Chapter 4
CASSIE
She ignores me in the taxi back to her hotel, just like I expect.
She also ignored my suggestion to head back to my house in the Hills, where I have a music room designed exactly for this purpose.
She claimed her hotel was nearer, and she wanted to get this over and done with, which I suppose I should be grateful for.
The ignoring continues in the lift up to her room; she literally gives me her back and starts humming a tune I don’t recognise.
I want to hate it, just like I want to hate the way she taps her steel-capped black cowboy boot in a perfect rhythm, but I don’t.
I find it frustrating, rude and childlike how she ignores me, but I definitely don’t hate it.
“Make yourself at home,” she says as she walks into the room, dumping her bag in one spot on the floor and dropping her leather jacket in another. “I hope they’ve restocked the minibar.”
She’s in the room proper already, bent over as she opens up the small fridge built into the TV cabinet. Her T-shirt falls so far down her shoulder that one of her breasts practically pops out of the top. She’s not wearing a bra.
I promptly look away from Pia to save her modesty and take in the rest of the room. It is … a huge mess.
The décor is slightly dated – lots of russet reds, warm terracotta, and mustard yellows – but it’s spacious, even with two queen-sized beds in it, and yet there is so much clutter and mess and chaos that it feels almost claustrophobic as I step into the space.
The sheets on both queen beds look like they’ve been in a fight with yesterday’s outfit.
There are clothes and shoes and records and rubbish strewn across the floor like a hurricane has whipped through here recently, and when I perch hesitantly on the end of the nearest bed, I realise I’m sitting on a black lace bra.
I jump up as if it burns my backside, and then I see the curled-up black lace next to the bra.
Her underwear. Pia’s knickers. My face flushes with a rush of heat so quick and determined it takes my breath away.
It takes a moment for my lungs to finally return to normal working order and for me to remember I have limbs and the ability to move.
Not that I can sit back on this bed. Not near that black lace and oh, God, the knickers were worn. They’re Pia’s worn knickers.
“You okay?” Pia’s voice snaps me out of my stunned stupor. She’s standing opposite me, eating from a bag of peanuts, a miniature bottle of vodka clutched between her elbow and her body.
“Yeah.” I shake my head and push my hair off my face. “Yeah, I’m fine, I … Where shall I sit?”
Pia shrugs. “Wherever you want.”
“Right,” I say, because that is absolutely no help.
Pia walks over to the small, round table and two chairs in front of the window that is covered with semi-transparent nylon drapes.
LA’s bright midday sun is persistently filtering into the room regardless, and I wish we’d gone to my house where the rooms are clean, the sun isn’t quite so blinding and I have all my instruments: my grand piano, my harp, my guitar collection and my much-loved dulcimer.
Maybe I should have put my foot down. Maybe I should have been more stubborn, like Pia herself.
“We can sit here,” Pia says, and I realise she’s removed the guitar that was on top of the table, placing it on the bed nearest her.
She doesn’t bother to take away any of the clothes hanging over the back of both chairs, so I tentatively pick up the jeans, dress and – oh, my – another bra, from one chair and place it carefully on the second bed, next to another acoustic guitar that has so many scratches on it that I wince.
Pia plonks down in the other chair and slams an ashtray on the table.
She has another cigarette lit by the time I’m sitting opposite her.
“So, where should we start?” I say, and I retrieve the lyric sheets from my bag. Not that I need them. I memorised the words from the sample track days ago.
Pia doesn’t reply for a long time, and for each second of the silence that falls she’s studying me with narrowed eyes.
Her irises are so dark I can’t tell where they end and her pupil begins.
The flicks of eyeliner at the corners of her eyes give her face a feline quality, and like most cats, it’s impossible to know what she’s thinking or what her next move will be.
Her fringe is blunter than mine, like a thick black straight line across her forehead, and it never seems to move.
Pia is slim, yes, but not skinny, and yet her cheekbones rise like her skin is truly stretched over them.
