I wasn’t interested in waiting around to see Will stumble in drunk and high and full of more hurtful comments. I didn’t want to be a victim anymore. Not to him. Not to anyone.
“Callie, did you or did you not say Capitol was able to put you up anyway?”
She nodded. “Yeah, of course. I made the call while you were packing.”
I’d been reliving the events for the last forty minutes. I left the stupid red dress on the bed, feeling more like myself and less like the harlot apparently everyone had seen me as tonight once I was comfortably back in shapeless old jeans and a Blondie t-shirt I’d found at the Goodwill in tenth grade.
I lugged my duffel bag over one shoulder and picked up my guitar with the other, then followed Calliope out to the curb to meet another Uber and put everything in the trunk.
Calliope tried again: “Are you sure you don’t want to—”
“No.” I got into the passenger seat and folded my arms over my chest. I felt sick to my stomach, but I wasn’t willing to listen to my gut on this one. I needed space. Will needed space. In the morning, both of us would see things differently, although I couldn’t for the life of me see how we were going to move past any of this. In my heart, I knew this was probably the end.
Calliope slid into the back with me. “Did you at least leave him a note? Maggie, he’s going to flip if he gets back and you’re not there.”
“Why are you defending him?” I snapped. “The man called me a whore in front of hundreds of people, and then a photo was posted of him basically having a threesome with Amelia. What part of I don’t want to fucking see him don’t you understand?”
“Excuse me?” Calliope’s sharp retort pulled me back to the here and now. She cocked her head, and her braids flipped over her shoulder.
“Shit,” I muttered. “Cal, I’m sorry. I’m…no. I didn’t leave him a note. I’ll come back tomorrow and deal with him. But not now. Not when he’s blitzed. Not when I just c-can’t…” My words trailed off as tears mounted all over again. Again, I breathed deeply until they receded. I didn’t want to let go until I was alone, and that wouldn’t be for a good long time.
“Okay,” Calliope said. “Let’s go.”
The hotel wasn’t far—only a few minutes’ drive. We could see the big disc-shaped Capitol Records building looming a few streets away.
“Are you okay?” Calliope asked after we were standing in front of the hotel. “You look like death.”
It wasn’t until she asked that I realized I felt legitimately ill. I had thought the ache in my stomach and light nausea was nerves, but when I followed her out of the car, it was clearly something else.
“I’m fin—oh, God!” I made a break for a potted azalea next to the revolving glass doors. The doorman blanched as I emptied my stomach into the soil.
When I was finished, Calliope quirked a finely plucked eyebrow at me. “Um…come with me.”
“What? Where are we going? What about our bags? Calliope, I’m sick!”
“Are you really sick? How do you feel now?”
I paused. “Actually, not terrible.” Maybe it was just nerves.
“That’s what I thought.” Calliope handed the doorman a folded bill. “Please take our bags upstairs. Sorry about the plant. We’ll be right back.”
Before I could argue more, she dragged me down the street. However, it wasn’t until she hoofed me down the feminine hygiene aisle of the closest convenience store that I realized what she was after.
“Oh, no,” I said when she took a home pregnancy test off the shelf. “No, no, no, no, no. Aside from the fact that it’s not possible, I cannot deal with this tonight.”
“Have you been having sex with your hunky movie star boyfriend?” Calliope smacked herself on the forehead. “What am I saying? You’re not insane. Of course you’ve been tapping that. Multiple times a day, I’m guessing. And probably without protection.” She patted my arm. “I’m not judging, babycakes. He’s hot as sin. I’d probably forget a rubber too.”
I crossed my arms around my stomach, which gave another lurch. “I have an IUD. There is no way I’m p-pregnant.” The idea sent a chill over my entire body. Two weeks ago, I’d have been happy about it. Scared, but happy. Now all I felt was full-bodied fear.
Callie tapped a fingernail on the box. “IUDs aren’t a hundred percent foolproof,” she said, then thrust the box into my arms. “Take it. Do it to appease my sad, obsessive mind.”
