The Duet(49)

Now I’m at an all-time low



I glanced down at the fretboard, trying out a lick that fell fluidly into the bars we’d already created.



I’d go if I could

Oh, yes I know I should

You’ve got me misunderstood



I bit my lip to keep from smiling.



You’re a judgmental cow

Bet you feel so good now



Neither one of us stopped playing as we laughed at our pitiful attempt at a song. I didn’t know what we were doing— we sure as shit weren’t writing our duet— but there wasn’t half as much tension in the room as there had been when I’d first walked in and that counted for something.

“That was really terrible,” I said, strumming my fingers down the neck of my guitar before letting it rest on my lap.

“The bars or our lyrics?” he asked.

“No, I loved the chords. I meant my lyrics.”

He rubbed his lips together as if considering my answer. Thoughts clouded his gaze, but he kept them locked away.

“I didn’t mean those lyrics. Maybe I did when I first met you, but not anymore,” he said, staring out through the window over my shoulder.

I smiled. “Oh, I definitely meant mine.”

He laughed and we continued to strum for the remainder for the morning. We didn’t write any lyrics that day, but we continued playing together, creating what would eventually become the melody of our duet. The roots were being laid with chords that fell together like the leaves from a tree.

Creating the chords to a song was a process that never got any easier. In the beginning my fingers would sit on the fretboard as my mind worked in overtime, trying to fuel my creativity. I’d strum and strum, pick and pluck, until things started to work together.

I’d start with one chord. That’s all it took. And when I finished, and played back the song, it felt like that’s how those chords were always meant to be.

A good song never felt like it’d been struck into creation by my own hands. It felt like fate had willed the song to be and I’d merely chiseled away at the clutter around it, breathing clarity into the infinite combination of sounds.

Jason and I didn’t get to that point on the first day we played together, but I knew we’d get there soon. I’d never felt the clutter fall away quite as fast, or quite as easily, as it did when Jason and I played together.





Chapter Fifteen





If I had one piece of advice to bestow upon you, it would be: Never wear a pair of high-heels to a stable. Leave your Prada sling-backs in LA.

The next morning I found myself wandering out toward the barn and stable with a cup of coffee in hand. The morning air was cool, but I had a wool wrap to keep me warm. My heels were wobbly on the gravel path, but I did just fine getting to the door of the stable without spraining an ankle.

I hadn’t seen Dotty since before I’d left to go out of town so I was anxious to pay her a visit and sneak her some of the sugar cubes I’d tucked into my pocket at breakfast. I set my cup of coffee on a rock outside of the stable door and used both of my hands, and pretty much all of my body-weight, to pull open the heavy stable door.

“Jeez.” I exhaled as soon as I’d pulled it open wide enough to step inside.

The stable had natural light from the windows on the roof so I didn’t bother turning the light switch on. I didn’t want to jar the horses if they were still resting. Just like last time, the smell hit me first. It wasn’t too strong, just a reminder that I was in a stable and not a five-star hotel, but then I saw Dotty standing in her stall as if she’d been waiting for me all night.

I smiled and stepped forward slowly, letting her get used to me before I reached out so she could sniff my hand and rub her muzzle against my palm. She pushed her head and neck out over the top of her stall so that she could sniff my hair.

“Dotty, you are looking like a stunner this morning. Bet you have the stallions going crazy,” I said, rubbing her cheek and neck.

She sniffed my coffee first and then bent her head low to try to get to my pocket.

I laughed and pulled out the sugar cubes, feeding them to her one at a time. I could have stayed out there all day, writing next to her stall, but I had a Skype call with my agent in thirty minutes and I doubted Jason’s Montana internet signal reached the horse stable.

“I’ll come back later today,” I promised her, rubbing her neck until she emitted a low rumble through her nostrils.

I turned to leave the stable, careful to pull the door closed all the way once I was outside. But when I turned toward the house, my heel caught on a rock in the path and since my bottom half was facing the stable and my top half was twisted toward the house, I went down flailing aimlessly. Scalding coffee flew onto my hair and shirt. But no worries, I only got mud in my mouth, hair, eyes, ears, and nose. Nowhere important. Oh, and my Prada heels that cost me more than what I used to make in a month at my high school job? Broken, so broken that the mud in my vagina took a backseat. (Just kidding, sometimes life just demands a little dramatic embellishment.)