Writing Life

Kelly

I wish I could stay here forever, gripping this adorable dog and not looking at or talking to anyone else.

I pull back far enough to look at Coda's adorable face, and he lifts his chin to lick me again, then sits contentedly, tongue lolling out of his doggy grin.

"Traitor," Crash says behind me.

I scratch Coda on both sides of his face and he groans with pleasure. "Such a flirt!"

"Stupid dog," Merv grumbles.

Tommy laughs. "Coda's never warmed to Merv." Then he goes back to fingering something on the guitar in his lap.

That's right, the guys are writing. A new song. Probably lots of new songs. For their next album. For their tour.

I rest my cheek on Coda's broad head for a second.

You knew it would be like this. You knew you'd miss it. They've given you a chance to be free for a while. Just enjoy it while you can. Don't ask for anything. Don't take anything you can't live without when they leave again.

Crash's shadow shifts as he keeps walking, letting the late-afternoon sun warm Coda and me. The skin on the back of my neck prickles because, even though he doesn't touch me, I can feel his presence behind me, then beside me, then past, walking the slow shuffle he has when he's got nowhere in particular to be.

Coda chucks his head to lick my face again. I let him go and he ambles around to follow Crash back to the table.

Crash picks up the guitar—a twelve-string I haven't seen before—that he left leaning against the outdoor table and rests it on his knee in the thoughtless way he does because guitars aren't instruments to him, they're extra limbs.

A pang in my stomach threatens to make me shake. I grab my bag and stand, then hesitate. I don't know where to go, what to do with myself.

With a grin, Tommy puts his guitar down to stand and swallow me in a hug. I wrap my arms around his iron waist and squeeze.

"I'm glad you're here," he says.

My heart feels too big for my chest.

******

Two hours later I'm sitting at the long, solid-wood table under the awning, pretending to do homework while the boys go back and forth over a song.

Merv left soon after I arrived, reminding us not to let anyone else in, and to watch the gate when I drove out. His concern that a paparazzi might try to sneak in as I was getting out made me nervous. Crash walked him out, then returned and shifted his notebook and pen to within reach on the table, picked up his guitar, and strummed.

The song they're working on is a snarling, vicious rock song about Crash's mom.

Lips like poison, flaming eyes

Burn and blister

As you bind the ties

That hold me.

Like a noose around my neck

Your thoughts, your words

They strangle and

Unfold me.

This song will rock. It's spitting anger and boiling rage in a three-minute-twenty-second soundbite.

No wonder Crash's fans adore him. He lays himself bare.

Then Crash gets frustrated with the verse, and the boys swing into the chorus.

I let my hair hide my face so I can listen without them knowing how much I'm affected.

So take it all and go

Whatever satisfies.

Leave and don't come back

Since you're never satisfied.

Everything's turned upside down

You don't know wrong from right.

So take it all, just take it all

And go.

Take it all and go.

Clearly, things between Crash and his mom haven't changed. It breaks my heart to hear his conviction. He bites the words. But instead of moving into the second verse—which I'm dying to hear—he stops. Tommy does the same a couple beats later.

"There's something missing on the chorus." Crash scribbles a note on the margin of the page where he's chicken-scratched the lyrics—full of cross-outs and replacements. He won't settle on the final version until they record.

Tommy keeps his fingers flat to stop the strings of his guitar resonating but keeps plucking notes, the sound sadly muted. I feel him watching, but don't look up, pretending to erase something in my notes.

I've barely spoken to either of them since I sat down. Coda's flat on his side under the table, his back to me. I use my toes to scratch the base of his tail. He always thumps it when I do.

I refuse to look off to my right where the deck gives way to stairs down to the grass and that lawn where—

I yank my thoughts away from the memory and speak without thinking. "You need a response."

Tommy's plucking stops, and Crash snaps his head around to look at me like I startled him. He gets so consumed when he does this, he'd probably forgotten I was here. I shrink under his gaze.

"What do you mean?" Tommy asks when the silence gets awkward.

I wish I hadn't said anything. But if I say nevermind, it'll look like I'm just trying to get attention. So I clear my throat and answer. If they think I'm wrong, they can just say no. "The song's really strong and angry," I say, flicking an apologetic glance at Crash, whose expression remains blank. "If you had a harmony. Or a response. Like Danielle—" I correct myself when Crash winces at his mother's name, "I mean, whoever—is talking back. Like she's arguing with you—or sad about what you're saying. Or something."

Tommy stares and Crash's forehead wrinkles and I feel like an idiot. These guys, my friends since middle school are literally world-class artists. Musicians, rock stars, celebrities. And I'm telling them what to do with a song.

Stupid! "I just thought it would give it depth. Or something. I don't know. I don't know what I'm talking about. Ignore me." I pick at my nails, cheeks heating.

But a second later, Tommy says to Crash, "Like the way she is when she's sorry," Tommy says chewing on a thumbnail.

Crash takes a second to respond. "I always hate that. When she's beating herself up. Self-pitying."

"Do you have lines that would work?"

"I have words. But how would you put them in? There are no spaces. I suppose we could make space?"

"No, your timing's good," Tommy says, eager. "The verses are what you're thinking, right? So whatever she says, it's in the background, arguing with you, but not in front of you."

"Maybe." He bites his lip, but there's hope in his voice.

And his hope always makes mine grow.

I look between both of them, waiting for the magic that's about to happen.

I've missed this. I've missed this so much.

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