Chapter 3
PIA
Martin is all crossed arms and angry stares when I walk into the studio.
“You’re late,” he says, his Scottish accent extra curt for my benefit.
“Count yourself lucky I’m here at all,” I retort as I dump my bag and shrug off my leather jacket. I throw it on top of my bag and then go about fluffing my hair.
“We’ve all been waiting nearly an hour.”
“Better than two hours.”
“Pia, I know you don’t want to do this,” he says, stepping closer. That has me looking around the room to see who else is here, but apart from two sound techs at the mixing desk, we’re alone.
“Where is she?” I demand as I pull out a packet of Marlboro Red from my back pocket. Martin sighs. He knows exactly who I’m talking about. I brace myself for yet another “play nice” lecture.
“She’s already mic’ed up in the studio. She’s been rehearsing for the last thirty minutes.”
“Such an overperformer.” I roll my eyes as I light a cigarette. I resist the urge to turn and look through the window behind me. The lights are down in there, but I’m sure I’d see her if I looked closely enough.
“She sounds pretty fucking good, Pia.” He steps even closer.
“Of course she does, ‘voice of an angel.’” I use air quotes for the phrase I read in a recent New York Times article about Cassie.
“Have you even listened to the demo?”
“Yes!” I lie. “You don’t need to worry about me, Martin. I won’t fuck this up so badly you have to stop sleeping with Kevin.”
Martin’s cheeks flush bright red. His cute Celtic colouring means he can’t hide a thing from me.
Nor does the way his green eyes start looking anywhere but at me.
I bet under that ill-fitting suit, his short, stocky body is sweating buckets.
I smile as sweetly as is physically possible for me; his not-so-secret relationship with Kevin Briggs has given me considerable leverage over him in recent weeks.
“Just get in the studio, Pia,” he says. “And don’t fuck this up.”
“Aye, aye, captain.” I salute him and then finally turn to look through the viewing window. My eyes are pulled to her immediately.
Standing in one of the three booths on the right side of the studio space, she’s dressed in jeans and a baby blue floaty smock-style top with big sleeves and embroidered floral detail at the neck.
Her hair falls down her back and over her shoulders in long waves that look styled for a fucking shampoo commercial, and headphones sit on the top of her head like a midsommar crown.
Singing into a microphone that falls from the booth’s ceiling, her throat is exposed in an elegant curve, and I stare at a vein that strains against her skin for far too long.
Dragging my gaze away, I keep my eyes down as I walk to the door and step into the studio. I feel her eyes on me before I see them as I deliberately stay focused on walking to the booth next to her.
But because she’s British and nice, she steps outside of her booth and holds out her hand where I can’t ignore it.
“Hi, Pia,” she says. “Cassie.”
I look down at her hand and then up at her.
Her face is cuter than it looks in the countless photos I’ve seen of her, which should be impossible.
Her chin is more pointed, and her nose is ever so slightly upturned.
Golden freckles dust her cheeks, and her eyebrows are lighter than they’ve presumably been made up to be in photos or for events.
I knew she was pretty – beautiful, even – before getting this close to her.
What I didn’t expect was that I would find her interesting to look at.
Interesting has always done more for me than beautiful.
“Oh, Cassie, hi,” I say, my voice slimy with facetiousness. “I didn’t recognise you there without a cornfield to frolic in.”
Cassie blinks at me, and her mouth twitches like she can’t decide whether to force a smile or not. Eventually, she settles on lifting her eyebrows and holding my eye contact very intently as she replies, “And I didn’t recognise you without a stiletto shoe in your hand to yield like an axe.”
I study her as I take a drag on my cigarette, cocking my hip.
She looks me up and down, taking in my tight black jeans with rips up and down both legs and the black vintage Woodstock T-shirt I stole from a fan’s mom I fucked a few years ago.
It’s so large it hangs off my shoulder, and I do nothing to pull it up as her eyes land on my bare skin there.
Yes, Cassie is proving very interesting.
“Okay, Cassie, Pia.” Martin’s voice sounds out over the internal speaker. I tear my gaze away from Cassie and look through the window at him. “Headphones on. Let’s listen to the demo together and then do a few run-throughs before we hit record.”
“Yes, boss.” I give him another salute.
I step into the booth next to Cassie and feel a little bereft that I can no longer see her.
Placing the headphones on, a piano intro is already tinkling in my ears.
But it’s not very clear. I look through the window and catch one of the sound tech’s eyes.
I point upwards, indicating I need it louder in my ears.
He obliges, but the sound still isn’t as clear as I would like.
However, about halfway through the song, I’m almost relieved I can’t hear it pitch-perfect. It’s awful. Whiny and slow and bleurgh. And the lyrics … I’ve heard fucking infomercials be more sincere.
Blonde hair, big blue eyes,
Surrounded by a web of lies.
You think, he’s yours alone
But tell me, who is he taking home?
