He rubbed his hand down my arm. “Yeah, but he has the hit song now, so we only want to talk to him.”
“Yeah. I’m the star,” I said, with a swagger.
Marlene and Jesse looked at each other in terror.
Chapter Nineteen
BUBBLEGUM POP MODE
My cockiness didn’t last too long. The new songs I had been submitting were being rejected left and right. In my opinion, some of the ones they rejected were much better than the ones they were playing on Spotify. I didn’t have time to sit back and enjoy the success The Factory achieved with these songs. I needed to concentrate on their second album. It didn’t matter that we had three songs in heavy rotation or that I was making a lot of money. It didn’t matter that other managers of famous singers were contacting me for song submissions. All that mattered was that The Big Apple Tarts had rejected my latest demo.
The next night at sunset, I drove my car onto Lake Shore Drive with Marlene in the passenger seat. There was nothing more inspiring than driving south on LSD, with Lake Michigan on the left and a sea of skyscrapers up ahead. I placed my phone on my car’s adapter as I drove. My new song “Do It Again” started playing, with its funky bass and offbeat synthesizer. I thumped my hand on the steering wheel and laughed at the sound of my own voice singing the scratch vocal. “With all the rejections, I’ve been so nervous about every song I write lately, but I’m pumped about this one.” I turned the volume up and rolled my window down. The smell of the fresh-water lake filled my car. Feeling a little cocky, I crossed two lanes of traffic while Marlene grabbed the dashboard. She squealed, and I placed my hand on her thigh to calm her down.
“This is one of your best,” she said. “I mean, best in the teenybopper style.” “But remember my songs?” She put on more mascara, her eye firmly on her compact mirror.
A film producer was impressed by her performance at one of her shows and offered to place one of her songs in an upcoming movie, something that could get her name out there. It was a psychological thriller, and the idea of writing her song should have excited me, but it didn’t. These were the songs I should have been writing all along.
“I need a dark, brooding song with a fast tempo, like a scary movie where something’s about to happen,” she wiggled her hands in the air as if to signify something. “I’m thinking a fast drum beat with a slow melody sung in the lower register of my voice.” How the hell do I capture that?
“I don’t know how to write on demand. I usually just write what I’m feeling. That’s why I’m failing at this Big Apple Tarts thing.” I had the number one song in America, but now I was failing.
Marlene picked up my phone and switched it to “Craziest Girl in the Craziest World.” “Stop sulking, bitch,” she said, laughing. “You’re so pathetic sometimes. Isn’t there some boy you can complain about?”
“Fuck the boys. I’m all about five girls these days.” I tapped my hand five times on the steering wheel.
“The song rocks.” Marlene always knew what to say to stop me from feeling sorry for myself. Just to show her I was feeling better, I swerved back two lanes, cutting off another car.
“Was that necessary?”
“No, but fun.” I chuckled.
“Don’t you have enough money to quit your day job yet?”
“I’m not ready to go bohemian like you and Robin. If it guaranteed me a hit like “Craziest Girl” every year, I’d quit for sure, but there are no guarantees. Plus, my songs are being rejected.” I honked at a taxi that cut me off.
“Stop harping on being rejected. Music industry insiders are talking about you in trade magazines. You’re making it big.”
The traffic thickened. “I’m not harping; I‘m realistic. You have no idea how much I want to go into my boss’s office and tell him to shove it. I have this whole fantasy worked out where I show up to work two hours late wearing nothing but my Stewie Griffin boxer shorts. I’m carrying an open bottle of tequila, and I walk up to the VP of Information Technology. First, I give him a laundry list of reasons why his incompetence prevented our last project from being implemented on time. I tell him I deleted all the files for the new module on the Springfield Project. I wouldn’t actually delete the files, just want to see his reaction. The joy comes in watching him trying to find the files since he doesn’t even know where they’re located.”
“That’s pretty sick, dude,” Marlene said, eyes wide open ahead. “Are you watching the road?”
