wanted to.

I looked around the room, searching for something to anchor me, something that would calm me down and stop me biting off this man’s head. My guitar? Nah, that had too much emotion associated.

The view out the window of my apartment showed Los Angeles sprawling into the valley. The sky was vast and blue, cloudless like normal.

Part of me really missed winter.

Most of me wanted to escape.

“How about what it means? What does whetu mean again?” Andrew blathered on, oblivious.

“It means star, but I’m not going to go around calling myself star, I’ll tell you that for free. I’ll sound like an asshole.”

“Okay, I’ll workshop it with the marketing team and we’ll get back to you.”

“Don’t bother, I’m not going to change my name.”

“All right, and I’m working on spin about how long your new album is taking to come out, let me know if you have any statements you’d like included.”

I hung up on him.

I dropped my head into my hands and tried to order my thoughts. I had a gig tonight. I had to get myself into the space for it. I had to focus on the music.

It had once been everything I wanted, it had been my escape from the little country at the bottom of the world that I came from. It had been my money maker, my everything.

I thought back with jealousy to how I’d felt when I first came to the States.

Back then, I’d been in love with the act of creation, staying up all night in a creative whirl, writing new scraps of melody, new beats. Show them to people — like my manager — and get hype in return.

Now? It felt hollow.

It felt like something I had to do. The joy was long gone. It was work now.

My brain wasn’t providing anything new or fun. In fact, in place of new melodies and ideas for lyrics, my brain was static. The sound of a speaker when a guitar has been plugged in but no one’s strumming.

Nothing but white noise.

Groaning, I picked up my phone. Andrew wouldn’t call back, he’d be off with marketing by now, I was sure.

There was a disturbing number of new notifications. On my Instagram, on my incoming messages, on email. Looking at the numbers made my mind go blank.

They wanted to know why I’d pushed the release date of my new album back. I’d done it three times. I couldn’t very well keep them hanging... but I had barely written anything I could use for an album either.

There was too much pressure. I couldn’t think of anything except the gripping fear that took hold of me as those numbers ticked up, even as I was looking at them.

Static played riotous in my head. Nothing but white noise, roaring too loud in my ear.

I had to get away.

That’s all there was to it. I’d do that night’s gig like normal, pack all the shit I cared about and hire a car, and be gone in the morning.

But go where?

I couldn’t just fly home, I wasn’t ready for that. Ma would have so many questions, and I didn’t have answers. Besides, it would involve too much paperwork, then a twelve hour flight. Nope. Too-hard basket.

I had to go somewhere no one would know who I was — which wouldn’t be too hard outside of L.A., San Francisco and New York City. I was only really big on the club scenes, and in Japan. And I wasn’t about to fly to Japan, same issues with flying home. Too much admin.

Ignoring the little bubbles of numbers, I opened an accommodation app that I used fairly regularly. There had to be something...

I tapped filters. Hotel or motel, yeah that was fine. No shared accommodation AirBnB bs. I wanted my own bathroom, thank you very much.

Somewhere within a day’s drive.

Somewhere not a city.

There were a lot of options. I hadn’t really realised there were so many small towns in California.

I slumped back on the plush cushions of my couch and opened Instagram instead. I ignored the notifications and scrolled. I followed a lot of travel influencers and one of them had posted a gorgeous picture of a small town. Where was it?

Foggy Basin.

I clicked on the location tag. It checked all the boxes.

I looked up accommodation and booked a room at the local motel without even thinking about it.

Done. For tonight.

This was really happening. I stood up, feeling briefly light-headed but mostly... euphoric.

I was taking control.

Escaping.

Taking my life into my own hands before I was smothered by everything. All the things people needed from me piled onto my back like a dead weight and I couldn’t take it anymore. I was sinking, quicksand sucking me down.

It was time to pack.