by Bryce Oakley
“Isn’t it obvious? Very and I have reconciled. Hence the celebratory drink,” Lara said, gesturing to the drink.
“Vero’s sober,” Billie said, grimacing at the alcohol.
“Very took some time away from alcohol and now she’s in such a happy place in her life that she can enjoy it again,” Lara said, as if she was the leading expert on the matter.
“Where the fuck is Vero?” Billie said, her voice raising.
That was when Vero had appeared. Clothed only in a towel, a terrified look on her face. Terrified of being caught?
Billie had pretty much blacked out during the rest of the encounter, overcome with betrayal and rage and heartache.
“She actually took Vero’s hand in hers and said the words, ‘Let’s put on clothes if we’re going to have company?’” Domino repeated from the longer version of the story.
Billie nodded, and Domino replaced the whiskey glass in her hand.
“That is so fucked up,” Domino whispered. “Could it have actually been a misunderstanding, though?”
“She didn’t look upset about having Lara there. She looked upset about me seeing it,” Billie said, standing up. “I’ve gotta pee.”
She wandered down the hallway to the guest bathroom. She heard her phone ring for a second, but the bathroom urge was too strong to turn back.
“Did my phone ring?” Billie asked upon returning to the table, reaching for her phone. Had Vero called?
“Not that I know of,” Domino said, looking at her like she had two heads.
Billie pulled up her call logs. Nothing.
She finished the whiskey and walked into the master bedroom, digging in Domino’s closet for pajamas. “I’m sleeping over,” she announced, finding a ratty t-shirt and running shorts — she was pretty sure she had never seen Domino run, so they must have been lounge clothes.
She crawled into Domino’s bed. They had always been close, but now she needed her sister more than ever. Billie had always been the strong one. Always level-headed. Always cleaning up Domino’s messes and sorting things out when Domino’s wild child ways messed them up.
But now, as Domino laid down in the bed next to her and rubbed her back in silence, she had to admit that it felt good to be taken care of, too.
* * *
It had been two weeks since she had seen Vero.
Domino gently broke the news to her that Vero had announced in a TV interview that day about the release of “Undone” as a single at midnight.
They were hanging out at Billie’s, since for the past two weeks, she had barely left the house unless Domino had forced her into it. They were playing cards at the kitchen table. Domino had been a genius to bring something that took most of Billie’s attention to play.
“That was fast,” Billie groaned upon hearing it. She glanced at the clock on the mantle. It was only 8:30pm.
“Have you heard it since she recorded the full version?” Domino asked, tossing a card onto the pile between them.
Billie shook her head. “Nope. And I don’t want to. She hasn’t even called to apologize,” she grumbled, as she was prone to do when the subject of Vero came up.
Domino furrowed her brow. “I’m sorry, Billo. At least you’ll get royalty checks to soothe your broken heart?” She tried to smile.
“That’s true,” Billie said, arching a brow.
“Oh, I was wrong,” Domino said, flipping through her phone. “It’s coming out at midnight Eastern time. So, 9pm. Like soon.”
Billie’s stomach flipped in anticipation. Her mouth was suddenly dry. “Soon. How did she record it that fast?”
“Oh, you know kids these days, all digital and computery,” Domino said, waving her hand.
Billie rolled her eyes. “Yeah, dude, we made a record, too,” she said. “I seem to remember it taking forever since you were such a weird perfectionist about every song.”
“Now you’re just making stuff up,” Dom teased.
“If it’s just the single, maybe that’s all she recorded so far?” Billie asked, biting her lip as she looked from her cards to the stack on the table.
“Pretty likely,” Dom said.
“I really thought she would have sent me the final version before releasing it,” Billie mused.
Domino shrugged, not looking up from her cards.
The time seemed to slow for the next half hour, as Billie checked the clock what seemed like ten thousand times.
Finally, at 9pm, she opened her phone, ready to hear it.
“Want me to put it on the stereo? We can have a little listening party and celebrate your brilliant songwriting,” Domino offered.
“Sure,” Billie said, not able to move. Her legs were suddenly made of lead, and her arms seemed to have lost all sensation.
“Come on, join me on the couch,” Domino said.
A text dinged on Billie’s phone.
Mego: Just heard the single. It’s so good! Good job!
She smiled. At least it was being well-received.
Zoey texted moments later.
Zoey: You genius songwriter, you. Can’t wait to get The Shrikes songs back on the table!
“Meg and Zo seem to have liked it,” Billie said.
“No fair, we have to listen to it before we’re influenced by other’s opinions,” Domino demanded, navigating an app on her phone.
The first chords of the song hummed through the speaker with an added backbeat that sped up the song into something Billie could tap her foot to while listening along.
Billie closed her eyes, transported instantly back to the music room. Back to Vero on the piano bench, looking shy about playing in front of her.
Vero began singing, her voice low and soulful as she sang the song they had written together. The one they had both written for each other.
“You keep me guessing,” she sang.
“Turn it off,” Billie demanded, opening her eyes. She felt as though she was suffocating, hearing those words.
