“Yes, I am.”
“Great! I have someone who’d love to work with you. What are you doing tomorrow afternoon?”
I toss my other hand in the air.
“I’m free. Want to meet for lunch?”
“Yeah. I’ll text you the reservation info shortly. Sound good?”
I’m still sort of floored that this woman is calling my cell phone. Yes, I’ve worked with her on her album and we’ve spent hours together, but I am still in awe of her work. Completely. I don’t know if I can handle being in her presence in a social setting.
“Yeah,” I tell her after I realize she’s waiting for me to answer. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
A few moments after I hang up, I hear keys pushing into the front door’s lock.
“Hey, you,” Holly greets me with a kiss on my forehead after I plop on the couch. “How’s today?”
“Let’s see. I ran into Henry yesterday, and he told me his marriage was a mistake. Then Asa called me and offered a producing gig. Not sure who for, but all in all, better than yesterday. Better than last week.”
“Holy shit, Henry?!” I nod. “I haven’t heard you say that name in a long time. Not since you banned it in that hotel room. And then in this apartment.”
I can hardly remember the girl who declared a vow of silence on a memory.
“Do you think I’ll ask the same of you when it comes to Maddox?” I ask Hollis.
“Haven’t you already? We don’t talk about him. I know you want to, but you have a heart of steel.” He leans back. “I worry about you even if you don’t worry about yourself because you can pretend to the world. Even to yourself. But at some point, the pretending has to end.”
“I wasn’t the one pretending with Maddox.” I’m surly as I reply, crossing my arms before remembering the breakfast I’m cooking.
“Ah. Pride. You’d rather be right than be hurt.”
“I’d rather be able to trust the man I loved.”
“Loved?” he asks and I want to yell at him.
“Of course I still love him. It doesn’t just die.” I pause as I continue with the eggs. “It should but I can’t seem to let it. You’d think after what I heard….”
“Look, I’m not attacking you. I just want to make sure you’re not going through the motions. You’re actually mourning this and moving on from it. Because if you aren’t, you’ll hold onto it until you burst.”
“I spent days in bed mourning. Today I’m fine. I’ll be fine,” I tell Hollis as I bite into a slice of bacon.
I almost believe myself.
“Fine,” he says. “But…I have some news.”
“Yeah?” I ask as I push the eggs onto my plate.
“I met someone. And I’d like you to meet him soon.”
I put my plate down and face him.
“What? Is that where you were last night? With him?” My voice is full of disbelief because I never thought I’d see the day.
“Yeah.” He looks down at his phone and chuckles. “He actually works in marketing at Kingsley. Maybe that’s part of the reason I decided to stay on and become your father’s assistant.”
I try not to let the news bother me because I know in order to keep his family off his back, he has to keep employment. It’s not like I can offer him a job at my studio, and I was the one that left him without any real warning.
“What happened to Vivian?” My father’s last assistant was with the company for over twenty years but was still sharp. She was stern but always gave me candy when I was a kid.
“Surprise retirement, I guess.”
As I eat, we talk about his guy and I feel better. I really do. And I’m ready for whatever tomorrow brings.
I get another message from Maddox that night with another song. It’s as cryptic as the first, but I listen to it because I am powerless to the beastly heart giving me life and wanting nothing more than to be connected to him in any possible way.
When I’m through, just as before, I turn off my phone and try to find the peace that avoids me.
All while I toss and turn, the lyrics play in my head.
Maddox: Speedway by Counting Crows
Lunch with Asa is unlike any other lunch I’ve ever had. The section we eat in is isolated and the paparazzi are lined up, waiting for a peek. We’re seated by a window, and she tells me with a smile to ignore them.
Our food has only just arrived when she gets right to business.
“You know Carmen, right?” Asa asks, and I pause, my fork still on the table. “Carmen Perez.”
Carmen Perez. Are you kidding me?
