The Route 66 main offices are downtown, but their state-of-the-art recording studios occupy a sleek glass building smack dab in the center of Hollywood Boulevard, a stone’s throw from the Walk of Fame, the Dolby Theater, and several rival record labels. The streets outside are sure to be bustling with life even at this hour, but everyone else in the studio has gone home for the night — from the sound technicians in the production box to the maintenance staff who clean the equipment.
I guess they got tired of watching me pace.
My solo session today, which was supposed to ease me back into things in a no-pressure —read: no-Ryder— environment, was a total failure. Six straight hours of silent frustration that I’m nearly positive drove Francesca to drink.
It’s not that I didn’ttryto sing. I stood at the mic as they piped a familiar Wildwood instrumental track through the headphones, counted down the familiar beats until my intro, opened my mouth and…
Nothing.
Not a single note came out.
Yanking the headphones down to dangle around my neck, I run my hands through my messy blonde hair. It’s finally getting long again. Two years ago, when I first dyed it, I also chopped it to my chin — a severe bob I detested as soon as I set down the scissors. But now, almost without my noticing, it’s crept back past my shoulders. Long enough to braid.
I know I’ll have to dye it dark prior to the start of the tour, restoring my Wildwood image before I step on any stages or am inevitably caught on camera by the paparazzi. Francesca has offered to make me an appointment with her personal stylist at least three times, her tone sharpening from suggestion to demand with each successive inquiry.
I’m not sure why I’m resisting — maybe it’s some misguided way to exert control over a destiny which has effectively been taken out of my hands. One last shred of resistance before I’m forced back into this life I thought I’d left behind for good. But if an unflattering hair color with outgrown roots is my only line of defense…
I’m pretty much screwed.
A few minutes from now, it’ll be tomorrow. And tomorrow, I cannot fall apart. I cannot break down. I cannot stand in silence at the mic, lyrics lodged in my throat.
Tomorrow, I have to make music again, even if it kills me.
Keep singing, Felicity. You’re a light in the dark.
With Gran’s words bolstering me, I bend to pick up the pale blue guitar she left me in her will. A vintage Gibson, signed with her autograph on the front in elegant black script. It’s the nicest instrument I’ve ever held — worth more than most cars on the market. The guy in the mixing booth nearly had a coronary when I pulled it from its case earlier and asked if someone in the building would be able to re-string it for me.
Just holding it makes me feel calmer. As though Gran is standing beside me, nodding her approval. Adjusting the strap more firmly over my shoulder, I step toward the mic and set my fingers on the strings. The first chord I strum echoes in the soundproofed room, plaintive and poignant.
I can’t bring myself to play a single note I once performed with Ryder. Instead, I pluck out something new — strains of a song I wrote so many months ago, I’m not sure I remember all the right words. Leaning into the mic, I close my eyes, shut out my thoughts, and let the lyrics fly.
Lying here, this empty bed
Broken crown upon my head
The king, he’s gone
Our realm in ruins
Wish he’d listened when I said…
I never wanted to be queen
Never wanted anything but you
Now the kingdom’s torn up at the seams
And this is too much pain, too much pain
For nineteen…
My voice soundsshaky and thin. A broken shell of its former glory. I tell myself the cracks are from disuse, not the lyrics I wrote during that dark first winter on the Cape, when I was still drowning in grief for the things I’d lost, when the only thing that lessened the ache in my chest was a pen bleeding ink on the pages of a long-abandoned journal.
Memories flash.
Blood on a tile bathroom floor.
A box beneath the earth on the bluffs by the sea.