Over breakfast, Dess had relented on writing a song or two together, more out of debt or deference to Sloane than anything else, Erika supposed. But she wasn’t so proud that she wouldn’t take a gift, even if it was half-hearted. They’d started their morning exploring the island on bicycles, and Dess was inarguably kicking her ass, as she zoomed past her at every opportunity.
Jesus. More than a dozen years older than me, and a cancer survivor too, and I can’t keep up? Erika was more amused than annoyed that someone a dozen years older was far superior in the fitness department. She appreciated that Dess could out-cycle her, that she had the kind of body that was fit enough to leave her in the dust. Stamina, strength. All good things to have in bed, Erika thought wickedly.
After bisecting the island, they navigated its circumference, which was mercifully flat, but the stiff breeze off the lake was providing a challenge. It was Dess’s theory that they’d be more open creatively later if they burned some energy first, but Erika wasn’t sure there’d be any reserves left. The problem wasn’t in exerting herself, but in the manner in which she exerted herself. She’d be happy to use up her energy on Dess. On top of Dess. Underneath Dess. Inside Dess. But not on this frigging bike!
Erika pushed on the pedals as they hit yet another hill. The Grand Hotel rounded into view and she stopped to enjoy its grandeur. Yes, that’s it, I’m enjoying the view and not stopping to pick my lungs up off the ground! Dess looked back, stopped and gestured at the restaurant directly across from the hotel, a place called the Jockey Club.
“Lunch?” she shouted.
Oh, there is a God! “Yes, great.”
They took seats at an outdoor table, the golf course a carpet of green straight ahead, the Grand Hotel looming on their right. It took several excruciating moments for Erika to catch her breath, and when she did, she said, “It’s gorgeous here.”
Her eyes raked appreciatively over the hotel’s massive six-story white structure. A quick Google search had told her its porch overlooking the straits, adorned with crisp wind-whipped American flags hanging before every balustrade, was six hundred and sixty feet long. It was built in 1887 and had been made famous over the decades in a handful of movies. It was easy to imagine how little the hotel had changed over a century, and it made sense that it had been the setting for the famous time travel movie, Somewhere In Time. If she didn’t know better, watching the bicycles and horses pass by, Erika would swear she had traveled back to the late eighteen hundreds.
“It’s a real sanctuary here,” Dess replied, accepting a soda and lime from the waiter. “Well, not so much in July and August when it’s nuts with tourists. I keep my distance then. Spring and fall are my favorite times here.”
Erika twirled the straw in her tall glass of Long Island ice tea. Alcohol was what this torture called a bike ride needed. “It’d be awesome to sit on that Grand Hotel porch on a chaise lounge with a fancy cocktail.” A couple of girls waving palm fronds over them wouldn’t hurt either.
“Funny you should say that,” Dess said with a laugh. “Sloane had the same crazy idea late one night. She was drunk. She hopped over the fence, her flask in her back pocket, snuck up onto the porch and plopped herself in one of those very chairs and fell asleep. One of the workers found her at dawn and kicked her out.”
For all Sloane’s wildness, she struck Erika as a savvy musician. An expert who knew her way around the minefields in the business. And she seemed to know how to surround herself with great talent, which was a useful skill. She knew talent when she heard it, and she didn’t seem to waste her time with imposters. Erika, however, didn’t allow herself to feel too flattered at Sloane’s—and Dess’s—attention. There was simply too much work to do to keep earning that attention, to keep in her mentors’ good graces. If not much else, Erika could thank her taskmaster parents for instilling a hard work ethic in her.
“Sloane certainly has b—guts, doesn’t she? Listen,” Erika ventured, wanting to revisit the topic of writing a song together. Dess hadn’t seemed altogether thrilled about it earlier, and if she had no intention of giving it her best effort, Erika didn’t want her help. “I’m sorry if I was a bit presumptuous in suggesting we write a song together. If you don’t want to…”
“No.” Dess’s mouth solidified into a hard line as her gaze drifted over the empty golf course before them. “If I were in your shoes, I would have suggested the same thing.” Her eyes swung back to Erika, revealing the barest hint of vulnerability that shifted something in Erika’s heart. “But what makes you think I can help you write a good song? I only had a couple of hits with my own songs. Most of my songwriting has happened since my…illness.”
