The Sound of Serendipity

by Cynthia A. Rodriguez

  I love how raw and real Carmen is, and I love that she can still find her strength in any situation. I figure that she’d get along with Hollis and make a note to introduce them. Because Carmen and I are damn near living at the studio at this point, I don’t see him often. But as soon as we finish up, I’m going to celebrate with all of them. Even Asa.

  That night, for the first time, Maddox doesn’t send me a song. It breaks my heart a little, though I knew the time would come for him to let me go. I sleep fitfully and when I wake, I have an unread message.

  Maddox: Sorry I’m late. I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry by Hurray for the Riff Raff.

  Half asleep, I type the song into my search engine and let the twangy song lull me back to sleep. I ignore the fact that he assumes I rely on these songs. It’s twisted to do so but as I drift off, I realize that love tends to be as twisted and gnarled as ivy stems. And apparently, just as wily and uncontrollable when left alone. I wasn’t trying hard enough to get over him, and my love was still twisting and growing inside of me.

  Chapter 29

  Carmen’s album takes too long to complete, but every day she asks about the mysterious song and every day I ignore her request. In order to give that song to Carmen, I’d have to contact Maddox and that was something I wasn’t prepared to do. Despite me missing him so much it was crippling.

  I worry that my not seeing him everywhere is the universe’s way of telling me we’re truly over. Our time is up. No more slowing down, despite his messages that I’ve taken to ignoring again.

  I miss the way everything slowed. That might be what I miss the most. Whether he knows it or not, he’s awoken something in me that refuses to be ignored. I have to carry this longing inside of me for as long as I live. Maybe that’s what happens when you find someone you were meant to love. I didn’t believe there was such a thing until I fell in love with Maddox on his living room floor with our hearts unknowingly beating in sync.

  “You over there thinking about lover boy?” Asa asks from across the room as we listen to Carmen’s album on repeat to make sure it can’t be any better than what we’ve already done.

  “She’s thinking about giving me that song. I know it,” Carmen says. “Why can’t we just record it and see how I do?”

  I shake my head. “It was a joint effort. In order for me to legally give it to you, I’d have to have his consent.”

  “So contact him,” Asa tells me, as if it’s that easy.

  “Yeah, and look like a moron when I fall all over him again? No thank you.”

  They both laugh.

  “I hardly think that’ll be the case, Em.” Asa looks at Carmen as if she wants her to tell me something too.

  “And you’re allowed to do stupid shit and not be considered a stupid person. That’s a thing, you know,” Carmen says and I roll my eyes.

  “Yeah, but if I think I’m stupid….”

  “You probably are,” Asa finishes.

  “How about we stick to listening to this album instead of the crap advice you guys keep giving me,” I get out before they rush me. They hug me and though it feels foreign to me, I kind of like it.

  “You used to be so quiet, Emerson,” Asa says as she squeezes me tighter.

  I shake my head.

  “Only on the outside. Inside, I was screaming.”

  Carmen takes a turn squeezing me.

  “No need to scream. We hear you loud and clear.”

  That night I don’t ignore Maddox’s song.

  Maddox: No Words by Erik Hassle

  My phone rings, its shrilling sound jolting me from my sleep. I see Carmen’s name on my screen, and just above it, I see that it’s two in the morning.

  “What’s up?” I ask, my voice groggy with sleep.

  “Meet us at your studio,” she says before she hangs up.

  I’m torn between wishing my studio were closer and wishing I’d never met Asa and Carmen as I bundle up and get into a cab. I’m grateful to find one because the subway is not something I ever want to do.

  “What the hell is going on?” I ask as I find them huddled outside the studio door. I love that they look like me, all frumpy and sleepy.

  “We’ll tell you when we get inside. Hurry up, it’s freezing,” Asa whines, and I oblige just so she’ll stop.

  “Well?” I ask as I find a seat.

