11. Evelyn
11
Evelyn
“ M om said that you’re on vacation.” The upper half of my brother’s body fills my phone screen. I have the device propped between my knees as I sit with my back pressed to the bed's carved headboard. Drew is a big guy, not just tall but also broad. Black ink tattoos clutter his arms. He also religiously uses his home gym. But he’s a big softy. And while we both have green eyes and brown hair; he inherited all the introverted genes from our parents.
Jazz plays in the background as he cooks, not quite covering the sound of Garrett on the piano downstairs. I meant what I said. It should be illegal to look that good doing something traditionally done by bespectacled older men.
“You mean she managed to make my vacation your problem,” I say. It’s classic Mom. I bet she called him the moment I told her about my trip and then a second time when I arrived. It’s another reason I let her put her hands all over my life.
It’s our natural order. I “mess up.” They call Drew. And we get to pretend we’re healthy communicators. I think sometimes I do things just so they will call him, just so we have to all talk.
“Just asking if you actually were where you said you are.” His eyes, framed by thick eyebrows, flick up to the camera.
“I go to London one time and it ruins everything!” I throw my arms up, rocking my body so my back hits the carved headboard. It’s a mistake because it causes my head to throb. No more tequila for the next month at least.
Okay, maybe for the next week.
“I think it was the food poisoning that ruined everything.”
The trip I took at eighteen with Quinn and Oliver during the spring break of our freshman year would have been fine if I didn’t get food poisoning. We were still getting to know each other and when I said I felt like I was dying they panicked and called my family.
“My body is a traitor,” I say. “Can I ask something?”
“Only if you take off the sunglasses.”
“Fine,” I grumble. If I had it my way, I wouldn’t have to look him in the eye while I asked this. “Do you ever miss music?” I wish it was a sisterly question instead of something sparked from my own desire for self-preservation. To be Lyla, or to walk away. Those are my options and neither of them feels right. When I consider my possible futures a pit forms in my stomach.
“Where did that come from?” he asks, thankfully without a hint of hurt.
“I ran into Garrett and it got me thinking,” I explain. A handy distortion of the truth.
“Yeah, I do. All the time. But I’m not in my twenties anymore. I kinda miss it the same way you wish you could watch your favorite show for the first time. You know?” He shrugs.
“I guess,” I say. I do my best to act like his answer doesn’t affect me, but a wave of nerves threatens to pull me under.
“It’s not that bad, anymore.”
“But you’re ok?” I ask. I always want to. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I wake up and type out a text before I know what I’m doing then end up deleting it, only to send it in the morning.
His expression softens as he indulges my question. “Yeah. I am.”
The words set something in the back of my mind at ease. He’s ok.
We talk a while longer until he’s finished cooking. His girlfriend, Lacey, pops into the kitchen and says hello. Right now, she’s helping him run his bar but she’s also a brilliant sports photographer and frankly a bit of a badass. When they hang up, I start scrolling through my phone going back through old headlines, reminding myself exactly what’s at stake.
A knock sounds at the door, followed by a rough, “Hey. I’m finished.”
“Thank you!” I call out.
“Come downstairs and play to check the piano.”
“I bet it’s fine.” I’m going to be stuck with him anyway, we might as well get a break from each other while we still can.
“I don’t want you to have another reason to hold a grudge against me.”
“My grudge is completely justified!” Though, with everything else going on I don’t really care about the move anymore.
“If you’re too hungover just admit it.”
His goading gets me. “Fine. I’m getting up, but only because if it’s still out of tune I want to see what your face looks like when Mr. Perfect didn’t do it right.”
“If that’s what it takes,” he says.
I haul myself off the bed and to the door. I swing it open to find him haunting my hallway, amber eyes twinkling with arrogance. His arms are crossed over his chest, biceps pressing against the fabric of his plain T-shirt. Screw him for having the audacity to look so good while I feel like shit.
I rush past him and down the stairs. If he wants me to check the piano, then I’ll check the damn piano as fast as I can. My ass is on the bench before he’s in the living room. I run up and down the keys in a chromatic scale to test each tone. Really, I barely pay attention to the sound.
“There,” I say. “It’s perfect. You can go now.”
“Going to write while I’m gone?” he asks, like he actually cares.
“No, I'm going to rot on my couch until I lose all perception of time.”
“I could stay.” I must make a face that displays the depth of my confusion because he adds, “I told you I’d help you. I’m already here. Neither of us have anything else going on.”
Correction—I would like to pretend my problems don’t exist while I finish my box of cereal.
Instead of responding I pull out my phone and tap away. His chimes and he pulls it from his pocket.
“‘Garrett, did you get a lobotomy?’ Seriously?” he says, mouth pulling tight as he reads off the name of the event I invited him to.
“I want to know. It’s the only reason you’d go out of your way to spend time with me.”
