Maybe Once, Maybe Twice(69)

“No,” I blurted, standing taller in my own skin, walking toward Asher. “I’m going to lay that song down. Today.”

He arched his eyebrows up, staring wide-eyed into my face. He waited for a moment, as if halting to make sure that the terror inside me had been replaced with fire.

“Okay.”

“I’m going to need a cup of boiling water, a cup of warm salt water, and about thirty minutes to warm up.”

Asher put his hand behind his back and bowed his head down to me with a silly grin.

“At your service, my lady,” he said in a flawless British accent.

I charged up the staircase.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“To grab the Throat Coat tea bag from my purse.”

Thankfully, I was used to singing at the last minute. I had a routine that I refused to break—no matter what. While I had consumed an excessive amount of alcohol yesterday, I made sure to cap off the night with a liter of water, and saltwater spray in my nostrils. Nothing kills high notes like dehydration, and water lubricates the vocal cords. I didn’t have a raspy voice, so I couldn’t have an off-day or hide behind a hoarse howl.

Thirty minutes later, after gargling a mug of warm salt water, I stepped back into the dimly lit studio. I made my way past Asher, who sat reading a script on a navy tufted sofa in the back of the room. In front of him, Fin twisted chords and pressed button after button on the audio mixer, as if he were a pilot about to take flight.

The sound tech, Lila, followed me into the vocal booth as I approached the microphone. For the first time, I really took in the room. I was thankful that it didn’t have a personality—the studio felt unlived in, which meant that I could create my own memories here without old ones tugging me back to another place. There were no platinum or gold records cascading down the wall. The walls were papered in a black Gucci fabric, with wildly expensive guitars hung across them, and that was it.

I adjusted the vocal mic and placed the large headphones on my ears. After a few warm-ups, from behind the sound board, Fin nodded at me. I swallowed hard, my eyes wandering to the stool next to Fin, which thankfully, Lila now occupied. Asher grinned at me from the couch, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees.

“Joyride” left my lips in a hurry. It was as if I needed to get the song off my chest before a terror crept up my lungs and strangled my throat.

The terror never came. In its place was a rush of adrenaline. “Joyride” felt like letting go, like drifting along with the moody bridge as gravity seemed to leave my chest. It usually felt this way when music came out of my mouth, like my soul was skydiving. But today it also felt like my insides were mending, my voice reminding me that it existed to tell stories other people couldn’t tell, in a way other people could never tell them. By the time the song ended, my white knuckles held the microphone shaft and my limitless smile exhaled over the windscreen.

I finished the song and looked up, seeing three wide grins shining back at me. Fin pointed at his ears, indicating that I take off my headphones.

“Fucking beautiful,” Fin said. “Let’s do it again, but this time, sing it like the world is ending, but you have plenty of time before it ends.”

“So, slower and sadder?” I asked.

“Exactly. And can I hear a key change on the bridge? On ‘We’ve got scars we can’t leave behind.’”

“We’ve got scars we can’t leave behind,” I sang, in a minor chord.

“Fuck yeah, but bring down the tempo—painfully slow.”

I sang it back to him slower.

Fin whipped his head behind his back to meet Asher’s eyes, both of them trading wide smiles before Fin’s attention came back to me. He arched his body up from the stool and leaned over the board, beaming in my direction.

“You know your voice isn’t fair to other voices, right? ’Cause if you don’t know it, you should.”

I chewed the insides of my reddening cheeks, my ego thumping. Fin sat back down and raised his finger up to the air, frenetic energy running through his body.

“Let’s fucking go,” he said.

And I fucking went.

It’s a joyride

And it feels like home

Flying down this open road

I remove the safety belt wrapped around my seat

If we go crashing

Let the blow break me





35

THIRTY-FIVE




I DIDN’T WALK OUT OF the recording studio, I floated. I was high on a warm glow that always seemed to slip through my fingers: success. But something about this time felt different—like I could hold on to this feeling for a while. “Joyride” was going to the producers, the studio, and the lead actress so she could get a feel for the film’s sound—and it was fucking perfect—and it would play at the end of the movie with my voice and no one else’s.

After Fin and Lila left, I followed Asher out to the pool. I couldn’t hide my giddy smile, and he couldn’t hide the way he was looking at me. I caught his eye as we walked down the slate stairs, a raised eyebrow behind his golden shades, pointed in my direction as the sun beat down upon our bodies.

Asher took a seat on a lawn chair and patted toward the empty one next to him, indicating that I join him. My skin felt like it was on fire, and the last thing I wanted to do was sit still. I hesitated, then with eyes locked on him, I tugged the tank top off my chest, and stepped out of my shorts. I stood above Asher in the scalloped bikini, as he gazed openly at me, his mouth slightly parted. I tossed my clothes playfully toward his chest, and he caught them with a wide smirk. My insides were screaming, and the calm, turquoise pool below me felt like much too placid a place for the flames in my chest to land. And so, I turned my back on pleasant waters, and I ran.