My stomach roiled, and it must have shown on my face.
“We’ll pick up some ginger candy too,” she said, and patted my shoulder as we turned toward the checkout counter.
Thirty minutes later, we were both lying on the bed, staring at the Hollywood sign while we waited for the timer on Calliope’s phone to go off. Below it, if I looked hard enough, I thought I could see the exact street lamp next to the entrance to our house. I wondered if Will was home yet. I wondered if he was worried about me. If he wondered where I was too.
In the bathroom were two identical pregnancy tests, set neatly on the counter. Calliope had spent the last two minutes gabbing about her meeting the next day, but I couldn’t remember anything she said. My mind raced. What the hell was I going to do if that second pink line showed up?
On the nightstand next to me, my phone beeped for the seventh time that night. I picked it up. Yet another Google alert linking photos from the party. There were more now—pictures of Will dancing, Will with his arms around all number of people, Will lounging on the couch again. And always, always with Amelia somewhere in the frame. In a few of them, I also caught glimpses of Tricia, watching from the margins.
I set the phone back down with a loud clap.
Calliope patted my wrist. “Will knows better than that. Amelia Craig is basic as fuck, and from what Benny says, keeps her legs open just to keep her career afloat.”
“Callie, that really doesn’t make me feel any better.”
She shrugged. “My point is, why would he go for hamburger when he’s got steak at home?”
I twisted toward her. “Are you really quoting Paul Newman at me?”
Calliope snorted. “It’s a good quote. And it’s true.”
“I thought he cheated on Joanne Woodward.”
“Those are rumors. The hottest man in Hollywood history—and Will gets compared to Paul Newman a lot, you know—proclaimed his monogamous love for his wife throughout their very long marriage. I am choosing to believe him, and so should you.”
I wished it made me feel better. But the idea of being compared to steak made me even more nauseous.
My phone chirped again with another alert. I turned it off and rolled onto my back.
“This is it, isn’t it?” I asked, suddenly having a really hard time keeping the tears at bay. If I was pregnant, I doubted I would ever stop crying. “If I leave, I’m going to be miserable because I love him so fucking much. But if I stay, I’m never going to have a normal life, am I?”
Calliope sighed. “Not if you’re with him, babe. I don’t think that’s possible with someone like Will.”
My heart fell with the heaviness of two separate realizations. The first, the most obvious: if Will and I stayed together, there was a very real possibility that I’d never be able to go out on my own again without someone following me. Without him being the target of people like Amelia. My safety would always be slightly in jeopardy. Not to mention our kid’s, if there even was one.
And that, of course, brought me to the second realization: that life wasn’t what I wanted.
For years, I’d chased any measure of success, thinking it had to come in the form of notoriety. Of fame. All I’d wanted was for my music to be heard, and if that meant I was the one to play it, then that’s how it was going to be. I’d primped and practiced and done my best to morph myself into the best version of a pop-country star I could be. But it had never been enough. My songs were good, but I’d never be the kind of person who had that natural charisma that made people want to watch the
m no matter what. I had talent, but I wasn’t a star.
And now I knew I didn’t want to be. I grabbed my phone again and pulled a business card out of my purse—the creased, worn card of Rob Reinquist, the composer I’d met at Amelia’s premiere party. I’d never called him during my time here—only shared a few emails. Now I knew why. I had been scared. Scared that my decisions would chase Will away, with his desire to get out of this town no matter what. Scared that going down that road would also choke the only other career path I’d ever wanted.
All at once, those things didn’t matter anymore. And this didn’t matter either. And if those sticks in the bathroom said what Calliope thought they would, I wouldn’t be calling Rob anytime soon anyway. I didn’t know what I’d be doing, but it wouldn’t be recording music. With a sigh, I tucked the card away. It was time to let go of pipe dreams. I had a real life to make for myself, and anyone else I might need to care for with that future. And any second now, I was going to find out which direction it would take.
