Daisy Jones & The Six(40)

Billy: I grabbed her keys just as she was about to get in her car and I told her I wasn’t letting her drive anywhere. She was half in the bag already.

Daisy: I grabbed my keys back and told him if he wanted to drive, we could take his car.

Billy: We got into my Firebird and I said, “Let’s go to El Carmen. It’s closer.”

And she said, “I’m going to the Apple Pan. You can go to El Carmen by yourself.”

I just could not believe she was being so goddamn difficult.

Daisy: I used to care when men called me difficult. I really did. Then I stopped. This way is better.

Billy: On the way there, I turned on the radio. Immediately, Daisy changed the station. I changed it back. She changed it again. I said, “It’s my car, for crying out loud.”

She said, “Well, they’re my ears.”

I finally put in an A-track of the Breeze. I put on their song “Tiny Love.” Daisy started laughing.

I said, “What’s so funny?”

She said, “You like this song?”

Why would I put on a song I didn’t like?

Daisy: I said, “You don’t know anything about this song!”

He said, “What are you talking about?” He knew it was Wyatt Stone that wrote it, obviously. But he didn’t know the rest of it.

I said, “I dated Wyatt Stone. This is my song.”

Billy: I said, “You’re Tiny Love?” And Daisy started telling me this story about her and Wyatt and how she came up with those lines about “Big eyes, big soul/big heart, no control/but all she got to give is tiny love.” I loved the chorus of that song. I had always loved it.

Daisy: Billy listened to me. The whole way to the restaurant, as he drove, he was listening. For what felt like the first time since I met him.

Billy: If I had a great line like that, and someone else pretended it was theirs, I’d be pretty angry.

She made more sense to me after that. And, to be honest, it was harder to tell myself she had no talent. Because she clearly did. It was a real reality check. That voice that whispers in the back of your head, You have been acting like an asshole.

Daisy: It made me laugh. That to Billy I needed a reason to want an equal say in the art I created. I said, “Cool, man. Now that you dig it, maybe you can stop being such a dickhead.”

Billy: Daisy could really give you the grief you deserved. And if you took it in the spirit it was intended … she wasn’t so bad.

Daisy: We sat down at the counter and I ordered for both of us and then put the menus away. I just wanted to put Billy in his place a little bit. I wanted him to have to deal with me being in charge.

But of course, he couldn’t let it go, he said, “I was going to order the hickory burger, anyway.” I think I’ve rolled my eyes about five thousand more times in my life just on account of Billy Dunne.

Billy: After we both ordered, I decided to try a little game. I said, “How about I ask you a question, you ask me a question? No one can dodge the answers.”

Daisy: I told him I was an open book.

Billy: I said, “How many pills do you take a day?”

She looked around and fiddled with her straw. And then she turned to me and said, “No one can dodge the answer?”

And I said, “We have to be able to tell the truth to each other, to really be honest about ourselves. Otherwise, how can we ever write anything?”

Daisy: He was open to writing with me. That’s what I took from that.

Billy: I asked the question again. “How many pills do you take a day?”

She looked down and then back up at me and she said, “I don’t know.”

I was skeptical but she put her hands up and said, “No, really. That’s the truth. I don’t know. I don’t keep track.”

I said, “Don’t you think that’s a problem?”

She said, “It’s my turn, isn’t it?”

Daisy: I said, “What makes Camila so great that you can’t write anything that isn’t about her?”

He was quiet for a really long time.

I said, “C’mon, now, you made me answer. You can’t weasel out of it.”

He said, “Would you wait a minute? I’m not trying to weasel out of anything. I’m trying to think about my answer.”

After another minute or two, he said, “I don’t think I am the person Camila believes I am. But I want to be that person so bad. And if I just stick with her, if I work every day to be the guy she sees, I’ve got the best chance at coming close to it.”

Billy: Daisy looked at me and said, “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

And I said, “What did I do to make you mad this time?”

And she said, “There’s just as much to hate about you as there is to like about you. And that’s annoying.”

Daisy: Then he said, “It’s my turn.”

I said, “Out with it then.”

Billy: “When are you going to quit the pills?”

Daisy: I said, “Why are you so obsessed with the goddamn pills?”

Billy: I told her the truth. I said, “My father was a drunk who was never there for Graham and me. I never wanted to be that way. And then the first thing I do, my first act as a father, was to get all messed up in all the shit you’re messed up in—even heroin, too, I’m afraid—and I let my daughter down. Even missed her birth. I turned out to be exactly what I’ve always hated. If it wasn’t for Camila, I think I’d still be that way. I think I would have made all my own nightmares come true. That’s the kind of guy I am.”