by Hazel Jacobs
Sure enough, when they’re gone, Dash pulls Sersha’s hand into the crook of his elbow and pulls her into the crowd. They’re going in the opposite direction as his brother and Mikayla, away from Slate and Tommy flirting with the waitresses.
“So, it all started when Bass Note hired us a PA…” he begins.
Sersha doesn’t hear from Black Lilith for a few days. She left the gala with Mikayla, Logan, and Dash. Tommy and Slate left with the girls that Slate had managed to pull. Sersha deliberately avoided looking at Tommy as he sweetly flirted his way into the redhead’s good graces. The way he would tip his head, smile softly, and gently brush away the hair on her shoulder, made Sersha chew on the inside of her cheek and drink a little more champagne than strictly necessary.
She got home, pulled her dress over her head and had to take a good hour to pull all of the bobby pins out of her hair. It was well past 3:00 a.m. before she managed to get all of her makeup removed and fall into bed.
The next morning she gets a call from one of her freelance clients. It’s actually a good thing that Black Lilith seems to be taking a break, it gives her the time to get on with something a little easier on her heart and hormones. A palate cleanser for her creativity that leaves her feeling refreshed by the end of the week. By the time she’s finished, she’s got a good supply of bubbles to keep her going through whatever comes next with Black Lilith.
On Friday, she Skypes her mam.
“Hold on a sec, sugar,” Mam says. She’s got her iPad resting against the tap on the sink as she peels some spuds for soup. Sersha’s mam has the same bird’s nest of blonde on her head, but she’s shorter and squatter than her daughter. Sersha got her physique from her dad. “Just let me sort this out.”
“Take your time,” Sersha replies. Her computer screen is split in half, with a word document open on the left and the Skype window open on the right.
“How’s the job?”
“All right,” says Sersha. “The band is nice to me.”
“Is the bass player everything you hoped?”
Sersha grins. She’s always been vocal about her lyrical crushes. “He’s a good lyricist. I’m still on the fence about him as a person.”
But the thing is, she doesn’t think that’s the case anymore. She had been on the fence about him. Back when he’d been doing everything in his power to get rid of her. Now it’s more complicated.
Dash had relayed Tommy’s tragic backstory to Sersha during the gala, weaving through the crowd so that they were never directly in front of the man as he flirted with the redhead. They never did run into Danielle again, which was a good thing because Sersha’s pretty sure that she would have sucker punched the woman. Or at least stomped on her ridiculously high heels.
Seriously, who needs to be that tall?
Sersha tells her mam about it while she finishes the spuds. About how Tommy had fallen in love with Danielle when she was Black Lilith’s PA. About how Danielle had stolen thousands of dollars from Black Lilith’s accounts, trying to pass it off as band expenses. When Logan had discovered the fraud, he’d told her to disappear so that Tommy wouldn’t have to know that she’d used him. She’d agreed. Tommy hadn’t found out until the band’s last tour when Logan had fallen in love with Mikayla despite the ‘no dating PAs’ rule that the band had put in place.
When Sersha’s done explaining it to her mam, there’s a moment of silence. Then her mam shakes her head.
“Well that’s a shit thing to do,” Mam says. She washes her hands and puts the potatoes on the stove. “And Tommy’s not over it, then?”
“Not by a long shot,” Sersha tells her. “He’s got a permanent sad face, Mam. Like a puppy that’s been kicked too many times. At first, I thought that was what ‘Ripped Apart’ was about… the angry song, you know? But he wrote it before the band’s last tour so it couldn’t have been about her.”
Mam tuts sadly. “Poor thing,” she says. “So what are you going to do?”
“What can I do?” Sersha asks. “I mean, besides smacking the smirk off her pretty face? Tommy’s a grown man. He’s gonna get over this his own way, right?”
“Right,” Mam says. “A nice shag might help things along.”
