Page 20 of Friends Don't Fall in Love
Eventually, I close the app and pull up my messages.
LORELAI: Hey, can I see you tomorrow night after I get in?
His response is immediate.
HUCK: Of course. My place or your place?
LORELAI: Compromise on the balcony?
HUCK: I’ll bring the gluten-free biscuits and gravy. Fly safe tomorrow.
I hesitate and then take a chance. A tiny one.
LORELAI: “Slow Burn”
I stare at the rippling gray dots, my heart inexplicably in my throat.
HUCK: “Fire Away”
A relieved breath escapes my throat.
LORELAI: Damn, that’s a good one.
LORELAI:…
LORELAI: “If I Was a Cowboy”
HUCK: *groans* On today’s episode of single lines of lyrics I wish I’d written… Point to Jones this round.
HUCK: See you tomorrow.
I click out and toss my phone on the nightstand, a tired smile on my lips.
8CRAIG
MERCY
I told Amos to take Monday morning off on account of coming in late on a Saturday night, but I couldn’t help myself from unlocking the doors to our studio at sevenA.M.We don’t have anyone coming in until this afternoon, but I was crawling the walls of my too-quiet loft until the early morning hours and needed a change of scenery. I bought the duplex last year when the record company started to turn a steady profit and I needed a place closer to work. My plan was to eventually combine the two apartments into one open and renovated row house, but the rent income was hard to beat and I haven’t exactly had free time to knock down walls.
My first renter moved out a few months ago after he got married and moved to Georgia, and I’d figured on leaving it empty long enough to make some headway on the renovation. But then Lorelai’s former landlord raised the rent on her shitty studio, and I hated the idea of her essentially pouring her meager schoolteacher savings down the drain.
Am I playing with fire? Absolutely.
But it’s not her fault I’m in love with her and entirely suck at boundaries.
Anyway, like I said, home was too quiet.
I flip on the studio lights, leaving the sound booth undisturbed since I’m not recording anything this morning. I cross the floor, carefully layered in thick woven rugs, over to the piano in the corner and settle on the bench with a creak. I place my thermos of coffee on the glossed black lid and remove my jacket, laying it over the back of a chair.
Sipping from my coffee, I idly lift and push back the heavy cover, revealing the black and white keys. Some studios prefer to keep keyboards in-house for public use. This Steinway is all mine, however. One of the first things I bought with the commissions from my songwriting, and since I spend more time here than at home, it just makes sense that it’s here.
Besides, it sounds a thousand percent better on a recording.
I play with the keys, lingering on some and listening hard, concentrating all my earthly attention on the way the lower register haunts. Outside it’s a sunny, nearly sweltering late summer morning in Nashville. In here, it’s cool. Lonely. Achingly sad. In other words, the perfect climate for a hit single.
Ever since I met with Coolidge, I haven’t been able to shake this melody, and in my gut, I know it’s a duet. I initially felt it could be for him and Mathers. But I was wrong. This song needs Lorelai. It’s not romantic on the surface, although I know it could be taken that way. For Lorelai and Coolidge, this could be a song about leaving behind an old identity and finding a home in something new. Duets can bea lot of things: a tool to capitalize on chemistry, or a mutually beneficial career boost, or even a publicity stunt.
But a well-done duet can also be a signal of something more to come. Firing a flare into the deep, dark sky. A statement made by the united front of two powerhouse vocalists with through-hell-and-back stories using only their own force of will and industry-blinding talent.
