“Pia,” Martin warns. “Behave.”
“I gave her a compliment!”
“You’re being a bitch,” he says, and he’s one of only a handful of people I let talk to me like that. Also, what he’s saying isn’t exactly untrue…
“So do we have the go-ahead?” I ask Martin. “To make this song actually worth singing.”
Another heavy sigh comes from Martin. “Yes. Fine. Go do it. But youse have to work together. Cassie, you work on your lyrics; Pia, you focus on yours. If you want to change the chorus, you do it together.”
It’s now that I see the flaw in my plan. If we’re changing the song’s lyrics together, we have to actually do ittogether. In the same room. Sharing the same air. When I look up at Cassie, I can tell she’s not exactly over the moon about it either. Well, at least I can have some fun making her life just as uncomfortable as I’ll be feeling.
“Fine with me,” I say, and I take off my headphones, grab the lyrics sheets and walk out of the studio to retrieve my bags.
CHAPTER 4
CASSIE
She ignores me in the taxi back to her hotel, just like I expect. She also ignored my suggestion to head back to my house in the Hills, where I have a music room designed exactly for this purpose. She claimed her hotel was nearer, and she wanted to get this over and done with, which I suppose I should be grateful for.
The ignoring continues in the lift up to her room; she literally gives me her back and starts humming a tune I don’t recognise. I want to hate it, just like I want to hate the way she taps her steel-capped black cowboy boot in a perfect rhythm, but I don’t. I find it frustrating, rude and childlike how she ignores me, but I definitely don’t hate it.
“Make yourself at home,” she says as she walks into the room, dumping her bag in one spot on the floor and dropping her leather jacket in another. “I hope they’ve restocked the minibar.”
She’s in the room proper already, bent over as she opens up the small fridge built into the TV cabinet. Her T-shirt falls so far down her shoulder that one of her breasts practically pops out of the top. She’s not wearing a bra.
I promptly look away from Pia to save her modesty and take in the rest of the room. It is … a huge mess.
The décor is slightly dated – lots of russet reds, warm terracotta, and mustard yellows – but it’s spacious, even with two queen-sized beds in it, and yet there is so much clutter and mess and chaos that it feels almost claustrophobic as I step into the space.
The sheets on both queen beds look like they’ve been in a fight with yesterday’s outfit. There are clothes and shoes and records and rubbish strewn across the floor like a hurricane has whipped through here recently,and when I perch hesitantly on the end of the nearest bed, I realise I’m sitting on a black lace bra. I jump up as if it burns my backside, and then I see the curled-up black lace next to the bra. Her underwear. Pia’sknickers. My face flushes with a rush of heat so quick and determined it takes my breath away. It takes a moment for my lungs to finally return to normal working order and for me to remember I have limbs and the ability to move.
Not that I can sit back on this bed. Not near that black lace andoh, God,the knickers were worn. They’re Pia’swornknickers.
“You okay?” Pia’s voice snaps me out of my stunned stupor. She’s standing opposite me, eating from a bag of peanuts, a miniature bottle of vodka clutched between her elbow and her body.
“Yeah.” I shake my head and push my hair off my face. “Yeah, I’m fine, I … Where shall I sit?”
Pia shrugs. “Wherever you want.”
“Right,” I say, because that is absolutely no help.
Pia walks over to the small, round table and two chairs in front of the window that is covered with semi-transparent nylon drapes. LA’s bright midday sun is persistently filtering into the room regardless, and I wish we’d gone to my house where the rooms are clean, the sun isn’t quite so blinding and I have all my instruments: my grand piano, my harp, my guitar collection and my much-loved dulcimer. Maybe I should have put my foot down. Maybe I should have been more stubborn, like Pia herself.
“We can sit here,” Pia says, and I realise she’s removed the guitar that was on top of the table, placing it on the bed nearest her. She doesn’t bother to take away any of the clothes hanging over the back of both chairs, so I tentatively pick up the jeans, dress and –oh, my– another bra, from one chair and place it carefully on the second bed, next to another acoustic guitar that has so many scratches on it that I wince. Pia plonks down in the other chair and slams an ashtrayon the table. She has another cigarette lit by the time I’m sitting opposite her.
“So, where should we start?” I say, and I retrieve the lyric sheets from my bag. Not that I need them. I memorised the words from the sample track days ago.
Pia doesn’t reply for a long time, and for each second of the silence that falls she’s studying me with narrowed eyes. Her irises are so dark I can’t tell where they end and her pupil begins. The flicks of eyeliner at the corners of her eyes give her face a feline quality, and like most cats, it’s impossible to know what she’s thinking or what her next move will be.
Her fringe is blunter than mine, like a thick black straight line across her forehead, and it never seems to move. Pia is slim, yes, but not skinny, and yet her cheekbones rise like her skin is truly stretched over them. I can now believe what I’ve heard about people going to plastic surgeons and asking for the Lindberg facelift. Her mouth is currently quite small – pursed pink lips with a bit of a pout in them – but I know from watching her on TV just how wide her lips can stretch and just how much noise that mouth can make.
“Look,” she says, and then takes a quick drag. “Can I ask you a question?”
I find myself needing to swallow before I reply. “Sure.”
“What do you think is going on in this song?”
“Well,” I say slowly, already wondering if that was a trick question. “It’s about two women who are with the same man. And they’re asking the other to … leave him alone. They’re staking their claim on him.”