by Bryce Oakley
She had been adopted and raised by two well-meaning white suburbanites in Nebraska, she truly, truly knew what it was like to be the odd one out.
She had used her looks to her advantage, though, once the fashion editorials had started rolling in. She was repped by IMG models, had been on the cover of Italian Vogue, and had walked in a handful of shows over the past few years.
And in The Shrikes, a band of misfit queer women, she was definitely the odd one out, but not because of her race. Still, her bandmates had never feel as though she was any different for it. They were her true family, and she cherished how they had all accepted her even though she wasn’t gay — the backwards irony was, of course, not lost on her.
She grabbed her empty coffee cup and refilled it from the cardboard carafe.
"Oh, baby, I didn't even see you there," Billie said, wrapping her arms around Vero.
Zoey watched, curious. She had never had a real relationship. She had dated her fair share, but no one more than six months. She had certainly never looked at someone — or been looked at — quite like Billie looked at Vero.
"Is that coffee?" Meg said through her microphone.
"Damnit Meg, we almost had it," Collins snapped.
Domino and Billie exchanged a look.
Collins was one of the most respected producers in LA and definitely the most expensive one that their label would allow, but whoa, she could be an asshole.
"Uh, sorry, but this is like the seventh time I've nailed it so I'm going to have some fucking coffee," Meg said.
Zoey frowned, trying to hide her amusement behind her coffee cup. Meg was typically very sweet, though she could be blunt, apparently everyone had hit their limit with Collins.
Collins sighed. "I get paid by the hour, take your time," she said.
Domino mouthed to Zoey, "Makes sense."
Zoey smirked, grinning. Her phone lit up beside her on the sofa with a picture of a woman with bleached hair wearing a gas station trucker hat they had found in Arkansas on their last tour — their manager, Micah.
"Is that Mike?" Domino said, pointing to Zoey's phone. She grabbed it without waiting for an answer.
"Yo Mikey, we're being held hostage by Collins, save us," Domino said into the receiver.
A grin crossed Domino's face. She handed the phone to Collins. "It's for you," she said, handing the phone toward the producer.
Vero giggled behind her cup and Billie wrapped an arm around her, presumably to quiet her.
Meg appeared beside them, taking the cup out of Zoey's hand to gulp the hot liquid down in one fell swoop.
Collins turned towards them, handing the phone back to Zoey.
"We're breaking for the night, but tomorrow we're starting on 'Midnight,' so get ready, Zo," Collins said, clearing her throat again.
Zo? They were on nickname basis now? Or did Collins just not know her name?
Thank God for Micah. She was off in meetings for the band in New York for the next few days, but she was obviously feeling guilty about leaving the band without management.
Billie turned toward Zoey. "Oh, I'm so excited for that. Your first lead songwriting credit!"
Zoey's stomach swarmed with nerves. "Okay," she squeaked and the rest of the women laughed.
Domino clapped her on the shoulder. "It's a gorgeous song. I'm excited," she said.
'Midnight' was a song she had written at the last minute, replacing another song idea in her head. Once she got the beginning inklings of 'Midnight,' it was all over. She had written the song in about fifteen minutes and had the main chords in under an hour, as though it had always existed and she was just a vessel for getting it on paper.
"I still don't know if it’s the right tone for the album," Zoey began, feeling unsure of herself.
Collins sighed. "It fits. It’s a good song. If it wasn’t the right tone for the album, it’ll get cut from the final list. It’s not a big deal," she said with a touch of irritability in her voice.
The woman could even make compliments sound mean.
'Midnight' had come to her just a few weeks before, a few days after her surprise New Year's Eve kiss with Pia. When the band had heard it and asked her about its inspiration, she had told them the kissing bandit had been a man she didn't know.
Apparently, they had bought the lie.
Upon hearing the story, Vero had even offered to call Madonna to get the guest list so they could begin to narrow it down.
Zoey had tried her hardest to talk her out of that idea, for fear that any list with her name and Pia's name would be too obvious — even though she knew they’d never guess something so outrageous.
As it was, once they started doing the promotional tour, they'd be on Pia's show. Apparently she had worked out a deal with Micah and the record label to release their first single on the show. The idea of it made Zoey’s stomach swirl with nerves.
Pia's show had the kind of rabid fan base that could really make the album explode in popularity.
She hadn't gotten all of the details of the release, given that the album wasn't even finished, and it was months away, and that even the mere mention of Pia's name made her blush to such a degree that she had to excuse herself from the room and go outside.
"I'm excited for Collins to have a new target in the morning," Meg whispered with a wink to the group.
"I can hear you," Collins said, her back turned as she fiddled with the computer.
"Can we go eat something?" Domino suggested. "Burgers?"
"Fries!" Billie agreed.
"Grilled cheese," Meg agreed.
"Sounds like the diner down the street, then?" Vero asked. She checked her watch. "11:23pm. We should be fine as far as crowds go."
Vero hadn't meant that they'd have to wait in line for a table. She was talking about paparazzi and fans.
Zoey sometimes got the TMZ-treatment, but going anywhere with one of the biggest pop stars in the country was a dicey move.