Calliope’s phone alarm went off, its twinkling chime waking us both out of our trances.
She sat up. “Judgment Day is here, babe.”
I sat up too. “Ha ha. Very funny.”
“Do you want to do the honors, or should I?”
I swung my legs off the bed and stood up, wobbling a little when all the blood rushed to my head. “I’ll do it.”
“All right. I’m here if you need me.”
I shuffled into the bathroom and stared at the two sticks. No, I thought. It’s not possible. The nausea was nerves, that was all.
“There’s absolutely no way,” I informed the sticks, then swiped them off the porcelain. “Do your worst.”
And then I held them out, and they did.
Two stripes. One, two. On one stick, then the other. Pink. Small. But very, very present.
I sat heavily on the toilet, holding my forehead as I continued to stare at the stripes.
“Well?”
I looked up.
“Shit,” Callie said.
I hung my head. “Oh my God. Oh my God, Calliope. What the fuck am I going to do?”
“Now, let’s calm down for a second. It’s not the end of the world.”
“Really? Please tell me how this could come at a worse time. My boyfriend is hooking up with a starlet while repressing his social anxiety disorder with drugs and alcohol, my mother is a fall-down drunk whom I’m not even speaking to at the moment, I have no job, no money, no way to support myself, let alone a b-baby…” By the time I was done speaking, my words were a garble, buried in tears. I fell forward, face in my hands as I finally, finally let out all of the stress of the evening. Amelia, Theo, Will, and now this…everything came crashing down, frustration and sorrow pouring out of me in gut-wracking sobs.
“Shhh, shhh,” Calliope crooned as she gathered my rocking form to her. The tenderness only made me cry harder—not because it was unwanted, but because it reminded me so much of the arms I wished desperately were around me.
“It’s going to be okay,” she said, stroking my hair. “You’re not alone, babe. You’re not alone.”
And I listened as she repeated it over and over, because it was what I needed to hear. But it still hurt, because I had no idea if it was true.
28
I woke up the next morning with a song dancing in my head. It was a low, mournful melody that rocked me side to side like a boat. It had an oceanic quality, with a full orchestra of strings, timpani drums, even an odaiko, a big bass drum that stood at least ten feet above any man. It wasn’t anything like the music I’d written before, and I knew as soon as I woke that I needed to get it down.
Calliope had left early for a SoulCycle class, but by the time she returned, I was sitting on the floor next to the coffee table in front of the tiny hotel couch, scribbling madly on hotel stationery. When she walked in, I jumped, yanked out of the symphonic trance I’d been stuck in for over two hours.
“Well, hello there, Mozart,” she greeted me as she dropped her gym bag on her bed. “What do we have here?”
I looked back at the mess of papers, then immediately bent back to them, eager to finish the last few bars I had dancing in my head. It was terrible notation—I’d never been great at it to begin with—but it, combined with the cell phone recordings I’d made by humming the key harmonies, would serve until I could get to a keyboard.
“Denial,” I said as I scribbled.
“Maggie,” Calliope said again. “Hey, are you okay? Have you…” She glanced around the mess of papers. “Have you eaten anything yet?”
I finished the last two notes with a flourish and looked up triumphantly. But before I could reply, the fact that I’d been up for hours without eating anything caught up to me and my pregnant stomach.
Pregnant. The truth hit like a nausea bomb. Oh. God.
Without answering, I jumped up, sprinted to the bathroom, and proceeded to lose everything I’d ingested in the last twenty-four hours into the toilet. Which admittedly…wasn’t much. I’d forced down a few crackers and some coconut water last night before bed, but that was it.
Calliope found me lying on the tiles, my forehead braced over my wrist atop the basin. “The grapevine—and by that, I mean the all-knowing internet—tells me that the best way to ward off morning sickness is to eat when you first wake up.” She held out a paper bag that looked like it contained some kind of croissant. “When you’re ready.”
