CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO COEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
COEN
Mason shows up about thirty minutes after Sabrina and Jamie leave. If he weren’t already on his way, I’d ask to reschedule. There was something about the way she walked out of the studio that I don’t like. Her head was down, like she was trying to conceal her face. Did Jamie say something to her?
Is he trying to scare her off?
I don’t have time to kick it around, because someone opens the door and knocks.
“Hey,” Mason calls.
I stride down the hallway. Mason is young, about twenty-two, with a lot of potential.
He’s got the folk thing down. Sad eyes, messy hair, a flannel on at all times.
There’s a wave of indie folk coming in the next few years, a kind of throwback era I predict is going to take off in the newer generation.
I have no doubt Mason is going to be one of the top names.
“Hey, nice to see you again,” I say, shaking his head.
“Thanks for saving my ass,” he says.
“Yeah,” I say, leading the way back to the studio. “I don’t mind. I get it. We’ve almost all been there.”
“I swear I didn’t rip his shit off.”
“I know. There’s only so many ways to write a song. Eventually, you're gonna get the same thing, especially with how concentrated the influences are. Everyone’s hearing the same things online. It’s normal.”
“Yeah, I guess,” he says, sinking down on the couch. “I think for the next album, I’m gonna have my agent take my phone the entire time I'm in the studio. No influences, nothing.”
“Sometimes, that can be worse.” I sit at the keyboard. “You need to be semi-aware of the market so you don’t step on anyone’s toes.”
“Jesus, you can’t win.”
“No, you can’t. That’s why you have me, and I’ve got you on this.”
I don’t toss him the notebook. It has my songs in it, and I’m a little sensitive about those right now, especially considering I had Sabrina on my mind and against my body while writing every single one. Instead, I set it up on the keyboard.
“Alright, let’s get to work.”
It takes a good couple hours for him to hear what I have and get an idea of the sound I’m going for.
Then, we start finessing it. Mason keeps shaking his head, like he can’t believe it.
That feels good. People used to have that reaction more, before I had so much work and less time to spend on it.
Before I was ghostwriting more than producing.
The door opens. I glance up as Jamie walks in.
Wait a moment. My hands fall still on the keyboard.
“Where’s Sabrina?”
He makes this face, one I know so well. It always comes before bad news. Standing, I cross the room.
“Where is she?” I demand, voice low.
“She asked me to take her to the airport. Wanted to go see her mom.”
Confusion hits me hard. Did I do something wrong? She seemed fine earlier today. Hell, we slept together, and she was more than happy. Did I say something? I scramble, trying to remember if I said something to hurt her feelings. I don’t think I did. I’ve been so careful with her this entire time.
“What the fuck?” I say.
Jamie steps into the hall, and I go with him, feeling Mason’s concerned gaze follow us. Jamie puts his hands on his hips.
“I told her you hadn’t written anything this good in a decade,” he says.
He doesn’t have to tell me that. I already know.
“You tell her that was because of her?”
“I didn’t have to.”
Jamie is usually the person I reach for when I need a levelheaded opinion.
I can’t believe he just took her to the airport without saying a word to me.
I can’t tell if I’m hurt or angry or both.
Either way, this is going to be one of those rare moments between us where it gets ugly.
He kind of fucking deserves it right now.
“You don’t want me with her,” I snap.
“I didn’t,” he admits. “But that was because Bill called me.”
“Bill has his head so far up his ass because he couldn’t keep his dick in his pants twenty years ago,” I bark. “That’s got nothing to do with me.”
Jamie folds his hands and puts them on his head, pacing back and forth. Clearly, he knows about the cheating, because he doesn’t ask me what I mean.
“What does this look like?” he says finally.
“What?”
“You and her? You gonna go live on the ranch?”
I shrug. “Maybe. You gonna stop me?”
His boots are wearing holes in the floor. I can tell he’s fighting some internal turmoil. Good. Nobody challenges Jamie because he’s so fucking good at what he does. Hell, I rarely question him. This might be the first time I’ve put up this much resistance.
