Unrequited

by Emma Grey

  Joel looks at her suspiciously. ‘So, let’s be clear here, Sarah. This is just shopping, right? You’re not about to get down on bended knee and propose, are you?’

  He’s teasing but she stumbles around saying ‘no’ and ‘don’t be silly!’ and ‘of course not!’ and he thinks the lady doth protest too much, but then she’s been behaving very strangely recently, so he lets it go.

  When they reach the right department, Sarah shoves him into a change-room and takes over. There’s no one else around, so she tosses jeans and T-shirts and shirts and trousers and a ludicrously expensive leather jacket in over the top of the cubicle door like she’s feeding lions at the zoo. Every so often she bursts into another stanza just to freak him out.

  ‘Shut up, Sarah — I’m warning you. Don’t make me call security.’

  But she’s off. What is this? Sarah Elliott Unplugged in the David Jones men’s fashion department?

  ‘Right, that’s it!’ Joel bursts out of the cubicle in a half-open shirt and boxers, cuffs undone, price-tags flapping. Sarah stops singing mid-verse and stares at him. After a second’s silence, she asks, ‘Can’t I just quietly sing one more bit, Joely?’

  Joely? She hasn’t called him that since she was ten.

  ‘Don’t you like my voice?’

  Is she for real? ‘Your voice is gorgeous. It’s your timing that’s off! If this Elle Woods character is half as annoying as you’ve been today, I don’t think I can come and watch the show.’

  ‘You’d better be there! You’ve never missed any of my performances. Ever! Even the Sound of Music, which you hate!’

  ‘I don’t hate it,’ he explains but she stares him down. ‘Oh, all right. I hate it. But you made a very convincing, er . . . what was the name of your character again?’

  She glares at him. ‘Liesl von Trapp.’

  ‘That’s the one. Going on seventeen, huge pain in the . . .’

  ‘Yes, anyway, Joel. What’s the go with this outfit?’ she interrupts, looking like she’s going to hit him with a coat hanger. He remembers he’s only half-dressed, apologises, shuts himself back in the cubicle and prays she’s reached the end of her repertoire. She’s not usually this exhausting to hang out with.

  The last couple of things he tries on seem to go down a treat, if Sarah’s expressions are anything to go by. She looks firstly taken aback and then mildly impressed. If he can even mildly impress someone like Sarah, surely he can impress anyone. Hopefully one person, in particular.

  ‘Happy?’

  ‘You look good,’ she says.

  ‘Let’s take these and get out of here, Mary Poppins, or whoever you are today.’

  ‘Elle Woods.’

  ‘Right,’ he says, and it’s no wonder he’s confused. Sarah’s been a great actor for years, but the way she’s acting at the moment is throwing him. He’s not used to a moody Sarah. He’s not used to spontaneity. He might be mistaken — in fact there’s a good chance he’s wrong — but he’s not used to a flirting Sarah.

  The future Dr Joel Isaacson in designer gear could be a model, Sarah decides when he finally emerges in a pair of Calvin Klein jeans and a white T-shirt. It’s like he’s his own best-kept secret. Or like she’s had blinkers on most of her life. And to think, up until now she’d thought she was a fairly intuitive person. Now, the sight of him temporarily incapacitates her — even gives her stage fright! She can’t sing another line and she’s been quite happily annoying him with her singing all afternoon.

  Gosh. She’s in deeper than she’s realised. ‘Get a grip, Sarah.’

  ‘What?’ he asks.

  Oh. She meant to whisper it.

  ‘Is everything all right?’ he asks.

  No, no it is not. ‘Yes, everything’s fine!’

  He looks at her with exactly the same kind of pained expression he wears when grappling with a particularly complex science equation. Appropriate, really, because there’s some particularly complex chemistry going on here, as unbalanced as the equation might be.

  ‘I thought you told me that when girls say it’s “fine”, it usually isn’t,’ he challenges.

  ‘Yeah, but that’s other girls. Or it’s me with other guys. Not with you. Girls are only like that with guys they actually like.’

