by Tria, Jay E.
She looked back at Kim, catching the mischievous glint in his eyes. She knew that look. His hand had travelled down her waist, exploring the edge of her shirt, pulling it up and exposing her stomach. He dipped his head to hers for another kiss, all while Jill thought how wonderful it was to be seduced with a beautiful new guitar. Kim’s weight was steady and comfortable above her as his fingers fumbled with the button of her jeans.
Jill released a throaty laugh. “Let me help,” she murmured, clasping his fingers.
“No,” Kim said stubbornly, lips on her earlobe, lips down her neck.
His other hand had crept inside her shirt; Jill realized this too late. She gasped as his fingers started playing with her breast. This was easily one of her favorite parts of this whole exercise. She felt a soft pop near her navel, and then her zipper was going down, heat rushing between her thighs.
“Practice makes perfect,” Kim whispered, a triumphant grin on his face.
There was a succession of violent raps on the door. Jill pushed Kim away in her panic and scuttled to the head of the bed, pulling her clothes back together, taking Julia the Les Paul guitar with her.
“KIMBALL! I told you I will bust this door open if you don’t come out right now—”
Kim rolled over on his back. He let out a low grunt, arms over his shut eyes. Jill stifled giggles, her heart beating to a slower tempo. She slunk back to him for a last kiss.
Kim wove his fingers through her hair, pulling her closer before shooting up from the bed.
“Coming, mother,” he called back.
April 23, Thursday, morning
Trainman huddled in their small square headquarters, surrounded by water bottles and emptied potato chip wrappers. They have transported five guitars, a keyboard, and a pair of drumsticks from the basement studio and laid out the gear between them.
The clock on the wall struck ten in the morning. Son yawned, loud and wide, marking the first hour of today’s work.
“Bright Side?” Kim said from his favorite plastic chair parked in front of the room. He ticked from his list.
“Maybe,” Miki said across him, sharing the tattered red sofa with Jill. “That’s a bit upbeat right?”
“Son and I wrote the lyrics then I did my usual genius variety drum track for that,” Nino said. “I can slow it down if you want it slow.”
“No, Nino, you physically cannot do a slow beat.” Son sighed, rocking his chair on its hind legs. He turned to the others. “I thought he has accepted this fact of life?”
“You are the reason why Jill had to learn drums, so we can have percussion on the slow songs.” Miki shot him a paper ball.
Miki missed as Nino spun the wheels of his chair. “It’s not my fault the world moves slower than I do,” Nino retorted.
“Narcissistic idiots,” Jill muttered. “That’s what I’m stuck with.” Miki grinned beside her.
Kim tapped his pencil hard on the low table in front of him. Jill tore her notes at the sound, remembering it was her job to pay attention to him and keep the minutes.
“Let’s keep this going,” Kim said testily. “Next. It’s Not Monday’s Fault.”
“Nino wrote that,” Son said.
“Another Roadrunner track,” Miki put in.
“The Flash strikes again,” said Jill.
Son turned to Nino. “Meep meep.”
Kim held his pencil loosely against his temple. Tap tap tap. “It’s a good beat,” he decided after a moment. “Let’s keep it as an A-side for now.”
“Yes!” Nino pumped his fist.
“Might as well.” Miki raised both eyebrows. “The dynamic duo has got five songs in the B-side pile already.”
“And we don’t want torches and pitchforks,” Jill agreed.
Thus went the sorting ceremony. It was one of the most fun and most painful parts of building an album. Kim ran a song-writing democracy for Trainman. They were free to write songs when inspiration tapped their shoulders, and they can go crazy, jumping from one beat to the next riff, to the next love note and poetic proverb. They would test the new songs when they performed, feeding off the energy of their audience, or adjusting to the lack thereof. And the songs evolved as they went.
But once they had to pick which ones were good enough to be immortalized in digital form and which ones would languish in B-side purgatory… well the process would get quite personal, and Kim would transform into a soft dictator.
“Next,” Kim called out. “Slipstream.”
Nino raised his hand. “That’s Miki’s. So it will definitely be ballad-y and very, very emotional.”
“Since he can only express his feelings in lyric form,” Son added.
Miki spoke through gritted teeth. “Shut up.”
Nino moved his chair to give Miki a man-hug. “We will always love you, our emotionally stunted friend.”
“Leave him alone,” Jill grunted. “And that’s an A-side. I love that song.”
Miki pushed Nino away and shot her a smile, eyebrows arched up in what she read as surprise.
“Next?” Jill prodded.
“All the Way,” Nino read from the song list, his chair wheeled next to Kim’s.
Son frowned, a pink pick between his teeth. “I don’t remember that. Who wrote that?”
Jill kept her eyes on her own list, staring at the words to the title with a blurred gaze. “I did.”
“And me,” Kim added.
Nino wheeled his chair away and started spinning it again, eyes on the ceiling. “Should be a really fun song.”
“I vote B-side,” Kim announced after a quick second. He abandoned his pencil and picked up an acoustic guitar from its stand beside him.
Jill’s head jerked. She stared at him. “What?”
“It’s too long.” Kim shrugged, pulling a pick from his jean pocket.
