Writing Our Song:A Billionaire Romance

Chapter 3


Things moved fast. My date with Blair was almost picture perfect, though shorter than I would have liked. We decided not to push the boundaries on our very first night out and face the unknown wrath of my parents by coming home late. However, without the movie to think about, it did leave us with a lot of free time after dinner.

In one night I was kissed more than my entire life combined up to that point, and my friends practically died of jealousy when I spilled the juicy details at school on Monday. What we wore, where we went, and more importantly, how much tongue did he use and how steamy did the windows in his Mom’s car get. Just the right amount and pretty damn steamy for a make-out session were the answers.

We were together almost constantly, inseparable. Every lunch time, band practice and going out on the weekends, I couldn’t get enough and it seemed like Blair couldn’t either. Then, just a couple months later, at his house one Saturday evening when his parents were out on a date of their own, Blair and I went all the way.

I laid there afterwards in the dark silence, my head resting on his shoulder with his arm around me, a million thoughts tearing through my head and a dull ache between my legs, conflicting with this hazy warm glow that just made me want to drift off to sleep until the morning. Of course that couldn’t happen, his parents wouldn’t be out all night after all.

When I saw my friends the next day at the mall, I didn’t know how to tell them. I didn’t know if I should tell them. It was so personal, yet it was information so desperate for release that it made for a difficult secret.

Everything everybody said suddenly seemed to be filled with innuendo. Did they know? Could they tell just by looking at me somehow? Did that mean my parents could tell too? It was crazy.

Band practice in Blair’s garage that night was a disaster, I was a distracted mess. Did Darrin and Drew know too? Were they laughing behind my back when I sang any lyrics that happened to be about sex or coming of age?

It was so bad that we packed up early and I sat on Blair’s amp holding my face in my hands after our drummer and bassist had gone home. We couldn’t really afford this kind of interruption, after the last gig we’d been booked by the Business Administration department of the local community college for some formal function for the students. Kind of like a prom but where most of them were actually allowed to get exceedingly drunk.

“Is everything OK?” he asked.

“Yes. No.”

“Uh…”

“It’s just… everything’s changed now… what do Drew and Darrin think of me? What does everybody else think of me?”

“I haven’t told them yet, it’s not really their business. Who else are you talking about? Like, who have you told?”


“Nobody.”

“Then what are you worried about?”

“It’s like everybody already knows,” I said.

Blair knelt down beside me and put his hands on my knees.

“They don’t but so what if they did? I’m not ashamed of being with you. Are you ashamed of me?”

“No!”

“Then screw ‘em. Tell whoever you want. Or not. Let them react however they want and move on.”

It was pretty basic advice, but I couldn’t argue with it. The truth was that keeping it a secret was eating me up from the inside out for some reason, and fast. I told a couple of my friends on Monday, and so in about five seconds the whole school knew anyway. Nobody seemed to treat me any different and I felt some of the weight lift off my shoulders.

I even told my dad, in a roundabout way. One evening, later that week, he was up in my room with his old acoustic guitar helping me on a few problems I was having with some of our songs, and the first-world problems of being in a band in general.

“We’re opening with ‘Indifference’ by Pearl Jam,” I said, “It doesn’t sound like a hard song, but Eddie Vedder just has such a different voice to me, deeper, I keep on accidentally slipping between octaves and it sounds like amateur hour. Plus he goes a bit gravelly in this song, and I can’t seem to smoke enough cigarettes or drink enough whiskey to get there.”

“That’s not a very upbeat song, you sure you want to open with that?”

“It’s a prom kinda event, lots of couples that will want plenty of slower songs. I know what you mean though, I’m not sold on it for this kind of event but the other three have out-voted me and it does rock in its own way, you can’t deny that.”

“Nope, can’t deny that,” he said.

“So can you help me out with the cigarettes and whiskey, or at least some advice?”

“Yeah sure. Don’t try.”

“What?”

“Princess, it breaks my heart to say this but you just don’t have a rock voice. You’ve got a pop voice, even if your heart is with rock ‘n’ roll.”

“Gee thanks, so should I just jump out the window now?” I asked, making a diving motion with one hand.

“See? Rock ‘n’ roll. I’m not saying don’t ever work on improving your… uh… range, but you always sound best when you forget who you’re trying to sound like and you just let rip with pure-Bea.”

“So…”

“So, forget the gravel for a start. I think that’ll be a good first step to taking your mind off of Eddie Vedder and it’ll help with the octave slips.”

“OK, makes sense. Thanks.”

“Plus he probably only sounds gravelly because of all the saltwater he drinks,”

“What, you mean the surfing?”