  ‘Gee, thanks!’ he says, laughing.

  ‘Come on, you know what I mean!’ And she really hopes he doesn’t. This entire situation is torture. She genuinely wants what’s best for him, even though that’s not what’s best for her . . . and it’s killing her.

  Joel drops Sarah at the theatre for rehearsals. It’s almost a relief to have a break from him. At the same time, there’s this ‘absence’ that she’s never worried about before. She finds herself wondering where he’s going now, what he’s doing, who he’s doing it with — and wishing he wasn’t doing it looking like that. At this rate, she’s going to lose her mind!

  The new girl, Kat, is in the rehearsal room early, playing a song on the piano. It’s gorgeous. She stops when Sarah walks in, and Sarah tells her to keep going.

  ‘It’s only half-finished,’ Kat says apologetically. ‘It’s a bit rough.’

  ‘No, it’s really good!’ Sarah smiles encouragingly, and she means it. The girl’s got talent. She’s also got a real sense of openness that’s pretty refreshing. And the retro fashion thing? She nails it. ‘What’s the song called?’ Sarah asks.

  Kat blushes. ‘Two Dimensions,’ she explains. She’s working on the lyrics. And on the music, for that matter. ‘It’s about feeling held back. You know, when you’re not really living your life?’ She looks at Sarah, like she’s regretting what she’s said. ‘You wouldn’t know. I was feeling blah about a boy,’ she says, clearly embarrassed.

  ‘Someone you know?’

  ‘Sort of. Although, I’ve only really spent about ten minutes with him. We met on a train and he helped me out. Then he left.’

  Sarah stares at her.

  ‘Is that not good inspiration for a song?’ Kat asks. Sarah still can’t speak.

  ‘I mean, I can change it. It’s probably silly. I was going to work in a mention of the train. The fleeting meeting. It’s just . . . you know how sometimes you meet someone and there’s this instant connection and you can’t explain it or let go of it . . .’

  Or it’s an instant connection and you don’t notice it until it’s too late, Sarah thinks, despondently. She can’t believe this is happening. She can’t believe it’s happening so fast. Worse, she can’t believe the position she’s found herself in. She was determined to help Joel find Kat. She really meant that. But, deep down, she also thought there was a pretty slim chance of success. She thought she was safe, that he’d eventually give up — eventually forget about this girl — eventually notice someone closer to home . . .

  And now here’s Kat. Here. Young, unassumingly beautiful, talented, trusting, vulnerable Kat. Perfect for him.

  ‘Will you excuse me?’ Sarah asks, backing out of the room. ‘I’m feeling really sick.’

  And she only just makes it to the bathroom.

  Chapter 13

  It’s past 2 am when Angus finishes writing the rest of the song. He’s captured the girl’s beginning from memory, scripted extra lyrics, taken a photocopy of the sheet music in the Four Seasons Hotel’s twenty-four-hour business centre, and wrapped the music in aqua blue tissue paper, tied with a white ribbon. He thought that was a nice touch. Make it look like a gift rather than the return of stolen goods. Stolen music. He wonders if that’s how she’ll see things . . .

  Even at this hour, Angus is still wired from the buzz of composing something so different from what he usually writes. He grabs a pen and the complimentary hotel notepad and heads upstairs onto the roof of the hotel. The band has hired the space for the duration of their visit, to record part of a music video. It’s a warm night, and the city lights sparkle on Sydney Harbour. He loves it up here. It’s so private. They might be a long way from home, but he could get used to this place. Quickly.

&nbs
p; The girl’s song swims in his head. He’s amazed how beautifully it parallels his own experience. The first half of the song was already so relevant — the flatness of this half-life. The ache for more . . . It just felt so natural to finish the story.

  He rests the notepad on the building ledge and starts writing.

  To the girl who was writing this song on Wednesday afternoon,

  I don’t know how you’re going to take this, but I was standing outside the studio at the Seymour Centre for a while as you were working on this song and I totally connected with it. Hours later, I couldn’t shake it.

