Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
S everal days later, Mattie had settled into a morning routine that included a refreshing outdoor shower, coffee, and a daily check-in with her phone. Dealing with everything at once and then shutting the phone away in the drawer left her feeling remarkably free. The days were peaceful, and the words came easier without the constant chatter from the real world.
She sat on the bed and scrolled through the texts waiting for her, then dealt with the ones she thought were the most urgent. She sent a quick note to Lizzie, reassuring her that all was well. Another to Piper, who kept a steady stream of updates coming whether Mattie wanted them or not, including the latest headline that read, Bellamy Babe Bamboozles Boyfriend . She had to admire the effort at alliteration, but it was old news now, and most of the blogs had moved on to fresher meat.
She tapped out a quick note to Kat. Making progress.
Coming home soon? Kat sent.
They weren’t anywhere near done with the first song, much less the other two. This place was fantastic, and she felt more relaxed than she had in a long time. She wasn’t so sure she wanted to finish fast anymore. Besides, they’d only been here nine days.
Finally, she replied, Not that much progress. Still working on song 1.
Kat sent back a wide-eyed emoji. What’s taking so long?
She decided not to reply to that one, and instead forced herself to read the texts from Della.
I hate that I made you unhappy.
How can I fix this?
I love you.
Please let me fix this.
Mattie sighed and closed her eyes against the obvious pain embedded in that message. She hated this. She hated the hurt that Della had caused, but more than that she hated the rift between her sisters and the indignant anger that crawled back through her heart every time she thought of what Della had said at brunch.
Adam’s band had suffered a loss, too, but they’d all seemed to take it in stride. Of course, most of them were still together, while The Bellamy Sisters weren’t.
They were still sisters. Nothing would change that. They were all still making music in their own ways. They just weren’t doing it together.
But we could be , a small voice whispered in the back of her mind.
For the first time since that awful brunch, she thought about what it might be like to get back together as a group.
She wasn’t sure she missed the stage, exactly, but she did miss the near-constant travel. She loved going to new places. She loved meeting new people, as long as it wasn’t a large crowd, and she really loved, deep down in her soul, sharing music with people. It filled her in a way nothing else ever had or would.
That’s what had made her so angry. Della had taken all that away.
A tiny jolt of realization flicked at her. Della might have broken up the group, but she hadn’t taken everything away. Not really. Mattie had continued to travel. Maybe not as often as before, but she still went somewhere new every few months. She still met new people, including Delusions of Glory. The only thing she hadn’t done was share music with an audience or her family, but whose fault was that?
Della constantly tried to talk to her, even though Mattie ignored most of her texts. Piper lived minutes away from her, and they had lunch once a week when they were both in town. Lizzie did her best to keep them all in touch with one another like a mama duck with her ducklings.
The anger she’d been holding on to since that silly brunch—since the day Della had split up the group—thinned.
She tapped out a response to Della. I love you too. Then she put the phone back in the drawer, grabbed her bag of notebooks, and set out for the Big House at the north end of the island.
She was glad for the long walk, because it gave her time to think. She was nervous. So far on this trip, she’d played hooky with the rest of the band, but she’d only worked on lyrics with Adam.
Since she’d thrown him in the ocean, the hours had been filled with banter, discussions, arguments, and laughter while they took long walks down tropical trails or along the beach. Working with him didn’t feel like work at all. He listened when she had ideas, he gave honest feedback, and he hadn’t even tried to kiss her .
Why did she feel a pang of disappointment at that?
Now they had to bring the rest of the band in on the project, and the prospect filled her with anxiety. They had the beginnings of a working chorus, but she didn’t feel good about it. A lot of the lyrics she’d jotted down felt disjointed and wrong, and it wouldn’t get any better until she had input from the group.
It was almost lunchtime, and the guys were already in the living room by the time she got there.
Adam leaned against one of the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the beach and watched the room. He wore crisp white shorts, a rough beige linen shirt, and an expectant expression. The brilliant midday sun framed him with an entirely deceptive halo.
She couldn’t stop the grin or the mischievous need to tease him. “Well that’s false and misleading advertising.”
He looked confused. “What is?”
“You, standing there with a halo around you like you’re innocent.”
The guys all laughed.
Adam glanced up at the imaginary halo, then shrugged. “I can’t help it if the sun loves me.”
“I don’t think he’s ever been that innocent,” Cooper said. “Should have seen him in high school.”
Adam pointed at LT. “Hey, he was sent to the principal’s office a lot more than me.”
“Yeah, but that don’t mean you didn’t do more than me,” LT said. “You just didn’t get in trouble. You’d bat eyes at Mrs. Dixon and she’d swoon and you’d end up in private study with her instead.”
“It was detention,” Adam said. “She made me write essays after school. It was not some kind of hot-for-teacher session. ”
“Sure it wasn’t.” LT nodded in mock agreement. “What was the subject of those essays? Kama Sutra positions?”
Adam scowled. “No.”
Cooper looked up from his guitar. “I thought you said she made you write about the Civil War.”
“It was poetry,” Brandon said. He pulled a beer out of the refrigerator and twisted open the top. His clothes were mostly dry, but his hair looked damp and there was sand all over his shorts. “Very girly stuff.”
Adam waved his hand. “Can we drop the trip down memory lane and get to work?”
Mattie giggled. “What were the poems about?”
Brandon opened his mouth to answer, then saw the look on Adam’s face, and took a swig of beer instead.
“There’s only one reason to write poetry.” Flynn caught the angry look Adam tossed in his direction and shoved a chip in his mouth.