“Yeah. You know he had to get rescued by lifeguards out in New Zealand? Dunno the details, but I bet he knocked back a gallon of ocean.”

“Sounds like a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to drown there.”

“Yeah, I always wanted to go. Haven’t made it yet. Wanna run through the song a couple of times?”

“Yes please.”

We did so, and by the end of the second try I could already feel an improvement. It was getting late and I was tired but stalling, trying to convince myself as to whether it was a good idea to tell my dad about Blair and I.

“What about writing songs? Blair wrote one and we’re going to be throwing it into the mix too, but I was barely involved. I’ve tried to write lyrics but everything just sounds stupid. Like, all I could do was run through the alphabet when Blair asked ‘what rhymes with ethereal?’”

“Hmmm. You’re on your own there. There’s no one way to do it. Some are written in a few minutes, some take a lifetime. Some are written to formula but they mostly suck. I think when music is part of your life and, for whatever reason, you’re feeling something really powerfully, you’ll feel this song nagging at you, trying to get out. If you don’t get it out on to paper, make something of it, it’ll stop nagging and start clawing its way out, you won’t be able to stop it.”

“You think so?” I asked.

“Sure.”

“The thing is… I’m feeling something pretty strong right now.”

“Oh? What?”

“Well… Blair and I. I think…”

The words hovered on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn’t get them out. ‘In love’, even in my own mind I thought it would sound like some ditzy giggling schoolgirl gushing over her first boyfriend without a clue about anything. But there was something there. Something.

“Um… we’ve got pretty serious lately.”

“Serious? Haven’t you been… uh… ‘official’ for many a week now already?”

“Yeah… but… this weekend we got serious… you know…”

“Oh! Oh.”

The silence was thick and heavy as both of us seemed to struggle with where to look, anywhere but in each other’s eyes. I wrung my hands and my dad silently transitioned from chord to chord on the fret-board of his guitar without strumming or picking anything. Finally he took a deep breath.

“Are you OK?”

“Yes,” I squeaked, still hardly believing I had actually told him but feeling better for it already.

“Are you happy?”

“Yes,” I said, with more strength.

“OK. Good.”

My dad looked away again but I could see the conflicts racing around behind his eyes. I wondered if he was more or less confused than I had been a couple of nights previous. When he turned back to me, he had a slightly strained-looking smile on his face.

“Thanks, Bea. Thanks for trusting me with that, I know it can’t have been easy. I don’t think we need to make this any more awkward than necessary, I just hope you know that I’ve got your back. You’re a smart, clever, beautiful girl. Young woman. You’ll make the right decisions but if you get into a situation with Blair, or anybody else, where you’re not ‘OK’, you’re not ‘happy’, then you can tell me that too.”

“OK.”

“Now come in for the real thing.”

“What?”

My dad was leaning his guitar against my desk and standing up, coming in my direction. The instant he let go it began sliding sideways and landed in a twanging clatter on the floor.

“Graceful,” I said, standing up.

Without any more words, he wrapped his arms around me and after a brief charade of reluctance, I put my arms around him too. He’d said we didn’t need to make this any more awkward than necessary, but awkward it was.

Awkward but perfect. I closed my eyes and let myself bask in that protective embrace. He was the goofiest person I knew, would make a joke out of anything, but behind the jokes was this unwavering support that was at the forefront now.

My world had changed that weekend but if my dad, who possessed a moral compass I would bet my life on, was fine then I was fine too.

*****

The night of our gig arrived as quickly as everything else had since Blair and I became a couple. Looking out of my window I could see that it was a depressing and drizzly day, the clouds and misty rain making everything the color of dirty concrete.

Typical mid-June weather for Seattle. I hoped it wouldn’t really start to come down, I didn’t want to end up looking like a drowned rat when I stepped out on stage.


Pacing back and forth in my room, running through our set list in my head, I could feel some shadow of the same nerves I had before our big show but nowhere near as intense. At the Seattle Days Festival, we were the center of attention. Tonight we’d be playing away in the background while drunken college students danced with their dates.

My dad knocked on my door and came in when I called him, guitar in hand and a hopeful look on his face.

“Hey, how’re the nerves?”

“Not too bad,” I said.

“Wanna run through anything else before Blair picks you up?”

“No thanks, I think I’ve got it all down now,”

“Oh. OK… well, could I get you to listen to something I’ve been working on? It’s been a long time since I wrote anything myself, wondered if you could tell me whether it sucks or not.”

“Could we do it tomorrow after school? I’ve really just got to get my mind right for this gig.”

“Sure, yeah. Why are they doing this on a Sunday night anyway?”

“I think they left booking a venue too late and all the Fridays and Saturdays were taken.”

My dad laughed, “You said it was the Business Administration department, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Sounds about right. Hey, you got my ticket?”

