Just a few months after arriving at Inferno Falls, Abigail can’t see the light at the end of her tunnel. No one can complain about being overworked and broke when the rest of the country’s the same way, but that doesn’t make it any easier when Abigail has to live the story every day. It’s not the work or the meager lifestyle she minds. Abigail wants something more…something inspired…something raw.
Published: November 10th, 2015
Gavin might just be the music that Abigail yearns for … if only his painful past will allow him to love again.
Just a few months after arriving at Inferno Falls, Abigail can’t see the light at the end of her tunnel. No one can complain about being overworked and broke when the rest of the country’s the same way, but that doesn’t make it any easier when Abigail has to live the story every day. It’s not the work or the meager lifestyle she minds. Abigail wants something more…something inspired…something raw.
Gavin is a grieving musician trying to re-find his inspiration. He’s mourning a crushing loss, and life has become too mundane, too typical, to give him the material for songs that used to come so easy. What could he expect to find in Inferno Falls that would truly stir his heart? After all, he’s been shattered by love too many times to find any comfort in a woman’s arms.
The song begins…
Strings play the moment they meet in Abigail’s section of the Nosh Pit, Inferno Falls’ latest and hippest restaurant, and their pulses thunder like a drumbeat from the moment their eyes touch. Abigail feels a stirring in her heart she never expected, while Gavin goes home to pour his inspiration into music.
But despite their obvious harmony, Gavin’s past won’t let anyone get too close. And after years of heartache, Abigail doesn’t have time for anyone who seems like they’re just playing around. Together they’ll have to learn to sing in chorus, or let the stage lights fade and bow out of each other’s lives for good.
EXCERPT
I’m helping to move a few boxes in the kitchen when I hear an angry
voice shouting in the other room. It has to be Gavin, yelling at the kid he’d
been speaking to when I ran out. I can’t hear what’s said, but I recognize the
tone — one man pumping his chest and telling the other to mind his own business
and not tell him what to do. Artistic differences, maybe.
Sometime later, I’m in the converted loading bay when Gavin walks
by. I’ve seen him sullen, but this is a new level. This isn’t really morose-sullen,
and it’s not an angry, fuck-the-world breed of sullen. It’s almost
depressed-sullen. One that, for a change, I find myself believing as genuine.
He vanishes down the hallway, and I don’t consider following. I’ve
pretty much decided I’m done with Gavin Adams — and, in my defense, I wouldn’t
be in a position to need to be done with him if I’d known who he was in
the first place. I allowed myself to get a bit smitten that first day at the
Pit, but that wouldn’t have happened if he’d never come in.
If he hadn’t plunked himself down in my section for Friday’s lunch,
I’d have seen him for the first time on Friday night. Then I would have seen
Gavin the Showman, whose face I recognize from my ex-fiancé, Brian the Showman.
Mr. Popularity, no different from the guys I loathed in high school. Just like
the guy who made me look like a fool right before I decided to pack up and go,
leaving Hartford and ambitions of Princeton behind.
That was my old life. I came to Inferno Falls to start a new life.
Here, I’m a waitress. If I make it and become something worth being,
it’ll be because I deserve it and built it on my own, not because of my
parents’ money. That dream has taken a beating since my move to Inferno, but
it’s still alive somewhere deep down. I keep telling myself I’ll write what’s
percolating inside me someday. I’ll find people who know how modern writers
make it, and keep doing what they do, then refuse to give up until it’s done.
I don’t have to be a waitress forever. I’ll create, like these
musicians do.
I don’t need sympathy. Or my parents’ money.
And I sure as hell don’t need another two-faced man in my life.
When I met Gavin, I thought he was a different person. He was happy.
He was funny. He was cute and clever and — as a nice but not necessary bonus —
just happened to be attractive enough to launch more ships than Helen of Troy.
I’ll admit, his personality and the way he looked at me (like I was worth
looking at and being around, I suppose, less plain than I know I am) made me
tingle.
In those first hours, before Gavin Adams ruined Gavin Adams for me,
I was definitely taken. I wanted him to come back. I wanted to talk to him the
next day, and the next. I wanted him to keep looking at me like he had, and
make me believe in myself the way I’ll need to if I want my dream to come true.
I’d have been spared all of that unnecessary sentimentality if I’d
just met the real Gavin from the start. If he’d never come into the Nosh Pit.
If the first time I’d seen him was onstage, I’d have probably felt
the same tingle as the other female audience members during his set … but then
been immediately repulsed by his actions afterward. It would have been over
practically before it began.
As I look at the door into the hallway, I wonder why I’m thinking
all of this. It’s like I’m trying to convince myself, or make myself feel
better. My thoughts are full of regret: If only this had happened, or
hadn’t. But you tend to think If only when what’s happened isn’t
something you want.
