Chapter 2 #2
Harmony tucked a stray section of hair behind her ear. “I’m sorry that I haven’t actually talked to you before, working in the same building and everything.”
That was nice of her to say, considering we have different managers, A it’s strange to see her needing reassurance.
But of course I’m not a great example of being the same in private as I am in public either.
“I do,” I assure her. “You have a way of writing that captivates people. Not just the melodies but the words. Like, ’I can't say it, you're my air, but even when you stay it’s like you’re not really there.
’ Simple phrases but they’ve got that internal rhyming that makes them punchy.
Or ‘The earth is silent and gray, the edge of your seat begins to fray, and you wait, you overcompensate, you try to defy gravity but it's too late.’”
Now she full-on smiles. “You like that one?”
“I’d be lying if I said I could remember the name of it—I only remember it was on The Harmony Project—but yes. That one especially stuck out to me.”
Part of me wonders if she knows any of my songs, but then I think about my biggest hits and I realize I’d prefer she never heard of them.
If I’m lucky, maybe she hasn’t. Anything that’s really “me” didn’t make it onto my albums. The few that I’m somewhat proud of got mixed in ways I didn’t care for.
The rest are based on prompts my label gave me.
“Grind My Gears” was literally a joke—me writing the most country thing I could think of, in a mocking way—but they loved it and ran with it.
“I really … appreciate that,” Harmony says. “That song means a lot to me.”
“Yeah?”
She nods, then turns to observe the trickle of the waterfall, fiddling with the hem of her cape.
“Who was that one for?” I ask. “If I can ask.”
With a melancholy expression, she says, “Me.”
Once again, not what I would have expected. I guess she’s not always “writing for revenge” like one of my co-workers at The Goldrush Gazette used to say.
“Don’t look so surprised,” she adds. “I’m aware of my reputation.”
“I wouldn’t say I’m surprised,” I clarify. “I’ve met enough famous people to know there’s usually a lot more going on behind the scenes than what the media says.”
Hell, I’ve experienced it myself—but I keep quiet about that because it feels wrong to try to act like I have some idea what she’s going through when I don’t get nearly as much as attention (or criticism) as she does.
“That’s for sure.”
Not really knowing what to say to that, and realizing she originally came out here to be alone (which I am ruining) I open my mouth to excuse myself and leave her to it—also making a slight move to go—but she then covers her eyes in shame and says, “Oh my God … you were here first. I just completely took over.”
She stands.
“No, no, it’s fine,” I say. “It’s a big place. There are plenty of other spots for me. Although I should probably be getting back inside anyway.”
“Overbearing manager?” she asks with a smirk.
I laugh at the way she’s echoed me, then volley back, “For starters.”
Harmony draws her cape around her shoulders. “Well ... if you change your mind and want to delay the inevitable a bit longer, I actually don’t mind talking to you. I don’t want to be around everyone, but being alone with my thoughts is … a lot right now.”
“I get that,” I tell her.
“You do?”
“Hell yeah. I don’t sleep unless I have some other noise going. TV, music, audiobooks.”
“So your mind can focus on something trivial and you don’t mentally spiral yourself into an adrenaline rush that keeps you awake …”
I raise a skeptical brow and her accuracy. “Exactly.”
“Do you want to walk?” She nods at the path that leads deeper into the oasis.
We fall into step at a nice lazy pace. It’s more palm trees, more ferns, a smattering of flamingoes. The pond becomes a stream that flows alongside us.
She clears her throat. “Which audiobooks do you like best?”
“A little-known fact, I’m kind of a lit nerd, so, usually just the classics”—I took a lot of English lit classes on the way to my journalism degree, but I don’t mention that at the moment—“plus they’re longwinded and slow, which definitely helps with trying to fall asleep.
Right now I’m in the middle of The Island of Doctor Moreau.
” When her eyes widen a bit, I ask, “You know it?”
“Yes! Although, full disclosure, I only read it because of something else I wanted to read that was based on it. Have you read any Silvia Moreno-Garcia?”
“No, but I think I know what you’re referring to. Is it The Daughter of Doctor Moreau?” I remember seeing it recommended to me on Audible, probably because of my listening history.
She nods. “It’s a retelling of the H.G. Wells story, only it’s set in nineteenth-century Mexico. Moreau is French, of course, but he’s disgraced for his questionable experiments—“
“Naturally.”
Frankensteining human-animal hybrids would never go over well in the scientific community. Or anywhere.
“—so he’s forced to do his work at a remote hacienda, financed by wealthy patrons who hope to one day use the hybrids for slave labor.”
“Damn.”
“Right? It highlights the issues of the time period and location—colonization, Mayan rebels trying to fight back, being a child of two worlds.”
Thinking of Harmony’s ethnic background, her special interest in the book makes a lot of sense: Hispanic (Mexican?) father, Caucasian mother. I think that’s what she said during one of her Lucky Stars interviews, but also it’s been almost ten years since I saw that.
I ask her about it and she tells me that her grandfather is from Chiapas, Mexico, and that he came to L.A.
as a young man (with his wife) and got a job at Universal Studios as a tour guide for Spanish-speaking tourists.
Harmony’s father was born in California, grew up in Lincoln Heights, and went on to study engineering at USC, where he met Harmony’s mother, who majored in music.
Then Harmony asks me about my family, so I tell her how my grandparents were citrus farmers, hence my Ventura County background, and how my parents wanted to travel when they were first married and so didn’t have kids until they were thirty.
Me being the youngest of three, my mom was forty when I was born, so I have a deep love for old music (her music, because whenever I listen to Jim Croce or Dan Fogelberg, it reminds me of her).
We walk and talk for at least an hour, skating across random topics, from family dynamics to food preferences to the rapid degradation of the Marvel movie franchise, and I realize how much I’ve been craving a real conversation that isn’t about the music industry.
She must have been too, because not once do we discuss recording contracts or shows or social media presence or collaborative projects or any artists we might mutually know.
That path we’ve taken loops back around to the resort, and the music is audible again. The bass thumps gently. I can just make out the melody and the words.
Track twelve, “Vibe Check.” It’s the only ballad on the album.
Harmony and I both listen to it for a minute.
It’s a wild thing to do, but somehow it feels right, so I clear my throat and say, “I know this is really cheesy but … would you maybe want to … dance?”
“Dance?” Harmony repeats. ”You mean the way they do in movies when there’s no music?”
“Except there is music.”
“Sort of …”
“Well, I’d like to say I would have asked you inside, if we’d seen each other in there, but … I doubt I would have had the courage. So since it’s just us …”
She smiles a little. “Okay.”
We step toward each other and I tentatively place my hands on her hips. She reaches up and drapes her arms around my neck.
Following my lead, she moves her feet slightly so that we can keep the rhythm.
This close, she smells like expensive perfume—something flowery with notes of vanilla.
The lighting’s dim and golden from the sparse lamp posts, and we’ve both still been wearing our masks this whole time, but when I look down I can see her dark eyes and the way her lashes flit when she glances around and then up at me.
Her lips part slightly, drawing my attention to the little bow at their peak.
“Vibe Check” is around seventy-five beats per minute, but my heart rate has got to be a hundred and fifty, rivaling the percussive piano that drives the song to its emotional peak. Minji Seok sings “You pass the vibe check. We’re soaring and I bet … this won’t be the last I see … of you.”
I find myself leaning in. Harmony’s face moves incrementally toward me. Even though we are still somewhat new to each other, her mouth seems to align with mine like we’ve done this a thousand times, so close I can almost taste her.
But I hold back.
This is crazy. I can’t just kiss Harmony Sonora.
And then it’s too late—because she kisses me first.