  Feel free to completely disregard this, but I’ve written it down and added some music of my own, after yours. I know you didn’t ask a random stranger for a duet, so I’ll understand if you toss this aside, but I was compelled to do it anyway, and share it with you. I think we’d make a good team!

  I also wanted to say, you have a beautiful voice. You’re really good. Believe that and you could be a star one day. Stranger things have happened . . .

  If you want to get in touch, you can leave a note with the box office staff at the centre. I’m not expecting you to, but I’d love to know what you think.

  Good luck!

  From an admiring musician.

  He’ll ask Kev to drop the package over to Sydney Uni first thing and leave it with the Seymour Centre staff, along with some instructions. He’s intrigued about how she’ll react.

  At rehearsal later that morning, he’s pretty groggy and everyone mistakenly assumes he’s been up half the night chasing the girl from the concert. Or maybe the girl from the harbour. Or some other girl . . . No one assumes he’s had one of those sessions of intense creativity, where hardly anything else seems to matter.

  He intends to sneak in an early night after the concert tonight, but forgets about the A-list party the band’s expected at straight afterwards. Mingling with other A-listers is the last thing he feels like doing, and his spirits are further demoralised when he hears from his publicist that Cassidy Moore is going to be there. This can only mean more paparazzi photos of the two of them together. Further rumours and more lies . . . half of which Cassidy will probably buy into herself. As usual.

  The whole situation with her has been excruciatingly awkward, ever since they hosted the Teen Choice Awards together a couple of years ago. Ugh. So high maintenance.

  Meanwhile, he’s programmed in the phone number of the Seymour Centre box office, so he’ll know to take the call if they have a message for him. He’s expecting either no message, or a message to back off and stop acting like a deranged weirdo, even though it’s purely about the music. He hasn’t given her any details about who he is, or where he is. It’s just a bit of creative fun.

  ‘Hey, Angus! Guess who I ran into in the hotel gym?’ Zach asks, trying to hide a smirk. ‘She’s staying right here with us at the Four Seasons for the next few days. Cassidy Moore! She’s probably got wind of your Twitter romance with Elle and is swanning in to claim prior ownership!’

  Angus grits his teeth. Zach is possibly right. Not about her claim but her motives. She’s had a thing for him for years and even wrote a song that everyone assumes is about him. He cringes every single time he hears it.

  It’s so typical that the girl he wants to find is entirely out of reach and the one he wants to avoid is way too close. There’s got to be another song in this!

  Chapter 14

  When Kat arrives at the Seymour Centre she’s on the phone to Annie, who is trying to convince her sister to take her shopping.

  ‘Kat, c’mon. You have to go formal-dress shopping. And you have to take us! It’s not normal to wear your grandmother’s dress to a formal! Who does that?’

  ‘It’s not like I’m wearing one of her current dresses, Annie. It’s a retro classic!’

  She listens as Annie drones on, and almost misses the note stuck to the door of the rehearsal room. It says, ‘Hey! Were you writing a song in here on Wednesday afternoon?’

  What? ‘Annie! I’ve got to go.’

  She ends the call and slips her phone into her bag. The note says to inquire at the box office for further info. So strange! She was writing a song in the rehearsal room on Wednesday afternoon . . . and can’t imagine what this could be about.

  She feels kind of silly doing so, but she inquires anyway.

  ‘Hi, um, this note. I think that might have been for me. I mean, if it wasn’t someone else . . .’

  The boy behind the desk smiles. He reaches under the counter and produces something gift-wrapped. It makes no sense, but Kat takes it anyway, intrigued.

  In the rehearsal room, she reads the handwritten note first. She stares at it. Tries to decipher how she feels.

  I’ve written it down and added some music of my own, after yours . . .

  What even?

  I know you didn’t ask a random stranger for a duet, so I’ll understand if you toss this aside . . .

  Ah, hello! YES! That would be, like, totally a normal thing to do right now! This is seriously insane. Seriously outside her comfort zone. Seriously interesting . . .

