Another Chance

Julia Castellon sits on a queen size bed with a mahogany acoustic guitar in her lap as she scribbles into a black notebook. She finishes writing a lyric and picks her guitar up to play the tune. Just then her elderly mother Millie Onarez shuffles in after she finishes washing dishes.

“Ya Mija, that is a very beautiful song but it’s time to go to bed,” she says in a sweet voice.

“Okay Mama,” she starts.

“What time is it?”

“Nine-thirty at night,” Millie answers, crawling into bed.

“I’m gonna be late!” she cries as she gets off the bed to place her guitar on the stand in the living room. Millie sighs. She shoves her black notebook in her backpack and slings it over a shoulder.

“Come, I’ll take you.”

“Gracias mama,” she says and plants a kiss on her mother’s forehead.

Mlillie and Julia arrive in a car that’s more than two decades old in the heart of Miami, Florida’s Design District, Wynwood. There is a 500 lbs guy sitting on a stool that barely looks like it could support him at the entrance of the venue Gramps.

“My friends said I should be on the list,” Julia says.

“There’s a $20 dollar cover.” the door guy says.

“But my friends are play--”

“I heard what you said.” he snaps. He holds his palm open.

Julia looks into her purse and counts her money. She has $35 dollars in cash. She picks the $20 bill and hands it to the door guy reluctantly. When she walks by the stage she can see that her friend Marc’s band is already performing a song on stage. Suddenly, the crowd standing around the stage gathers around her. Her breathing quickens. She feels a pulsing in her head and the walls closing in on her. The music stops, marking the end of their set.

"Just one more song and I would like you guys to welcome our friend Julia to sing one of her songs.” Marc bellows into the microphone. She climbs on stage and is handed an electric acoustic guitar. She picks out her little black notebook and performs a powerful and moving love song. Marc’s band grabs their gear and Marc convinces Julia to put her bag with their gear so they could carry it to their van and give her a ride home.

A few hours later Marc’s band assembles by their van, each with a can of beer in their hand.

“How come you didn’t drink tonight Julia?” Marc asks.

“I’m only working two shifts a week at the cafe and they’re the worst hours.”

“You’re always broke,” Marc says as he hands her his half-filled beer can.

The following night Julia gets home from her shift at the cafe and opens the fridge. It’s filled with condiments, eggs, some American cheese, and a loaf of sliced bread. She grabs a couple of slices of bread and cheese and makes a sandwich for her dinner even though she brought home a tuna melt sandwich that was supposed to be her shift meal. Her mother pads into the claustrophobic kitchen clutching at her heart.

“You scared me!” she whines.

“I brought you a tuna melt from work Mama,” Julia says as she chews and swallows a bite of her cheese sandwich.

“Mija, we can both eat what you brought home from work. You know you deserve it,” says Millie furrowing her brow in concern.

“I’m okay mom, I brought it for you,” she answers as she hands the styrofoam box with the sandwich. Julia moves a group of boxes near her guitar and when she can’t find what she’s looking for she lets out a groan in desperation.

“I can’t find it!” she cries.

“What are juu looking for?”

“My little black notebook where I wrote my song lyrics.”

“Guau, lo llevaste al maldita show last night?” she says posing like a superhero, bemused.

“I probably left it in Marc’s van.” says Julia.

“Who is Marc?” she asks. There is a knock at the door. Julia goes to answer it and it is her landlord Esteban.

“Your rent is still past due.” Esteban says sternly.

“I know Esteban, how much do I owe you now?”

“That’s one thousand. Like every month. I won't make you pay the late fee this time. I hate to tell you that I’m gonna have to let you guys go if you don’t make rent on time.”

“Esteban, it’s just that my mom is not working and I only work two shifts a. . .” she starts.

“It doesn’t matter baby, I need the money to keep this building open. On time! Please have it by the end of the month or you are out of here.” says Esteban with a fierce look in his eye. Julia nods and closes the door. She sinks down into the couch next to her mother and sobs into her mother’s shoulder.