“What’s that?” Mattie asked.
“To get the girl. Or guy. Whoever.” Flynn carried a large plate of chips and other snacks from the kitchen to the living room, dodged past Adam like he was avoiding a land mine, and plopped down on a small chair next to the drum set. His bare feet were coated in sand.
“Hey, Mattie,” LT said. “Think we’ll be done by seven? I promised Malika I’d go horseback riding.”
Cooper sat on one of the overstuffed couches tuning his guitar. “Who’s Malika?”
“One of the tour guides,” Brandon said. “She wants to show him her private beach.”
“Show a little class, bro. There’s a lady present,” Adam said in a stern, older brother tone. He gestured at Mattie. “We’re all set to go whenever you’re ready. Food’s on the counter, drinks in the fridge. ”
Mattie crossed to the kitchen to get a bottle of water, noticing along the way that they’d set up the keyboards, drums, and amplifiers for the guitars. All that was missing was a stage. She looked at Adam. “What’s with all the gear? Are we having another Adam moment?”
Flynn pointed a drumstick at Adam. “You told her about Adam moments?”
“You threatened to dip us in acid if we told her,” Brandon said.
“Does that mean we can tell her about the time—” LT said.
Adam cut him off firmly. “No.”
Mattie got the distinct impression that there was a lot of subtext going on. There was something Adam didn’t want her to know. He was embarrassed. She wanted to push a little more out of curiosity, but his cheeks were so red they made his tan glow.
She took pity on him with a change of subject. “Have you shared the idea we came up with?”
Adam strolled to the center of the room. “Not yet. It’s all yours.”
He perched on the arm of a chair and gave her a grateful look that was so cute she wanted to giggle. She adored the way they constantly teased each other, because underneath it all she sensed a bedrock of love and affection.
They all settled into chairs or couches except for Flynn, who remained next to the drum set. Mattie picked a bright blue, overstuffed love seat and curled up on it, then pulled the idea spark notebook out of her bag and flipped it open.
“I thought we’d start by keeping the theme of the album going.”
“Which one?” Flynn asked.
“Life and death,” Brandon said.
“Love and loss,” Cooper said .
“I thought it was about corruption and chaos?” LT looked confused.
Adam muttered something under his breath and looked embarrassed.
Mattie suppressed a smile and held up her hand. “What I heard in the studio was a lot of songs about change. Big life changes.”
Cooper looked impressed. “Yeah, I get that.”
“I don’t think we did that on purpose,” Brandon said.
“It doesn’t matter if it was on purpose,” Adam said. “It’s there and we’re running with it.”
“Right,” Mattie said. “We came up with the idea of making new friends while keeping up with the old ones. Does that spark any ideas for you guys?”
LT chewed on chips with a distant look in his eyes. Cooper plucked a few notes on his guitar. Flynn stared blankly at her.
Adam shook his head.
“Change sucks,” Brandon said. He looked around at the rest. “Right?”
LT nodded. “Sometimes. But not all the time.”
Adam looked at Mattie. “Sometimes it’s exactly what we need.”
He looked at her like she was the only one in the room.
“Yeah, but even if it’s something you think you want, it sucks,” Brandon said as if he’d stated an obvious, universal truth.
“Why?” Mattie asked. Somewhere in this idea was a song, if they could get to it.
“Because…because…” Brandon rolled his eyes. “I don’t know. Because it’s hard. Because even if it’s something you want, it means what you had is gone.”
“Does it?” LT asked. “I mean, just because we came to this island, a big change of place, doesn’t mean we left everything behind.”
“Well, except we did, kind of,” Flynn said. “I mean, wasn’t that the whole reason we came here? To leave all the crap behind?”
Mattie thought about that. He was right. That was exactly why she came.
“Yeah but the crap isn’t gone. It’s just hanging out, waiting for us to come back,” Brandon said.
“What if it helps us face it, though?” Adam asked. “That’s a good thing, right?”
Cooper made an impatient noise. “How is this therapy session going to get us a song?”
Mattie held up a hand. “Just a second, I have to write this down.”
Adam started humming, which annoyed her at first, but the longer he went on, the more the words she was trying to write slid into place.
Once she had the words down, she sang them out to Adam’s hummed tune.
Change is hard,
Change is tough
Change is not always enough
If you want it, if you need it, you can’t let it pass you by
You have to try, you have to try
Adam boosted the melody, adding in a little bit of harmony at the end.
“Hey, that’s kinda cool,” Brandon said. “Hang on a sec.” He crossed to the keyboard and tapped out the basic melody as if it had been his all along. Then he added chords to it until the sound was full and real.
Mattie nodded along as Brandon added another verse with a bridge to join them together. It sounded a little high toned, not edgy enough. “Try it a third lower. This should sound rougher, I think.”
Brandon nodded and shifted his hands.
“Let’s do it again,” she said. “Cooper, jump in when you think it fits.”
Brandon started the opening he’d cooked up while they were talking.
Flynn found the beat.
Then Mattie started to sing, and Adam joined her. His harmony fit neatly beside her melody and gave it the desperate push that she’d been looking for. When they reached the end of the verse, Brandon and Cooper continued with the basic melody, adding flourishes until it spiraled out of control and ended up sounding like the theme song to The Addams Family .
“Okay, clowns, let’s run it again.” Adam made a wind-up motion with one hand. “Remember, LT has a date to get to.”
Mattie giggled. Writing songs with these guys reminded her so much of writing sessions with her sisters that it made her want to laugh and cry. She hadn’t had this much fun with music in a really long time.