Chapter 16
Juliet
I didn’t tell Vicki about what had happened with Finn. I didn’t tell Mom. I didn’t tell any of the other bridesmaids—especially Petra, who everyone thought should be dating him. I didn’t tell my roommate. I didn’t even have a diary I could tell. For the first time, I felt the need to spill my feelings in a way that even writing a song wouldn’t fix, and I had no one to confide in.
Back in Portland after the fitting weekend, I threw myself into work. We were in the studio, rehearsing, but the band was also working on new material, workshopping new songs. Neal had started coming to the studio a couple evenings a week, after Raine was home and Sam was asleep, to work on the new songs. I didn’t do sessions in Neal’s living room anymore, because I had worked on the songs so much that I had command of them now.
I was restless and unsettled, but in a way that was good, like I hadn’t felt in years. I was sparking with possibility. I felt a creativity that only comes from not being hungry and not worrying about the rent. It also came from working with people who are so relentlessly creative themselves that you can’t help catching it, like a virus.
I bought a notebook and pen, and for the first time in years, I thought, If I wrote a song, what would I write about?
Finn came into my mind, unbidden. He’d been writing in his basement. If he could do it, so could I.
I hadn’t answered my own question yet. But my notebook was in my bag, waiting.
“How was your weekend away?” Denver Gilchrist asked when we sat down in the songwriting room for a break. It was late in the session, and he was steeping a hot cup of tea while the rest of the band worked something out. In every session, the singer is the only one with an instrument that needs regular breaks and careful care. A singer who burns his voice out in rehearsals might not get it back by performance time, and eventually, he might not get it fully back at all. I could work Princess until dawn, but Denver had to be careful.
I leaned back on my sofa. I was wearing leggings and a stretched-out sweatshirt, my hair in a braid that was amateur at best considering my hair wasn’t all that long. No one had commented on my hobo look. “It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be,” I admitted.
Denver nodded. “How’s Finn? When I talked to him, I got the impression he’s been through some shit.”
This didn’t surprise me. I knew Finn hadn’t talked to Denver about his personal life, but Denver picked up on everything, like an empathic sponge. “He’s doing fine,” I said.
The words were automatic. Was Finn actually fine? I had seen only what he had showed me. I had seen his house, his dog. I had spent time with him. I had kissed him, touched him, even seen him naked, but when I thought about it, it seemed that he had spent the weekend somehow looking after me in a way that was planned with care. Who looked after Finn?
We hadn’t done anything else that night in his hotel room. I’d stayed a while, drying off and relaxing while we talked about nothing and watched TV on his oversized bed, and then I’d gone back to my room. The next morning he drove me back to Portland, and he talked about his life in the “Ice Cream Girlfriend” era. Everything he’d said was fascinating, but it had also made the hair on the back of my neck stand up in a way I couldn’t explain.
Suddenly, even though I had no regrets about the time I’d spent with him, I wanted a do-over. I wanted to go back and see the things he didn’t want to show me. It was important that I see him again, on my terms this time. Because I wasn’t sure that Finn was fine at all.
Still, I said it again, just to try the words out. “He’s fine.” It sounded hollow, so I added, “I fooled around with him.”
Denver was looking down at his cup, concentrating on fishing the tea bag out of the hot water. His expression didn’t even flicker at this news. “Cool,” he said without looking up. “Is it serious?”
I stared at him. How the hell was I supposed to answer that question? “I don’t know.”
“Ah.” The tea bag successfully wrangled, Denver tossed it in the trash.
“What?” I asked.
“I asked if it’s serious, and you didn’t say no.”
“I didn’t say yes.” Was that a smirk? That was definitely a smirk, so I threw a bomb at him. “I think I should sing backup on some of these songs.”
Denver blinked, and then he wasn’t smirking anymore. He frowned as if my words were hitting him in slow motion. “I sing my own backup,” he said.
This was true. In live shows, Neal sang some backup, because Stone couldn’t sing at all. In the studio, Denver sang all of his own backup tracks and harmonies, recording them one by one so they could be mixed together by Roy, our engineer. It was a common practice, especially for singers as good as Denver was.
“I think it would sound good,” I said. “I know my voice isn’t as strong as yours, but our tones are similar, and we’d mix well. It would give a different vibe to some of the songs. It would add complexity.”
From the look he was giving me, it was obvious that no one had ever dared suggest this to Denver before. I had made him forget about my weekend with Finn, at least. “Which songs?” he asked.
I motioned to the door, behind which Stone and Axel were working on a new song called “Awake at Midnight.” “That one,” I said, because I had thought about this a lot. “From past songs, I think it would work on ‘Starlight Woman’ and ‘Fuck You, California.’ And ‘Bad Night.’”
His chin rocked back a little when I said that, as if I’d taken a swipe at him. I knew exactly what he was thinking. “Starlight Woman” was a song Denver wrote about Callie. “Fuck You, California” was one of the few songs Stone had written, and it was about a tragedy in his past. “Bad Night” was one of the Road Kings’ first songs. It was one of their best-known numbers, a fan favorite, and they closed every live show with it.
A few months ago, I was playing with Checkerboard Sadness, and now I was telling Denver fucking Gilchrist that I should sing with him on one of his most famous songs. I should laugh myself out of this studio and save him the trouble. But I was done with being a lesser version of myself. I had done that for too long, and I wasn’t going back.
“No,” Denver said.
“Yes,” I shot back, because I had expected that. He wouldn’t say yes right away.
“No,” he said again.