  She decides that, at the very least, she might as well unwrap the gift. If it’s too strange, she has the box office staff on hand, and could always call the cops. It’s not like it’s ticking or it’s dusted with white powder — she has SO checked.

  She tears away the tissue paper to reveal the music score. Sitting at the piano, she places it on the music stand and takes a deep breath.

  The first few bars are hers. Half the song is hers, actually, until . . .

  And then you come along

  I see things as they really are

  Technicolour brightness

  Psychedelic stars

  Third fourth fifth dimension

  All perspectives on a par

  We dance to the pulsations

  Of the brightest shining star!

  Wow.

  Wow.

  She has to pause while she breathes the melody in for a minute. It’s good. Better than her original. Annoyingly good . . .

  Who wrote this??

  There’s no one around to sing the male part, but she can hear it in her head. It’s perfect. It’s like a professional has picked up her amateurish scribblings and worked magic on them, and that’s both sort of brilliant and sort of sad . . .

  I also wanted to say, you have a beautiful voice.

  Yeah. Really?

  Believe that and you could be a star one day.

  She so could not be a star. Let’s face reality!

  If you want to get in touch . . .

  Um . . . with a random stranger? But the song works. It more than works. It works in a way that makes her think for a second that she could almost be on the brink of something real. But honestly, writing a song — even a good one — is one thing. Performing it? She’s always wanted to compose, but she’s never really wanted the spotlight. Or, maybe if she’s truly honest, she has, but she’s always been terrified of it.

  She’s not Sarah Elliott. She’s just Kat, chorus singer in a uni musical, who makes the lead actor sick enough to leave the room. Girl who repels men at train stations and makes pop stars trip over themselves to chase other girls. Person without a formal partner, who may just be desperate enough to accept a blind date through a friend, which is not the same thing as accepting a hair straightener from that same friend. Hair and dates are not the same skill set. Not remotely.

  If you want to get in touch, you can leave a note with the box office staff at the centre . . .

  Really? She’d really leave a note for this guy?

  She leans back on the piano stool and tinkers with the tune with her right hand, and then she can’t resist — it just draws her in and she’s swept into playing the entire thing again. And she sings it, too. It’s better, second time around, when she’s not sight-reading. It just needs, finishing.

  She plays around . . .

  You brought me into the next dimension

  We got it
right

  We found our shadow and light

  In you I finally found perfection

  No more black and white

  It’s all colour and light.

  That’s IT.

  But what’s she supposed to do with the song now this guy is involved? She can’t pass it off as her own any more. She’ll have to sort it out, surely.

  Reluctantly, she takes some paper, and begins writing a note.

  Chapter 15

  Late Friday afternoon and it’s been forty-eight hours since Sarah first put the pieces of the puzzle together in the rehearsal room. She’s still feeling really sick. Like, doctor sick. And she never gets sick.

  ‘You never get sick,’ Joel says over the phone, before insisting he comes over. Sarah argues against this, for obvious reasons, except she’s not feeling strong enough to say anything that will stop him. Probably because a big part of her wants to see him.

  Gah! When did she become this pathetic creature, so ridiculously dependent on someone else? This is not her!

  When Joel arrives, he lets himself in with the key Sarah gave him for emergencies. He’s never had to use it until now. She hears the front door open, and she worries. There’s a part of her that needs to tell him, right away, that she’s found Kat and can take him to her at the very next rehearsal. Another part of her is just begging for another five minutes, or ten minutes, or ten hours, or twenty years, without him knowing.

  ‘Sorry, but you look awful,’ he says, coming into the room and shuffling her along on the couch. The whole energy of the apartment transforms the second he’s there. Why didn’t she ever notice this! He takes the crocheted blanket her nanna made and settles it over her legs, then puts his arm around her, easily — like he often does. If only this moment could last indefinitely. A blissful fantasy creeps in that this is real. That they’re together. And she tries to tell herself that she’s justified in not raising the subject of Kat yet, given how sick she is, even though hiding it makes her feel worse.