Perfect Tunes - Emily Gould Page 0,47
shouting to a full coffee shop that she had just pooped. But with Callie, it was different. She wanted her life to seem cozy, not shit-smeared.
“I’ve been really busy!”
“Busy how?”
“Well, I’m doing all these different jobs—teaching private music lessons, working in a school part-time. I work all the time that I’m not with Marie so I can afford her childcare, basically.”
“But when she’s in day care you get some time to think about your own music again, right?”
Laura took a larger sip. “I haven’t really been doing that at all. It’s just not coming. Like, there’s no idle time for ideas for songs to just float in my direction.”
“Not even in the shower?”
“In the shower I’m thinking about my schedule for the week, making grocery lists, keeping track of money—my brain won’t let that boring shit drop for long enough to let anything more interesting in.”
“That’s disappointing.”
It was a strange thing for Callie to say.
“Like, you personally are disappointed in me?”
Callie paused, and Laura could tell that she was trying to act casual about something that was actually a big deal. She had always been so transparent when she wanted something. Now she shot Laura her winningest smile, all teeth visible. Had she had them whitened?
“I had been hoping … We, I mean, the band was hoping you would write more songs for our next album. Maybe even play some dates on the tour, even just the East Coast shows, if that’s all you have time for, but if you can, we’d love it. I’ve been feeling like we need more of your kind of songs.”
Callie’s charm wasn’t working; it was having the opposite of its intended effect. Did she really think she could use Laura as needed, forgetting about her in between times when she came in handy? Laura felt her breathing speeding up, and struggled to keep her tone light. “I’m so surprised to hear you say that!”
“Why?”
“I just thought I was this totally ancillary part of your success. I just happened to be there at the beginning of your story.”
“Well, that’s not what happened.” Callie clinked her ice cubes and looked directly into Laura’s eyes. Her beautiful, seamless makeup crinkled softly in the center of her forehead, where she was making a wrinkle appear to express her concern.
“It’s just hard to think about without getting mad. But I’m not mad at you, exactly.”
She was, though. The combination of the low-grade irritation of having to wait for Callie plus the beers and the attendant worry about how unpleasant tomorrow morning would be had unlocked some capacity to feel truly angry that had lain dormant in her until this exact moment. But there was another feeling running in a channel parallel to it in Laura’s body. It was, maybe, excitement. She’d had slightly too much to drink.
Callie moved closer to her, like when she’d brushed the crumb away, but this time she held Laura’s face cupped in her hand. It was like when she used to do Laura’s makeup, when she’d wielded control of Laura’s face, how people saw her. From the corner of her eye, Laura saw several men at the bar trying to be subtle about the fact that they were openly staring at them. From an outsider’s perspective, it did seem like they might be about to kiss. But what was between them was more complicated than sex.
“Don’t take your anger out on me. Channel it into your music, make something out of it. You still can,” Callie said, intoning the corny words with total seriousness, like a fortune-teller or a self-help guru. Laura nodded, mesmerized by Callie’s closeness, her perfume, her beauty, the beers.
“So you’re in?”
“I’m in,” Laura heard herself saying, without quite believing it.
8
The initial moment of leaving Marie to go to Philly to play a show went much worse than Laura had imagined. She should have left Marie overnight much earlier in their life together, before Marie had the ability to describe her feelings with words. That would have been so much easier for both of them, or at least for Laura. But there had never been a reason to leave her until now, and so they were both unrehearsed for the moment of their separation.
She had wangled an invitation for Marie to spend the weekend with Kayla, her best friend from day care, whose dad, Matt, was one of the more relaxed-seeming fellow parents. He had sleepy eyes and a potbelly, and had done a credible job of not seeming scandalized by