Superfan (Brooklyn #3)(83)

“I suppose you’re right.” She twirls around in a circle, her arms out. “Here’s the place where nothing started. And nothing ended. It’s just a spot on the sand.”

“For us, maybe. I’ll bet it’s an important spot for someone else’s love story.”

She drops her hands. “Someone else’s love story. Hmm. That’s kind of lyrical. It would make a good chorus.”

“You can’t shut it off, can you?” I ask with a smile.

“Nope. Occupational hazard.” She takes my hand again and steers me back in the direction we came.

“You need your notebook now, right?”

“Just to scribble down those four words. I can’t write music tonight. I’d rather just hang out with you.”

Hearing that makes a warm place in my chest.

“What do I need to know about Brooklyn? Is this a bad time to mention that I’ve only been there once?”

I laugh out loud. “No, it’s the perfect time. It’s like Manhattan, but with slightly less traffic. And slightly less convenient subways. But the pizza is top-notch.”

“Confession—I always thought it would be amazing to live someplace where cars are unnecessary.”

“I walk to work every day. And so can you. Heidi told me there are recording studios in the Navy Yards development.”

“Oh, yeah.” She squeezes my hand. “That’s where I was the one time I went to Brooklyn. Is that near your neighborhood?”

“It’s a five-minute walk from my apartment, Dee.”

She stops and turns to me. “You mean, I was only a five-minute walk away from you?”

“I guess so. Unless I was traveling.”

“I hope you were. Because I hate to think that fate just decided I didn’t need to run into you.”

“Let’s not let her do that again,” I promise.

“Never again.” She stands up on her tiptoes and kisses me.





Delilah





“I need to just play with this bass line for a second. Hold, please.”

I sit back and wait while Songwriter Sarah messes around on the keyboard. We’re in another windowless room, of course. Since you can’t see the sky, a recording studio can make you forget what time of day it is, the weather outside, and where you are.

As it happens, we’re in Brooklyn, at the recording studio that’s only a five-minute walk from Silas’s building.

I’ve been in Brooklyn for about seven days, and it’s been terrific. My days are filled with emails and Skype chats with Charla and Becky, as my album launch is hastily planned.

My “office” has been the large sectional sofa in the living room of Silas’s apartment. I have the place to myself for large chunks of the day, so I don’t feel like I’m in the way very often. In the evenings, we go out to dinner. Sometimes it’s all four of us—with Jason and Heidi, too—and sometimes just Silas and I.

Last night we sat around on the sofa and watched a superhero movie. Usually those bore me, but just listening to Jason and Silas pick it apart was entertaining in its own right.

I’m…happy. It’s such a dull little word. Not one I’d try to put into a song lyric unless absolutely necessary. But that doesn’t make it any less fulfilling.

A few days ago, I texted Songwriter Sarah to postpone our second recording session. Charla would have canceled for me, but I like Sarah so I’d wanted to tell her myself.

Oh no, she’d texted back. Do you hate the songs? Do you want to destroy them with fire?

I’d laughed out loud. No, silly. Still love the songs. There’s been some drama in my life and my whole schedule has changed. Right now I’m in Brooklyn for a couple of weeks with my boyfriend.

That’s when Sarah called to tell me that she lives in New York, making only sporadic trips to L.A. And that she was here right now.

“Oh! How convenient!” I’d said. So here we are in the studio, tinkering.

“Okay, I think I got it,” she says. She plays the new bass line.

“Yes! That totally works.” “Ask the Universe” is really coming along, but my head is in a few different places today. “You mind if we shut it down for today, though?”

“I don’t mind.” She scribbles a note onto the music in front of her. “Okay to turn off the recording?”

“Yeah.” I stand up, look through the glass at the engineer, and make the universal sign for cut—a hand in front of the throat.

“This was fun!” she says, adjusting her big glasses. “As always. I know you have a launch coming up, but I hope it’s not too ass-kissy to say that I am at your disposal. Generally.” She gives me a nervous smile.

“We will definitely do this again. But could I show you something? It involves a five-minute walk.”

“Sure!” She jumps up and starts shoving things into her canvas tote bag. “Where are we going?”

The walk takes ten minutes instead of five, because we stop for coffee. For myself I buy a bottled juice, because old habits die hard. Yesterday Charla Harris suggested—in that not-so-gentle way she has—that I could benefit from a therapist. “Someone to help you process the bullshit the Prepmonster fed you. Someone to help you order a fucking cup of coffee again. Say the word and I’ll find you someone.”