“Of course,” I tell her. “She’s only one of the most talented artists to ever walk the Earth.” I know my fangirl is showing, so I simmer down but Asa only smiles.
“I was hoping you’d think that. We’ve known each other for years, and when she mentioned she was looking for a producer for her comeback album, I immediately thought of you.” She ignores the waiters gawking at her, taking her fame in stride.
“What?”
She looks at me again.
“You had to know you’re number one on my list. Even with the sleeping,” she says with a laugh and I feel my face get warm.
“I wasn’t asleep. How could I be? It’s an epic song.”
She waves her hand.
“Regardless, you’re the producer everyone is wanting to work with now. But no one can get in contact with you since you left Kingsley. I figured we’d link up again when it came time for my next album, but as soon as Carmen told me her plan, I had to call you.”
“Her plan?”
“She wants to record it and then release it. No promo. Nothing.”
My brows draw together as I try to figure this out.
“How will it…sell?”
“Weren’t you the one who said she was one of the most talented artists to ever walk the Earth?” She grabs one of my fries and nibbles on it. “People have been waiting for this. If you think this shit won’t be big, you’re not as smart as I thought you were.”
“I’m in. Of course I’m in. When do we start?”
“She’s ready now. So I’ll just send her your number. If you don’t mind, I want to witness this thing coming to life.”
I shake my head.
“I don’t mind at all.”
We eat our food and I’m full of excitement. I haven’t felt a spark of hope since I left Kingsley. I’m trying not to think of it when I inexplicably feel him. It’s like déjà vu but in a deeper sense. I look up and he stops short just at the entrance. I frown at Asa.
“Did you…ask Maddox here?”
She looks over her shoulder.
“No.” She waves and he blinks and waves back. Then she shouts a greeting and beckons him over, and I want to tell her not to but it’s too late. He’s walking toward us. My heart that I sometimes have to check to see if it’s deserted me…it thumps. And then again and again and again until I want to thump back with my fist and tell it to go to hell.
“Good afternoon, Asa.” He looks my way and I don’t know what he’ll say. Will he beg for me back in front of her? I’m arguing with myself whether I want him to or not when he says, “Hello, Emerson.”
The side of me that didn’t want him to beg wilts away. Because when he doesn’t immediately offer excuses as to why he hasn’t called, I am flooded with disappointment.
“Is there…any way I could talk to you? Alone?” he asks, and I hate that flare of hope and excitement. I hate it almost as much as I’m supposed to hate him.
“Actually, I’m here on business—”
“Nonsense. Go on. I’ve got to make a call anyway,” Asa says, thinking she’s doing me a favor.
Shit. She even smiles like she knows I want to talk to him.
I get up and follow Maddox outside, all while wondering what he plans to tell me. Nothing that will make this better. Not unless he can pinch me and wake me up. Funny how I pinched myself when he professed his feelings for me because I wanted t
o know it was real. Now I want to pinch myself because I hope this isn’t real and I want to get away from this nightmare.
He waits until I cross my arms to talk. Thankfully the paparazzi are too engrossed in Asa to pay attention to us.
“Have you been getting my messages?”
I look around, not wanting to answer because if I do, he’ll see the vulnerability in my eyes. He’ll know how hard I cling to the lyrics he sends like they’re his hands reaching out to touch me.
“I wanted to apologize,” he finally says.
“I don’t want your apology.”
“Then what do you want?”
You. I run my fingers over my skull earrings.
“Nothing. From you? Nothing.”
I look back at the restaurant and then again at Maddox.
“Actually, I do want to know something….”
He raises an eyebrow and I take a deep breath.
“Tell me how I can get over you. You seem to have gotten over us just fine and I want to know how. Because what we had…paled in comparison to love at first sight, right? That’s what you said. So help me move on. Put me out of my fucking misery.”
As usual, Holly was right. Being in front of Maddox this way was a result of pretending everything was okay. It wasn’t.