I can now believe what I’ve heard about people going to plastic surgeons and asking for the Lindberg facelift.
Her mouth is currently quite small – pursed pink lips with a bit of a pout in them – but I know from watching her on TV just how wide her lips can stretch and just how much noise that mouth can make.
“Look,” she says, and then takes a quick drag. “Can I ask you a question?”
I find myself needing to swallow before I reply. “Sure.”
“What do you think is going on in this song?”
“Well,” I say slowly, already wondering if that was a trick question. “It’s about two women who are with the same man. And they’re asking the other to … leave him alone. They’re staking their claim on him.”
Pia wrinkles her nose. It’s the only part of her face that isn’t striking or intimidating. It’s small and round. Cute. A cute little button nose.
“And do you want to sing a song like that?”
I think about Stephan. I think about Melissa. I think about how, by the time this song comes out, everyone will probably know about the baby.
“No, not really,” I admit. “But that’s not the point—”
Pia slams her palm down on the table. “That’s exactly the point!”
I blink at her. “I’m not following.”
Pia shifts forward, resting both elbows on the table.
She uses her cigarette to point at me. “Listen, I don’t know if the rumours are true, about you and Stephan and some woman back in England, but I don’t think you want to play up to being the other woman right now, and frankly, neither do I.
It’s bullshit. It’s anti-feminist. It’s making the man the fucking centre of the universe, yet again. ”
My lips twitch, wanting to smile, but I rein them in. “I’m listening.”
“And let’s be honest, what are the actual chances of you and me ever falling for the same guy?
” Pia scoffs before downing the miniature bottle of vodka in one big swig.
She then stands up suddenly and returns to the minibar.
She returns with two more miniature bottles and slides one of them over to me.
“Actually, it’s a bit early for me to—” I begin, but Pia continues as if I’ve not spoken.
“But of course, it’s too late in the game for us to come up with something completely different. And even if we did, I doubt they’d let us roll with it.”
“Roll with what?” I lean forward as Pia opens up a small bottle of what looks like gin. She takes a swig, and I wince again.
“I want to fuck with everyone a bit,” she tells me with a glint in her dark eyes.
“That doesn’t sound like you,” I tease before I can stop myself.
It only intensifies the spark in her gaze, and before I know it, she’s smiling at me.
And her smile … her smile is almost more dangerous than her when she’s scream-singing into a microphone or when she’s trashing guitars on stage or when she’s hitting one of my bandmates with her shoe.
“So, are you in?” she asks.
“I … I need more information first. What exactly do you have in mind?”
Pia blows out a long cloud of smoke and keeps her steady stare on me for many seconds. Finally, she speaks. “Tell me, Cassie, have you ever kissed another woman?”
I don’t know what stuns me more: the sound of my name in her mouth or the question itself. I tell myself I only let seconds pass as I sit there frozen in place, but it feels like hours, days, weeks. A lifetime.
“What … why…how…how is that relevant?” I trip over my own tongue.
“Oh, relax.” Pia taps the ash off the end of her cigarette. “Don’t get your fucking chastity belt in a twist. Just answer the question.”
“No,” I say, my voice small and unfamiliar to my own ears. “I haven’t.”
Another intense stare. “Maybe I asked the wrong thing,” Pia says. “Let me ask a different question. Have you ever wanted to kiss another woman?”
I know if I try and speak, I’ll splutter all over again. So instead, I school my features into the most neutral expression I can manage and I consider my options.
I’ve heard the rumours about Pia. How she’s been with women.
And men. I wasn’t surprised. I wrapped it up with all the other out-there things she does, all the other ways she pushes against society’s limits.
It was just another way she rebels. But when I think about this on its own merits, when I actually imagine Pia in bed with another woman – limbs tangled, soft skin rubbing against soft skin, curves grabbed, nipples sucked, fingers everywhere – it becomes its own story, its own adventure, and one I don’t immediately dismiss like I do everything else she does because that’s just who Pia is, and I am not the same.