“What?” Domino asked, surprised.
“Turn it off. I can’t hear it right now,” Billie said.
“But it’s your song,” Domino insisted, pausing the song.
“No, it’s our song. And I can’t think about us right now. Everything we poured out in that song — every fear — it came true. How could she even record it?” Billie said, tears slipping down her cheeks.
“Hey, it’s okay, you don’t have to hear it,” Domino said, looking at her warily. She reached and touched Billie’s shoulder. “Are you alright?”
Billie shook her head. “I never want to hear that song again,” she demanded.
Chapter Eighteen
Vero
Vero nervously checked her phone. She thought she’d at least hear from Billie now that the song was out.
Still, nothing.
No answer anytime she called. No response to her emails.
Nothing.
It had been about six weeks since she had heard from Billie. Six long, miserable weeks.
She felt as if she was moving through sand, her body heavy with the grief of losing what she knew would be a great love.
That grief made her throw herself into her career.
Her manager and PR handlers wanted her to get the single out while the tabloids were still pushing the idea of her and Billie together. There were even more paparazzi than usual hanging around outside of her home at all times.
She longed to go back to Telluride. To escape. To live simply and get out of the entire circus.
And yet, hearing the final version of the single felt like a huge burden had lifted off her shoulders.
She had done it. She had put out her first song.
One of the most popular music review sites, Grip, had arranged an interview that day. With her PR handler, Jill, she walked into their headquarters in West Hollywood wearing a beanie and sunglasses, just like every other celesbian in LA. Jill, on the other hand, was almost all-business. She wore a fitted dress that showed off her Spin Class
figure. Vero knew she was into spin because of all the times Jill had called her while on the bike. The woman was a beast.
They were led to a conference with a bright, geometric mural on the wall. A woman walked in almost as soon as she sat down. “Vero? I’m Ainsley Clarkson,” she said, reaching out her hand to shake Vero’s.
“Nice to meet you,” she said, pulling off her sunglasses. She shook the woman’s hand. In any normal mood, she’d have noted how gorgeous the interviewer was, but instead, she looked back at Jill.
“I’m just here as a resource if you have any questions,” Jill said.
Jill and Justin still didn’t trust her to know how to do or say the right thing. She knew it was their job to handle that side of her career, but it increasingly felt as though they were tightening the short leash they kept her on.
Ainsley made small talk about coffee and weather as she set up her recorder and pulled out her phone. “I was hoping that after the interview, we could do a few casual, candid videos with split-second questions that you have to answer. That okay with you?” She asked.
Vero nodded. She had seen the videos they usually posted on their social media, and they were always fun. She was nervous about the questions, but surely Jill had looked over them before they had arrived. “Of course,” she said with a polite smile.
“Let’s dive in and talk about why you left UltraViolet. You were at the top of your game. What inspired the solo career?” Ainsley asked.
Damn, she wasted no time. “I was ready,” Vero answered simply. This was exactly the type of question that Jill had coached her on for hours. “I wanted more control over the music I put out and the image that I portrayed. I still have nothing but love for UltraViolet and all of the incredible women in it.”
Ainsley blinked, watching and assessing her. “Would you like to address the rumors that there was a relationship between you and Lara Nicholas?”
“Sure,” Vero began, ready to get it over with.
Jill cleared her throat. “Not at this time, Miss Clarkson,” she said, her words firm but polite.
Ainsley nodded, looking back and forth between Jill and Vero. Vero suddenly became a lot more nervous and self-conscious.
“What can we expect from the new music? If ‘Undone’ is anything to be believed, your sound has really matured and grown since your UltraViolet days. Will we hear more of that on the new record?” Ainsley asked.
“Absolutely. I’ve grown so much since leaving the group. I’m really proud of the new music, because there’s so much of me in it. I wrote all of the music on the new album, which is still a work in progress, and I’m really excited for my fans to hear it,” Vero said, robotically answering another rehearsed question.
Ainsley nodded. “‘Undone’ has writing credits for Billie Rush — so the songwriting rumors are true? Does she have any other writing credits on the new album?”
“I suppose you’ll have to buy the album to see,” Vero said with a laugh.
In reality, she wasn’t sure. She had asked Billie to write the entire album with her, and that’s what she still wanted, given how incredible their songs together turned out.
“Will your father have any songwriting credits on the album?” Ainsley asked.
“I wish,” Vero laughed. “No, he’s been very respectful of letting me have my own career without the shadow of his looming over it.”
“Tell me about ‘Undone,’ What was the inspiration behind the song?” Ainsley asked, looking down at her notebook.
“We wrote that song to try to portray that scary feeling of falling for someone. The process of tearing down your defenses, undoing all of the hard work you may have done to protect yourself, in order to give your heart to someone. It was important to me to portray that raw reality behind falling in love, and how it can be just as scary as it is exciting,” Vero said, going slightly off-script from what Jill had told her.
“Is the song autobiographical?” Ainsley asked quickly, as if it hadn’t been in her notes. She was proving to be a journalist with some damn good instincts.