“Sure do,” I grabbed an envelope off my desk and passed it to him. “One there for Mom too if she changes her mind.”

“Thanks. We’ll see.”

The people who had booked us had been happy to provide access to a support person or two for each of the band members, probably also thanks to how much money they saved by not hiring a more well-established group of musicians. Drew had his mom coming, Darrin had both parents, and Blair’s parents were both busy. For me, it looked like just my dad would show up.

“We go on stage at around eight thirty, it’s just somebody’s laptop hooked up to the sound system until then. Not sure how early you want to arrive.”

“Oh, really early. I’m sure I’ll fit right in mingling with the college students in my blue tux, polka dot bow tie and huge frilly shirt.”

I laughed for a moment and then paused, because you really never could tell with my dad.

“Please don’t… just anything smart-casual will be fine. Don’t overdo it, you’re not there to find a mistress or anything.”

“Hmmmm.”

A horn honked outside and when I looked out the window I could make out the car that belonged to Blair’s mom, which he usually drove, through the rain. I turned back and picked my bag up off my bed.

“He’s here!”

“Drive safe, princess.”

“See you after the show! Love you!”

*****

Even though this gig was smaller than our previous one, in this case we actually had our own backstage room to prepare in. Of course, with three guys and a girl in the band, we didn’t all get dressed in there at the same time but once we were decent we sat back and talked shop just like usual.

A knock at the door cut our conversation short as somebody told us that the playlist on the laptop only had a couple more songs left on it, so if it was OK with us we’d be going on about five minutes earlier than we’d been told. We were far from prissy artistes so of course it was no problem.

We stood and went into a huddle, our arms over each other’s shoulders in silent support as we each tried to loosen up in our own ways to be able to give the best performances we could. It was a short moment that seemed to last for much longer, a huddle that was bigger on the inside than it was on the outside.

Blair led the way out of the door, his guitar slung over his shoulder like the axe he sometimes referred to it as, followed by Darrin, spinning one of his drumsticks around his fingers and Drew, protectively cradling the bass guitar he had barely managed to scrape enough money together for.

Something held me back for a moment, a compulsion to check my phone for any messages. My dad was going to be out in the crowd for this one, not there on the stairs to give me a pep talk, so I wondered if he had any last minute words of encouragement he might have texted to me.

I’d put my phone on to silent when we arrived, not expecting anything important to come through and wanting to concentrate on the task at hand. That being the case I was beyond surprised when I pressed a button, the screen lit up, and I saw I’d had twenty seven missed calls from my mom.

When I cleared that message, I saw that she’d left three voicemails too and felt a hot flush of panic bring a lump to my throat. My mom wouldn’t call that many times to ask me to pick up some milk on the way home. Something had happened, I was sure of it.

My hands were shaking as I dialed into my voicemail and let out a strangled growl at the automated voice that slowly droned out the number and time the first message had been received. After the beep I heard my mom’s frantic voice over the back drop of slamming doors, howling wind and the engine of some car.

“Bea! Call me back, quick! Your dad’s been in an accident! I’m getting a lift to the hospital with our neighbors. Call me back!”

Accident? What the hell kind of accident? Had he fallen off a ladder? Electrocuted himself somehow? I gulped as I listened to the semi-robot voice announce the number and time of the next voicemail message, followed by the clop-clop of my mom’s footsteps as she pounded pavement and yelled into her phone.

“Beatrice! Why aren’t you answering? Call me back! I’ve just arrived at the Northwest Hospital, I think it’s pretty close to where you are. Call me!”

I went down to my knees as the drone announced the last voicemail and raised my hand to my mouth, covering my quivering lips as if that would do any good to stifle the whimpering I felt fighting to get out of me. The final message was the most frantic of all.

“F*cking hell, Bea! Oh my God… they won’t let me see him! Somebody just said that if there’s any other close family for him they need to come quick. He’s… just… they just said come quick.”

My hands dropped to my sides and I sat there like somebody had just pulled my plug, I wasn’t even sure how long for but I supposed it must have been only a minute or two. I didn’t even notice at first when somebody came back to the room and started saying my name until they shook my shoulder and I looked up to see my three bandmates staring down at me in confusion.

“Bea? Bea?” Blair said.

“Hospital,” I croaked. “Can somebody take me to the hospital?”

“What’s wrong, you eat something that’s on its way back up?” Darrin asked.

“My dad’s been in some kind of accident… I’ve gotta go.”

“Now?”

“But what about the…” started Drew.

“Screw the show, look at her, this is serious,” Blair said.

Drew took another look at me and quickly had an about-face. “I’ll get my mom to take you,” he said.