  “We’re recording the song,” Carmen pipes up as she takes off her jacket and starts stretching her vocal chords. Asa starts to make us tea and I’m still out of the loop.

  “What song?”

  “Your song. ‘You’.” Asa hands Carmen the mug and I still don’t get it.

  “I already told you guys—”

  “I got his permission.”

  I stare at Carmen in shock.

  “You did what?”

  “Carmen, get in there and get ready while I calm her down.” Asa turns back to me. “You were about to miss out on the opportunity of a lifetime over a broken heart. And as your friends, we took it upon ourselves to make sure that didn’t happen. You’re an exceptional songwriter and woman. He’s a fucking idiot. Don’t let any of that hold you back from what’s about to take place here.”

  I should be mad. I know I should because who is Carmen to meddle in my personal affairs? But as mad as I should be, I’m not. I’m actually grateful.

  “Thank you,” I say, and she shakes her head.

  “Don’t thank me just yet. Carmen decided she wants her album released tonight. It’s time to put in those overtime hours.”

  I crack my knuckles and sip the tea Asa hands me before I get ready for one of the longest days of my life.

  By eleven forty-five that night, Carmen’s agent is on the phone with us after having gotten the go ahead from her indie label. Carmen’s comeback is sitting on my laptop awaiting its entrance to the world, and we all have a glass of cheap champagne Carmen bought from the corner store.

  “Nervous?” Asa asks.

  “Nah. This is some destiny shit. I can’t be afraid of that.” She nudges me. “Let’s do it.”

  All three of us hit the ‘Enter’ button, and as soon as I see it’s successfully uploaded, I shut my laptop. Then we all freak out. I try to ignore the champagne that’s spilling over our plastic cups and onto the floor as we hug and squeal and dance.

  Once we’re done, I ask, “So what now?”

  Asa and Carmen look at one another and before I can say a word, they instruct me to shut everything down and get ready for a night out. We get in a cab and the driver freaks out over Asa. After a few minutes of fangirling on his part, we head to her place. We rush past the paparazzi and when I’m finally in her apartment, I’m wide-eyed.

  These women are a flurry of activity as we shower and get dressed and when we’re done, I ask again, “So what now?”

  “Karaoke?” Asa suggests excitedly. Carmen runs into another room and comes back out with something behind her back.

  “That’s hardly fair considering we all can sing. How do you suggest doing this without people freaking over you two?”

  “Dress up in disguise and sing karaoke. Fuck it,” Asa says with a shrug. Carmen has wigs in her hands and I can’t say no.

  This time when we leave Asa’s apartment, we get into her car and her driver shuts us inside. She points to a random bar and we go inside. I’m immediately taken back to the time I went out with Maddox and how he’d be proud of me right now, going with the flow. Someone is singing an awful rendition of “Teenage Dream” and Asa asks the manager if we can go next. His eyes are glued on her chest as he shrugs.

  “Ohhhh,” Carmen says, jumping up and down, her wig sliding over her eyes. She adjusts it with a grin. “‘Survivor’?”

  “Destiny’s Child?” I ask.

  “Let’s do this! Em, find your inner Beyoncé because you’re singing lead.”

  We end up spending most of our time onstage laughing over the music, but the way Asa and Carmen are dancing around makes me laugh so hard tears form.

&nbs
p; The applause we receive is gracious, considering we did more laughing and gyrating than singing. Still, when we walk off the stage, someone offers to buy us a round of drinks and the night takes off from there.

  I’m getting water at the bar and when I look up, I see a familiar face. I turn away because if Stella was a bitch to me then, she’d be worse to me now. No doubt she sides with Maddox on the break up.

  I pull off my wig as I head to the bathroom and when I walk in, I hear my name.

  “Emerson? Is that you?”

  I turn and I’m face to face with the only woman who managed to rile me up to the point of insult.

  “Stella,” I say with a small smile. I can still be polite even if she wasn’t to me.