Sersha snorts. “He doesn’t need my help with that,” she says wryly. “He just needs to bat those baby blues and he’s neck deep in groupies.” Or, at least, he just needs to bat his baby blues at Slate. Tommy probably took that redhead home and brushed her hair before making sweet love to her. Sersha purses her lips at the thought. “Maybe I could steer the songwriting toward something that’ll keep his mind off of things?” Sersha asks.
Mam shrugs. “You sure you’re okay?” she questions, looking at Sersha critically on the screen. “You’re looking less bubbly than usual.”
“I’m fine,” Sersha replies. “Just tired, I guess.”
“Not sad that your new beau is batting his baby blues at groupies?”
Sersha and her mam have always been close, close enough that Sersha told her mam the day after she lost her virginity. Mam has always been open and honest about sex with her daughter. Sersha likes to think that it’s one of the reasons she’s so well adjusted. But right now, she doesn’t think that her mam needs to know that she’s been fantasizing all week about tying Tommy down and riding him like a bull. Or getting tied up by Tommy. Either way, bondage is usually involved.
“Not at all,” Sersha says, though she knows that there’s no way her mam is actually fooled by that.
She stares at her a moment longer, then she lets it go. Sersha is grateful. “In a stunning turn of events, it’s raining in Galway,” Mam says, waving toward the window.
Sersha can see the rain falling against the glass beside her mam. Outside of Sersha’s own window the snow is falling in thin waves, fluttering down and sprinkling over the window sill. Sersha rests her chin on her hand and stares out of the window. There’s a snowflake pattern on the glass and Sersha types a couple of words and phrases that come to mind when she sees it.
“It’s snowing here,” Sersha tells her.
“I know, I check the weather in New York every day.”
“That’s weird, Mam.”
“You’re my only child, let me worry.”
“Okay, sorry,” Sersha says. She keeps staring at the snowflake, typing out new words every few moments.
“You’ve seen something bubbly, haven’t you?” Mam asks.
Sersha grins. “A little bit, yeah. Can I call you back?”
“Go, we’ll talk next week. Love you!”
“Love you too, Mam.”
Sersha closes the Skype window and maximizes the word doc, humming a tune as she bashes out the words to a verse. When she’s writing songs, she finds that the words come easily. The words are never the problem. The problem is the theme—coming up with the story of the words, the inner meaning, the takeaway. She likes to avoid love songs as much as possible. The market is overflowing with love songs. Fucking love songs about literally every kind of love, except for maybe asexual and polyamorous love, but that’s a problem with society not the industry. Sersha would have loved to write love songs about consensual four-way relationships, but they never sell.
Seeing the snowflake, she knows that the words that come to mind when she looks at it could easily be arranged into a love song. But she doesn’t want that. She wants to think of something else. Something just as beautiful as romantic love, but without the saturation on the marketplace. Maybe if she comes up with something great, she can show it to Tommy and the rest of Black Lilith.
But her own work probably won’t cut it with them. She remembers what Slate had said about songs needing to belong to Tommy. If she comes to them with a song already written, he’ll probably dismiss it or try to talk her out of trying to give it to the band. He’ll probably want to contribute to the writing of it.
“Maybe if I get the draft down…” she mutters to herself, “…or just the choice phrases… then Tommy can give us a theme. Yeah… tha
t might work.”
All this dithering is getting on her nerves.
So she knocks out the rest of the words and phrases that come to mind as she stares at the snowflake, before saving the word file and emailing it to Tommy. He’ll probably come back with a few suggestions. Unless he’s in bed.
Sersha pushes herself away from the table and goes to the kitchen to make herself a cup of tea. Her shirt falls off of her shoulder, exposing her tattoo to the lukewarm air of her apartment. She hasn’t put the heat up too high, no matter what her instincts are when it comes to cold because she doesn’t want to run the heating bill up too high. Not when she’s not the one paying it.
She tries not to think about Tommy in bed with the redhead. Or another girl for that matter. She’s got no right to be jealous of him. He shouldn’t be surprised that he’s getting laid elsewhere. He’s a rockstar, he probably has a new girl every night. Even if he weren’t a rockstar, those eyes and the cute floppy hair would have him beating the girls off with a stick on any good day.
