Chapter Twenty-Six
Rehearsal went surprisingly smoothly, once they finally got down to it.
Playing the song in this new way got her excited about it in a way she felt like she hadn’t been in years—not that she didn’t appreciate the song, because she always had.
But it was their biggest hit, and a more standard love ballad, unlike the faster, more punk-inspired songs that had filled the rest of their albums. There’d been a time when she’d been embarrassed by the fact that it was the one the band was the most known for, when it was the least like their other songs. It was almost painfully sincere.
But playing it like this with John, actually strumming the chords, singing along to it together…it made her realize that it was just a beautiful fucking song. She was proud of it. She was proud of what it had meant to people, what it meant to her .
And she loved hearing John sing. He didn’t have the range to trace the higher harmony the way Ryder had, but he had a nice falsetto, which made him actually blush when she told him that.
In the end, he sang the chorus straight-on, the way she always would’ve performed it, and then she took the higher parts.
It opened her up to do more with that part of the song—add a few little vocalizations and runs, leaning into her pop background a bit. It was different. It was a lot of fun.
They finally broke for dinner way after they probably should’ve, both too focused on the work to register that they were hungry until they were full-on into If I don’t get food I’m going to be sick territory.
They spread out the contents of the cooler on the stage and ate in silence for the first few minutes, their only priority getting to a point where they felt more human again.
“This feels like a date,” Micah said at last, reaching for the container of fruit so she didn’t have to see John’s reaction to that. “We did things a little backward, maybe. But here we are having a picnic. I don’t know, it just feels a bit like a date.”
He was in the middle of chewing, so there was an awkward beat where he didn’t respond, and she thought maybe she’d spoken out of turn. But then he swallowed, wiping at the corner of his mouth with a napkin.
“I was definitely thinking of this like a date,” he said. “Feels weird to have our first date be a working one, I know, but. If I’d had more time, I would’ve done this picnic right—gotten us a blanket and some flowers or something.”
She liked the idea of John planning things out to that level. “Well, second date,” she said.
He raised his eyebrows at that, and she popped a grape in her mouth, letting him think about it for a minute.
“Last night?” he asked.
“I mean, I ordered all that food,” she said. “That took some effort! And sitting out on the balcony, looking over the water— come on, the vibes were right . I didn’t have any expectation about how the night would end, but I definitely had my hopes.”
He laughed. “I had no expectations or hopes,” he said. “Maybe we should try having a date where we actually both know we’re on one.”
“Let’s start now,” she said, leaning back on her hands to look at him.
He was so familiar to her, so John , but she tried to see him as she might if he was just some guy she’d made it to a second date with.
She’d think he was hot—that mess of curly dark hair, those deep brown eyes, the soft pillow of his lower lip.
She’d fixate on the way his forearms flexed every time he reached for something, she’d wonder when he’d reach for her .
“What do you do, John? What are you into?”
“Oh no,” he said. “Not those questions.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, “what else do you lead with on a date? We’re in our early thirties; the ‘What do you do?’ question is inevitable.”
“You’re right,” he said. “I just dread it. Uh, I play guitar in a couple bands. And no, they’re no one you would’ve heard of, unless you’ve spent time around Union Hall in Lakeland.”
“Have you played guitar in any bands I would’ve heard of?”
He rubbed the back of his neck, and she could tell that, all joking aside, this line of questioning was making him a little uncomfortable. Which was interesting, given that of course she already knew the answers.
“This is where I would say I don’t know, what bands have you heard of?
” he said. “And then let you list a bunch that I could say no to before you give up. That’s only if you haven’t Googled me beforehand, in which case then usually I try to dodge a bunch of questions about what happened to the band, why we broke up, et cetera, because I never know if it’ll end up in a Reddit thread somewhere later. ”
“Why don’t you just say you were in ElectricOh!,” Micah said. “It’s not bragging or admitting something bad. It’s a fact about you. As much a fact as saying you play in the Knock-Offspring.”
“Well, I try not to admit that , either,” he said, “because I can’t keep a straight face.
And I never liked talking about ElectricOh!
with random people. It felt like such a long time ago.
It felt like it had nothing to do with who I was anymore.
And yet it has everything to do with who I am now, there’s something about it that’s… ”
“Too personal? Vulnerable?”
He nodded. “And sacred, too. Something I want to hold to myself, and not share with anyone else.”
That made sense. Micah had also never liked talking about the band with anyone, although she was rarely in a situation where someone didn’t know about that part of her past. She had a few glib jokes prepared that she would make about the band’s breakup, and then she’d find a way to change the subject.
“What about you?” he asked. “What do you do?”
He was right. The question was awful—she had no idea why everyone still used it as an opening gambit on an early date.
Maybe knowing someone’s job told you a lot about them as a person, how they spent their time, what they were good at, how they earned their living.
But maybe it didn’t tell you anything except whatever rut they were currently stuck in.
“Just coasting on royalties, baby,” she said, waggling her eyebrows.
John frowned. “Wait, is that really what you say?”
“Why not? It’s true.”
“It sounds…”
“Like I’m a lazy, privileged person with no purpose in life?
Like I’m a failure, a washed-up has-been still reaping the benefits from her glory days?
Like I’m an anxious-depressive quasi-recluse who stays up all night, sleeps all day, and then gets my groceries delivered because I don’t know if I want to deal with leaving my apartment? ”
“I was going to say reductive .” John looked at her, and she wished she hadn’t said any of that.
It was way too revealing—not what she would’ve said on a second date with anyone , and not what she wanted to say on a second date with John, who’d been practically beaming at her all evening, making her feel like her ability to transition smoothly from one chord to another made her some kind of guitar god.
Micah, that is fucking tight, he’d said to her at one point, and even the memory sent a pulse to her core.
“You know what happened with your career isn’t your fault, right?” he asked.
She rolled her eyes. “It is very explicitly my fault,” she said.
“I was in a successful band, which I blew up. And then I had the hubris to think anyone wanted a solo album out of me. So Much Wasted Promise. That should’ve been the name of it.
The songs got warped so much in the studio that they barely felt like mine by the time they were done, and then I had to tour with them.
I would read all these terrible reviews and comments on the internet, and then I’d put on my costume and my makeup and go out on the stage and try to pretend I didn’t agree with half the shit those people wrote. ”
“But that’s the machine, though,” John said.
“The songs got warped because record labels don’t give a fuck about what you’re trying to say , they care about making money.
If they think a dance beat will get you more radio play, then they’ll slap a dance beat on it and who cares if it fits the song or not.
If their algorithms push songs with heart in the title, bam, suddenly every single song is heart heart heart . ”
“I know,” she said. “But good songs come out every day—music that people can be proud of, that still manage to sell records. So it is possible—I just couldn’t do it.”
“But they didn’t even give you a chance ,” John said.
“Stars are not made based solely on talent and hard work, I promise you that. If that were the case, I could name about a million people who should have the career that Adam Levine has had. Record labels decide who they want to try to break out, and then they push to break them out. Those people work hard and have talent, too; I’m not trying to take away from that.
But they also get that push, and you never got that.
The label got you a producer who wrote a few cookie-cutter hooks, rushed the album out, scheduled a limited tour, landed you a single magazine placement and one late-night show performance, all so they could say they’d done it.
And then they washed their hands of you. None of that was your fault.”
Micah realized she’d been holding the same strawberry in her hand for the last five minutes, but she just found it impossible to eat. She didn’t know how she’d swallow around the lump in her throat.
“So many people would kill for the opportunities I got,” she said. “So many other people would’ve done more with them than I did.”