I’m pretty much over Gavin. For sure.
Except, I wonder if I am.
The way he walked by just now, I almost wanted to go to him. To see
what was wrong. But that’s what’s so dangerous about this, and what
proves I need to get over whatever little crush I must still have as soon as
humanly possible. Because Brian was that way, too, and sometimes I’m a sucker.
He’d act horribly then seem lost with regret. And I’d go to him, like a fool.
Just like I want to go to Gavin now.
To find out what’s wrong, conveniently forgetting that he sleeps
around. That he’s arrogant and self-absorbed in his rock star persona. That
he’s dismissive. Two-faced. And that even now, as I feel the pull to follow and
soothe him, I know that he just finished chewing someone out like an
asshole prima donna.
I force myself to ignore my impulse. Whatever’s wrong with Gavin
right now, if anything, is his damned problem. It’s his fault, and he surely
deserves what he gets.
He’s wrong for me. I’ve been down that road before, and the worst
thing in the world I could do would be to let him know I’m still interested in
knowing him better. For a guy like that, it’d only encourage him. It’d only
make things that much worse.
The bar is getting ready to open, so I find Danny and ask if he
needs anything else. Richard, who hangs out near the door and always acts as if
there’s a conspiracy afoot, tries telling me that he needs something,
but I don’t particularly feel like playing games.
I need to hold onto my convictions and my focus.
I know what I want, and what I don’t.
I just wish the lines between the two would stop blurring.
**********************************************************************************
I stop by the bathroom and splash water on my face. I flush the
toilet, just in case someone outside is listening. I wanted to run, but don’t
want to seem like I wanted to.
It’s cool. Nothing to see here.
I towel off, careful to dry the hairs sticking to my forehead so I
don’t get a wet-hair halo that, I’m sure, will give me away. Too late, I think
to check my makeup. And of course, I’ve ruined my concealer. My stupid, horrid redhead
freckles are now visible, even though the rest of my face seems intact.
I look at my phone. I’ve got time. My purse is in a locker, but I
can grab it, run back in here before the doors open, and cover up.
I leave the bathroom and head into the room with the lockers, but
before I can work my combination lock I hear someone enter.
I turn to see Chloe, the singer without a past — as far as I know,
anyway — walking elegantly toward me.
“Oh. Hi, Chloe.”
“Are you writing with Gavin?”
I assess her before responding. Chloe is pretty and young, but not
in the same way the groupies or even the waitresses are. There’s something
about her that carries beyond her years, as if she’s an old soul in a fresh
body. Her blonde hair is usually shaped into platinum waves that would have
been at home behind the mic in a World War II nightclub. The way she asked, my
alarms want to go off, sure that Chloe has designs on Gavin like everyone else.
But she looks more curious than accusatory, so I simply answer her.
“Oh. No.”
“Wasn’t that his new song?”
“Yes.”
“But you had lyrics. I didn’t think Gavin wrote lyrics.”
Knowing how this is going to sound, I say, somewhat resigned, “I
wrote them.”
I watch Chloe digest the information, sure that she’s judging me. I
pretend to be a writer, but I’ve barely ever written a thing. I can’t even
finish a short story that satisfies me. I don’t have music experience and
barely even have music club experience beyond the past few months. She
must be deciding whether I’m deluded or merely pathetic.
“Did he ask you to write them? Did he give you a start?”
Now I feel stupid. I answer dismissively, waving a hand and
returning to my lock for something to do. “Oh, I was just playing around.”
“By writing those lyrics.”
“You know how music will get stuck in your head. He’s been playing
it, and I guess it kind of got wedged in there. I just sort of heard the words
of the chorus as I walked around, under the rhythm of my feet.” I give Chloe a
glance. “It’s stupid, I know.”
At first, she doesn’t answer, not taking my stupid-bait. I notice
for the first time that Chloe has pale-green eyes. From a distance, they look
brown. She has a natural pout in the set of her lips, and onstage, with her
elegant clothing, she looks dead sexy. But it’s the kind of sexy that seems
somehow superior, so men rarely approach her. It would be easy to believe that
Chloe, with all her mystery and her prime spot in the lineup, thinks she’s too
good for someone like me. But as much as I try to convince her that I’m stupid,
she’s not rushing to agree.
“You said the chorus. But you had all of the verses, too.”
“I was singing out my ass. Making it up as I went along.”
Chloe walks a few more steps. I almost think she’ll sit, but I have
no intention to do the same. Then it will be awkward. Instead, she leans
against the lockers, arms crossing as she makes herself comfortable.
“You know,” she says.
“Know what?”
“You looked him up. Dug around.”
“I found some of his songs,” I say.
