“Um…sure. It’s…catchy.” I’m not seeing excitement register on her face. She must still think she’s dreaming.
“Look, I know this is overwhelming right now,” I soothe her. “The studio, the song. It’s a lot to take in. Maybe you think this is like ‘the moment of truth.’ It’s okay to not feel up to it, but you’re in good hands here. These guys know what they’re doing, we’ve got autotune, we can alter some parts of the song if they don’t work with your vocal range.”
Haley covers her eyes with her hand. I lean in closer.
“It’s okay,” I continue, “really. Everything’s going to be taken care of. I’ve got the best stylist in Europe flying over tomorrow, and a handful of video directors throwing ideas at me. Maybe you can even help me pick out the best.”
Suddenly, Haley whacks my arm away from her shoulder with the speed and venom of a kung fu master, yanks the studio door open, and runs through it. I stand there for a second, processing what just happened, then turn to the guys, who give me nothing but shrugs.
“Give us a minute,” I say, then grab the door and go after her. By the time I get outside she’s already wrestling with the rusted door of her Datsun.
“Haley!” I call out as I move towards her. “You getting cold feet already? I’m telling you, I’ll hold your hand every step of the way.”
“That’s exactly the problem,” she yells. I’m confused. Maybe it’s just her nerves.
“What do you mean? Haley, those guys in there are the best in the game, like you could practically sleepwalk through this recording session. What the hell’s wrong with you?”
“Just stop talking!” She smacks the door and marches toward me menacingly. “What the hell’s wrong with you?!”
She shoves me right in the chest with all her strength. It doesn’t do much, but I step back out of surprise anyway.
“I actually believed you when you said you liked my music,” she screams, incredulous. “How fucking stupid is that?”
For a moment, I’m stunned. “I did like your playing. Why do you think I’m doing all this?”
She presses her hands to her temples and looks at me like I just tried to explain quantum physics in a single sentence.
“If you like my playing so much, then why are you doing everything you can to turn me into something I’m not?”
“Haley, it’s not like that.” I let loose with a winning grin that tends to get me where I wanna go. “I’m just trying to make everything as good as it can be. I mean, do you wanna make music or not? We’ve got an insta-hit in the making in there. This is gonna launch your entire career. I don’t see the problem.”
She gives me a cold stare, starts to speak a few times before shaking her head and taking a deep breath. “I do want to make music,” Haley finally says, sighing away her anger and replacing it with disappointment, “but not like that. If you can even call that making music.”
I stare at her, feeling all my work and effort slipping through my fingers.
“Look, Brando, you don’t need me. You just need a pretty face to go along with everything you’ve got going on back there, the pre-written songs and the electronics and the machines. I’m sorry, but that’s just not me.”
The rusted door opens this time, and she steps inside, revving and jerking the car out of the parking lot and down the road, taking everything I want with her.
Damn.
Chapter 6
Haley
“… And that’s when I ran out.”
“Oh God, Haley,” Jenna says, still holding a bemused customer’s change.
I look back at her and shrug, but I notice her tell. Jenna’s a good girl, and like all good girls she isn’t very good at hiding her feelings. She’s biting the inside of her lip.
“You don’t think I should have run out on him, right? You think I should have stayed, sucked it up, let those guys turn me into another radio-friendly clone?”
Jenna hands the guy’s change to him with a smile, checks that no other customers are coming, and turns to me with the same look my mother gave me when I found out she was the tooth fairy.
“Sit down,” she says, nodding to the stool behind the counter. I do as she says, and she leans back on the counter in front of me. “Look. When I was trying to make it as an actress – I mean a big Hollywood star, not the local theater plays and cheesy commercials and non-speaking background work I’m doing now – I was going through a lot of the same things you’re going through now. The pointless running around and grabbing at hopeless causes. The long, grinding anticipation and hard work leading up to a big audition, only to find there’s nothing on the other side. But I was nineteen; just smart enough to realize I had to work for it, and just dumb enough to have hope. Every day – every second – that passed without me doing something to try and make it felt like wasted time. Making it was all I thought about, morning to night, even in my dreams – especially in my dreams.”