"We can go somewhere else, babe," Billie suggested, her hand finding Vero's.
Domino was on her phone. "You'll never believe this. Sabrina just got a regular, weekly segment on Pia Marino's show," she said, bouncing up and down.
Sabrina, Domino's new-ish girlfriend, was a home organizer who had started the promotional rounds for her own personal brand recently. She was Zoey's friend first, but Zoey only rarely rubbed that in.
Zoey could barely even think about that at the moment. She had heard Pia's name again.
Her stomach flipped up and clenched and spun in a very messy pirouette.
"I'm not feeling well, so I'm going to go get some sleep," Zoey said. "You guys have fun, though."
"There's absolutely nothing to be nervous about tomorrow," Billie said, misreading Zoey’s emotions for solely songwriting nerves.
Zoey smiled and nodded. "Yeah, well, I still am a bit," she lied, seeing an out. "I'll see you guys in the morning."
She grabbed her bag and jacket and hurried out of the studio and down the hall, then burst out the front doors of the building.
"Get it the fuck together," Zoey said, trying to give herself a bit of a pep talk. "Get it together."
Maybe it was just nerves for the next day. Maybe she was truly nervous about recording her first personal song with the group. Nevermind that she almost always added lines and changed lyrics in other songs after hearing demos. And nevermind that the song they were recording was about meeting a mysterious person who her soul connected to instantly.
A little dramatic, but even she deserved a bit of poetic license.
Another fear that had been whispering in the back of her mind popped back up. What if someone heard the song and had seen them kiss and leaked that it was about them?
She thought back to the kiss, as she had almost every thirty seconds since it had happened only weeks before.
They had been standing in a dark corner, with no one nearby. People went wild at midnight on New Year's Eve — no one was probably even looking their way.
<
br /> Right?
She had to believe that, or else she'd never have the courage to record the song.
She was proud of the song. Domino wasn't wrong — it was a gorgeous song. She was excited to record it and release it and show the world that she was more than a pretty face and a keyboard player who stood off to the side of the stage.
Billie and Domino had obviously become the face of The Shrikes, and she was fine with that. After all, they were an Aries and a Leo respectively, so as a Pisces, she never stood a chance of outshining one of them.
But she deserved to shine, too, didn't she?
And 'Midnight' was her chance to do just that.
Chapter Two
May
Pia
Pia stared down at the signed contract. Her mother-in-law had finally agreed to come on the show.
On the anniversary of her wife's death. July 10.
She had largely kept that part of her life out of the spotlight, but of course, people talked. They talked about nothing else when it first happened, but it had largely fallen out of public knowledge in the past five or so years.
And now, on the 10th anniversary of Elle's death, she was going to spotlight it herself. On her own terms. With Sheila. Who she hadn’t talked to since… well, nearly 10 years.
Despite the fact that Sheila was the president of the foundation they had started together… But Pia had stepped away in order to let Sheila run the foundation as she saw fit. They had never gotten along, so Pia wasn’t heartbroken about being a silent donor.
She felt light, staring down at the paper.
She hoped it would bring some closure, but also she hoped that telling Elle's story would keep her alive in some way.
The icy claws of grief no longer threatened to rip her heart out whenever she thought of Elle, but she still woke up most nights in a cold sweat, expecting to reach over and find Elle there.
Lifeless beside her.
She shook her head to clear the thought.
Her phone dinged. It was her best friend, Freya.
Freya: Did she sign it?
Pia: Yep. In my hands now.
Freya: Wow, big! You excited?
Pia: Nervous, mostly. Want to grab a glass of wine tonight and you can talk me off the ledge of cancelling it?
Freya: 8pm at Postino’s.
Pia smiled to herself, then texted Mark, her assistant, to let him know to make a reservation.
Kelly, one of her producers, poked her head into Pia's office. "We need to film a few intros, can we get you into makeup in five?"
Pia nodded, yawning. "Can I get like seven more coffees before we do that?"
"How about one?" Kelly said, rolling her eyes. She tapped on her headset. "Coffee cart emergency. The Eagle is tired."
Pia rolled her eyes. "I hate it when you call me that," she said. She hopped out of her chair. "I'm not the president."
"Oh, speaking of people I wish were president, Oprah's people called and we're rescheduling her appearance. We're shuffling some things around, but it should be fine. She sends her apologies," Kelly said.
Pia blinked, realizing for a moment that she was the host of a talk show that interviewed Oprah.
She had always been afraid of having made it. Of peaking. Of it all being downhill from there.
And now, at 45-years-old, she was thinking that might be true.
Most people she knew would buy a Porsche and get a younger girlfriend. Not a terrible idea.
“Do you think I should buy a Porsche?” Pia asked.
“Please don’t. That’s a slippery slope,” Kelly said.
“A slippery slope to where?”
Her cell dinged.
“Insisting everyone call you P-Dogg,” Kelly said with a sigh.
“I don’t hate that as long as Dogg has two Gs,” Pia joked.
“You should settle for nothing less,” Kelly said, nodding.