“But you know what happened. With Firecracker Confession.”
I shift uncomfortably. I hope she’ll let me off the hook — but no,
she’s waiting for my answer.
“I know there was a car accident. His band died.”
Chloe’s head shakes slowly. But she’s not saying no; she seems to be
deciding that I’m baffling, or possibly an idiot.
“Not just his band, Abigail. Grace was his girlfriend.” She watches
me then adds, “And his songwriter.”
My mouth was open. I shut it.
“I … I didn’t know.” I’m trying to remember what I may have said to
Gavin, particularly the times I pried too far and he seemed to cut me off. Have
I been nosy? Intrusive? Have I — ?
“You’ve just written him the only new lyrics he’s had since she
passed.”
Oh, shit. Oh, Jesus. Now I want to crawl into a hole and die.
“I was just messing around,” I say.
“Have you ever written lyrics before?”
“I wasn’t ‘writing lyrics.’ I was … that was just stuff in my head.”
She comes forward another step, and this time she does something
curious for anyone else but perfectly expected from Chloe Campbell. She reaches
out and takes hold of one of my earrings, inspecting it. They’re pretty things,
set with diamonds — one of the few rich girl relics I’ve hung onto. And now,
it’s like Chloe has seen the clue I’ve left literally hanging, and can see
right through me.
She lets go and says, “Are you telling me the truth?”
I nod. “Of course.”
She sighs, her pouting lips pressing together as she seems to
believe me. She leans back from the lockers and begins to stroll the small
room. I turn to follow, and she stops once I’m looking out the window, seeing
the darkening Old Town streets beyond.
“The best of the stuff I’ve written comes right out of the air,” she
says, her voice breathy. “The pieces I labor over, that I work on forever?
Those are the songs I usually don’t bother to sing. It’s the spontaneous ones
that are most honest. What I do on this stage, those are songs I wrote in an
afternoon. They come to me almost whole, from nowhere.”
“That’s spooky,” I say, unsure how else to respond.
“What you sang just now? That hurt him. He won’t show it, of course,
but I could see it on his face.”
Is this an accusation? Is she angry? Does she think I’m a
pretentious bitch, daring to dip my toe so publicly into waters that only true
artists should swim?
“I didn’t mean to — ” I begin.
“He needed to hear it. And it was sweet, what you said.”
I think back. I don’t even remember what I sang. So much of it was
like Chloe described: out of nowhere, as if something else was using my mouth
to sing words like a puppet.
“Grace meant everything to him, Abigail. They were inseparable.
Charlie was almost as close. The three of them were one of those groups of
friends most of us envy. They didn’t fight. Three is supposed to be an unstable
number, but there was never any jealousy. Charlie had a girl of his own, and he
had no designs on Grace. Charlie and Gavin had been best friends since grade
school, I guess. And when Gavin needed time to compose with Charlie, Grace
understood because she was one of them. You could tell just looking at them
that they were going to make it because they were three wills blending into
one. I met them a year before the accident then ran into them here and there
when we were all nomads. What Gavin and Grace had? It was special. You could
tell.”
“I … ” But there are no words. I don’t know what to say. Chloe’s
story isn’t making me feel touched or even sad. Instead, it’s making me feel
like I’ve trespassed. Like I’ve stepped where I don’t belong and am not wanted.
“When she died, everyone who knew them thought that Gavin might,
too. The car accident that killed them? Gavin was supposed to be in it. And
it’s like he wishes he had been. For weeks, he would only second-guess
everything. He was sure it was his fault. He wished he could have traded his
life for theirs, but worse was how he seemed to just want to be with them,
whether they could have lived or not. They were all for one and one for all, as
far as Gavin was concerned. His survival made him angry. It was that way for a
long time, and then he settled into this workless slump. He’ll only play
Grace’s old songs, but never with lyrics.”
“Why not? I’ve heard him sing a little on YouTube.”
“Because most of the songs were about how much she loved him.”
Chloe’s reply breaks something inside me. I want to slump into a
chair. I want to cry, for him, for all of them. And I want to apologize. I’m
remembering some of the song now, and I want to take it all back. I didn’t ask
for those lyrics; they seemed to come to me as naturally as if Gavin had
birthed them himself without ever writing them down. He needs to understand
that I didn’t mean any of it. The song’s story seemed to be about moving on,
but because I was singing, it’s as if I was the one singing that sorrow isn’t worth
the indulgence. It was flip and dismissive. I feel so terribly sorry.
“I didn’t mean it,” I say, almost pleading. “I didn’t mean what I
sang.”
Chloe reaches out again, but this time she doesn’t touch my earring.
She cups my cheek with her palm and smiles.
“You both meant it, Darling. Because whether or not you
realize it, you wrote that song together.”
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