I tried to tell myself that I didn’t really know if the song was about me. He’d admitted he’d used ghostwriters in the past. Maybe this was all an engineered stunt by Lola to capitalize on his public heartbreak, just like Mandy Monroe had done back in December.
But deep down, I knew. And every time I heard it, it felt like Ash was calling out directly to me. Because the entire song was about us.
I heard the song a lot. The second Ash released it, it went straight to number one. The song was a bonafide, runaway, gobsmackingly huge mega hit. I heard it everywhere, at the deli where I went for a sandwich. From the earbuds of the person sitting next to me on the subway who was clearly going deaf from the volume of her music. Even in my own apartment, where Jillian set her iPad to Pandora. Sometimes none of us could get to it in time to stop the song from starting to play. Once the song started up while I was in the shower. Running out with soap in my eyes, I knocked straight into a stool. It slowed me down so much the song played all the way into the chorus.
“I’ve come undone,” Ash sang, playing the notes we’d created together, describing how he felt in such heartbreakingly raw terms. Expressing exactly how I felt going on two months without him.
Jillian met me breathless in the kitchen, finding me standing there in a towel with shampoo in my hair and a wet puddle at my feet.
“Maybe we should stop listening to music?” she offered, clearly not sure what to do with me.
“Or we could play a different station,” I suggested.
“It comes on every station I have!” she cried out, taking the iPad out of my dripping wet hands. “It’s a huge crossover hit!”
“I know.” The song was off, but I could still hear it, echoing in my soul.
“Do you think you should, you know, get in touch? He sounds, kind of, upset.”
I shook my head. The way I saw it, it was at least a 50 percent chance the whole thing was just a publicity stunt. I’d spent enough time in Ash’s world to understand how it worked. Everyone used everyone else to get ahead. Chances were good that Lola and the rest of the team behind the Ash Black brand had orchestrated the entire release.
But what if it were more than that? What if that was how he really felt? I sometimes felt that it was, late at night as I lay awake and stared at the ceiling. And, yes, once or twice in the darkness I allowed myself to listen to the song. Pure and gritty, his voice hitting every note with growling intensity, he spoke directly to me.
At times like that, in the dark with just me and Ash telling me how deeply he felt for me, how devastated he was to lose me, I thought it had to be the most romantic thing I’d ever heard. If I allowed myself to slip into the fantasy, that song just about killed me. Word-for-word, it was literally everything I’d always dreamed he’d say, singing it out from his heart straight to me.
But that was just it, wasn’t it? If that was how he felt, wouldn’t he speak directly to me? He would get in touch. He could send me a letter or email or phone the library or deliver a dozen roses to my apartment or, hell, he could probably land a private helicopter on top of a nearby building and offer to whisk me off to any destination of my choosing if only I’d say yes.
Each day I heard nothing from him was another day I knew he didn’t really want to be with me. I told myself this, too, would pass. Even mega smash hit songs went away, eventually. Sure, they made their way into your DNA. Just as you knew you’d always be able to sing along with “Don’t Stop Believing” you knew you’d always remember that song. But it wouldn’t be so bad once it finally made its way off the airwaves.
In April, the song was nominated for the Billboard Music Awards. For a lot of things: Top Artist & Top Male Artist, Top Digital Song, Top Hot 100 Song, Top Streaming Song, Top Rock Song. That wasn’t surprising.
What was surprising was how I found out that the song had been nominated. On the first Saturday of April, I got a big, thick package in the mail. Inside was an invitation to attend the Billboard Music Award show in Vegas in May. And a letter congratulating me on my song’s nomination. Not Ash’s song. My Song.
Because I was the songwriter. Ash had given me full songwriting credit. For his smash mega hit song “Undone.”
I stood there sporting a giant sweatshirt and jeans, package at my feet, letter in my shaking hands, mouth open in shock. There were a whole bunch of things I couldn’t process. First, what? Ash had made me the songwriter? He’d come up with the original melody. Sure, I’d helped it along, but I really thought he’d written that song.