The spoon clinks on the edge of her tea mug as she stirs in sugar and milk. Americans like their artificial sweetener, but they’ll have to pry her real sugar from her cold, dead, Irish hands.
When she returns to the computer, she realizes that she’s been humming the song that she and Tommy wrote together. Black Lilith gave it a catchy tune. She loves that part of her job, the way that other artists take her words and turn them into their own. Of course, she can write the music herself. Sometimes that’s part of the brief, and something she only charges a little bit extra for. But often the client will just ask for the words, or give her a tune that they expect her to write to. She can do all of those things.
On the computer screen, she sees that Tommy has already written back.
Dear Sersha,
I like this idea. I’ll come back with some new verses tonight.
Do you want to grab dinner? We can talk about the song.
Tommy
Sersha’s fingertips tap lightly at the keys, so light that the keys don’t actually go down. She just hears the noise, allowing her to consider her response while giving her the illusion that she’s doing something and not just staring at the screen with her mouth open.
Tommy just asked her to dinner.
Is it supposed to be a date?
Is it just a work thing like he says?
Should Sersha wait a few minute to reply so that it doesn’t look like she’s been hanging out waiting for his return email?
Fumbling for her phone, she shoots a text to Mikayla.
Sersha: How long should I wait before replying to a dinner invitation via email?
Mikayla: logan here, give it half an hour minimum make sure he pays
Sersha: I prefer to pay on dates
Mikayla: if hes not gonna pull his dick out of his ass long enough to ask you out face to face then he can pay for your food
Sersha: Where’s Mikayla?
Mikayla: shes on her knertyuiop
Sersha grins at the smeared text, it’s like someone has run their fingers over the screen. Before she can reply, she gets another one.
Mikayla: aslkfj0efyohjlnmwefdsc
Mikayla: 01,46578934,,,
Mikayla: Mikayla here. I agree with Logan. Minimum half an hour and make sure that he promises to pay.
Sersha taps her bottom lip, staring at the computer screen and then at her phone.
Sersha: Hypothetically, what if I work with him?
She pauses for a moment, considering, before sending the text. Mikayla doesn’t take long before answering.
Mikayla: logan here tell tommy to pull his dick out of his ass and ask you out face to face and stop pretending its about work
Mikayla: Mikayla here. I agree with Logan.
Smirking, Sersha sends them a couple of smiling emojis. But something niggles at her. She knows that this probably isn’t the most professional way to deal with this situation. If it weren’t for the fact that Black Lilith is almost aggressively open about their sex lives, she wouldn’t have dared to even ask Mikayla about this.
Sersha: Can I compete with the groupies?
There’s a longer than usual pause. Sersha begins to wonder if they’ve gone back to their previous activities and forgotten that they were texting. Then her phone rings and Mikayla’s face lights up Sersha’s screen.
Sersha answers it, “Hello?”
“Hey… Logan, for fuck’s sake, get off… you’re an animal. Look, Sersha, I get what you’re worried about.”
Sersha lets out a long breath. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. Look… when I met Logan he stopped seeing groupies. Tommy’s… well, he hasn’t stopped seeing groupies even if he’s clearly interested in you.”
Logan’s voice rang out over the line, “Heart eyes, motherfucker!”
“You’re a child. Go play your Xbox, I’ll be there in a second,” Mikayla says. Her voice is playful, fond, and delighted, despite the harsh words. “Sersha, you still there?”
“Just speechless at all the adorableness,” says Sersha.
Mikayla snorts. “The important thing is… well… just know that Tommy’s not a cheater. But he’s also not a saint.”
“Yeah, I thought so,” Sersha says. “Do you think… I mean… do you even think he’s ready for something other than casual? I mean… I hope you don’t mind, but Dash explained about Danielle.”
Mikayla hums in annoyance. “Yeah, and she’s been sniffing around the Bass Note studios. Slate ran into her the other day.”