“How could you tell me all of these beautiful things, make me feel beautiful and then nothing? You’re a liar and a goddamn coward.” This time I shove him. When he doesn’t budge, I shove him again and despite my temper, he pulls me in and hugs me tight. After a while, I have to stop fighting him because he won’t let me go.
“I don’t want to love you anymore,” I sob.
He shakes his head.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything,” he whispers in my ear.
“You don’t get to apologize. Apologizing means you regret it. It means you won’t do it ever again. But you won’t fix us.”
I refuse to believe that Maddox and I were a mistake. Even now when the wound is so fresh it’s still oozing, I know I can’t ever regret this. Even as I tell him I don’t want to love him anymore, I know I’m saying that because it hurts. It hurts because it was the realest thing I ever experienced in my whole life.
The amount of time we spent together now belonged to him. I’m a slave to a memory, a memory that hugs me on a New York City sidewalk and refuses to let me go.
“I have to go,” I say and Maddox lets his arms fall to his sides.
There are no more words and I feel worse than before because nothing was resolved. Now Maddox knows how ugly our love turned. Ugly enough for me to push him and yell at him.
When I get back to the table, I see him still standing there. All through my lunch with Asa, I feel like he’s still there. Finally, I look up just before I’m about to leave and he’s not there.
And I don’t know what to make of love anymore.
All I know is my ears are ringing like after an explosion and I feel my skin glittering with shrapnel. Whatever I’m feeling…that’s what it sounds like.
You never know how great or big something is. How much you rely on it until it’s gone. I have this hole and I never noticed it until Maddox filled it. Now that he’s gone, it’s all I can feel. The way I’m solid, I’m solid…until I’m not.
I try not to feel like a quitter as the days pass but I know that I am. I quit college, I ran away from Henry, I quit Kingsley, and even though I didn’t run from Maddox, it still feels the same. Either I quit things or things quit me. Either way, I’m here and I’m alone.
I don’t listen to the songs he sends me anymore. It hurts not to, but I think it hurts me more in the long run to breathe life into my hope.
I try to focus on my upcoming project.
I need a studio to work with Carmen in. I can’t go to Kingsley because it’s too high profile and I’ve yet to speak to my dad. If we’re keeping this project under wraps, I needed something discreet. So I contact a realtor and I purchase a space not too far from Maddox’s place. I always keep my eyes on the ground when I’m in his neighborhood, but I can’t help but feel closer to him and being closer to him makes me think I might actually have a shot at making this project great.
It’s like my creative genius is feeding off of his possibly nearby energy.
Though that may be true, I know he’s no good for me. I try to lie to myself and say that I’ve officially set him free, but if there was no peace when he was around, it’s hell when he isn’t. Either way, I’m screwed.
It takes a lot of hard work but it feels amazing to get my studio going. It’s small and no one knows about it, which I love, but I’m proud of it. It’s mine and no one can take it from me. The equipment alone put a dent in my savings, but as I look at the money in one of my accounts, I realize that if I don’t spend it on something I love, something I believe in, what will I spend it on? I feel ready to move on with my life.
I get a call from Carmen a week later and now we’re sitting in my studio, Asa taking in her surroundings as Carmen takes me in.
“You did some pretty good work with Asa’s album,” Carmen tells me, and I try to ignore the way her presence makes me feel a little lightheaded. I’ve always been a huge fan.
She tucks the strands of her caramel-colored shaggy bob behind her ear, and I look down at her colorful sneakers. Then at my black pumps. When my eyes slide up to hers, she’s smiling.
“I have a feeling about you.”
“Good or bad?”
Her smile grows.
“Right. You feel right.”
Asa claps her hands once.
“So…time to get to work?” she asks.
I nod. Time to get to work.
With each day, each sound we create, I learn more about the artist.
Carmen Perez and I are on different journeys. Yet we’re both here together, trying to find our way through. She wants to reimage herself as an artist. I want to reimage myself as a woman.