“If I did, life would be far less complicated.”
“Well, you got the invite, don’t leave me hanging,” I urge him, punctuating my words with a nod. A chime sounds from my phone this time, indicating his acceptance of the invite.
“What have you gotten started with?” he asks expectantly as he settles on the couch closest to me.
“It should be a love song.” Embarrassingly enough, that’s all I’ve got. Love songs are why I came here. They sell and are what I am—well, was— good at. Maybe If I had more time to prepare I’d have something better.
“Play something for me,” he prompts. I hesitate and he continues. “I’m not asking you to perform. Just show me what you’ve been playing with.”
I don’t want to. It would be like stripping naked here in the living room.
Growing up, piano practice was the one time I felt like I could be quiet, like I didn’t need to use words to justify the air I was breathing. It was a bit of a language too, the one way I felt like I could communicate with my family that I never messed up. Drew would be in the garage practicing a groove on his drums and I’d play in the living room with its plush cream carpet, couches with red slipcovers, and the windows that overlooked mom’s garden. We’d play completely different songs but depending on our selections, we knew exactly how the other was feeling. It would be similar if Mom put in one of her opera CDs, the entire mood in the house would change based on her selection.
When Drew pulled away it felt a little like I lost someone to have a conversation with. I remember right before I left for college I would play and play and play so the house felt less quiet, but even with all the music I never felt like I managed to do it for my parents or for myself. I want to be able to be understood like that with someone again.
“Fine,” I say, then swallow as I spin away from him to face the piano. I steal myself. It’s just Garrett. He doesn’t give a shit either way.
With one last breath I play a concept I have for a bridge humming along as I go because words have been evading me recently. It has a swing to it, leaning into the feel of Jazz Standards.
“Stop.” His voice cuts through the room before I’m done.
“What?” I demand.
His jaw ticks and his eyebrows shoot up in that stupid fucking expression. “Don’t pull something like that and waste both of our time.”
“I’m not.”
“And that’s why you played a version of ‘Tell Me Everything’ slowed down,” he says, referencing one of my more upbeat songs from my first album. What’s worse is that he’s right and I didn’t even notice.
“You’ve listened to my music?” I ask.
“Professional courtesy.”
“Fantastic.” I roll my eyes, because there’s no other reason Garrett would go out of his way to listen to pop hits.
“Are you going to take this seriously?”
“I am. I’m stuck, okay!” I don’t mean to shout but my frustration, everything I’ve been keeping to myself for over a year now, rushes out of me.
“Do you want to write?” Garrett runs a hand through his hair, ruffling the perfect strands before they fall back into place.
“Well, I wasn’t planning on it. But I guess I need to.”
“That’s the problem.”
“That I need to write this album? I have a contract and a release date and millions of people who need me to. You invited yourself to stay and help, so help.” A simmering feeling starts in my chest.
“Do you want to do it? Do you feel that tug like a chord is pulling you to the piano?” he asks, prompting a phantom sensation to pluck at my heart.
“Not anymore.”
His eyes soften. “We’re going to spend tonight getting on the same page. I’m not going to help you write until you find something you want to write about. I’m not going to help you try and force something you’ll hate. I’m not getting anywhere near that. I don’t need you blaming me,” he says. “Have you ever collaborated with someone before?”
“No.”
Avery has offered, and of course, she’s suggested working with Drew, but I’ve been hesitant to overlap those parts of my life. Bringing someone in on that level opens the door for disagreements that you can’t come back from. There’s something deeply personal about art, where it’s hard to not interpret criticism as an attack. I don’t want to ever push the few people I have close to me away over something I’ve always been good with doing on my own.
Another part of it is keeping my team small. The fewer people who know I’m Lyla West, the better. It’s not like I can go and collaborate with people I don’t trust on a whim, no matter how talented they are.
“I’m not saying we do nothing tonight. I’m saying we lay the foundation. I told you I’d help if you helped me. So let me.” His voice softens with…God, is that pity? “I want to help you, Evelyn.”
“How do I know what you’re saying is going to work? What if it’s a waste of time? It’s not like what you wrote for Fool’s Gambit is the same as what I’m doing now,” I say, scrambling for a justification to stay in motion.
“I’m not promising it will work. But obviously, what you’re getting at now isn’t working so maybe it’s worth trying.”
“As if you’re still an expert. The last time you wrote a song was ten years ago,” I remind him.
“Trust me,” he says, voice lowering to a rumble. “I’ve gotten better with age.”
The words skitter up my spine. Sure, there were moments growing up that I might have had something close to a crush on him, but that makes me no different than millions of other people back then. Being in such consistent proximity with him has been a reminder of why, despite his icy exterior, he’s hard not to look at. Even now he takes up space like it belongs to him, as if I’m the guest here imposing on his evening.
