Chapter 5
PIA
“So, how do you write your songs?” I ask as I kick off my boots and tuck my legs under me.
“Sort of like this, actually. I like to have at least a riff or melody first, and then I add the lyrics. You?”
“I’m the other way. Poet first. Musician second. I write the words and then work with one or some of the guys to find a tune for them. Usually Jon.”
“You wrote all your lyrics?”
“Yep, every single one,” I reply as I reach over and grab the song sheets. I turn them so I can read the words.
“That’s impressive considering English must be your second language.”
“Third,” I correct her.
“You speak three languages?”
“Four, actually. Thai because of my mum, and Swedish, obviously. Then English. And I also learned German at school. Oh, and I am conversational in Norwegian, Danish, and Dutch, so I guess that’s more than four.”
“Wow!” Cassie is all big-eyes and parted lips.
“Oh, you didn’t think an angry Asian woman like me could be intelligent too? That’s your first mistake. Most of us angry women are the ones who are paying the most attention.”
“I guess that makes sense,” Cassie says with a little frown that is somehow just as pretty as her smile.
“Anyway. You rewrite your verses, and I’ll do mine? And then I guess we’ll do the chorus together?”
“Sounds good.” Cassie nods.
“Let me just copy down these.” I get up and rummage in my bag for a pen and paper.
“No, it’s okay,” Cassie calls out. “I’ve memorised the words already. And I’ll just remember the new ones.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, that’s how I do it. It’s all up here.” She taps the side of her head, and it’s so fucking goofy I feel myself smiling. I’ve done a lot of smiling since we arrived in this hotel together. I didn’t expect that, and I’m not sure I like it.
I also didn’t expect Cassie to be so honest with me. About wanting to kiss women. About being happy to fuck with our managers, our labels, and the mother-fucking patriarchy.
Dare I say it, Cassie Everard is very close to impressing me – and all while looking so fucking cute in her smock top, flared jeans and all that honey-blonde
hair. I wonder how early she got up to perfect those waves or if she slept in curlers. Curlers and a floor-length Victorian-esque nightgown, no doubt. A mental image immediately fills my mind and has me chuckling to myself.
“What’s so funny?” Cassie’s question brings me back to the present moment.
“Nothing,” I say, and I stop sniggering. “Let’s get to work.”
Thirty minutes later, and I’ve absolutely ruined Cassie’s song sheets with scribbles everywhere.
But I think I’m close to having the words I want to sing.
From what she’d said, I’d expected Cassie to sing out her lyrics, to test the words in her mouth and check they matched the rhythm and the tune.
But she’s almost deathly silent, and every time I’ve looked across the table at her, she’s had her eyes closed and her lips pressed into a thin line.
It's like she’s turned completely inwards, finding the music inside herself and being filled up by it.
It’s like this hotel room, the outside world and I have all disappeared, and Cassie is in her own universe full of notes and words.
I find myself leaning forward in my seat, wanting to slip into that world she inhabits, wanting to know what it’s like there, wanting to know what it’s like inside her mind.
Suddenly, her eyes open, and they connect with mine.
They widen as she realises I was staring at her.
I should look away or explain myself or crack a joke about her disappearing inside herself, like she wanted to escape me already, but I don’t say anything.
And I don’t avert my gaze. I like having her questioning blue eyes on me.
I already knew I liked shocking her, but apparently, surprising her is just as much fun.
“What?” she eventually asks.
“You were in another world,” I say.
Cassie huffs out a soft laugh. “Yeah, that happens a lot.”
“Were you really just singing to yourself? In your head?”
“Yes…” She blushes, cheeks turning almost as pink as her full lips. “It wouldn’t have helped you if I was singing out loud when you were doing the same.”
“I would have survived. I could have moved away to the bed or even gone to the bathroom.”
“There was no need, really. I find it easy to sing in my head. I do it a lot.”
I wait for more words, a deeper explanation, but it doesn’t come. She casts her gaze down at her hands, and I miss her stare more than I should.
“Have you come up with something?”
“I think so,” she says. “I mean, it’s not perfect, and I actually haven’t changed that much, but I think it gets the message across. You know, if someone was looking for that particular message.”
There’s more blushing and more avoiding my gaze, and this makes me feel impatient and reckless.
“Go on then,” I say. “Sing to me.”
This pulls her eyes up to me. “Now?”
“How else do you think we’re going to do this?”
“But the opening verse is yours,” she points out. Fan. She’s right.