“It’s three stanzas and a bridge,” Jill pressed. “It’s standard length.”
“And we’ve got what, four slow songs already?” Kim tuned his guitar, still refusing to look at her. “We’re turning into Michael Learns to Rock.”
“My dad loved Michael Learns to Rock,” Son said to the room at large. “Paint My Love is the official Sunday slowdown track in my house. It jammed very well with some nice retro Bon Jovi.”
“The lyrics won’t work with a fast beat,” Jill went on, shaking her head. “Nino will destroy it.”
“Hey!” Nino cried.
Jill turned to him, eyes blazing. “And if we’re truly going to talk about limited emotional capacity, I think you, Nino—”
“Don’t you make this about me, woman,” Nino growled.
“Why not?” Son whispered. “We should make this about anything else. Anything at all!”
“What else is wrong with it?” Jill demanded, turning back to Kim.
Son hung his head. “Oh boy.”
“I just feel like we’ve had too many songs like it, that’s all,” Kim said calmly.
Jill drove the point of the pencil through her notes, tearing the paper in half. The calmer Kim seemed, the more her blood boiled.
“It’s called a signature style,” she argued, her voice rising with each word. “What’s wrong with constancy? What’s wrong with things being left just as they are?”
“Well you got your wish.” Nino stopped spinning and turned to Son with a small sigh. “I think this conversation is now officially about something else.”
Miki put a fist firmly on Jill’s knee. “Jill,” he said in a quiet voice, but Jill’s eyes did not leave Kim’s face.
Kim returned Jill’s gaze, looking at her for the first time, his face impassive. Jill counted five seconds before he turned his eyes back to his hands, plucking a stray chord on his guitar.
“Sometimes things just don’t work anymore,” he said.
Miki’s hand closed over Jill’s fist. Her fingers shook, stiff and clammy under Miki’s warm grip. She could not take her eyes off Kim, at his closed off face. The strums from his guitar were building i
nto a known melody, an old song, ringing in her ears.
She pulled her hand away from Miki’s, crumpling her torn notes. “I will make it work,” she vowed. Jill shifted her hazy gaze back to the ruined list in front of her. “Next!”
All the Way
If I see a girl on TV
Shout to the moon, do you love me?
I’ll take your hand
For this dance and say
Won’t you stay?
If I see a boy on the floor
Weep for his dreams and more
I’ll kiss your hand
Take this chance and say
Won’t you stay?
I will go all the way
Search the stars for a stray
Take the yellow brick road
And come back to you
If I drop to my knees
And beg, forgive me please
Will you take my hand
As I am and say
You can stay?
I will go all the way
Search the stars for a stray
Take the yellow brick road
And come back to you
Trip on your laces
Spill your drink
I’ll wipe your mouth with a kiss
Forever will take a while
I will go all the way
Search the stars for a stray
Take the yellow brick road
And come back to you
I will go all the way
All the way for you. (Kim, Jill)
April 26, Sunday, morning
The water was rolling to a quick boil in front of her, small bubbles popping in and out of the surface as Jill watched. A big bubble gurgled and popped, hot drops spilling over the pot and hitting Jill’s hand, and she was forced to pay attention.
“Ow,” she muttered.
Shinta turned to her but she shook her head, carefully dropping the dry soba noodles in the scalding water. She stepped back from the electric stove and returned to her notebook.
“What are you scribbling over there?”
She jumped when his breath brushed the lobe of her ear, burning an easy blush on her cheeks.
“Stop doing that,” she wailed, pushing a palm against his solid chest. Shinta did not budge and continued standing over her, hands on his hips.
Jill sighed. “Does ‘floor’ rhyme with ‘forgotten’?” She picked up her pen and scribbled a new word on the page. There were too many crossed out lines there already, the words and meaning making sense only to her.
“Not in this language, no,” he said flatly.
She looked up at his face, inches from hers as he looked over her work. “Well it doesn’t need to rhyme strictly,” she explained patiently, then turned back to writing. “Maybe ‘forgo’ would work better. Or I can rewrite this whole verse—.”
“You’re not here to work, woman.” Shinta tried to pull her notebook from out of her hands but missed. “You’re here because your professor demanded your presence.”
“I’m being creative here. She won’t mind.”
“We’re not here to be creative. We’re here to cook.”
Professor Mori entered her kitchen, complete with her white apron that read Don’t Call Me Sushi. Jill looked up from her work sheepishly, hiding the pen and notebook behind her. The professor stuck herself between Jill and Shinta, shoving her son away, to look at Jill’s errand.
“How long have they been in there?” She studied the color of the noodles bathing in the boiling water.
“A minute?” Jill made a face. “About the time it takes for your son to make a sarcastic comment.”
“That’s an indefinite range of time, young lady.” Professor Mori stared at her, hands on her hips.
While Shinta looked down at her, his mother lifted her chin to glare at Jill, her lithe form half a head below Jill’s eye level. Jill grinned, remembering that Shinta’s father was the six-footer in the family.
The professor took a metal spoon and whacked Jill’s arm.
“Ow! Hey!” Jill grabbed her writing implements and rushed out of reach, huddling in the corner of the small kitchen where Shinta already stood.