“Sorry, I got distracted there for a minute.”
“Now’s the time, Duncan.” She slammed her hand on the dashboard. “You need no further sign than this hit song. You can write songs all day long as your job. Be bohemian and let what happens, happen.”
“Bohemian, but like, with a safety net. I’d feel more comfortable if I had some money in the bank. One more hit for The Big Apple Tarts.”
“Fuck them. Pay attention to me. Write my first hit.”
“Check out CNN,” Marlene said to me over the phone while I was working late one day. I was tired and ready for the day to be over. It surprised me to get a call from her and searched the site without thinking twice, but all I found was the typical political gibberish.
“The entertainment section. Something bad happened to one of The Big Apple Tarts,” she said.
There were the obligatory articles about Kim Kardashian, the royal family, and new revealing letters found from the late Joan Rivers. The bold-text headline read: “Big Apple Tart Arrested for a DUI.” I searched through the article and found out it was Chloe. My preconceptions about them would never have pointed to Chloe getting a DUI. I thought she was the good girl.
“I just finished a song for them called ‘Party Hard-y’, but I get the feeling they won’t be able to record that now.” It took hours to decide whether to use the word hearty or hard-y for the song.
“Did you see what she was on? Coke, heroin, and alcohol—all at the same time.”
“How’d she drive a car in the first place? She’s lucky to be alive. Hell, I’m lucky she’s alive, and I don’t even know her.” I scanned further down the article, without actually reading it, looking for clues.
“All publicity is good publicity in show business. It’s a matter of whether this will hurt their current tour,” Marlene said.
“If she’s a drug addict, I wonder if it will hurt their ability to record their next album. Not that I should care. I know I won’t have any of my songs on it.”
Marlene heaved a sigh through the phone. “You will. This scandal will slow down their recording schedule, giving you more time to come up with some new songs. That is after you write a dark, scary song for me.” I couldn’t see her through the phone, but I imagined she was wiggling her hands in the air like she was in the car when we first talked about her song.
“It’s not coming along. It’s not that I haven’t tried. Once you’re in bubblegum pop mode, it’s hard to get out.”
A week later, I sat in front of my computer at work, deep in Python programming thought, when a hand tapped my shoulder. Silas stood behind me with his body and jaw locked up stiff. I’d seen this before after he fought with his wife. He said nothing, but nodded for me to follow him. I got up, and we walked to his desk, where he pointed at the monitor. It was a letter from the manager of The Big Apple Tarts telling us they no longer wanted to evaluate our demos as a priority. It said they were “heading in a different direction.”
The weight of this letter crushed me. I leaned against the cubicle wall. Silas stood motionless next to me. Not having to write another tasteless song gave me relief, but I would mourn the loss of local notoriety in the gay clubs. Plus, I had never received a formal letter telling me my songs were terrible, but thought that the next time I have to break up with a guy from a bar, that was the way to go. Silas worked so hard to gain access to this manager to play our demos. The Factory rode high after our song hit number one and now the future was unknown.
Silas took a step forward, and his face
slackened. He put his hand on my shoulder. “No one’s blaming you. The songs you wrote were exactly what I thought they wanted.”
“Did I get the formula wrong? Because that’s what it is, you know? A formula.”
Silas threw his hands in the air. “I thought we cracked the formula. Cheesy, not too racy. All about crushes on boys. We gave them what they wanted.”
“Let’s keep plugging away like this never happened,” I said. “We have too much real music to produce.”
“I just wanted this,” Silas said. “It’s gonna be hard to hear their next hit song from other writers.”
“When our next hit comes out with another artist, they’ll kick themselves in the ass.” It pissed me off, but my main concern was cheering Silas up. After his last fight with Rachel, he grew so depressed I was afraid he’d do something stupid. Their relationship downgraded from strained to out-and-out unhealthy. He asked me if he should leave her and I was dumbstruck. Why would he trust my instincts on this one?