I rearrange my body in the chair, legs down and hands on the table. I open my mouth to sing, but I’m suddenly and unwelcomingly nervous. Why do I fucking care what Cassie thinks? Why am I worried about whether I sound bad or good to her ears? Why do I feel intimidated of all fucking things?
Pushing my shoulders back, I take a moment to compose myself and do what I know works when self-doubt comes up for me; I tell it to fuck off, and I press on like it never happened.
My voice cracks on my first line, and I squeeze my eyes shut so I don’t have to see how Cassie reacts. It helps to not have her pretty blue eyes and thoughtful cupid’s-bow pout in my line of vision, and I make it through the remaining three lines without incident.
Blonde hair, big blue eyes
You look good in a bed of lies.
Truth hurts, don't ya think?
I'm ready to fight. You ready to sink?
The room falls silent as soon as I do, and only then do I open my eyes again.
Cassie’s lips are parted, and the bottom one is slick, like she just licked it. “That was … good. Really good.” She smiles at me.
“Really?” The question, the fucking doubt, is flying out of my mouth before I can stop it. I never fucking care what people think of my music. The boys, Kevin, the label, the sound techs – I don’t give a shit. But Cassie … for some stupid reason, I crave her validation like my next breath.
“Yes, it’s the perfect opening. It’s cheeky, it’s suggestive. ‘The bed of lies.’ God, I love that. It almost hints at…” Cassie snaps her mouth shut abruptly and sits back, like she needs distance from me.
“What?” I prompt.
“I don’t want to sound silly. They’re your lyrics. I don’t want to assume.”
“Look at me, Cassie,” I say, gesturing down the length of my body with my hand. “People have been making assumptions about me since I could walk. At least you have my fucking permission to do so.”
“Well, the bed of lies … It sounds like her lover is fighting with herself about…about how she feels. And yet to everyone else, they will think the bed of lies is the bed she shares with the man because he’s cheating.”
“Exactly.” A wide smile pushes my cheeks up.
“But the she,” Cassie says, her eyes glazing over. “Her lover … the she in this situation…is me.” Her voice shrinks as the words leave her lips. Something dawns on her, something clearly uncomfortable, and I’m instantly compelled to do something, say something to bring back her smile.
“It’s not really,” I say. “We’re performing, remember.”
“No.” Cassie shakes out her hair, and her eyes come back to me, but they’re still too glossy, too empty for my liking. “I’m telling you. That she is me. I’m the one living a lie.”
“Oh, we all live lies. That’s what they want us to do. They don’t want any of us women to live our truth because then all hell would break loose.” I deliver this flippantly, with a wave of my hand and probably too much enthusiasm, but it doesn’t seem to affect Cassie.
“You don’t,” she levels at me, and I don’t know how she manages to make it sound like both an accusation and like praise. “You live your truth.”
I swallow before I speak. “Yeah, and look where that got me – singing a godawful song with my biggest rival.”
That brings her back to herself as giggles erupt out of her. She brings a hand to her mouth, as if to catch them, and I wish she wouldn’t do that. I wish she wouldn’t hide her pretty face or her joy from me.
This frustration with her feels a lot more familiar and comfortable than whatever just happened between us, and so I decide to put whatever I felt a few seconds ago behind me. We need to get this song done, record it tomorrow, and then move on with our lives.
It’s just a happy bonus that I get to fuck with bigots while doing so.
“Okay, your turn,” I tell her as I reach for the bottle of vodka she’s been neglecting.
“Right, yeah, okay,” she stammers. Her chest expands with a deep breath, and then she opens her mouth and she sings.
Black hair, thin dark stare
You look good trying not to care.
Big lies, wry little smile,
I've known about you for the longest while.
If my voice has power and rage and force, her voice is made of grace and peace and pure calm.
It washes over me like a warm wave, leaving me feeling like I’m floating on each note.
I am full of gratitude that she’s close enough I can hear her clearly and that her voice sounds so perfectly pitched, despite my shitty, shitty ears.
I’m so carried away with just the sound of her voice, I don’t properly hear the words she’s saying.
Or maybe, that’s my bad ear giving me hell again.
“Sing it again,” I demand without explanation, and I turn my body so that my better ear is facing her.
She does as she’s told, with only a brief look of confusion, and I try to ignore how her obedience makes me feel.
This time I’m focusing on the lyrics, but I’m still not unmoved by the delicate tone of her voice.
“What do you think?” she asks a few seconds after she stops.