Second, what? I was the songwriter of a smash song? And I was only finding out about it now? Didn’t there have to be lawyers involved? Documents signed, that type of thing? I remembered the NDA Ash’s attorney Nelson had given me in multiple forms. How had this managed to escape my notice over the past month?
I dug back into the package and that’s when I saw the note. A blank card in an envelope with my name scrawled across it. I knew in an instant, it was from Ash. I didn’t even know when I’d seen his handwriting in our time together, or how I remembered it from when I had, but there it was. My hands trembling, I opened it up.
Please come.
This is your song. If it wins, it will be your award.
I’ll stay away from you if it’s what you want.
Don’t skip this because of me.
Hope to see you there.
-Ash
I stood there trembling, staring at the note. Thankfully, my roommate Liv was home. I’m not sure how long I would have stood there otherwise.
“What’s that?” Liv asked, coming to take the note out of my hands. “Are you all right?”
I managed to explain what was happening, or what I thought was happening. Liv could read better than I could at the moment and verified that, yes, I had received an invitation to the BMA show in Vegas in May because, yes, I was identified as the songwriter to the current number one international hit “Undone.”
The passing of days didn’t make the news any less shocking. If anything, my surprise grew as I started receiving paperwork and tax forms and all sorts of legal documents explaining royalty rates. Apparently, I was going to start earning quite a nice chunk of money off of the song. A song I’d co-written at best, but Ash had chosen to give me full credit.
I thought of calling him a million times. I held my phone in my hand and imagined pressing call. I still had his number in it, even though I’d blocked any calls I may or may not have received from him. But I didn’t do it.
If his note had been warmer, I would have. If he’d said he missed me, or if he’d sounded less businesslike, or even if he’d signed it ‘sincerely’ instead of just using a dash, I would have. But he’d spoken only of the song. And he seemed to assume that the next time we spoke would be at the awards show.
Which I decided I would attend. Why not? How many chances in life did you get to attend a huge, celebrity-studded awards show? And to attend it as one of the nominees? Not often.
Which was why I invited my parents to come with me. At first they were not overly enthusiastic about heading to Vegas, or Sin City as my mother insisted on calling it. But then my father pointed out that if they didn’t come, I’d be there on my own. They bought plane tickets the next day, and I booked us rooms in the reserved block at the MGM where the show would be held. I hadn’t become a classical pianist, but I had been nominated for a songwriting award. That was something!
Days before the show, I was still deliberating over the right dress to wear. Without a full team of stylists, I was finding it a bit more challenging to clothe myself. I’d rented a couple of gowns from an online service, the kind where if I returned them in good condition within the week I only had to pay $50. But I couldn’t decide what look I wanted to go with.
Time to enlist Jillian and Liv. I’d choose whichever dress neither of them liked. I came upon them whispering to each other in our kitchenette.
“We have to tell her,” Jillian insisted.
“Do we? I’m not sure.�
�� Liv looked grim.
“Tell me what?”
They startled like two kids cheating on a test in school. After sharing a resigned look, Jillian started in.
“We have something to tell you.” She cleared her throat and tapped her fingers together nervously. “There was a letter.”
“A letter?”
“A letter from Ash,” she continued, looking ashen.
“Where is it?” I exploded.
“I, um, I burned it.” Now Liv spoke, sounding uncharacteristically hesitant.
“You what?” I couldn’t have heard that right.
“Burned it.”
“Like set fire to it?” Who did that? Then again, my roommate had also sewn herself a shirt out of raw meat. She did out-of-the ordinary things.
She nodded. Apparently burning my mail was one of those things.
“What the hell?” I slammed my palm down on the countertop. I didn’t have much of a temper, but this sure flared what I did have right up.
“You were so depressed!” Jillian interjected. “It just seemed like—”
“Seemed like what? It was a good idea to steal my property and burn it?”