“Knew that was coming,” he said.
“Thanks for the warning,” Jill deadpanned.
Professor Mori stood on tiptoes in front of the huge pot, the steam hitting her alabaster face. She stirred inside with her metal weapon for several cycles, and stepped back. She turned to her son. “The green onions? And the seaweed?”
“Done and done.” Shinta grinned, arms over his chest. “The ice water is waiting for you too, madam.”
“Good boy.”
Shinta beamed, lording the compliment over Jill.
“We’re not cooking for your birthday party too, are we?” Shinta stepped forward to the kitchen counter, pulling Jill by the elbow with him.
“Goodness, no,” his mother said with a laugh. “Takeout and delivery exist for good reason.”
“Good.” Shinta shared his sigh of relief with Jill. “Because we might need to start preparing the food now if you’re relying on just me and scatter-brain over here.”
Jill swiped away the thumb he pointed at her.
“It’s the big 50th birthday, my dear son. I actually want my guests to enjoy the food without risk of poisoning.” She flashed them a stern look.
“Hear, hear.” Jill raised an invisible glass for a toast.
Shinta laughed beside her, shuffling his sneakers on the spotless floor as his mother continued her task. “Dad says he makes a better soba.”
“Your father says a lot of things.” The professor calmly measured the heat on the stove. “I’m sure his new girl swallows it all up.”
Shinta turned to Jill with a knowing smile. She knew he loved playing this game with his mother.
“She’s an actress.”
“Again? Why, I thought Akio was all about variety. Let me guess, she’s half his age?”
“Well the last few ones were TV actresses,” Shinta reminded her. “This one is a movie star.”
“God, an upgrade,” said his mother, her eyes gleaming.
Shinta had lived with his father since his mother moved to the Philippines after the divorce. Jill could not remember if the offer for university tenure was the cause of the Mori break up, or the effect. Shinta had once told her that story, as if plainly reading lines from a script. He told her too that his father was his manager, so celebrities should be within easy reach.
“Where did Mr. Akio meet this one?” she put in.
Shinta flashed her an ironic grin. Before he even spoke, his mother was already laughing. “She was my co-star in the last movie I filmed.”
“Which one?” Jill recalled that Shinta’s recent portfolio were of pure romances that she did not like to watch. “Ugh, eww.” She made a face, connecting the dots.
Shinta’s grin stretched wider. “I think we had about five kissing scenes, and then the one scene—”
“Gross. Stop.”
Mother and son were laughing in earnest now, guffaws that echoed in the small space. The professor lifted a hand and pinched her son’s cheek, then she returned to the boiling pot, killing the stove. She carried the hot pot to the sink, where Shinta was already waiting with the colander.
Jill watched mother and son move seamlessly, reading each other’s thoughts as if there were visible threads connecting them.
Shinta drained the hot water and dumped the noodles in the cold bath. The professor stuck her small thin hands into the water and grabbed handfuls of noodles, rubbing them together and apart.
“Quail eggs,” she said suddenly, freezing in her task. “We need fresh quail eggs. Boy, go out and buy some.”
Shinta looked up at her, his eyes saying, who, me? “I don’t live here, I don’t know where to get them. Jill, come with me.”
His mother lifted one invisible eyebrow. “You have a detailed running tab at the little grocery just down the street. I’m sure they’d let you add to th
e list.”
Jill glared at Shinta. “I thought you said you’ve stopped taking advantage of the innocent shop girls.”
“They have a new cashier,” Shinta said with a smug smile. “She likes—”
“Your butchered Filipino.” Jill rolled her eyes. Who could resist this boy’s charms? The taxi driver, the sleepy eyed patrons at the coffee shop, the cashier at the neighborhood grocery, even his mother—all victims. “Do what your mother tells you.”
“Scram, boy.”
Shinta left the kitchen grumbling.
Jill was alone, watching Professor Mori finish washing the noodles. She ran them through the colander again, and left them to rest on the kitchen counter. She turned to the remaining ingredients, seemingly comfortable with their long silence.
“Professor Mori?” Jill began, breaking it.
“I’ve told you to call me Yuki.”
Jill paused, queasy about calling a teacher by her first name, even one she had known for years, even after the many times she had been given permission to do so. The professor looked up at her, a smile bright in her eyes.
“Yuki,” Jill tried saying, smiling back. “There’s something I want to ask you.”
“Go on.”
She fiddled with her pen. The notebook was stuck at the band of her jeans, the sheets holding lyrics that had consumed her head for days since she had sworn to fix them.
“Why did you… Why did you get divorced? From your husband, I mean.”
“Well you do need one before you can get a divorce.”
“You’re not making this any easier.”
“It never is,” Yuki said, the ironic glint dancing in her deep brown eyes. “You know how opposites attract?”
“I may have heard that before.”
“Well, it turns out that opposites attract with as much force as they repel. They reach a brink, see? It peaks, and then when it plateaus and you think there’s nowhere to go but up, it just skids downhill faster than you can catch it.”
Jill tapped the pen on the counter. Because it doesn’t work anymore. The cap broke.