Chapter 22
Loose Ends, They Tangle Down
RIFF
Braden walks into the diner—jingling the bells on the door—and I wave him over to my table.
He glances around at the place, with its red vinyl booths and checkered floor and jukebox in the corner.
A chalkboard menu displays the daily specials:
Meatloaf & Mashed Potatoes
Chili & Cornbread
BLT with House-Made Mayo
Hand-Cut Fries
Lemon Meringue Pie
“I didn’t realize my car was a time machine,” Braden says as he reaches me and takes the seat across from where I sit. “Although I was going 88 on the freeway. Probably 90, in fact.”
I munch on an especially long French fry. “That’s why I like it here.”
He pulls his laptop out of its bag and opens it, mirroring mine.
I’ve got my new album tracks playing on a loop through a single AirPod.
“How is no one bothering you?” he asks.
Pointedly, I look in multiple directions at the mostly empty booths and tables. There are five customers in here besides us.
“That’s Bob and Maude over there.” I nod at an elderly couple.
“They’re friends of my grandparents who’ve known me since I was a kid.
They come in multiple times a week for coffee and sandwiches.
We already chatted for a bit before you got here.
By the window … that’s Frank Lowell.” I point to a middle-aged man reading a newspaper while he eats his chili.
“He owns the pawn shop down the street. We say hi to each other in passing whenever I’m out this way.
And the two ladies flipping through the jukebox songs already met me a few months ago, so the novelty has worn off. ”
“What about the staff?” Braden says. “I suppose they know you already too?”
“Mostly. Every time they hire someone new and I happen to show up, there’s a little excitement, but I don’t mind. Beyond that, everyone lets me hang out and eat in peace. As long as I come when it’s super slow.”
Braden raises an eyebrow. “Well, this is an interesting town.”
It’s been a while since I’ve visited Hermosura, but I felt like I needed it. It always helps me step away from city life, especially when things are feeling … complicated. And they are. Driving past the citrus trees always calms me, reminds me of simpler times.
That doesn’t mean I don’t still have to work, but if Braden insists we meet to go over album stuff, it won’t hurt him to get out of the city for a minute too.
Liza, my favorite waitress, comes to take Braden’s order and sneak me some extra bacon. She calls Braden—and everyone—“hon” and offers him the same “coffee on the house” the diner always gives first-timers.
When Braden gets his BLT and bites into it, he lets out a deep, gratified sigh. “Oh God …” he says through a bite.
“Right?”
“What did they put in this?”
“I don’t know. I keep trying to get them to tell me but they’re all willing to take their secrets to the grave. But I think it has something to do with the house-made mayo. That and they use bacon with a lower fat content, so it’s crispy instead of rubbery.”
Eventually we get down to business, which is mainly just going over the album. Kind of like a proofread. Final tweaks, looking for errors.
We look at the final album artwork, which one of the Glambam graphic designers has done in a style similar to Mikayla’s (sun-faded film emulation photography, minimalist editorial layout for lyrics and internal photos) to keep my brand consistent, but instead of the whole blue-sky open-road theme, this one is more rustic, with me standing in a barn backlit by shafts of dusty light coming through the rafters.
The lyrics all look good, photos are clean and sharp. The title on the front makes me smile a little.
There Goes The Sun sits above my name on the front.
“Okay now,” says Braden. “For music, we need to pick your singles.”
Charlie and the producers always have final say on this, but we’re supposed to present a selection and make our arguments.
“‘Veer,’” I suggest.
Braden takes a sip of coffee. “That’s a good one, although I think maybe ‘Sweet Thang’ or ‘Hit the Gas’ might be more radio friendly. But if you really want to push for a ballad, I’d advise you go with ‘Told You So.’”
“You think I could get away with a ballad?”
He shrugs. “Your last two hits were upbeat, so maybe it’s time to slow it down. After your public relationship with Harmony, people are probably ready for something more serious and emotional from you.”
I gnaw on another one of my fries, which are getting cold, and consider this. “How about ‘That Syncing Feeling’?”
It’s the most serious song on the album—the only one that’s a hundred percent honest. It’s recent, since Harmony took me to the Soundmill.
A day later, the words just poured out of me like someone had turned on a tap.
I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get it on the album, but Charles loved it and said we could add it last minute.
I’m counting on Harmony to be too distracted by her own album and our EP to listen closely, if she gets the chance to hear it.
Should I tell her what’s been on my mind?
Sure, I’ve considered that. That would be the mature thing to do, to lay it all out there.
She’s so volatile sometimes, though, I can’t begin to guess how she’d take it.
It doesn’t help that we’ve spent months building up walls against each other, even to be friends let alone anything more.
“I don’t know.” Braden scratches his chin. “That one is very serious and emotional. We don’t want to overdo it. I’m frankly surprised they’re letting you put that on the album.”
“Because it’s good. It’s vulnerable. Kehlani says you can’t listen to it without getting—and I quote—‘all the feels.’ I’m tired of everyone thinking I’m some hookup party guy. Maybe I can’t ever be my normal self in this business, but I can at least be more relatable.”
He wipes his lips with a napkin, frowns at me, then types the song onto the list.
We discuss some more, narrow our list to four songs to present to Charles, and I wave Liza over to settle our bill.
“Oh,” I say to Braden once Liza has taken my card for processing, “by the way, when do Harmony and I need to be at the studio to demo ‘Hate to Love’?”
“Right. About that. So, one of the bathrooms flooded and it spread to a few of the studios and a bunch of the isolation booths. Maintenance has to deal with the carpets and potential water damage to the walls, so those are going to be out of commission for a while. Everyone scheduled for recording this week has to shorten their sessions or get bumped, based on priority.”
“Harmony and I aren’t priority?”
“Except for your final recording of ‘That Syncing Feeling’—and I think Harmony just recorded her album’s last song—you guys are both pretty much good to go, and you don’t release for several more weeks.
Even your mutual EP only needs ‘Hate to Love,’ and if you’re ready to demo, then Glambam has to prioritize artists who have tighter deadlines and more work to do than you. ”
“Should we still do the demo, then?”
“Well yeah. Just do it at one of your home studios.”
“I thought Kehlani might want to be involved at this stage,” I say.
“She’s got her hands full right now,” Braden insists. “She’ll appreciate you laying down the tracks so she can critique them later.”
I sigh. “Alright. I’ll see what Harmony wants to do.”