The producer was in his forties and too well-fed and a little bit manic. He took us down to his basement studio, which was papered with burger ads featuring supermodels. I was hungry the whole time we were down there. It’d been months since I’d tasted beef. I mean real beef, not the substitute.
He played some different beats for me and Cole and asked for our opinion and then told us which one he’d already picked out. “I want it to be effing ethereal,” he said, smoothing his paper-thin shirt over his paunch. “Dreamy synths like fireflies on helium.”
I had no idea what he was talking about. Could music even sound like that? He must have thought it was his euphemism that had unsettled me, because he explained, “I’m trying to cut down on swearing. For the kids,” and gestured vaguely at the models in the posters.
He and the songwriter had already scribbled some lyrics on a paper placemat.
“This is the story.” The producer directed his acetone breath at me. “Cole’s not supposed to get involved with your type—it’s against the law but he can’t help himself. And you can do what you want with him, can’t you, because your powers of persuasion are sort of superhuman. Your vorpal, yes? So here we go. The first part is Cole’s and the second is Epony’s.”
The songwriter read the lyrics off in a monotone:
I know what you are,
how you watch me.
If I go too far
will you stop me?
“Effing ethereal,” the producer cut in to remind us.
I know what they say,
how they watch me.
If I want your heart
can they stop me?
They won’t understand this.
They can’t come between us.
I stole a glance at Cole. He raised his eyebrows at me. I remembered laughing in the creek together and then quickly pushed the thought away. The creek was just another current in a morass of currents now.
“Right, let’s try it in the booth,” the producer said, and handed the paper placemat to Cole. “Sing it like a girl would, Cole, like a sweet effing innocent girl.”
While they mixed the final track, we went to a movieplex to watch Girl Queen movies. We rented a space that was nothing but a shelf on a stack of shelves facing a huge screen. Footrests rose up from the floor; pops rolled down from a fridge hatch.
On-screen, a river pooled around a city of sun-dazzled glass, and an actor portraying Dylan called a silvery creature out of the water. It was the seventh Girl Queen movie in a row we had watched.
“Watch out for the stinger!” I hollered at the screen, because I knew this movie by heart. It was based on a popular story someone had posted online about Dylan’s adventures with the Girl Queen and her brother. There was no telling if it had gotten the look of the Other Place right, but it seemed close enough to what Dylan had described in his own stories, so I was willing to go along for the ride.
During a lull in the action, Cole told me, “They shouldn’t have turned your vocals down on the chorus. I was drowning you out.”
“We aliens don’t like to be loud,” I said, poking him in the ribs. “We’re a shy bunch. We’re really only here to make humans like you sound better.”
“Seriously, though,” Cole said.
I shook my head. “It’s your voice that’s good. They’ll have to do all that thickening with mine. I never heard you sing so high.”
“Sounded like a mosquito in heat.” He climbed up on the back of the seat and popped open the fridge hatch to use as a headrest. The chemical smell of refrigerant reminded me of ice-cream bars and frozen lemonade. “Ethereal my ass.”
“Looks ethereal from this angle,” I joked, and prodded him so he leaped off the chair back.
He dropped into the seat and leaned against me. “If I had known they were going to try to turn me half into a girl, I might not have done this.”
“Yes you would have.” I slipped an arm around his shoulders, praying he wouldn’t pull away. My heartbeat was an overproduced version of itself, all bass notes. “Those tween girls like the non-threatening brand of angst. Get used to it, girly boy.”
He laced his fingers through mine so that his arm was across his chest. “Those lyrics . . .” He grimaced at the distant movie screen. “I hate acting that way around you.”
I stiffened. “Like you’re in love with me?”
“No, like I can’t do anything about it.”
The light from the screen lent his face an early-morning, dirt-streaked window kind of glow.
“You can do something about it.” I brushed my chin against his shoulder.
He shifted in his seat so that I thought maybe I was bothering him. But then he turned and kissed me, and the sound of river water from the movie reminded me of our islands in the creek.
Then he jerked away, scowled at the armrest. “You like doing any of this?”
“Kissing you?” I almost laughed. Was there some other reason to do it?
“No, I mean my non-threatening high notes.” He flopped back in his seat. “And these pants that are about three sizes too small.”
I touched the back of his shoulder, trying to coax him closer again. “It’s what everybody wears.”