LORELAI: Hey, can I see you tomorrow night after I get in?
His response is immediate.
HUCK: Of course. My place or your place?
LORELAI: Compromise on the balcony?
HUCK: I’ll bring the gluten-free biscuits and gravy. Fly safe tomorrow.
I hesitate and then take a chance. A tiny one.
LORELAI: “Slow Burn”
I stare at the rippling gray dots, my heart inexplicably in my throat.
HUCK: “Fire Away”
A relieved breath escapes my throat.
LORELAI: Damn, that’s a good one.
LORELAI:…
LORELAI: “If I Was a Cowboy”
HUCK: groans On today’s episode of single lines of lyrics I wish I’d written … Point to Jones this round.
HUCK: See you tomorrow.
I click out and toss my phone on the nightstand, a tired smile on my lips.
8
CRAIG
MERCY
I told Amos to take Monday morning off on account of coming in late on a Saturday night, but I couldn’t help myself from unlocking the doors to our studio at seven A.M. We don’t have anyone coming in until this afternoon, but I was crawling the walls of my too-quiet loft until the early morning hours and needed a change of scenery. I bought the duplex last year when the record company started to turn a steady profit and I needed a place closer to work. My plan was to eventually combine the two apartments into one open and renovated row house, but the rent income was hard to beat and I haven’t exactly had free time to knock down walls.
My first renter moved out a few months ago after he got married and moved to Georgia, and I’d figured on leaving it empty long enough to make some headway on the renovation. But then Lorelai’s former landlord raised the rent on her shitty studio, and I hated the idea of her essentially pouring her meager schoolteacher savings down the drain.
Am I playing with fire? Absolutely.
But it’s not her fault I’m in love with her and entirely suck at boundaries.
Anyway, like I said, home was too quiet.
I flip on the studio lights, leaving the sound booth undisturbed since I’m not recording anything this morning. I cross the floor, carefully layered in thick woven rugs, over to the piano in the corner and settle on the bench with a creak. I place my thermos of coffee on the glossed black lid and remove my jacket, laying it over the back of a chair.
Sipping from my coffee, I idly lift and push back the heavy cover, revealing the black and white keys. Some studios prefer to keep keyboards in-house for public use. This Steinway is all mine, however. One of the first things I bought with the commissions from my songwriting, and since I spend more time here than at home, it just makes sense that it’s here.
Besides, it sounds a thousand percent better on a recording.
I play with the keys, lingering on some and listening hard, concentrating all my earthly attention on the way the lower register haunts. Outside it’s a sunny, nearly sweltering late summer morning in Nashville. In here, it’s cool. Lonely. Achingly sad. In other words, the perfect climate for a hit single.
Ever since I met with Coolidge, I haven’t been able to shake this melody, and in my gut, I know it’s a duet. I initially felt it could be for him and Mathers. But I was wrong. This song needs Lorelai. It’s not romantic on the surface, although I know it could be taken that way. For Lorelai and Coolidge, this could be a song about leaving behind an old identity and finding a home in something new. Duets can be a lot of things: a tool to capitalize on chemistry, or a mutually beneficial career boost, or even a publicity stunt.
But a well-done duet can also be a signal of something more to come. Firing a flare into the deep, dark sky. A statement made by the united front of two powerhouse vocalists with through-hell-and-back stories using only their own force of will and industry-blinding talent.
They just need the foundation, which happens to be my specialty.
I spend the next five hours workshopping a song I haven’t even confirmed will see the light of day. But that’s how writing is. It’s yours and only yours until maybe one day it’s not. Nothing is guaranteed, but the chills I have zipping up and down my spine confirm something is happening, and those chills are rarely wrong.
Before long, Arlo arrives, his usual Lucky Work Fedora in place and a new set of shined-up loafers on his feet, with his jeans cuffed higher than I would know what to do with. This morning, he reminds me of Jason Mraz, minus the penchant for environmental activism and hipster jams. His arrival is followed by a folk band named Baker’s Dozen, who’ve spent the better part of the last two decades touring small music festivals and coexisting in a refurbished school bus with their commune of children. These guys are low maintenance to the nth degree, despite my every effort to instill even the smallest amount of professionalism in them. But really, they’re not in it for the money. Which is a good thing, because I doubt they manage to break even, selling their CDs quite literally out the back of their bus. They like my studio, though, because of the “vibes,” and they’re polite, which to be honest is rare and appreciated around these parts.
All of this is to say, I let Arlo take the reins on recording Baker’s Dozen and instead send a text to Coolidge, confirming where he’s playing tonight. He mentioned he likes to lay low and hit small bars off Broadway to stay fresh, and I thought I caught one of his stage aliases on the listing at the legendary Lulu Mays. He texts back quickly to confirm, and almost immediately after, I have a text from Lorelai, letting me know she caught her flight and would meet me on our balcony at seven.
I bite back a sigh, trying not think so hard about why this feels significant. Or why I want it to feel significant. Or why I need to just get the fuck out of my head because this is the same Lorelai I dropped off at the airport three days ago.
Christ. I run my hand through my hair and scratch against the scruff covering my face and grimace. I could use a haircut. Melissa mentioned it a time or seven yesterday, and while I don’t love admitting she’s right, or giving her fuel to think she can convince me, a grown-ass man, to do anything I don’t already want to do …
She might have a point.
I tap my phone: 5:01 P.M. Two hours before I’m meeting Lorelai. I decide to make myself an appointment at my barber for thirty minutes from now and duck out early. Arlo promises to clean up and practically shoos me out when I tell him I’m going to get a trim, which is all the confirmation I need that I’m looking rough. I spend the couple of blocks’ walk to the barber convincing myself I would be getting a haircut regardless of my night’s plans. It’s overdue and I look like a seventh-year college student who has run down his scholarships and is shacking up in the depressing attic at the frat house. I might not be your typical buttoned-up record executive, but I am the boss. I should look it.
At least that’s what Arlo and Melissa are always telling me. I’m not entirely convinced it matters, but I guess it doesn’t hurt.
Burl Matteson has been cutting my hair since 2015 and hasn’t once asked my opinion. I can’t tell if that’s because he knows exactly what looks best on me or if he just gives the same haircut to everyone. His shop is so small, he doesn’t accommodate lines. It’s like the barber equivalent of Fight Club. No one talks about it. Every now and again, I’ll see someone with a vaguely familiar hairstyle and wonder if they know Burl, but I won’t ask. It would feel like a betrayal.