Chapter 13 #2
Chloe placed the hat on her head, then leaned back in the low wooden chair and closed her eyes, enjoying floating along the river with the warmth of the sun on her face.
She watched willow tree branches overhead, a kingfisher swoop into the water beside them.
“I could get used to this,” she said, as Richard came over to nestle his nose into her arm.
She let him crawl onto the seat beside her, then hugged his warm velvety body to her with one arm.
“I wanted to say I’m sorry about last night, for having a go at you,” John said, his tone serious suddenly. “I don’t know why I brought all that up, about the play. It was so long ago, I’d had too much to drink.” She looked up at him, but he was avoiding her gaze.
“That’s what reunions are for, aren’t they?” she said. “Dredging up the past, making people question every decision they’ve ever made.”
His mouth twitched into a smile and Chloe was glad he’d brought it up. She didn’t like the idea of there being any bad blood between them, of John thinking poorly of her. She realized, quite suddenly, that of everyone here, it was him she most wanted to reconnect with.
“Honestly, I’m glad you said something. I’m sorry I wasn’t a good friend back then,” she said. “You were right, I was self-involved and immature. Everything that happened with Back to Brideshead…I still cringe thinking about it.”
“I think we probably all cringe when we think about our twenty-year-old selves,” he said, expertly pushing the quant pole into the riverbed.
“Sean was friendlier at breakfast,” she said, and John nodded.
“Give him a chance. Just because he’s a writer, it doesn’t mean he’s great at expressing himself. Fame doesn’t make you any less insecure.”
“What would he have to be insecure about? All his fans vying for his attention?” she said, and it came out sharper than she’d intended.
“Maybe it’s not the approval of the masses he’s after,” he said, drumming his fingers on the pole.
“Don’t be so cryptic, John.”
“I just know, even now, when it comes to scripts, to his work—he respects your opinion.”
“Good, because I have a script to show him, that’s one of the reasons I’m here.
” John looked surprised. “Not why I’m here,” she clarified, shifting her attention down to Richard.
“But we work in the same industry, so…” She petered out, not sure why she’d brought this up.
“It’s not even a good script. He won’t want to do it. ”
“Why don’t you show him one of your own scripts?” John suggested.
“I don’t have any,” she said, feeling she could be honest with John now. “I haven’t written anything new in years. I think any talent I might have had evaporated when I didn’t have Sean to bounce ideas off.”
“He might say the same about you,” John said with a heavy sigh. Then his expression shifted to one of amusement. “Poor you, you lost your muse. Just like Toad, ‘Poor me, I crashed my racing car.’ ” John raised a goading eyebrow.
She opened her mouth wide in mock offense. “I am not Toad,” she said, narrowing her eyes theatrically. “You take that back.”
“You are so Toad,” he said, grinning. Chloe leaned forward and carefully crawled toward the back of the boat.
“What are you doing?” he laughed, trying to keep the boat steady as it wobbled beneath them. She didn’t answer, just reached out and seized the long pole from him, pulling it out of the water in one swift movement.
“Chloe,” he said, still laughing as he sat down, pulling her toward him to help balance the boat, “the captain tells me this is very dangerous.”
She turned to him with a wicked smile, then extended the pole sideward—not gently—so it pressed against his chest, pinning him lightly to the floor of the boat.
“Take it back,” she said, eyes glinting with the challenge.
“Not a chance,” he said, eyes locking on hers.
Now their laughter fizzled into silence.
Their breath came hot and fast as they wrestled for control of the pole, pushing against each other.
Suddenly this playful game didn’t feel playful at all, it felt charged with a different kind of energy.
Chloe froze, suddenly too aware that she was on top of him, straddling him, his fingers clasped over hers on the pole, their hips pressing together, a wave, like falling, coursing through her.
“I take it back,” he said quietly, and she quickly let go, like the pole was red-hot.
They both looked away, her skin tingling, gut swirling. What was that? It took him a moment to compose himself too, as he shifted toward the back of the boat.
“Well, Richard, I think we have a mutiny on our hands,” John said eventually, his voice back to normal now.
“Maybe it’s my turn to punt,” she said, holding out her hand for the pole, and he looked grateful not to have to stand up again.
He handed it over without meeting her eye.
She’d only been messing around, teasing him like she used to, but now something between them was different.
