30. Andi
Chapter 30
Andi
T he trip from West Chester to Los Angeles took four days, three nights, and so many bossy text messages I lost count. But they were all basically the same. Captain Stone checking in three times a day, ordering me around even from multiple states away, like…
Captain
Are you there yet?
Almost.
Captain
Don’t text and drive.
It’s talk to text. And you’re the one messaging me.
Captain
Text me when you get in.
Safely arrived in Columbus, Ohio—known for Ohio State University, Scioto Mile Riverfront, and the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, according to a pamphlet.
Captain
Make sure your door is locked. Dead bolt, if you have it. Put your suitcase in front of the door.
Actually, I was planning on leaving my door open all night with a sign that all were welcome for a party.
Captain
Not funny.
I’m going to bed. Goodnight, Captain.
Captain
Goodnight.
Captain
And text me when you’re leaving tomorrow.
Captain
Or I will assume something happened to you, and I’ll be heading directly for Holiday Inn-Columbus with backup from friends who have been awfully bored since SEALs retirement.
Don’t threaten me with a good time.
Captain
Don’t try me, baby.
I drove right to Dahlia’s house and all but collapsed into her arms when she opened the door, both happy and sad tears dampening her T-shirt. We stayed up talking for hours and fell asleep in her bed while Vic took the bed in my old room, only for us to wake up the next morning and immediately get to work.
Yet it’s not working .
It’s been over a week, but I haven’t been able to come up with anything new or close to exciting. I know it takes time to get back into the creative space, but I was able to write while I was in Pennsylvania. I felt really inspired there. Here? Nada.
It’s like my brain stopped functioning somewhere around the Arizona/California border when it occurred to me that I never actually told Griffin that I loved him.
That I love him.
I will always love him.
He is everything I want and more than I could possibly need.
All I can think about is the last song that played in the car, “Please Call Home” by the Allman Brothers, so every lyric I attempt to write is something along the lines of I’ll beg to come home/let me come home/can I come home?
Not to mention that little ditty about call me baby one more time and I’ll come running.
“Maybe we need to take a break,” Dahlia says from her chair in the studio, where we’ve been writing with a man named Uther, hired by the label.
“Another one? We just got back from lunch.”
I rub my hands over my face and flip through pages in my notebook. “Why don’t we just go back to the one we were working with yesterday?”
“No.” He flicks a pen in a circle. “Number one, it doesn’t fit Dahlia’s voice. Number two, it’s not the vibe. It’s too sad. Like a Sarah McLachlan dog commercial. I mean, what the fuck are we doing here?”
Needless to say, Uther thinks I’m shit.
Not, the shit.
But shit .
“That’s rude,” Dahlia says, defending me, but it’s true. I’m leaning way more into the crying while staring out the window at rain vibes than sticky dance floors and hot summer nights, like we’re going for with this album.
“You know what…” I stand. “I’m gonna…go for a walk.”
I’m halfway through the door when Dahlia follows. “I’m coming with you.”
I hear Uther groan in frustration, but I’m too over him to care.
Outside, there isn’t much to look at. NoHo is an industrial neighborhood with almost no greenery. It’s all gray and concrete and quiet sidewalks. Not much to get the creative juices flowing or releasing tension on a walk.
Dahlia stays quiet until we round the block, heading for a Starbucks, although I know caffeine won’t kick-start anything. But I’m glad she’s humoring me.
“So, what’s up?” she finally asks.
I shrug. “I feel…clogged.”
“My abuela has a great tea for that.”
For the first time in what feels like years, I laugh and open the door to Starbucks. Getting in line, I explain, “I can’t seem to find my groove here. It’s like I’ve lost my creativity.”
“You didn’t lose it. You just need to let it loose again.” She elbows my side hard enough that I have to rub it. “You wrote ‘In Your Dreams’ and ‘Bootlicker,’ the two songs that got me this deal. You are literally the only person I know who can write a catchy chorus about getting ahead of a bootlicker.”
I snicker. Yeah, that was a good one. I wrote it after watching these two guys try to cozy up to Ryder, assuming he’d put them on a record he was working on, and, of course, fail. But it was fun for me to see how far they were willing to crawl up his ass for it.
I order a cold brew with a splash of cream while Dahlia sticks with hibiscus tea, and we take them to go, continuing our walk. Although Los Angeles can be spectacular with amazing scenery and views, having that twenty-four seven here requires a lot of money. Most of us poors deal with traffic and gray buildings all day long. Dahlia stops to take a picture of a colorful tag on the back of a stop sign—she’s got a thing for taking photos of street art for inspiration—and says, “I know you said you want to be here with me, but do you really?”
“Yeah.”
Dahlia snorts. “Real convincing.” When I don’t reply, she wraps her arm around me. “You really miss ’em, huh? Your firefighter and the kids?”
I do. I really, really do. “I know I’m supposed to be happy here, Dahl. This is what I’ve always wanted, and I don’t want you to think this has anything to do with you?—”
“Oh, I don’t.”
This time, I elbow her, and she laughs, stumbling away from me.
“Griffin was so gracious about it all. He told me that I deserved this, and that we could make it work with him being there and me being here, but there has to be another way for me to do this, doesn’t there?” I think back over the too-few months I spent with Griffin and how I learned to ask for what I want, to stop feeling shame about my desires, no matter what they were.
Well, what would this new and improved Andi do?
Ask.
“There is nothing in my contract about me having to work here. Would you be upset if I didn’t?”
Dahlia squints at the sun. “No, not mad, but I would miss you. I do miss you. It’s been hard being away from you.”
“I know. I missed you so much, and I love you to death. You know that, but I need to do something, because this…” I circle my finger in the air, encompassing LA. “It’s not working for me, and it’ll only affect you negatively in the end.”
When Dahlia thinks, she sings. It’s a reflexive action. Like humming or rocking or tapping a pencil. So as we ramble back to the studio, she sings “Levii’s Jeans” by Beyoncé, slowly dragging me out of my head until I’m snapping along to the beat in our heads. At one point, she takes my hand to spin me so I can pretend to be a sexy little thing, even without showering and wearing sweats. The cropped tee and dry shampoo are doing a lot of heavy lifting today.
When we arrive back where we started, Dahlia figures out where I’m going with this line of thinking. “You want to go home?”
“I want to go home,” I repeat with a nod.
“To Pennsylvania with your firefighter and kids.”
“Yeah.”
“So, let’s go.”
I wrench back. “What? You want to come?”
“I’d like to officially meet this little family of yours, and I’ve never been to the other side of the country.”
“You want to meet Griffin and the twins?”
“Of course. You’re my sister. Your family is my family. And hopefully, we can get your hamster back on the creativity wheel. Light a fire under its ass,” she says with a ridiculous wink that has me laughing and hugging her.
But a reminder strikes me. “Oh my god! Gracie’s talent show. It’s on Friday. You think we can make this all happen in two days?”
“I don’t see why not. Besides, I’m fucking tired of Uther. You think we can get rid of him?”
I shrug. “It’s your record. I’m just the songwriter.”
She slings her arm around me. “You’re much more than that. I’m gonna go call Cynthia. I don’t want any men on this album, if I can help it.”
“Name it The Bear .”
She gasps. “Fucking brilliant!”
Already, the hamster is crawling its way back as an idea starts to crystallize. A kind of theme that’s reminiscent of a Spice Girls kick-you-in-the-face-don’t-mess-with-my-friends kind of thing. And I head inside with a smile.
Uther’s gonna hate it.