She left, and a few minutes later, after the nausea had subsided and I had brushed my teeth and washed the sweat off my face, I reentered the room, nibbling on the pastry.
“Thanks,” I said, taking a seat on the couch. “I guess I needed this.”
“Anytime. Have you heard from…you know?”
My stomach shrank, and I shook my head. “No, he hasn’t called.”
My voice was small. I’d been too busy working on the music to think about it that much—maybe that’s why I’d been so busy—but now the fact that it was close to ten in the morning and I hadn’t gotten so much as a text from Will hurt. Badly.
“So, what do we have here?” Calliope asked, standing over the table as she drank her coffee. “This looks like quite the magnum opus.”
I surveyed the papers. “I don’t really know yet. I just needed to write it down. I think I need some time with some keys and a soundboard to really make it work.”
“I could probably make that happen.”
I looked up. “What?”
Calliope shrugged. “Let me make some calls. But I’m tight with a few of the reps at Capitol. If they have some equipment open today, maybe they’d let you jump on while I’m working.”
I gaped. A free sound booth. Free production. At one of the most illustrious recording studios in the country. This never happened.
“Really?” I asked.
She shrugged again as she tossed her towel over her lithe shoulder. “It doesn’t hurt to ask, babe.”
And that right there was probably the biggest difference between Calliope and me. Whereas asking for what I needed—what I wanted—had always been my struggle, Callie was never one to deny herself. Or me.
“Well?” Calliope asked as she sauntered toward the bathroom.
I scrambled up from the couch. “Give me ten minutes.”
Calliope laughed. “Girl, please. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and I need to shower. We’ll call an Uber in an hour.”
“Thanks, Jeff,” Calliope said again to the head of A&R at Capitol Records. She turned to me. “We all good here?”
I checked with the sound technician, an apprentice named Van who was as excited to be getting some time in the sound booth as I was about doing some recording there. He gave me two very enthusiastic thumbs up. I grinned at Calliope and Jeff.
“I think we’re good,” I said. “Thank you again for letting me do this.”
Jeff shrugged. “He needs the practice. The equipment is sitting here until next week.” He leered at Calliope, and I ha
d a feeling the gesture was rooted in a little more than simple altruism.
Calliope rolled her eyes. “You’ve got about two hours,” she said. “I’ll be back after the meeting.”
I nodded. “Sounds good.”
They left, and I turned to Van.
“You ready?” he asked.
I walked into the large room that was full of almost every instrument I could possibly want. Sleek. Top of the line. Calling to me.
“Oh, yeah,” I whispered as I sat down at the keys. “I’ve been ready for this my whole life.”
“Maggie?” Van’s voice was thin through the speakers. “Where do you want to start?”
I pulled out the sheaf of papers I’d brought with me, set them over the top of the piano, and sat down. “I’m, um, I’m going to play some things, okay? Let me get the melody going…and then maybe we can start with the keys, followed by a bass line.”
And that was all it took. For the next few hours, Van and I worked, setting down track after track of different instruments, building a sound that was unlike anything I’d ever written before. Using the synths, the guitars, the drums, and a whole host of effects, we were able to recreate the better part of a full orchestra. It wasn’t as good as it might have been with a real one, but it gave me a sense of what it would sound like.
It wasn’t until they end or the session when finally we came to a section where I wanted some vocals. I stepped up to the microphone, holding an earphone to my ear, and began to sing.
There were no lyrics—just a bunch of layered tones. Keening, they called it in Ireland, maybe in other places too. Sometimes a wail, sometimes a hum, sometimes rounded vowels or even a sigh. I let the sounds flow out of me as pure melody, avoiding the pitfalls of language. There was no logic in this song. Only emotion.
I waited until the final note had dropped, then pulled the earphones down and smiled toward the booth.
Van gave me the thumbs-up, then switched on his intercom. “Holy shit, Maggie. That was…that was incredible. We are going to have something seriously amazing here when we’re done.”
Indiscreet (The Discreet Duet Book 2) Page 29