“Do you remember the ugly crying?” Liv asked.
Hmm. That gave me a moment of pause. I did remember the ugly crying. But, wait, the letter had come that long ago? “When did I get it?”
“Oh, like, late sheme-dmn.” Jillian mumbled her response.
“What was that now?”
“January.” Liv confirmed. “You got the letter in January.”
“January!” I could feel cartoon steam coming out of my ears.
“Seriously, Ana, that was back when you couldn’t stop crying.”
“But—” I spluttered.
“You were such a mess!” Jillian added. “I’m sorry we did it, but we were just worried about you.”
“I wasn’t that bad,” I protested.
“You wore your pants backwards one day,” Liv corrected me.
“I did?”
“Yeah. But I made you turn them around.”
She had? When had that happened? “I don’t even remember that.”
“It happened,” Jillian confirmed.
“You were really far gone,” Liv agreed.
“He seems like such bad news,” Jillian added. “And we thought a letter from him might really send you over the edge.”
“So you burned it?” I still couldn’t get on board with their logic.
“We burned it. And that might not have been the best idea, so I’m sorry,” Jillian apologized.
“I’m sorry,” Liv added.
I exhaled, fuming. “I’m still mad,” I insisted.
“We know,” they both agreed.
Surveying them in disbelief, I asked, “At least, did either of you read it before you burned it?”
They both shook their heads no.
“But it was thick. It was a long letter,” Jillian said, looking awfully pale.
“Oh God.” I sank my head into my hands. Whew. They were certifiably insane, that was clear, but I guess I’d known that already. “You’re both crazy, you know that?” I had to tell them.
“OK, but promise me you won’t wear that dress to the awards show,” Liv exclaimed. “It has sleeves! You might as well wrap yourself in a blanket!”
“You can’t wear that,” Jillian agreed. “It’s way too short and tight. What if you drop something? How would you bend over and pick it up?”
“OK, thanks, guys.” At least I knew what I was wearing to the awards show. Now if only I knew what had been in that freaking letter.
Because apparently Ash had written me a letter. Four months ago. It had been a long four months. I supposed I should feel like I was getting over him by now, like I didn’t remember exactly how it felt when he held me or kissed me. By now I should have completely forgotten about the way he laughed over something silly I said or made me spaghetti or marveled over my playing piano or made love to me like I was the most sexy, amazing woman in the world.
I hadn’t been getting over him. And it wasn’t just the fact that I heard his voice yearning for me from every street corner. That didn’t help, of course, but it was more than that. My attachment to Ash was like one of those tricky weeds that drove my dad crazy in our lawn. You’d think you’d removed it all, but somehow it kept springing up, robust and new, withstanding any and all attempts at eradication. The roots were deep and stubborn.
And now I was about to see him again. My parents and I flew out to L.A. tomorrow. I knew back when Ash and I had been together, I’d been full of doubts. We lived in different worlds, he ran with a fast crowd, I liked to knit, etc. etc. It all seemed stupid now. My heart felt like it had been broken in two. If he felt the same way, if we were two parts of a matching whole, then what the hell were we doing apart from each other?
I didn’t know what the future had in store for us. But I did know I was going to plunge headlong into it, fly there and find him and get to the bottom of this. Wearing a gorgeous, glittering dress—yes short and tight, Jillian, and yes with sleeves, Liv—to a live, televised awards show where I would get all the answers I desperately needed.
CHAPTER 11
Ash
After Ana left me, I went into hibernation. I literally turned into a bear. OK, I didn’t literally turn into one. I’m not a shape-shifter. But I think I came as close to becoming a bear as a normal, full-blooded human can.
I went off the grid. I’m not talking a Mammoth cabin with a caretaker hooking you up with L.A. gourmet dinners in the freezer. I’m talking a hardcore, can’t find a trace of you off-the-grid cabin. The kind my brother, Heath, knows all about.