*****

I must have called my mom at least as many times as my phone said she had called me on the short journey to the hospital, every time it ended up going to her voicemail. Drew’s mom drove right at the speed limit and it was all I could do to stop myself from screaming at her to floor it as I redialed over and over again.

After what seemed like the millionth time listening to my mom’s cheerful voicemail greeting I suddenly felt dizzy and looked out of the window with a grimace of confusion and shock trying to fix on something stable like a horizon. All there was to look at was the blur of buildings and the glare of streetlights, headlights and brake-lights, all of which were soon swirling nauseatingly in my vision.


I didn’t even feel it coming when I vomited down the side of the seat, my dinner giving me an unexpected encore. With my head resting against the window I mumbled a barely audible apology even as my stomach gave another massive squeeze and raw bile burned my throat, adding a horrible garnish to the meal I had eaten earlier.

“Don’t worry about it, don’t you even think about it,” said Drew’s mom, a parent of five boys who had no doubt seen a lot worse in her time on the frontlines of motherhood.

We pulled into the hospital car park and drove right to the front doors, where we came to a halt. I fumbled at the handle for a moment, my inability to make the simple mechanism work almost bringing my panic boiling over into a full meltdown. Thankfully, if there was anything to be thankful about, I got the door open and the cold rain hit me full in the face, bringing a shock of clarity.

“Do you need me to wait for you?”

“No.”

I was gone. I had no time to explain my mom was here with the neighbors and/or the neighbors’ car. I slammed the door behind me and raced towards the bright light spilling out of the glass doors, barely squeezing between the panes as they slid to either side and pushing my way to the reception desk past some man and woman who moved aside without argument when they saw my face.

“Hampton! Henry Hampton! Where is he?”

“And you are?” the receptionist asked.

“Beatrice… I’m his daughter. Please!”

“One moment.”

I could feel the eyes of everybody in the room on me, looking at the lunatic girl with traces of vomit on her leg, bright red face and screechy old-cat-lady voice. I could feel them and I didn’t care, I’d bask in their condescending gaze forever if it would just mean that my dad was OK. Anything to feel his arm around me and have him tell a stupid joke.

The receptionist tapped away at her computer for a few seconds and the glow on her face changed color as the screen she was looking at brought up some information in a new window. An indecipherable look passed between her and the older receptionist, who was peering over her shoulder.

This older woman, who was wearing a name badge bearing the moniker ‘Millie’, called over a young man who was pushing a trolley of something around and asked him to take me to ‘GR three’ right away.

I followed him to the elevator, up a few floors and then through a maze of lefts and rights until I was completely disorientated. Finally he knocked on and opened a door, letting me through with such a look of pity on his face that I wanted to punch it right off him and scream about how I didn’t need that look, my dad was fine, he looked worse than he really was. That’s it.

The room was small and clinical, like so many rooms in a hospital I supposed. About six orange plastic-looking chairs lined two walls around a small coffee table. A rack of pamphlets stood against another wall next to a water-cooler like an unpopular office worker that nobody wanted to gossip with.

Sitting in one of the chairs was my mom, and sitting in the closest chair against the other wall was a tired-looking youngish doctor who looked up in my direction as the door clicked shut behind me. My mom continued looking straight ahead, focusing on some point much farther than the confines of the room allowed in reality.

The doctor pursed his lips and gestured at the seat next to my mom, who hadn’t so much as batted an eyelid since I’d entered. The room seemed to be rocking from side to side like a boat in a gentle swell and I stumbled almost drunkenly towards the chair with my footsteps echoing in my ears.

“Beatrice?” he asked.

I nodded.

“Reception called and said you’d be coming up. I’m Doctor Wilkins, I’m a surgeon here. Henry... uh… your dad, was brought in this evening with serious trauma from a motor vehicle accident. I’ve got some of the most talented doctors and nurses I’ve ever worked with here at Northwest… but, I’m sorry, Beatrice, there’s no easy way to say this. We couldn’t save him. I’m so sorry.”

The doctor kept on speaking but a ringing far worse than anything loud concerts had ever inflicted on me drowned out all other sounds, and my empty stomach clenched up and slowly doubled me over until I literally slid off the chair on to my knees. With one hand grasping at my stomach as if I could somehow force my muscles to release and the other holding on to the coffee table for support, I knelt there on the ground as if I was at some altar dedicated to a god of pain.

Something inside of me felt like it was going to explode and I was robbed of my ability to speak. I tried to deny what I’d just been told. I tried to yell for my dad to call off the shittiest, yet most elaborate, joke he’d ever pulled. Instead, all I could get out was the first syllable of the word that had only ever brought comfort before. Over and over again.

“D…d…d…d…”