“I wish we were rich, Mami,” she cries.

“I know Mija, but God will find a way for us. Don’t worry. At least we have each other.”

Julia calls her coworker Annette who gives her one of her shifts at the cafe. She understands that she won’t be able to make rent this month if she can’t help Julia.

During her shift, Julia had to manage three tables at once. She starts to have that feeling again where she can’t grasp a breath to save her life. The room gets smaller and the lights get brighter.

“Oh no, no, no.” She says closing her eyes as she rushes back into the kitchen.

The manager walks in to witness her dry heaving above a wastebasket, feeling like she is going to vomit but ultimately doesn’t.

“Go home. I can’t have you throwing up on a shift. Don’t worry about sharing your tips. Just go, please.”

“I can work. I’m fine,” she says. As if divine intervention came in to test her resilience, a group of six walks into the door. Julia sees them, looks back at her manager, and vomits all over his shoes. She looks up to him, abashed.

“You’re fired Julia. Please leave,” he says and leaves her standing there feeling helpless and abandoned.

Julia calls Annette to tell her she’s lost her job.

“What else are you good at?” Annette says.

“Nothing really, I have my music. I can’t find my book and I know I had it at the show. I must have left it somewhere.”

“Don’t worry about that book, you know your songs. Perform them on the beach to earn cash. I’ve heard you play. You’ve got this!”

It’s a week later and Julia has racked up $300 dollars. She’s in the waiting room of a labor pool while music is playing in the background. It sounds very familiar. It’s one of her songs being performed by a famous artist! This can’t be. She starts to feel her lose herself to the moment and walks out of the building.

In the following weeks, Julia met with a lawyer who began arbitration with the band over them using her song lyrics. At first, the band denied such claims but then later revealed that they also performed on the night Marc played at the same venue in a private section, suggesting that they were present while she sang the very song that they played on the radio.

When she confronts Marc about the backpack he says he can’t find it in the van meaning she probably left it at the venue. She put a Craigslist ad out trying to find the book and the next day she gets an email claiming that they have the book. Julia replies asking for proof and they send a photo that is unmistakably her lyric written in her handwriting. They arrange to meet the following day. While she finishes typing the reply email Julia hears a crash in her mother’s room and rushes to her. She is on the floor clutching her chest. She calls an ambulance and they pick her up and take her to the hospital. At the hospital, the doctor tells Julia that they need $33,000 dollars to put her mom on a transplant list for a new heart and that she needs it as soon as possible because her heart is very weak.

Julia gets in contact with the lawyer and he informs her of an offer of $35,000 dollars as compensation for using her song.

“They have a pretty big following, I’m sure they’ve made a lot on iTunes alone.” says the lawyer.

“But I need that money now!”

“It still might take some time to get the papers in order. If I were you I would ask for more.”

A while later Julia stands by her mother’s hospital bed holding her hand in hers.

“When you are playing your music you are a different person. I know you put hard work and love into that song and they are wrong for using it to get rich. Take advantage of this, Mija. You don’t owe me anything.” Millie says. She closes her eyes and drifts off into sleep. The deepest sleep. Her monitors flat-line and two nurses rush in, one pulling Julia out of the room. Julia lost her rock that night. The one constant thing that kept her going besides her passion for playing music. She knows she deserves more out of life and now she is going to prove it.

Julia finally meets with the guy off Craigslist and she offers him a $200 dollar reward.

“Thank you for being an honest person. You make me believe that there are good people out there worth meeting,” she tells the Craigslist guy.

When she presents the lawyer with the little black book and shows him the song lyrics written in her handwriting and dated five years ago, they both knew they would get more. The band offers Julia $50 million dollars in exchange for the rights to the song. They agreed the band would hold the lyrics to that song but credit her as the sole writer. Julia became a star overnight.

The end.