“You were supposed to break for the summer,” he says finally.
I’m at a loss for words for a moment. “What if I don’t want this anymore?” I say.
Is that true? The words hang so heavy in the air, we’re forced to sit with them and process.
Jamie puts a hand on his hip, running the other hand over his face.
What would it look like if I retired? Told everyone to write their own fucking music, shuttered the Nashville studio, and went the fuck somewhere else?
It’d be headline news, and my phone would be ringing off the hook from production companies trying to convince me otherwise.
“Is that what you want?” Jamie asks, voice softening.
I shake my head. “I don’t know, man. I don’t know.
But I do know I can’t keep doing what I did for the last decade and a half.
There’s…there’s nothing left of me. If you asked me, hey, Coen, what do you do for fun, I wouldn’t have an answer.
I don’t have anything outside of this…all this work.
And I love it, I fucking do. I don’t want to never write again.
But I can’t do this shit anymore, not like this. ”
He lifts both hands. “I get it,” he says.
“Do you?” I take a step closer. “I know your shit is hard, but my shit is different.”
“I know. Creative shit is different.”
I do a loop of the hall again, mostly because I feel like a caged animal. “I can’t fucking keep squeezing my brain like a tube of fucking toothpaste every time someone puts a dollar in and asks for a song. There’s nothing in there, man. I got fucking nothing right now.”
He crosses the room, stopping my pacing. Up close, his eyes are serious.
“Hey, I hear you,” he says.
That strikes a chord. I don’t want him to say he understands. He doesn’t. I want him to hear what I’m trying to say. All I do is write endless words, and it still feels like nobody ever hears what I’m saying. I inhale, hold, and release, just like I was taught in therapy.
Jamie puts his hands on his hips and looks down at the floor, thinking.
“You don’t have nothing,” he says finally.
“What?”
“You have something really good. I read your shit for Mason. And for yourself.”
He doesn’t have to tell me that. I know, but I don’t know what that means for my future. It would be easier if nothing had come out of my head the entire trip. Then, I could throw in the towel and call myself a one hit wonder.
“You’re really fucking good,” Jamie says. “You have a talent, beyond anybody I’ve worked with, both before and after we met.”
I jerk my head. I’ve never been comfortable with compliments.
“And I think you should go on hiatus.”
What? I lift my head, unsure how to respond. I was expecting him to figure out any way he could to get me not to walk away for a while.
“Why?” I force out.
“Because,” he says, “you’re a really good writer. But you’re also my friend.”
Neither of us speak for a few minutes. Scattered on the floor around us are all the pieces of the last decade or so together.
Sometimes, I wish we could go back to how we were back then.
Young, dumb, and so hungry, it felt like seeing the sun rising in the dark to come to this city.
I was on cloud nine. I was the shit back then.
Hell, so was Jamie. And then, the reality, the pressure, locked in.
Now, here we are, older and tired.
I always told myself I wouldn’t let the industry get to me. In the end, it got me all the same.
And I need out. I need to get in my car or board a plane and go until I feel like a person again. If that takes me all the way to Wyoming, to her doorstep, then that’s where I’m meant to be.
Sabrina.
“Fuck,” I say, running a hand over my face. “I need to go.”
“I thought you might,” he says, reaching into his back pocket. He takes out a ticket. “I already booked the plane to New York for you. Go on, get your girl.”
I take it. There’s a lump in my throat. A weight lifts from my shoulders, and it leaves behind a great emptiness.
But it’s not a bad emptiness. It’s like someone unhooked a heavy leash from around my neck, and suddenly, I’m free to go where I choose, to be anything I can imagine.
The world feels the biggest it’s ever been.
“Actually, can you do me a favor?” I ask. “After you get Mason out of here and set up a meeting to finish this project?”
“Sure thing,” he says. “Hit me.”