Chapter 6 #2
“It’s okay,” she says, far too casually, like her body hasn’t been turned inside out by the kiss we just shared.
And yet, there is comfort in what she says, so much so that I don’t hold back what I want to do, which is laugh.
Giggles bubble up my throat and out of my mouth, and they have me leaning back in my chair, a hand at my lips as if that will stop them. But it won’t. No way.
Pia frowns at me. And then she smiles and laughs too.
“What’s so funny?”
“This…” I try, but my chuckles slow me down. “Us. It’s…”
“Unexpected?” Pia offers, her own laughter a diluted version of my own.
“Yes, but…” I clear my throat and try to compose myself. “Imagine if they knew. Imagine if they knew we’d just kissed.”
Some unreadable expression flits over Pia’s face. It’s something I’ve never seen there before, but just as quickly as it lands, it’s gone, and she’s all hard edges and cunning smirk again.
“Do you want them to know?”
That question promptly stops my laughter. “No, of course not, that would be…”
I don’t have the words for what that would be. No good ones, anyway.
That blank look returns to Pia’s features, and then she promptly stands up, reaches over the table, grabs her lighter and Marlboros and heads to the window.
When she pulls back the yellowed polyester drapes, bright California sunshine floods in, blinding me immediately.
But Pia stands facing it, barely squinting.
She purses her lips around the lit cigarette in her mouth and pulls in a drag so deeply it expands her chest.
“Did I…” I stop talking and get up. I don’t get close to her, not really, but I take a tentative step in her direction. “Did I say something wrong?”
For a long moment, I think she’s just going to ignore me, and I start to wonder if I imagined everything that just happened. Her kiss. Her fingertips pushing against my flesh. The way she tastes of smoke and booze and pure possibility.
But then she speaks.
“No,” she sighs. “You didn’t say anything wrong. I’m just…”
She turns to look at me. The sun’s glow bathes her skin in shades of orange and gold and her eyes have never looked lighter. Or sadder.
I open my mouth to ask her what’s wrong, but she drops eye contact and returns to the desk.
“Come on,” she grabs the pen. “We need to finish this song.”
“Oh,” I say, not moving. “Okay.”
“Seriously,” Pia says, looking up at me from under that heavy fringe. “I don’t exactly want to be here all day and all night. And I’m sure you don’t either.”
Something flips in my stomach as I realise that that’s actually exactly what I want. But before I can answer–whether it would be with honesty or not–Pia continues talking.
“So there are three mentions of ‘him’ or a man that we need to get rid of, but also, at the same time, not make it obvious that that’s what we’ve done.”
“Right,” I say as I sit. I notice then that Pia has moved her chair away from mine.
“The first line is easy.” Pia’s pen starts to scrawl feverishly. “‘What I want is to know my love is true.’ That’s better than ‘What I want is for him to be true.’”
“Much better,” I agree, and I watch as Pia writes, each word spaced out more than usual. She’s still writing with my reading problems in mind. My … dyslexia.
Dyslexia. It’s not a new word and not even a new condition. I know of it. But what I know of it isn’t … good. It’s what difficult kids have, kids that don’t progress or thrive or make much of themselves. It’s what you call kids that don’t have much hope.
And yet, that’s not how Pia talked about it.
She spoke about dyslexia, and her brother having it, like it was just a fact of life, like it was a condition he had, not a curse.
The way she explained that there were things I could do to make it easier to read.
The way she didn’t judge me on any level at all.
The way, even now, when I’ve obviously done something to upset her, she’s still trying to help me.
“The next line,” I speak up. “The next line needs a big change. Because she doesn’t want to be rid of the other woman.
She wants her,” I say, and it’s only after those last three words are out of my mouth and dancing between Pia and me that I realise how weighty they really are.
I quickly continue to avoid drawing attention to them.
“What about: ‘What I want is to stop feeling so blue.’”
“Yes, okay, that works.” Pia continues to write. “In their song, she’s blue because her man is cheating, but in our song she’s blue because she can’t have her, the woman she wants.”
Clearly, the way I’m reading into these lyrics is a problem unique to me, because Pia seems only focused on the song. Meanwhile, I feel like we’re suddenly writing something close to the story of my life.
No, our song. She called it our love song.
“Let’s swap out ‘man’ for ‘love’ again,” I say. “In the next line.”
“Yes,” she says, and although she doesn’t look up, doesn’t give me anything, I’m pretty sure I detected a lift in her voice, and I’m going to focus on that. I’m going to cling to it like it’s a rock in a choppy sea. That and the memory of her warm lips against mine.
“What I want,” I sing, making sure it works. “Is a love that’s only mine.”
Before I stop singing, Pia’s head is up, and her dark eyes are on me. She studies me like I’m somebody she’s never seen before. I feel a little exposed, like she can see under my clothes. Or maybe even deeper than that.
“Is that what you want?” she asks me slowly.
“What?” I ask, confused.
“Do you want a love that’s only yours?”
“I was just singing the line, from the song, checking if it works,” I mumble.
“I know.” She smiles, but it’s not kind or happy even. It’s a thin line with a sharp edge. “But is it what you want?”
I huff out an empty laugh, trying to soften the atmosphere between us, but of course, it doesn’t work with Pia. “Isn’t that what everyone wants?” I ask her, and it sounds like a challenge back at her.
I brace myself for the full force of her retort or dismissal or maybe an insult for good measure.
Because of course a love that’s only hers isn’t a priority for Pia Lindberg.
What she wants is to change the world with her music.
What she wants is to be the most famous rockstar in the world–male or female.
What Pia wants is a sell-out world tour.
What Pia wants is to have a top five album–not of this year or next year, but of all time.
What Pia wants is to show the world she doesn’t need anybody, that she is not only an independent woman in all senses of the word, but that she is a woman not to be fucked with.
But Pia doesn’t reply to me. At least not by speaking. Instead, she tilts her head up, her chin slightly extended, like it often is when she’s performing, like she’s challenging the world to stand up and listen. And then she starts to sing.
“What I want,” she begins, staring at me, “is you for the rest of time.”
My breath halts. She’s teasing me. No, taunting me.
“No, that’s … that’s,” I stutter. “That’s too much. Too obvious.”
“Is it?” she says, feigning innocence.
“We should just say, ‘What I want is that for the rest of time.’”
“You think so?”
“Yes, the rest of the song has been directed at the other woman. If we then just outright say ‘I want you for the rest of time’…that’s like far too obvious.”
“Hmm,” Pia says, but she dutifully writes the last line and, after a second or two, I see she writes it as I suggest.
And I don’t know why, but I feel a wave of disappointment wash over me.