We want to be different from what we were known as, and we want to make sense of who we are.
If Maddox and I were in our own two worlds, meeting halfway, Carmen and I were in parallel universes, walking alongside one another. It felt good to mourn the old me. But it felt even better to celebrate the new me.
As the album comes together, Carmen starts to tell me about her life and what led her to her hiatus.
“I had a baby. She’s four now. She wasn’t planned,” she starts as she sips her beer after we finish the seventh track on her album. This song was hard so maybe that’s why we’re three beers in, our feelings sloshing around in our bellies with the lager.
“Most of them are, I thought,” I say and lean back on the speaker.
“Yeah, well, I had a drug problem. If it wasn’t a dick inside of me, it was a needle.” I’m taken aback by her words and I start to cough, my beer going down my windpipe.
She barks out a laugh and starts patting my back.
“You think I left music because I had a choice?” She shakes her head. “Nah. Everyone gave up on me. By the time I was clean, I had nobody. Only Asa, but she was still trying to make her way up, you know?”
I don’t remember hearing any of this, but I do remember seeing Carmen in the tabloids. She was a party girl and when she left the scene, people wondered what happened.
“Well, you have me now and this album is going to change everything.”
I’m sitting on the floor, the near-empty bottle of beer beside me, when Carmen grabs my iPod from on top of the table.
“You mind?”
I shake my head. “Go for it.”
“I want to hear what the magical ear likes to listen to,” she says before syncing it to the speaker. She hums over song choices, not listening to one for too long. She laughs as the song currently playing fills the room.
“What? ‘Raspberry Beret’ is epic. That man is a genius. So before his time.” I take the last sip of the now-warm beer and when then next song starts, I choke on it. Carmen ignores the fact that I’m
dying. Maddox’s voice has her full attention.
It hurts. It hurts so much that I scramble to my feet and yank the iPod from her. I’m tapping at the screen and can only breathe once it’s off. I’m torn between my sadness that his beautiful voice is gone and the relief that the elephant that was sitting on my chest is now gone. My heart is beating so fast, and I want to pound my fist on my chest and tell it to shut up.
“Wha—Emmy!” Carmen tries to grab it back, but I’m already shoving it in my pocket. Hearing him hurt. But having to hear me would’ve been worse because those emotions that bubble under my surface would’ve emerged riotously like lava spouting from a volcano.
“I can’t listen to it,” I admit and plop down on the floor.
“Story time?” She sits in the chair across from me and I look up at her, my lids feeling heavy. I shake my head. We sit silent for a moment and just when I think it’s safe, she speaks again.
“I want that song.” She leans forward. “The little bit I heard…I can’t get over it.”
Funny. I’m feeling the same exact way.
But there’s this roar inside of me. It wants to protect it. It wants me to tell her that the song isn’t for sale and that it already has an owner. No one will ever sing it the way we did.
Instead, I ask, “How do you know it hasn’t already been claimed?”
“There’s no artist information listed. And your response to my statement is making me think it’s story time.”
Or maybe it’s time for another beer, I think to myself.
“Are we gonna be those girls who sit around and talk about boys?” I pop the top of the beer I pulled out of the mini-fridge and look back at Carmen.
She holds her hand out and I pass her my beer before grabbing another.
“Nah. We’ll be the women who talk about whatever the fuck we want.” She tilts her head back to drink from the bottle and I chuckle.
“And if this is about a man?” I shut the fridge with my foot.
“Listen to the majority of the tracks on my album. One way or another, those stories are about a man. Or how they affected me in some way.” She runs her thumbs over the neck of the bottle. “Society would have us think that being a feminist means you can’t be a woman who acknowledges the power a man has. Not true. Not to me, anyway. I think it means acknowledging your power as well. And my power,” she tips the beer toward me, “is in those songs.”
The Sound of Serendipity Page 23