Erika brushed her thigh against Dess’s as she leaned closer, wanting the physical contact to reassure Dess. “I know you’re a great talent, Dess. And I trust that you can take me places with my music that I can barely allow myself to imagine. I trust you completely. And I trust that we will come up with something way better than I could ever write on my own. If you’re willing to try, so am I.”
Erika held her breath. It was the first real crack she’d seen in Dess’s confidence, and she worried her words would fall short. She needed a sharp, confident Dess if they were to write anything good.
After a long pause, Dess grinned at her as the waiter, dressed in jodhpurs and knee-high boots, delivered their chicken and vegetable wraps and side salads. “No pressure, huh?”
“For me, lots of pressure. For you?” Erika said, bravely raising an eyebrow. “This’ll be a walk in the park.”
They chatted about the charms of the island as they devoured their lunch. After their plates were cleared away, Dess laid down the gauntlet. “If we’re going to write a good song and trust each other, as you say, then we’ll need complete honesty between us. And that means getting to know each other better. Strangers writing songs together doesn’t work in my experience. Deal?”
Erika didn’t have to give it a second thought, even as her palms began to itch. The thought of getting better acquainted with the enigmatic Dess Hampton was both terrifying and electrifying. “Deal.”
Chapter Five
It was too chilly to sit on the porch to hatch ideas for a song, so Erika and Dess moved to the cushioned rattan sofa in the glassed-in three-season room off the back of the house. Dess didn’t normally take up residence on the island until late May, but she found herself enjoying the crisp air, the buds on the trees and the ubiquitous lilac bushes, and the smell of fresh earth on the cusp of giving birth to another season of greenery. It was a clean, invigorating time of year that was full of promise. Not only for the coming season, but perhaps for something greater, Dess thought with a prescience that was disconcerting. There was no doubt that Erika Alvarez had come swooping unexpectedly into her life for a reason. Dess hadn’t entirely decided if that was a good thing or not, but for now she would bravely ride this wave and see where it took her. Because her sister Carol and Sloane were right—her life needed some shaking up right now. But more important, helping a neophyte like Erika might be Dess’s chance to right a long-ago mistake that still haunted her. She hadn’t told anyone, but she hoped Erika might answer her need for redemption. That Erika might be the key to finally securing the universe’s forgiveness.
“This song,” Dess said. “A ballad? Rock? What pace and feel do you want it to have?”
“Definitely something bluesy,” Erika said without hesitation. “And a bit mournful. Plaintive, like I’m longing for something. That’s the sound I want to go for.”
“How does a girl from Texas become such a student of the blues? Because you have a great bluesy voice, by the way. It’s just that I would have expected country and western out of you, given your geographic roots.”
“I love the blues because it’s so old and it’s such a melding of so many other styles. Gospel, rock, country, soul. It’s all there. And it’s so raw, so full of feeling. It’s about life’s best and worst, which really means it’s about the good and bad in
all of us. I think it’s the root of all music, and that’s where I want to be. At the root of it all.”
Erika’s obvious passion for the blues was impressive. “So the blues is big in Texas?” Dess asked.
“Oh yes. There’s an incredible amount of blues talent in Texas, and playing blues makes you a better musician in a hell of a hurry. There’s a gunslinger mentality in Texas.” Erika’s dimples rose with her smile. “It’s simple. Be the best or be gunned down.”
“Well, then. You’re used to pressure.” And wanting to be the best.
Those damned dimples were unnerving, the ghosts of them lingering after Erika’s smile faded. They’re lethal, Dess thought with a spark of concern for the effect they were having on her. “You only have a trace of a Texas accent, but you grew up there?”