The text was from Sabrina, a woman who had guested on the show with an organizing segment. She loved Sabrina's enthusiasm, and her audience loved that Sabrina had silly phrases. On the last segment she had cracked Pia up by dropping a tin full of coffee on the ground and yelling, "Oh, fishsticks!" instead of cursing.
She had officially booked her for recurring segments back in February.
Pia thought she saw a meme of it somewhere.
Sabrina: Did you just cancel The Shrikes performance?
Pia raised an eyebrow, looking up at Kelly as they walked down the hall to makeup.
"Who are you shuffling for Oprah?" Pia asked.
Kelly glanced down at her clipboard. "The Shrikes and Gwenyth."
"Don't move The Shrikes," Pia ordered.
The image of Zoey at the New Year's Eve party popped into her mind, standing near the champagne fountain, her face lit up by the shining lights in the bubbles. She had looked otherworldly in that moment. She grinned to herself at the memory. God, that woman was fucking gorgeous. Her curly hair, her dark skin, the deep red lipstick she was wearing...
Pia hadn't talked to her since. In fact, she had avoided her at all costs.
Straight women like that always wanted something more than a kiss.
They wanted to experiment. They wanted to be shown how to fuck, how to touch a woman, exactly what to do with their tongues...
Not that doing those things with Zoey wasn’t appealing… but she was straight and Pia was too old to put up that that level of drama anymore. Besides, her best friend Freya would never let her hear the end of it.
"Can I see that?" Pia asked, motioning toward the clipboard.
Kelly handed it to Pia as she sat in the chair. After all, she wasn't the Executive Producer of her own show so that she could have zero power over what happened.
Two dates were highlighted with O's next to them.
"Is this when she can make it?" Pia asked.
Kelly nodded.
"Let's move Hanson and Hugh Jackman instead," she said, then handed Kelly the clipboard back.
Kelly raised a brow. "Okay, P-Dogg" she said simply.
Elizabeth and Mariana stepped in between them with brushes and new shirt choices.
Pia took one last bow, waving to the audience with both hands as she walked backstage after her morning taping session. Although she had new shows five days each week, she only filmed on two days. It made for long, long hours, but then she and her crew largely had four or five days off a week, and that was worth it to her.
Not that she actually had any days off. What was that saying? Do what you love and you’ll never spend another moment not working ever again.
She walked past her assistant, Mark, who handed back her cell phone and a new clipboard with a pen.
"Just need you to sign off on this new schedule," he said.
Pia checked her phone.
Sabrina: I will take your silence as an apology for moving my girlfriend's band on your schedule.
Pia smirked.
Pia: Mea culpa. Will never happen again.
Sabrina: The silence or moving The Shrikes?
Pia: The latter. No promises on the former. I'm very busy and important.
Sabrina sent back an emoji with a flat smile and a raised eyebrow.
For as sweet and innocent as Sabrina portrayed herself on television, and how fun and kind she was in person, she was truly a businesswoman who got shit done.
Kind of like Pia.
She pocketed her phone and signed the schedule. The Shrikes would be on next week. Something in her stomach did a small flip — the tiniest of flips, more of a casual lean, if she was considering it — at the idea.
She loved The Shrikes. She hadn't been lying to Zoey about that.
On the sixth anniversary of Elle's death, Heart's Content had come out, full of raw emotion and heartache and yet, hope.
She had come a long way in the past four years, and hopefully, so had the band.
She'd get a copy of the album any time this week, and she knew that she'd be putting it on the stereo
the second it was in her hands. And by hands, she meant available for download via email. But it was better to picture the record in her hands. She'd have to remember to have Billie and Domino sign a copy of the album for her.
Maybe Zoey if she was lucky.
She touched her lower lip, remembering the kiss.
She wasn't typically the type to steal kisses from near-strangers, but New Year's had always brought out the mischief inside of her. She saw it as a time when she no longer had to worry about anything the past year had brought. A time for firsts and brand new ideas and rejuvenation.
And Zoey had given her all of that with a kiss.
Why ruin it by wanting more?
Still, the lesbian world was a very, very small one, and she half-expected gossip about her kissing Zoey to start circulating soon after the kiss. Yet, it never had.
Pia hadn't told a soul.
Had Zoey?
A secret of their own.
She closed the door to her office and sank onto her couch. Her stomach growled. She'd need to eat lunch, then go back out for the early afternoon taping.
If it was something that definitely didn't matter, kissing an almost-stranger, then why was she still thinking about it?
She shook her head, texting Kelly about lunch.
Nope, she would no longer think about Zoey. Like she had been for the past five months. She'd absolutely stop. She didn't think of Zoey constantly, but she'd start being mindful not to drift to thinking of the way her lips has tasted sweet, like the champagne, and how warm and soft and desperate her body had been, pressed into hers.
Until next week, when she had to face her again.
Maybe she’d have Freya talk her off the ledge of entertaining the idea of trying to seduce Zoey McCarren, too…
Chapter Three
Zoey
The green room where they sat was spacious, with multiple couches, a large television accompanied by video game consoles, a gigantic air hockey table, and most importantly, a gigantic snack table.