“Fine,” I agree. “But I want to know something too. Why did you stop playing, why did you become a lawyer and give up?”
I feel exposed talking to him about my music. If I can peel back some of his layers, then maybe I’ll feel like I’m not the only one.
“I didn’t give up.” He all but spits the words.
“Sure. You just walked away.”
“Fine. I’ll tell you why I quit if you tell me how you started,” he bargains.
"You have yourself a deal. I was visiting Avery in the Hamptons for a long weekend a bit over five years ago. She was on deadline and we were mostly just messing around,” I start. It was a good vacation. We’d lived in our swimsuits and cover ups dancing through every moment making us feel like we were in a golden age rom-com. It was the last night of vacation after she’d put off recording until the end of the week. I was at the piano while she was draped across it in her best impression of a jazz lounge singer. “One night we set up recording equipment so we could send demos to her agent. I guess we left the recorder on, and I sat down and played something for her. I was always writing things back then and I only had this cheap keyboard in my apartment and the piano at the house was just so nice I couldn’t resist,” I explain as I glance at my own piano, the one I bought after I signed my contract and got my advance. “She edited my portion and sent it to her connections. She kept my name out of it because she knew I would never want to get something just because of being associated with Fool’s Gambit. I told her no for, like, three months before I sat down and really thought about it.”
“And you decided to be Lyla,” Garrett states more than asks.
“Yeah. Even if I wanted to make music, it felt like if my career was starting while Drew’s was still floundering and he was struggling with everything, it would just be cruel. He’s doing really well, you know. He’s got a therapist and is using his support system. He’s happy,” I remind myself, even though I just talked to him and he was fine. I’m no better than my parents, worrying over something I can’t control. “With my parents…I think they blame themselves and the industry.”
I’d come home and overhear them fighting sometimes when he stopped picking up their calls. My parents fought before that, sure. But it was over stupid things that never made them seem like fights, movie captions or if one of them finished a crossword without the other. I was never worried their love story would end.
With Drew, they were fighting to understand something they were never taught to openly discuss. They rarely volunteer information about the mental costs of their immigration to the United States, but from what they’ve shared, I know it wasn’t easy. They likely experienced their own forms of depression, but thought of it as a natural price for the life they were building.
I did what I could. I stayed nearby for school because that’s what they wanted. I put up with their constant check-ins and questions because I knew they were more out of worry than anything else, like if they didn’t I would slip away. I worked at school for the first time in my life with the help of Quinn and Oliver. I felt good pulling my weight to keep things lighter. I liked knowing that I did that for them. I never had any problems I couldn’t fix on my own, and I was happy, so happy, all the time and made sure they could see it. I made sure they didn’t need to worry about me when there were more important things going on.
Garrett leans back against the couch and crosses one leg over the other. “So you got the best of both?”
“Or as much of both as I could.” It was less about me and more about everyone else. If I juggled both, I could keep everything stable. Though lately it's felt like I've been trying to juggle bowling balls that have also been lit on fire.
I wouldn’t be dragging all the people I cared about into a media circus. I could have my normal life with Quinn and Oliver. My parents would be satisfied and not stressed.
“Now what?” Garrett asks.
“Hmm?”
“What’s holding you back from going public now?”
Sharing how I got here is one thing. The rest? I doubt I’ll ever tell anyone because if I did I know they wouldn’t be able to look at me the same. “I told you I’d tell you how I got started, not the rest. Your turn.”
“I was always going to quit,” he explains. “The plan was once I got into law school I'd leave, even if the rest of the band kept going. That was the only reason I agreed to try in the first place.”
“Music was what? The equivalent to a gap year to you?” He had every right to make that choice for his life but I can’t grasp why he’s so disconnected from something that consumes me. Or maybe I’m jealous that he could walk away when I couldn’t.
“It was practical. Don’t sound shocked that I chose security.” A defensive edge sharpens his voice. “The band breaking up around the same time was a coincidence, really. I made the deal I’d quit when I was ready to go to law school with Wes. Drew and Jared didn’t know. I’d appreciate it if you keep it that way.”
I’ve had this feeling since I first saw him here. It’s like I’ve been reading my favorite book, one that I know front to back and could quote at the drop of a hat, but then I find that two of the pages are stuck together. I haven’t been able to pull them apart but I know whatever is there is integral to the story, like it will be a different story entirely if I can read them.
It was easy to assume Garrett quit because he thought he was above a career in music, that he had to prove that he was the most accomplished person in any room. Now I’m starting to question if that’s the truth or if that was just a simple explanation that he allowed everyone to believe.
I want to see between the pages, but I know if I pull too fast and ignore how delicate the paper is, it will tear and I will never know the truth.
“Do you miss it?” I ask.
“Yes. But even the best songs always end.”