What I said was true; I’m not a person who has taken women to bed or has ever planned on it.
But am I a woman who wants to be with a woman?
Am I a woman who wants to kiss another woman despite everything I was told growing up?
Am I a woman who has tried so hard to not want it, but still, my want persists?
I hold Pia’s gaze as I reply. “Yes, I’ve felt that … urge.”
Pia’s lips curve up into a deadly smile. “Interesting.”
“How so?”
Pia places both of her elbows on the table and gets closer to me.
Through the thick stench of cigarette smoke, I can detect something else, which also reached me in the taxi.
It’s a spiced scent: nutmeg, cloves, maybe even black pepper.
I wonder if it would get stronger if I got even closer to Pia, if my nose were to run down the length of her neck …
I’m so lost in this stupid, uninvited fantasy I nearly miss what Pia’s saying, but I tune in finally and get a very clear picture of what she has in mind.
“What if the song wasn’t about two women who want the same man? What if it was about two women who want each other? What if that was the true meaning of the song, but the lyrics weren’t clear enough to those who weren’t looking for it? That way we can get away with it.”
“The lyrics would have a double meaning?”
“Yes, exactly.”
I chew on my lip as I recognise both my immediate enthusiasm for this idea but also my immediate need to temper that. But I can’t admit that. Not to Pia Lindberg. “But if we’re the only ones who know the double meaning, what’s the point?
“But we won’t be,” Pia says. She brings one of her legs up, bent at the knee.
She rests her arm on it and extends her hand, waving her cigarette around across the table.
“You think you’re the only woman in the world who has harboured a secret desire to kiss another woman?
To be with a woman? And you think only rock stars like me are out there fucking whoever they want?
No, that’s not the world we live in. We’re everywhere.
” She waves her cigarette towards the window.
“There are more of us than you could ever imagine, and we deserve love songs too.”
“A love song?” I say, more air in my voice than usual.
“Yes.” Pia grins at me, her eyes literally sparkling. “Two women singing a love song to each other. And those who want to believe in miracles like that, they’ll hear it. They’ll know it too.”
“You really want to sing a love song with me?” I ask slowly, tentatively. I reach for the miniature bottle of vodka, but I don’t open it.
“Oh, Cassie,” Pia says, a small frown pinching her eyebrows together. “You really are a bit gay, aren’t you?”
“I’m not!” I protest so instinctively, it immediately angers me. “Or maybe I am. I don’t know.”
Pia shrugs again, her T-shirt slipping off her shoulder once more. “You don’t need to know what you are. You just need to know who you are.”
Her words land inside me with a gravity that alters my breathing. “And who are you?”
Pia pins me another devilish smile. “Me? I’m your worst nightmare.”
A laugh bubbles out of me, and with it, some of the tension in my body evaporates. A beat later and Pia is giggling with me.
“You know,” I say, once our laughter has abated, “I don’t think you are my worst nightmare. That’s just what our labels want the media to say. That’s what sells more records.”
“Sells you more records,” Pia says, half under her breath.
“You don’t do badly.”
“We don’t sell like Evergreene does. Albums, singles, or tour tickets. And we should,” she says with emphasis. “But the world isn’t quite ready for a woman who fucks whoever she wants, gives no shits and sings loudly about misogyny.”
I can’t decipher if this statement is delivered to me like a dig, a shot, an insult, but it feels like one all the same.
And it hurts. It hurts because I know what she’s saying is true, and the fact that Evergreene’s music does nothing to challenge the world like Femme Fatale’s does, makes me feel things I can’t yet name.
It hurts, but it also makes something inside me wake up – wake up and sit up and pay attention.
“I’m in,” I say as I catch her eye. She’s halfway through downing the rest of her gin. Slowly, she lowers the now-empty bottle and holds my gaze.
“You’re in?”
“Yes, let’s do this,” I say, banging my hand on the table. “Let’s sing a love song for the women who love women.”