“My parents immigrated to Texas from Mexico before I was born. So. yes, I grew up there, but there isn’t much about that time I like to remember.” Her eyes darkened into black stones shimmering at the bottom of a crystalline river. “I went to the University of Minnesota, so that’s where I’ve made my home the last few years.”
Dess resisted the urge to press. Pain was always the perfect, powerful source of inspiration for a musician. For her, the pain had mostly come later, long after fame had ripped her from the pedantic, pastoral life she had known growing up outside Chicago. Erika, it seemed, was ahead of her on that score. Just don’t let the pain take over your life, no matter how much it advances your career, Dess wished to one day tell her. Too many artists thrived on their pain, then capitalized on it, so they got caught up in a vicious circle. She’d seen too many of them pay for it with their life.
“All right, something bluesy then. Let’s start with what’s been on your mind. What’s been consuming your thoughts lately?” Dess poised her pencil over the pad of paper on her lap and watched as Erika’s finely shaped, dark brows dipped in concentration.
“Honesty, right?”
“Of course.”
Erika flashed a smile that left no room for ambivalence. “You.”
There was a quickening in Dess’s veins. Oh God, she thought, mostly unnerved, only a tiny bit flattered. I don’t want to be at the center of anyone’s thoughts, the inspiration for a song. Especially not from someone as eager and as hot as this young buck.
She was afraid to think about what this sexy, beautiful, talented young woman actually thought of her. Sloane had already told her that Erika was a lesbian, and Dess imagined she could—and probably did—have any woman she wanted. She certainly wouldn’t want some washed-up old broad like herself, Dess was sure. On the extremely slim chance that Erika did harbor designs on her, it was a moot point, because she was finished with that nonsense. She’d never been able to make a relationship work for the long haul, and she wasn’t about to try again anytime soon. Especially not with someone more than a dozen years her junior. And never again with someone in the music business. Oh no. That ship had sailed a long time ago.
“Care to elaborate?” Dess said, her mouth impossibly dry, as she lobbed the topic back in Erika’s court.
Erika caved with surprising rapidity. She blinked a couple of times, and her Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. The cockiness was gone, and what was left in its place was adorable.
“I—it’s pretty straightforward really,” Erika stammered. She spread her hands out, and Dess noticed they trembled the tiniest bit. “I want what you have. The crazy ride to the top. The massive audiences, the hit records, the awards, the influence and power to create what I want. I want it all.”
“But why?” Dess said, louder and with more bite than she’d intended. This foolish ingenue didn’t know what she was up against. Audiences and record buyers were fickle, managers and music executives were ruthless in their demands, and some were even crooks. Awards were a joke, because too often the best songs and the best musicians got ignored after the orgy of ass-kissing was over. As for influence and power, there was no guarantee you would acquire it, no matter how famous you became. Dess knew from experience that the negatives more often outweighed the positives. What she didn’t know was how she was going to convince Erika of that without snuffing out her hopefulness, her ambition, her dream. As much as Erika needed to hear some of these things, Dess reminded herself that dreams needed to be nourished, guided. With a strong hand, yes, but not with a fist.
“Why not?” Erika countered. “I think I have the talent, and I think I have something to offer. And if I’m right about both those things, then I deserve to be at the top. And at the top is where I can really leave my mark. Where I can prove…” Her voice trailed off, her gaze wandered.
Dess didn’t want to argue about this, but Erika’s motives raised a red flag. Who was she trying to prove something to? Her immigrant parents? Teachers and childhood friends who never thought she could do it? Well, those were pathetic reasons, and they wouldn’t cut it.
As if reading Dess’s mind, Erika shot back, “Why did you want it?”
“I didn’t. Or at least, I didn’t think I wanted any of it. I was young, barely out of high school. I started winning some talent contests, and before I knew it, I was signed to a record deal and started doing concerts.”
Erika grinned. “Sweet.”
Dess’s pulse quickened at the sight of those damned dimples again, but her temper escalated too. “It wasn’t all it’s cracked up to be, okay? There’s a lot more to it than you think. And you need to do it for you and for the sake of the music. Because at the end of the day, if you’re not true to those two things, you have nothing.” Not the awards, not the magazine covers, not even the platinum and gold records hanging in her music room.