It was the same charge she’d felt last night.
John moved to sit down in the seat she’d vacated, shifting Richard across to make room.
Then he whispered in Richard’s ear, loud enough for her to hear.
“Don’t call her Toad, she will beat you.”
“Shush or I’ll make you walk the plank,” she said. He raised his eyebrows, finally daring to hold her gaze again. She blushed. He was being cute. Why was he being cute?
He lay back in the seat and trailed a hand in the water.
“For what it’s worth, I think you’re giving Sean too much credit,” he said, his voice cool again now.
“You had a good creative partnership, but I think you’re wrong if you believe he’s the key to unlocking some font of creativity.
What did Edison say—‘Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration’?
Writing, even badly, is what makes you better at writing. ”
“Thanks for the pep talk, Edison,” she said, rolling her eyes, but now they were back to the safer kind of teasing.
“Why are we arguing?” John asked Richard. “We should be enjoying the Isis in summer’s prime, where college spires reach for the sky’s dark frame.”
She couldn’t help laughing at this but then bit her lip. “Don’t be mean.”
“I’m not. I enjoyed it. He’s quite the Renaissance man,” John said, and she realized she hadn’t thought about Rob the whole time they’d been on the river.
Chloe was slower than John on the pole, so they soon fell behind the other boats and found themselves alone on this stretch of river. The laughter and chatter up ahead faded, leaving only the soft lap of water against wood and the rustle of leaves overhead.
“Were you always this judgy at Oxford?” she asked.
“No. I was too busy writing music for musicals that never happened.”
“I’m so glad I came to this reunion, it’s lovely hearing how awful I was.”
“I didn’t think you were awful, quite the opposite,” he said.
“You could have fooled me,” she said in a singsong voice, but when she shifted her gaze to look at him, she could see he was serious.
“You were one of my favorite people at Oxford,” he said. “I’ve missed you.” She felt a warm flush creep up her chest toward her throat.
“I’ve missed you too,” she said, realizing, as she said it, how much she had. “So what kind of music do you write now?”
“She doesn’t want the big talk. She wants the small talk,” he told Richard, and now her cheeks were starting to ache from smiling. “I write all sorts,” he said, resting his hands behind his head. “Mainly scores for film and TV, but the industry’s only getting tougher now everything’s AI.”
Chloe felt a prickle of heat run up her neck and tapped her Artemis ring against the pole. “Would I be able to tell the difference between an AI composition and a human one?”
“I can,” he said. “AI can mimic, it can take in all the music ever written and churn out an imitation, but if you listen carefully, there’s no heart to it.
It will never come up with something original that speaks to your soul the way Mozart does.
It will never make you feel the way a Rachmaninoff piano concerto will.
” She could hear the resentment in his voice.
She thought of Rob, quoting Yeats. Would he ever come up with something that poetic on his own?
“But a machine can create music in ten minutes what it would take me months to do,” John went on.
“Who’s going to get the job when corporations are looking at their bottom line? ”
“It was stupid of me to think the music you wrote took no time to create,” she said. “That it was easy for you.”
“That might have been my fault. I liked people thinking it was easy. It’s more romantic being someone who’s gifted than someone who works hard.”
“Well, I owe you a holiday to South America,” she said, pushing the pole down into the water again. “When I make it big in the PA world, I will take you.”
“Thanks,” he said, but now his eyes shifted. He didn’t smile.
“What? Too soon?”
“It isn’t that.” He ran a hand through his hair, his eyes on the river.
“You asked why I was still upset, about that play…” He closed his eyes, holding something back.
She waited for him to go on, knowing that silence and patience are sometimes better prompts than words. “My father died a month after that.”
The words hit her like a slap, the sinking feeling in her chest becoming an ache she couldn’t ignore. She saw a gray line flash across her wrist—now it all made sense.
“Oh, John,” Chloe whispered, her breath catching.
She pulled the pole from the water and laid it down in the boat, the action not matching the heaviness of the moment.
She knelt down, leaned forward, wanting to close the distance between them.
But the only thing she could easily reach was his ankle, so she squeezed it gently, the act awkward but tender.
Their eyes met, and a shaky laugh escaped them both.
“Sorry, I don’t know what that was. A commiseratory ankle squeeze?”