“To a point, I think all good music is autobiographical. I like to tell stories through my songs, so whether that feeling is something I’ve experienced or empathized with, it’s always a real feeling that I can portray,” Vero answered, dodging the question.
Ainsley nodded. “I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask you about the rumors about you and Billie. Any comment?”
Jill began, “No comm—“
“Billie is a fantastic person who I have a lot of love in my heart for. We became close friends over the process of songwriting together. There’s a real intimacy when you’re working on a shared art, and the trust between us made a damn good song, in my opinion,” Vero laughed.
Ainsley smiled. “Okay, that’s it for my formal interview. Shall we go to some quick questions?”
Vero nodded, and Ainsley led her to sit in a seat in front of the iconic mural.
“Okay, I’m going to rapid fire questions to you, and you’ll answer as many as you can in thirty seconds. Deal?” Ainsley asked.
“I’ll try,” Vero said, sitting up straight.
Ainsley positioned a camera on a tripod. “Okay, ready?”
Vero nodded.
“First album you ever bought,” Ainsley asked.
“Um, I think it was an Avril Lavigne album, much to my father’s dismay,” Vero laughed.
“Last album you bought.”
“Sonic Youth’s Goo. No thanks to Kyle.”
“Best album of all time.”
“My father would disown me if I didn’t pick a Fangs album, so I plead the fifth.”
“Favorite song of all time.”
Vero paused, considering. That was a hard one. “‘Somebody to Love’ by Queen.”
“Favorite album of the past ten years."
“The Shrikes’ Heart’s Content,” Vero admitted, blushing.
“Okay, that’s 30 seconds,” Ainsley said, smiling. “Photos?”
A few hours later, she sat in the back of a car with Jill, who was fuming.
“You went off script,” she had been repeating the lecture since they had left Grip.
Vero stared down at her phone, willing Billie to call her. The silence was driving her up the wall. “Mmhmm,” she agreed with Jill, knowing that agreement ended the PR lectures easier than disagreement.
“After all we’ve done to promote this song,” Jill was saying, but Vero was only catching parts of the conversation, staring out the window as the roads wound through West Hollywood to Silverlake.
“We’ve been working hard recently,” Vero said robotically.
“Who do you think even got people talking about this single in the first place?” Jill said, crossing her arms.
Vero glanced back at Jill, crinkling her brow. “What do you mean?”
Jill went silent, staring out the window.
“What do you mean about getting people to talk about the single in the first place?” Vero repeated.
“Nothing,” Jill said. “Just that we’ve been working our asses off these past few weeks. Grip today and Pia’s talk show tomorrow. This is what we’ve been working for all this time, isn’t it?”
Vero blinked, watching Jill squirm. “What did you do?”
Jill didn’t answer or meet her eye.
“You were the one who leaked that Billie and I were writing a song together in the first place, weren’t you? That indie cred article,” Vero said, the realization dawning on her even as the words came out of her mouth.
Jill’s eyes widened. “No, that was Justin. Honest,” she said.
“Then why do you look so guilty?” Vero asked.
“Because I’m the one who sent the photographer to Telluride while Billie was there,” Jill said slowly.
“Why? Why would you do that when you know Telluride is the one place I can be relatively normal?” Vero asked.
“I needed people to be talking about the single. Justin's article was going to flo
p without proof,” Jill said. “But in my defense, we didn’t publish the photos of you two at the hot springs.”
Vero narrowed her eyes. “You're fired. You and Justin are both fired.”
Jill snorted. “And you’ll just, what, promote the single on your own?”
“Yeah,” Vero said, blinking. “If that’s what I have to do to get rid of you two, it’s a small price to pay.”
The car pulled up at the front of the building and Vero stepped out, feeling lighter.
She walked into her building with a wave to Tony — Rory had been reassigned after the Lara debacle — and walked into the elevator, she pushed the button with a sense of confidence that she hadn’t felt in weeks.
Without her handlers, she knew what she had to do.
Tomorrow, on Pia’s talk show, a daytime couch interview with a very funny lesbian comic, she’d talk about Billie. On her own terms.
Chapter Nineteen
Billie
Billie stared at the phone screen in absolute shock. She sat on the couch, surrounded by Meg, Zoey, and Domino, watching Vero’s interview.
The second they had heard that Vero candidly discussed love in the interview, they had scheduled a band hangout to give Billie backup while watching it.
“I date women. I’m still not ready to label that, I don’t think. I just know that I fall in love with women. In fact, the most important relationship of my life was with a woman,” she said, her shoulders straight and her chin high. “I have made huge mistakes in my life, but I'm still proud of that love. It’s made me a better artist and a better person, and I have no regrets about that.”
“And who was this life-changing love?” Pia asked, looking enthralled with the story.
“I think the upcoming record will tell the story of that one,” Vero said with a cheeky grin.
"Does it have a release date yet?” Pia asked.
“Not yet. I’m going to be releasing singles, though, so my fans will get the newest music as fast as I can get it to them,” Vero smiled.