Erika’s breezy shrug was typical of a twenty-something. “I will. But I still want what you’ve got.”
Dess shook her head and stood abruptly, her pad of paper thudding to the floor. The girl clearly didn’t know what she was saying. “Honey, all I’ve got is a rearview mirror.”
“Oh my God. That’s a perfect line for the song. Maybe even the title.” Erika began writing furiously on her own pad of paper.
Dess stormed off. She needed to collect herself.
* * *
Erika remained in the three-season room, so engrossed in writing her song that she barely registered Dess’s absence. She was satisfied with her first draft of lyrics, but the more difficult part lay in the writing of the music, as she knew from experience. Marrying the two together was both the fun part and the most challenging.
She tiptoed to Dess’s music room, Maggie approaching her with her wet nose and her happy tail.
“Hi, Maggie, old girl, where’s your mama hiding?” she whispered, letting Maggie lick the back of her hand. “Think she’d mind me using her piano?”
Erika sat down at the piano and propped her sheet of lyrics in front of her. Hmm, something kinda bluesy, maybe a little raunchy and plaintive too. She banged out a riff, then another one until she found one she liked. What she really needed was Dess on guitar laying down the rhythm and contributing ideas for blues licks they could roll into the song. Dess was supposed to be helping her with this, dammit, not storming off in a snit because Erika had dared to suggest that she led an enviable life. Jeez, why should a little idolizing bother her anyway? It couldn’t have been the first time somebody had said that kind of thing to her, and it was flattering. Wasn’t it?
Erika stopped playing, questions about Dess buzzing through her mind like a swarm of angry bees. She had so many questions, but she didn’t dare ask. Not yet. What bugged her most was why Dess seemed so bitter about the music business. It gave her the life she had, after all—this house, all these awards on the walls, infinite adoration. Yet she acted like it had been some kind of curse or nightmare that she’d had to endure. Her anger made no sense.
“You’re making progress,” Dess said, stepping into the room.
Startled, Erika jumped. “I think I’ve stalled, actually.”
Dess plucked a Les Paul electric guitar off the
wall and plugged it into a nearby amp. “Play me some more of what you were just doing.”
Erika obeyed, and Dess joined in, improvising some licks on the spot. They each made adjustments until the two sounds melded, fitting together like seamless slots. It reminded Erika of whipping up a gourmet meal without a recipe. Trying a little this, a little that, until it began to taste just right.
“Can I see what you’ve written for lyrics?” Dess asked.
Erika handed over the sheet of paper, bracing herself for the nuclear explosion she was sure would follow. She watched Dess read the words, watched as the line between her pretty gray eyes deepened, then smoothed as she reached the end.
“It sounds a little on the cynical side,” Dess said. “A bit harsh.”
“It’s the blues. It’s supposed to be sort of angry and cynical. But it’s plaintive too, I hope. The feeling of wanting something you can’t or don’t have.”
Dess still hadn’t indicated whether she liked the song, and her omission hurt. Erika had laid bare her feelings on that wrinkled piece of paper. She did want what Dess once had and now so casually didn’t give a shit about anymore. What was so wrong with wanting what tens of thousands, perhaps even millions, of other people wanted? She’d thought long and hard about it for years, had worked her ass off since going away to college. This wasn’t some fly-by-night fantasy that she would discard in a few months. She was no longer a kid with stars in her eyes. And whatever was haunting Dess was not her fault.
She pounded out a few bars on the piano.
“Whoa there,” Dess yelled over the racket. “That might be a bit heavy for the song. Okay, look.” She squeezed onto the piano bench next to Erika, their thighs and shoulders touching. Damn. The contact electrified the air around them, and Erika’s heart pounded. Maybe it was the mix of anger and reverence toward Dess that put her breathlessly on edge. But something else, too, something much further south, was stirring.
The Song in My Heart Page 5