Heath went off the grid sometime before his graduation from college. It had about killed our father. I think he’d been two credits shy of earning his diploma, whatever credits were. I didn’t know the details, but I got the picture. My younger brother had been about to graduate and instead of donning the cap and gown and posing for photos he’d help up his middle finger and gone Off The Grid.
I knew all about holding up my middle finger. But I needed Heath to help me disappear. Lucky for me, he answered my call and set me up in a cabin near his in Vermont. When I say near his, it was probably about 30 miles away but I think there were maybe only two houses in between us. I’m exaggerating, like the bear thing. But the essence is true. In the cold and snow in a basic, rustic cabin I felt completely alone.
Which was exactly what I wanted. I’d never felt that way before. I’d always sought out a constant hum of activity. Now, I understood the other path my younger brother had taken. Stripped down, there were no distractions. No cell phone, no internet, no fans, no cameras. There was no bullshit. Just you and the elements.
And a piano. I knew that maybe was a little L.A. of me to insist on having a piano, but it wasn’t like I was demanding that roadies remove all the green M&Ms from the backstage dishes. Not that I’d ever done that, just for the record. But I needed a piano. I knew I had something I needed to work on, to finish up.
And I did, with the wind howling that the snow piling up outside, I let it all out into that song. Undone. I wrote it all for Ana, about Ana, with what was left of me after Ana had walked away.
I’d already written a lot of what I said in the song in a letter to her. Before I took off for the cabin, I wrote a long letter, the kind men used to write women when they used quills instead of pens. Or at least I hoped it was that kind of a letter. I was shit at writing. She probably couldn’t even read my handwriting. But I didn’t care, I wanted to write her exactly how I felt without worrying about how dumb I sounded or what she might think of me. I stayed up all night telling her exactly how much she meant to me, how she’d changed everything in my life and I never wanted to be without her. I loved her. I sealed it and stamped it and brought it down to the post office like a regular citizen and off it went.
I never heard back from her. Not even a cursory “thanks for the note!” Nothing. I guess I
hadn’t really expected her to hop on the next flight back to California and run into my arms, but it would have been nice.
So, instead of burying myself in Ana like I wanted to, I did the next best thing. I took off for the wilds of Vermont and wrote a song unlike any I’d ever written before. I figured that was a good thing. If I wanted to make big changes in my life, why not start with the core of what I did, making music? I had it finished by the time the Super Bowl rolled around, and I brought a crappy digital recording with me to play for my studio.
Lola and Joel just about crapped their pants in joy over my re-emergence. Sorry to be crass, but that about summed up the moment. I meant it when I said I’d gone off the grid. No one had been able to contact me for weeks leading up to the show. Not Connor, no one. And Ana, the one person I wanted to contact me, hadn’t.
I wondered if I was the first celebrity they’d had to hose down and shave so I could appear for a pre-game interview. I think I’d been wearing the same clothes for about a week by the time I showed up for rehearsals. Connor wasn’t looking too hot, either, though he looked more zombie than bear. I’d found him passed out in Johnny’s hotel room with two naked girls on his chest. As usual.
The thing about Connor was he never wanted to be alone. Even when we were in S.F. where we all had homes, he never seemed to want to be at his own place, always crashing over my place or Johnny’s or trying to book us into hotel suites. Once I got home, the last place I wanted to be was another goddamned hotel. Not so for Connor.
He looked peaceful lying there asleep, but I had something I wanted to talk about with him.
“Get up, mate.” I kicked his foot with my boot. He could rally with the best of them, and five minutes later we were walking down a sidewalk.
“Want one?” He offered me a cigarette.
“You know I quit.”
“I keep waiting for you to come to your senses.” We paused a moment while he protected the flame from his lighter and lit up. “Where the fuck’ve you been?” he asked after he’d taken a long drag. “Lola said New Hampshire?”
Undone, Volume 3 Page 16