“Really? What does she want?”
“No idea,” Mikayla says. Her tone implies that she has a few ideas—bad ones at that. Sersha breathes in through her teeth and taps her finger against her mouse. “To be honest with you, Sersha, I’ve no idea what Tommy’s ready for right now. He was pretty broken up over Danielle. He’s probably still hurting, and that’ll be affecting his judgment.”
Sersha reads through his email again. It’s just a dinner invitation, phrased like a work meeting.
“Thanks Mikayla, I appreciate it. Enjoy your evening.”
Sersha can hear Mikayla’s smirk in her voice. “Oh, I will.”
Mikayla and Sersha say their goodbyes. Sersha lays her phone down next to her keyboard and hovers over the mouse, before clicking reply and typing out her response.
Can’t make dinner. Maybe we can go over it at the band rehearsal on Saturday?
She presses send. She takes a sip of her tea and sighs as the warmth spreads through her.
It’s for the best, she tells herself. Tommy’s not in the right headspace to be looking for anything but a fling, and she’s not really interested in mixing casual sex with work relationships. It’s one thing, she thinks, to fall in love with someone you work with. Like Logan and Mikayla. That sort of thing can survive the work environment. But a casual fling will just gum up the engine and ruin the good momentum she and Tommy have been building. Better to keep it to flirting and ignore the little pang in her chest when she thinks about what could have been, or how Tommy may be spending his evening without her.
She minimizes the email window, opens another word doc, and starts tapping out words and phrases about ‘almost’ and ‘missing opportunities.’ Thank goodness she saved up her bubbles.
Tommy tells Sersha that he’s happy to meet at the rehearsal, but when Sersha arrives at the studio he’s not there. Everyone else is. Slate is slouched behind the drum kit twirling his sticks, blowing bubbles with bright pink bubblegum, and he winks when Sersha enters the room. Dash is tuning his guitar and kicking the back of Logan’s chair. Logan is reading some sheet music and sipping a can of Rockstar, actively ignoring his brother. Mikayla is on her phone.
“Where’s Tommy?” Sersha asks, dropping her bag next to the mixing board.
Logan is too busy chewing his tongue and trying to ignore his brother.
So Mikayla is the one who answers, “He’s running a little late. Family problems.”
Slate snorts.
“Walk of shame,” he says.
“You’d know,” Dash throws back.
Slate blows another bubble and plays the baddum-tish on the drum kit. “You’re a fucking comedian, Squirt.”
Something is bothering Sersha about Slate. When she looks a little closer, she realizes that his nose is bleeding.
“Slate?” she says. “Should you be worried about that?”
She rubs her nose and Slate mimics the gesture, pulling his finger away and seeing the blood. He groans.
“Shit,” he says.
Logan, without even looking up, throws him a tissue box. “You promised you wouldn’t get high before rehearsal,” he mutters.
“I didn’t get high before rehearsal,” Slate replies, wiping his nose. “I got high last night. Not my fault my nose has a delayed reaction to this shit.”
“You should be used to delayed reactions,” Dash says.
Slate throws his bloody tissue as a reply.
Sersha licks her lips and decides that she doesn’t mind that Slate does drugs as long as he doesn’t hurt anyone and doesn’t expect her to do them too. Sersha’s been around musicians long enough to know that none of them are saints, and Slate’s personality doesn’t scream ‘angry drug user’ or ‘dangerous drug user.’ He seems like the type to laugh and maybe cry a little bit but never hurt anyone. Sersha can only hope that he has the good sense not to get high alone. That he at least had someone else with him the night before.
Drugs are a big part of the music industry. Sersha’s known lyricists who claimed that they could never even put pen to paper without a heavy dose of pot or heroin in their systems, but she’d never needed artificial assistance. The words came easily to her. She never needed to help the process along.
Slate sniffs again, mopping the blood off of his nose and winking at Sersha. “Thanks for the heads up, I’d hate to wreck this shirt.”
