17. Gerard #2
Appetite upended, Gerard pushed his half-full plate into the center of the table.
“Whenever I get stuck while writing a song, I go for a hike or put on a movie. I do something to redirect my energy and then come back fresh. Maybe I find inspiration or maybe I don’t, but at least I haven’t tortured myself. ”
“Somebody is out there with my research and my lab mouse, and at any minute he could swipe my entire life’s work out from under me. I can’t afford to waste time on hikes or movies,” Emory retorted almost breathlessly.
“Isn’t poring over the same materials every night wasting time just in a different way?
” Gerard asked. “Didn’t you say you got the idea for the blood replacement while you were working on Joe’s boat?
I don’t think a magical flushing compound is going to crash through the ceiling and into this room.
You could stand to shake things up a little. ”
“I’m already shaking things up a little. You’re here. I’m actually getting a decent amount of sleep. I’m cooking,” he said. His unseen stomach let out a loud rumble.
Gerard stood from the table and crossed the room. “Eat, please.”
“You haven’t finished,” he said, voice allaying.
Gerard sighed with frustration. “I’m not hungry anymore.”
Every time he thought they were getting close to understanding one another, Emory put up a new invisible wall between them.
It was moments like these where he wished he had privacy, personal space—somewhere to retreat to, preferably with a door.
Instead, he got up from the table and slouched into the rocking chair across the room.
Emory spoke again. “I don’t have anything against music as an art form. I never gave it much consideration, because the music that I was exposed to in the foster system and in college I didn’t really care for.”
Gerard whipped his head around. “Didn’t you say people you went to college with listened to We the Wells?”
If Gerard could see Emory, he wondered if he’d be burning with embarrassment or wearing a neutral mask.
“Can I plead the Fifth?” Emory asked.
“What of my music have you even heard?” Gerard asked, taking slight offense. “You said when I got here you only vaguely recognized me, so I’m assuming you only know the hits.”
Setting his fork down, Emory audibly shifted in his seat. “I honestly could not tell you. Do you guys sing something about dance floors and world tours?”
Gerard groaned mightily. “That’s not us!”
“I told you I know nothing about music!” Emory conceded, sleeves sailing up in a pose of surrender.
“No, sorry, it is us. It is a We the Wells song, but we didn’t write it,” he clarified, shoulders tensing.
“On the second album, the label made us do a writing session with this hot young DJ and producer who had hits with pretty much every major artist out there at the time. We showed up to the studio with all these great ideas knocking around between us, but as soon as we met the guy, he had us sit down and listen to a demo he’d already made.
The song was done. It sounded like he’d slapped it together ten minutes before we arrived.
All he wanted us to do was lay down vocals.
There wasn’t even a discussion. It was insulting, and then it went on to be our biggest hit, as if it said anything about us, about what we care about and who we are. ”
“Music must be very personal to you,” Emory said.
“On that first album it was. Nobody had any expectations for us. We wrote ourselves into success, and then somehow success was all about letting everyone write for us and about us,” he said sullenly.
In life, he knew there was no going back, but if Emory could science up some miraculous time machine, Gerard would spin its dial and return to those days when he and his brothers made music for the pure joy of it.
To him, chasing success had been the fun part. Having success was a complicated labyrinth much too difficult to navigate.
“I’d like to listen to your albums,” Emory said, and it sounded earnest.
Gerard let out a pfft. “You need to take a proper music-appreciation class, not listen to We the Wells. I’m not going to make you do that.”
“You’re not making me do anything. I think we’ve already established I hate being made to do things,” Emory said. “I’d like to listen to them, if you have them available.”
In his bag he had that old iPod Touch. By album three, it was the only way they were allowed to leave the studio with any recordings because online leaks were so prevalent.
The We the Wells discography was on there, plus some bonus tracks, unreleased songs, demos Gerard never even let his brothers hear.
But he didn’t have a speaker, and it would be uncomfortable for Emory to pop the wired earbuds into his invisible ears and listen while Gerard watched in silence. He wouldn’t even be able to monitor Emory’s expressions to see if the songs were moving him at all.
It was getting late, and he was tired. Most days, even he wasn’t a We the Wells fan. He’d had enough trips down memory lane for one day. “Another time, maybe,” Gerard said. “Thanks for dinner.”
He disappeared into the bathroom for a long, hot shower and some time to think.
Much later, when he padded out of the steam and back into the room, he pointedly averted his eyes from the area where the shape of Emory’s body was busy at work. So much for him suggesting a brain break.
Why would he expect anyone to take his suggestions seriously? He’d always been the youngest and the meekest in every room. Even in this shabby one, which he paid for them to live in, he wasn’t listened to.
On his way to bed, he whisked by and burrowed down into the blue cotton sheets, wishing he didn’t want Emory to like him so badly. For all of fame’s misgivings, at least it had sheltered him from the whims of bad-mannered invisible men.
Since their agreement, Gerard had procured a folding wall to block some of Emory’s work lights from bleeding into the alcove where the bed was. Still, he listened as beakers clanged and pencils scratched, all blending into a song of genius.
That song of genius morphed into a lullaby that soothed Gerard’s frazzled head.
As he listened, he pressed his nose into the pillow as well, picking up a smell that was distinctly not his own.
Some combination of burnt wood, a cleaning agent, and …
bananas? Emory must have forgotten to change the sheets again when he got up to make dinner, but Gerard didn’t mind.
The smell was strangely comforting. It was certainly one way to be close to his new roommate.