  “I’m actually glad I got to run into you so I can apologize to you in person.” She looks around before stepping closer. “I’m really sorry for the things I said. They were out of line.”

  I’m in shock as I look at her. This wasn’t what I expected from her at all.

  “It’s fine,” I say.

  “No.” She shakes her head. “No, it isn’t and I lost a good friend over it.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Maddox. He hasn’t spoken to me since. Said I was out of line for disrespecting the woman in his life.”

  “That’s a little harsh,” I say more to myself than to her, but she shakes her head again.

  “I figured you were like the others so that’s how I treated you. But you never were.”

  It’s my turn to shake my head because I heard him clearly. He was with me because I opened doors for him that would likely otherwise remain shut.

  “You should call him,” I tell her. “He probably needs a friend right now.” It’s a shame that he’s got one less person in his life because of me and we aren’t together anymore. What’s even worse is we’ve been over for quite some time and Stella has no idea.

  “Is everything okay?” she asks, and I tell her I have to go because I don’t want to answer any questions. I’m so confused.

  The next day, I tell Hollis what Stella said to me. He sits silently with his coffee and listens to everything I say and when I’m done, he sums everything up in one sentence:

  “Well, this is all fucked.”

  A few days later, I get my usual text from Maddox but this one makes me pause.

  Maddox: You by Carmen.

  Chapter 30

  Idon’t do anything with the information given to me. I continue to live my life with the weight of broken love on my shoulders. My father and I both agreed he’d hire me back and my studio would be a subsidiary of Kingsley Records but under my control only. I feel happy and more in control of my life after making amends with him. It wasn’t right to quit, and I apologized more times than I can count. He told me how proud of me he was with Carmen’s album—which blew up exactly as Asa predicted—and said he’s happy to have me back.

  Maddox continued to send me songs until I blocked his number from contacting me. I’d been too weak and created a playlist of all of the songs he sent, secretly listening to them over and over. Especially the last one: “My My Love” by Joshua Radin. But I had enough. It was time for me to move on. I hadn’t heard from him since and though it hurts, the dead hope hurt worse. Having no contact was better for me in the long run.

  I’m leaving my apartment to head into work, happy to be full-time and to have Holly back as my assistant, even though he moved out of my apartment a few weeks ago to live with his boyfriend.

  I step off the curb and when a cab pulls up in front of me, I smile and get in.

  “Kingsley Rec—”

  The door opens and someone’s shuffling inside, dusting the early March drizzle from their jacket. When I get a glimpse of his face, I freeze.

  “Mind sharing a cab?”

  I immediately reach for the door handle. When I feel his hand on my elbow and his whispered words telling me not to go, I close my eyes and sit back. He has to know that the sound of infatuation comes back to me. The memory of that moment that encapsulated the happiness. The blatant display of suspension. The unabashed look of sincere foolishness. I was reckless and now I was lost. But I’m so close to finding my way again.

  “Take me wherever she’s going, sir,” Maddox says. “Drive slowly, please. I need as much time as I can get.”

  He could have all the time in the world. It wouldn’t change a thing.

  I look out the window at the fuzzy-looking buildings, the rain making the windows fog, and I’m only happy that I’m not crying. I don’t need to cry anymore. Certainly not over someone who didn’t find me worth fighting for.

  “I realize that time has passed and I realize that I only ever offered you apologies, never explanations.” His voice wounds me but I’m stronger now.

  “What you don’t realize is that it’s too late.” I face forward, and he’s smart enough to sit as far from me as possible. The cab is warm, but I’m not sure if it’s from the way I unwittingly react to him or from my anger and embarrassment.

  “No.” He shakes his head. I can see it from the corner of my eye. “It’s not. Want to know how I know?”

  It’s my turn to shake my head.