As the songwriter of a hit song, I could write more songs, even without The Big Apple Tarts. Silas was in a different boat. Marlene and I were loyal to The Factory, and would never record demos with any other producer, but Silas didn’t see it that way.
Jesse and I boarded the Red Line the next night on our way back to Andersonville. We held hands, but said nothing to each other. For once, the train ran without delay, and the passengers didn’t cause havoc. Nobody yakked on their phone, no kids tossed basketballs down the aisle, and nobody made me feel like I had to watch my back. This was not the Red Line train I knew. The passengers must have been depressed about losing The Big Apple Tarts too.
On the train, I told Jesse our loss of the Big Apple Tarts project liberated me to work on more meaningful songs. He already knew this instinctively. It pained him to watch me spend hours working on songs like “Craziest Girl in the Craziest World.” I thought Jesse was jealous of my success, but he knew the square peg didn’t fit in the round hole.
It drizzled as we walked toward Pancake Heaven, so we sped up. Marlene and Silas sat in our usual booth. She had her hand on his arm and was talking close to his ear, his head hung low. We approached the booth without either of them noticing us walk by.
Silas perked up, reaching out his hand to Jesse, “Ah, the guy whose relationship will make or break my music career.”
Marlene turned around and motioned Char to approach the table.
Jesse whispered to me: “Do I look like the bad guy in these songs?”
“A few, yeah.” I gulped. “Luckily, I get dumped quite frequently.”
Char walked up and flashed a broad smile. “Girls, I see you brought some friends.” She held up the coffee pot. “Decaf?”
“Dutch apple all around. We’re only allowed apple,” I said. Marlene and I had decided that we’d have Dutch apple pancakes to mourn The Big Apple Tarts. She always knew how to make fun of a situation.
“I suppose there’s a story behind this, but I won’t ask,” Char said as she took dishes away from the booth next to us. Colored tattoos covered both her arms: hearts, flowers, birds - everything girly-girl.
“And all these preteen love songs, they’re all about your undying love for me, right?” Jesse asked, grabbing my hand.
“Sure, why not?” Marlene asked. “Especially since they were written when you two were broken up.” She focused her eyes on the salt and pepper shakers. I flashed her a dirty look, but she missed it. Silas gave her a look too, but his eyes focused on her boobs. She wore a blouse with bright circles around her nipples. Was he dumbfounded by her fashion, or was he just straight?
“How many bad ex-boyfriend songs are there?” Jesse asked.
“None for The Big Apple Tarts,” said Silas. “That’s not what a group like that wants.”
“They want boy-crush songs,” Marlene said. “Duncan had no trouble with that one.”
“Lots of crushes?” asked Jesse. “Are these boys trying to take my boy away from me?”
My hand tightened around Jesse’s. “Now I have a crush on someone else.” He batted his eyelashes at me, and I turned toward Silas, whose face spelled doom and gloom more than any of us. “Cheer up. Other people will record our songs.”
“I’ll have plenty of extra time now,” Silas said.
“And creativity, without the cheese factor,” I said. I wanted him to look at the bright side.
“Rachel’s letting you have extra time to work on the music?” Marlene asked.
“She took the baby and left me two days ago,” Silas said. “We got into a big fight when she said she knew I would lose the Big Apple Tarts account. She’s been grating on my nerves for a long time.”
I looked at everyone else at the table with wide eyes. “If anything, she should blame me. They were my songs they rejected.”
“She said The Factory is over because I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. She’s right.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” I said. “We had the number one song in the country.”
Silas didn’t budge as I spoke. Jesse said nothing. He just played with his silverware. He had a hard time dealing with other people’s drama. Robin didn’t look comfortable either, taking small sips of coffee and not making eye contact with anybody.
“She must’ve been mad about something else,” Marlene said.
“I’ve been spending night after night with The Factory instead of helping with the baby. I wish that baby was never born.”