“Give me one take,” I bargained with him. I pointed to the door again. “We go in, we record one take with me singing backup. Then we play it back for everyone and see what they think. If it sucks, I accept that. I won’t bring it up again.”
He put his cup down and leaned back. He was probably recalling who was here tonight: Stone, Axel, Neal, Roy the engineer. Will Hale was here, too. Will was Stone’s half-brother, the band’s manager and their money guy. He wasn’t a musician, but he was part of the operation.
There was just me, willing to audition for six guys, one of whom cut my check, the rest of whom could fire me, except for Roy. It could backfire spectacularly, but I’d take the risk. I hadn’t come here to be part of the wallpaper.
Denver was quiet for a moment. “Fuck,” he said, because he knew what I was risking, and he kind of respected me for it.
“One take,” I said again, just to push him. “Five minutes. Or four, depending on the song.”
“Fuck,” he said again. He stood up. “’Starlight Woman,’ Jules. One take. Let’s go.”
Twenty minutes later, I stood in the control room, listening as the last notes of the improvised take of “Starlight Woman” that we’d just recorded wound down. Sweat stuck my shirt to my back. My throat was dry.
The music ended, and all of the guys looked at each other, waiting to see who would speak first. None of them looked at me.
Stone scratched his beard thoughtfully and said, “I like it.”
“So do I,” Axel said.
Denver, seated at the sound board, leaned over it, crossed his arms, and rested his head on them. He groaned as if in pain.
Neal patted his head in sympathy. “Jules is right. It sounds really good, man. The way your voices mix. It makes the song sound, I don’t know, more emotional.”
“It adds something,” Axel said. “He’s singing the song about this woman, but she’s also singing the chorus in the background. Like she’s always present. Like she already knows how he feels. She knows it so well that she can sing along.”
“But that changes it,” Will said thoughtfully. He resembled Stone, except that Will was clean cut and well dressed, with lighter hair. Even when he wore a hoodie, like he did tonight, it was an expensive hoodie. “I’ve always heard ‘Starlight Woman’ as a lonely song. He’s far away from her, remote. That’s why she’s starlight.”
“That’s just it,” Neal said. “He thinks she’s far away, but she’s right there. She loves him back. He just has to listen.”
“Is he listening, though?” Axel asked. “He doesn’t know how close she is. He’s not paying attention. He thinks he’s all alone.”
“Shit, man,” Roy said. He was a big, burly guy with a thick, wiry beard. “Now I’m sad. I’ve never been this sad listening to this song before, and I’ve heard it a thousand times.”
Denver sighed dramatically into his folded arms. “Stop changing my song, all of you. It’s killing me.”
Neal patted his head again, but Stone said, “Get over yourself, Lord Byron.”
Then Stone turned to me. “Nice work, Barstow,” he said. “We’ll do it this way onstage in Seattle. Mr. Sad Nuts here will come around.”
“Fuck off, Stone,” Denver said.
“That’s it everyone,” Stone announced. “Time to go home. Everyone go get a fucking life.”
“I want to sing on more songs,” I said.
Stone gave me one of his more serious glares. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow. Don’t push your luck.”
After we wrapped, I sat in my car—my shitty, scratched, in-need-of-a-tuneup car—in the parking lot and felt like crying. What was wrong with me? I hadn’t cried in at least a decade, but lately I’d been on the verge too many times.
Instead of crying, I called Finn.
He answered, his words exhaled as if he was in bed. “Juliet. Hey.”
I remembered how late it was. “You were asleep,” I said.
“I’m awake enough.” The low rumble of his voice, so unlike daytime Finn, made me wish I was in the bed with him. I wished for that so hard I ached. I thought of Neal saying, She’s right there. He’s not paying attention. He thinks he’s all alone.
“Is something wrong?” Finn asked, because I was calling in the middle of the night.
“Nothing’s wrong,” I said. “We just finished at the studio, and something happened. Something really great.”
“Tell me,” he said, and my throat closed and my eyes stung, because I had never had this before. Someone who would pick up the phone at midnight, someone who would say tell me because he wanted to hear what I had to say. Someone who wanted to know the story spilling out of me, who didn’t expect anything back. A tear rolled down my cheek.
“Juliet?” Finn asked.
I told him everything, and he understood all of it. That it was a single song, a four-minute take, but it was important. He knew the guts it had taken for me to suggest it at all. He just knew.
When I told him about Denver’s reaction, Finn laughed softly. “He’s not happy with anyone messing with his vision,” he said. “But Stone’s right. If it makes the song better, he’ll come around.”
“I’m not trying to screw with his vision,” I said.
“Juliet, believe me—if he thought you were truly messing with it, he would have fought you a lot longer and harder than he did. And the rest of the band would have told you if it sucked. They aren’t in the business of being polite. If they said it was good, then it was good.”
I wiped a tear from my cheek. I hoped it didn’t sound like I was crying. Finn hadn’t said anything about it if it did. “The weekend is two days away,” I said. “I want to see you.”
“You do?” He sounded surprised, and so delighted that it made me smile.
“Yes, Finn. You. I want to see you.”
“Hold on, let me check my schedule.” He let dead air float between us, both of us breathing. “It seems I’m free.”
We both laughed.
“Tell Gary I’m coming over,” I said.
“I will. What’s your favorite meal?”
“Anything with pesto,” I told him. “I don’t care what it is. I fucking love pesto.”
“Okay. And Juliet, you’re amazing. You know that, right? You’re freaking amazing.”
So are you, I thought, but I didn’t say it. I wanted to tell him in person instead.