  “I knew from the moment you looked at me that you still love me. I just need to get you to like me again,” he says, and I want to slap him. I tried to let my love go. I didn’t feed it, didn’t give it nutrients to survive, and still it thrived. It was rooted too deep and it survived with every beat of my heart. So, yes, I still love him. But not by choice.

  “Yeah, but it’s pretty clear you don’t love me and that’s one of the many reasons I’ll never like you again. Maybe I can’t help my heart, but this is never happening again,” I tell him, yearning for him to hear the conviction in my words without turning his way.

  “Why don’t you look at me?”

  “Because I’m blinded when I do.” The cab driver is looking back at us through the rearview, nervous.

  “Funny, I’m blinded when I look at you, too. I don’t know how I survived so long without the sun.”

  I scoff but despite my best efforts, they turn into tears. The kind that make me lean my forehead against the cool glass.

  “Are you bored? Can’t you find someone else to play games with?”

  “It was never a game, Emerson.”

  He says my name like I’m beautiful. He says my name like I’m everything.

  He says my name the way I think his.

  “It was always a game.”

  “Let me explain. I know I’m late but I’m here.”

  “You’re right about one thing: you’re late. And now I am, too.” I lean forward. “How much longer?”

  The driver shrugs and his gaze flickers to Maddox’s.

  “Emerson….”

  I close my eyes and sit back. I debate getting out and running the rest of the way to Kingsley but it’s too far.

  “Initially, when I sought you out, it was for the wrong reasons.”

  The words sound warped. It’s a knife to the chest. I can’t seem to catch my breath. This isn’t an explanation; this is a confession.

  “When I saw you at the movies, and I heard who you were, I became interested in you. And, of course, your father. I was attracted to you, but I didn’t think much of it because getting my foot in the door was more important to me than any romantic relationship. Or sexual relationship.”

  “What was real?” I whisper the question because I want him to tell me all of the important parts were real. The parts where I gave him more of me than I’d given anyone else. The parts where I knew our worlds were slowing. The parts when I felt his hand so firmly in mine. The parts where I let go of my fears and I flew with him. The parts where I had to stop and just listen to what it felt like to be a part of his world.

  “I want to say all of it. Because, looking back, without even a piece of what we shared, even the smallest thing, we wouldn’t be the same.”

  “Stop fucking bullshitting me.”

  “Th
e day I got you the earrings. I bought them before I even realized what I was doing. I liked you before then, but that was when I knew it was getting serious for me.”

  I want to scream.

  He’d touched me, I’d touched him…and it meant nothing. I was nothing to him and yet he made love to me with his words. He made me believe I was important to him and for all of that time, I was the nobody he’d said I was.

  It hurts so fucking much, I’m surprised I can breathe under the weight of his words.

  “It’s like you want to see me cry,” I say before burying my face in my arm.

  “No. I want you to know the truth. I want you to forgive me because I was a fucking idiot. I couldn’t explain what happened at your father’s birthday party because, even though I’d been lying to that girl, what I told her wasn’t always a lie. I set out to woo you. And then I fell in love with you.” He sounds so calm and I can’t help but envision him with the same tone of voice, same calmness about him, kicking the stool out from under me until my noose chokes me to death.

  But I loved you the entire time. There’s no way I can tell him that. There is no need to put myself out there, offer him more ammunition to hurt me with.

  “I thought I was paranoid about loving you more. But I know now that it was true and it still is.” People always say that women are insecure without reason, but my gut told me otherwise and now it’s been confirmed. I was always more invested than he was.

  “It isn’t. I left Kingsley and I went out on my own and found my own job and waited. I went to Central Park for months, hoping to catch a glimpse of you. I listened to all of Asa’s records, wondering if you were in there somewhere. I found myself outside of your apartment too many times. More times than I’m proud to admit. And those songs I sent you were my way of telling you what I couldn’t say yet.” He sounds so sincere. But he sounded sincere our entire relationship. “I wanted to see you, but I had to make it look like an accident because I know how important that is for you.”