Everyone gasped. Jesse cleared his throat and turned his attention to the dining room toward the kitchen. Marlene and I widen our eyes at each other. She exhaled and turned to face him. “Can you repeat that?”
Jesse chimed in with a shaky voice. “My sister said something like that one time when she was hyper-stressed. She didn’t mean it, and I’m sure you don’t either. It’s a lot to have a full-time and—”
“No, he never should have been born,” Silas said. He rose from his seat halfway as beads of sweat trickled down his forehead. Robin put his hand on Silas’s arm to calm him. Silas took two deep breaths and sat back down. It seemed like ages before anybody spoke.
Robin shifted in his seat. “Where is your wife, man?”
“Probably at her sister’s, dunno. She’s trying to keep my baby from me as if it was a punishment, but it’s a blessing. I’ve gotten a lot of shit done on our other songs since she left. All that stuff we neglected because of The Big Apple Tarts? Done.”
“That’ll help take your mind off things,” Marlene said. She grabbed Silas’s hand. “What can you do to get her back? Won’t she answer your calls?”
“I haven’t tried calling her,” Silas said.
“Maybe that’s what you need to do, man,” Robin said. “You gotta work for your woman.” Marlene looked at me with a self-righteous grin.
“For what? I don’t want her back,” Silas said. He sat back down, recognizing he was getting all worked up. “I don’t want that baby back.”
His words stopped us in our tracks. All we could hear was the metallic sound of Jesse scraping his knife against his fork.
Char came around with our food. As she set the plates down, I secretly longed to have Silas’s time all to myself to work on my songs. Sure, I was selfish, but if he and Rachel had broken up, it made sense for him to devote himself to music.
Char smiled at each of us. “Anything else?” Nobody answered, and she nodded and walked away. She always sensed when trouble was brewing, but kept a smile on her face the whole time. No matter how many times I was in that booth—crying my eyes out over some stupid guy—she always kept up that smile. It helped a lot. Maybe that was why Pancake Heaven became so vital to us.
Robin put his hands up in defeat. “What’s next for us then?”
“More submissions for commercials? Movies?” Robin asked.
“No,” said Silas. “We’re gonna make Marlene a superstar.”
Part Seven
Cajun Pancakes
Chapter Twenty
BOTTOM
Inside Silas’s condo, I went downstairs to the music studio and overheard a heated battle between Marlene and Robin. I dropped my bag and sat down on the chair. Marlene, frustrated, plopped herself on the magenta-and-white beanbag and crossed her arms sternly.
“But that’s the night we record on,” Robin said.
“I know, but it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity,” Marlene said.
“What are you fighting about?” I asked.
Robin flipped open the latch on his guitar case. “Marlene wants to do a gig next Tuesday, on our regular recording night,” Robin said. We picked that night because of Sheryl Crow’s Tuesday Night Music Club, her first album recorded by a group of songwriters who met every Tuesday to work together. Marlene grew up listening to her albums.
“You got a gig? Star!”
“Yeah, but it’ll set us back another week,” Robin said.
“We can make it up another day,” Silas said. He spun around in his computer chair. “We can record any day. It doesn’t have to be Tuesday.”
“It’s at Club Bottomless,” Marlene said. “Some band called Fish Ball Soup dropped out at the last minute. I’d be opening for Dream Dawg.”
Dream Dawg had a massive following in the Chicago scene. I’d seen them with Jesse once and wasn’t impressed. Still, they had a strong, dedicated following that attended their shows in droves. If just a few of those people became fans of Countess Marlene, it could get her career started.
“What about our careers?” Robin asked. “What about The Factory?”
“Let’s not forget we’re working for both Marlene’s career and the demos,” said Silas. “We’ll prepare for the gig this weekend.”
“Fine,” said Robin. He sighed and shook his head.
I asked Silas to bring up “Never Seen, Never Heard” in Pro Tools. My arrangement was lacking, but the song had potential. I handed Silas a CD of another artist whose song I liked and considered it to be an excellent example for my song. He put it in and hit play.
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