Black hair, thin dark stare
You look good trying not to care
I know that he’s only mine,
Find a better way to waste your time.
What I want, is for him to be true
What I want, is to be rid of you.
What I want, is a man that’s only mine.
What I want, is him for the rest of time.
Pretty girl, you smell sweet
Why can I still smell you on my sheets?
How long, will it take
For you to accept the truth you hate?
What I want, is for him to be true
What I want, is to be rid of you.
What I want, is a man that’s only mine.
What I want, is him for the rest of time.
You think, you’re so strong
But I’d do anything, no matter how wrong.
Femme fatale, you’re just a girl,
Don’t you dare steal my world.
What I want, is for him to be true
What I want, is to be rid of you.
What I want, is a man that’s only mine.
What I want, is him for the rest of time.
“What the fuck is that?” I call out as the chorus repeats to fade.
“Pia, you told me you listened to the demo.” Martin’s voice is loud and clear.
“Well, lucky for you, I didn’t, because if I had, I would have never shown up today. I am not recording that pile of pathetic piss.”
I could be mistaken, but I think I catch a squeak of a noise from Cassie’s booth. A gasp. Or maybe a giggle.
“Listen,” Martin says. I can tell he’s had to take a deep breath to lower his tone. “It's not your usual style, I get it.”
“It sounds like elevator music,” I spit back. “That you’d listen to if you were in an elevator that goes to a place where good music dies.”
“It’s not that bad,” Cassie pipes up.
“Of course you’d say that.” I step outside of the booth so she can see my disdain as well as hear it. “This is right up your alley. It’s miserable. It’s melancholic. It’s one woman moaning about another woman.”
“I don’t moan about women!”
“Sure, you do. Everyone knows your boyfriend can’t keep it in his pants!”
“Ladies!” Martin’s voice interrupts in the headphones. “Take a breath! I’m coming in.”
Five seconds later, he appears through the door, a little red in the cheeks and a lot of frown on his forehead.
“Right. Listen. The way Theo described this song was as if Dolly Parton’s ‘Jolene’ had a chance to share her side of the story. The pair of youse are fighting over this man, and you’re both telling the other why she needs to back off.”
“Pathetic,” I mumble. I don’t add how, in my opinion, “Jolene” was never really about the cheating piece of shit man but about Jolene herself. As far as I was concerned, Dolly was in love – or at the very least, in lust – with Jolene. That was what made the song so good.
“Yes, Pia, I know you’d simply knock her lights out, but that doesn’t make a good record.” Martin is pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Could we…” Cassie pipes up so suddenly and so softly, I’d almost forgotten she was there. But then, when I turn to look at her, there’s no forgetting her bright blue eyes, her heart-shaped face and all that annoyingly glorious hair. “Could we maybe change the lyrics a bit? Put our stamp on it?”
I blink at her as her question sinks in. “Yes,” I agree. “Let us change it.”
Martin’s raised eyebrows are the very definition of sceptical. “Why do you want to change the lyrics?”
Cassie flashes me the quickest look before replying. “I’m struggling to relate to the words. I write most of Evergreene’s lyrics, and frankly speaking” – her cheeks turn a rosy pink, almost the same shade as her cupid’s bow lips – “I think I could do a better job.”
Wow. Little Miss People Pleaser has found her voice. And her confidence. I cross my arms as I study her. It looks good on her.
Martin sighs heavily. “We only have this studio for two days. The music’s already been laid down. We need your vocals done and dusted before the end of the day tomorrow. That doesn’t exactly give you much time for changes.”
“Yes, it does.” I lean towards Martin. “We’re two of the best vocalists recording right now. We only need one or two takes. Three at the most. That gives us plenty of time.”
Cassie stares at me, a little stunned, and I wonder if it’s because I’ve paid her a compliment.
“What?” I snap at her. “It’s true. You’re a pro. A total fucking bore, but also a pro.”
That has her blush deepening and her lips pulling together in a tiny little scowl that is arguably prettier than one of her magazine-spread smiles – certainly more interesting.
“Pia,” Martin warns. “Behave.”
“I gave her a compliment!”
“You’re being a bitch,” he says, and he’s one of only a handful of people I let talk to me like that. Also, what he’s saying isn’t exactly untrue…
“So do we have the go-ahead?” I ask Martin. “To make this song actually worth singing.”
Another heavy sigh comes from Martin. “Yes. Fine. Go do it. But youse have to work together. Cassie, you work on your lyrics; Pia, you focus on yours. If you want to change the chorus, you do it together.”
It’s now that I see the flaw in my plan.
If we’re changing the song’s lyrics together, we have to actually do it together.
In the same room. Sharing the same air. When I look up at Cassie, I can tell she’s not exactly over the moon about it either.
Well, at least I can have some fun making her life just as uncomfortable as I’ll be feeling.
“Fine with me,” I say, and I take off my headphones, grab the lyrics sheets and walk out of the studio to retrieve my bags.