by Julia London
He had tried to explain to Chance that he was at a major crossroads in his life, but apparently, he’d done a piss-poor job of it, because Chance had responded with a single Fuck you.
Brennan picked up some daisies and walked down the aisle.
His problems with Chance notwithstanding, he felt good today, especially now that he had something to work with. He’d been waiting for an idea to take root for weeks, and in the last couple of days he’d gotten so annoyed with himself and his lack of creative spark that he’d begun to pick up his room, putting things in their place. Maybe he’d cluttered his head with all that shit on the floor.
This morning, he’d cleared out trash in an effort to find the source of the sour smell that had begun to invade every corner of his suite. He’d gathered up empty beer bottles, crushed Cheetos bags, and a Chinese food container that he vaguely remembered his mother bringing to him completely full.
When he was done, he’d dragged an extra-large bag of trash and a duffel bag full of laundry downstairs.
Magda had glared at him, eyeing the two bags suspiciously.
“Where would you like me to put them?” he’d asked.
“What is it?”
“Trash. Beer bottles, food containers—”
“No food containers in the recycling,” she’d said, and snatched the bag from his hand.
“And this is my laundry,” he’d said, ignoring how she’d wrinkled her nose at the duffel full of dirty clothing as he let it slide off his shoulder. “I personally picked up the most offensive pieces from the floor of my room and stuffed them in here, hoping some Good Samaritan . . . or paid employee . . . would launder them for me.”
Magda had frowned darkly.
“I’d do it myself, but my mother left laundry out of my basic education.”
“All right, Mr. Yates.”
“It’s Brennan,” he’d said, and had walked through the kitchen, grabbing a banana off the banana tree, walking past the kitchen table where piles of scrap materials and paint chips had been stacked for the last few days.
It was the twinge of guilt for laying all of that on cranky old Magda that had prompted him to stop at Eckland’s for flowers to brighten her day—although he was fairly certain even frolicking puppies couldn’t brighten that woman’s day.
But it was his day that had been made brighter. Aunt Bev’s helper was still dancing around his mind’s eye as he paid for the flowers and chatted up the old man.
The image in his mind’s eye was telling Brennan he smelled good as he walked out to his car and got in. She was smiling shyly as he headed north with no destination in mind. And her honey-colored eyes were staring up at him when his phone rang.
He punched the Bluetooth button on the steering wheel. “Hello?”
“Don’t hang up.”
It was Phil, his agent. Had Brennan hung up on him before? The phone calls had begun to run together into one long foggy memory. “I’m not going to hang up,” he said. “Did Gary tell you to call me? Because if you’re calling to make the band’s case for him, you’re wasting your—”
“No, no. Listen, something’s come up. Something I think you’re really going to dig, man.”
Brennan doubted it. “What?”
“I’ve been in touch with a Hollywood producer, Kate Resnick. Heard of her?”
“No.”
“You’re kidding. Kate is huge,” Phil said, and rattled off several movies she’d made. Not that any of them meant anything to Brennan, and to Phil, every opportunity, every celebrity, every music exec was huge. “She’s a big fan of yours, man,” he said. “I mean, if you were standing before her she’d drop to her knees and—”
“What do you want, Phil?” Brennan interrupted.
“She’s doing this film about that kid who was kidnapped and taken to Mexico, right? The one who lived?”
Brennan vaguely remembered that piece of news from a couple of years back—a rich white kid from San Diego whose father was mixed up in the Mexican drug trade. The cartel kidnapped the kid, and when they got the ransom, they took him out into the desert, shot him, and left him for dead. But he survived and somehow managed to walk out. “I remember.”
“Well, she wants you to write the soundtrack to the movie.”
Brennan laughed. “I’m not a composer. I’ve never scored anything.”
“Not a score, a soundtrack. She has this idea that some of the narrative will be told in original song. Isn’t that great? Great exposure, great opportunity.”
Brennan had to pause to think. “Did you run it by Chance?”
“No, man. She doesn’t want Tuesday’s End, she wants you and you alone to do the soundtrack. I mean, if you want to bring some of the guys in, that’s fine. But she wants this to be your baby.”
The news was so surprising and unexpected that Brennan pulled over onto the side of the road. “Phil—is this for real?”
“Hell yes it’s for real!” Phil said, his voice buoyant. “There’s a lot of money in it, too. This has the potential to launch you into a whole new category of songwriter, you know what I’m saying?”
This was exactly the sort of vehicle that Brennan needed to test the waters of his creativity. It was a challenge, a path to something new. So many questions and thoughts pinged like a barrage of bullets in his head. There was a lot he had to consider before he would ever commit to something like this, but it felt as if the universe had heard his cry and was responding by dropping this in his lap.
“It’s fantastic, right?” Phil asked again, sounding a bit more uncertain.
“It’s fantastic,” Brennan agreed. He could hardly think, his mind was reeling with the improbability of it all. “Have you mentioned it to Gary?” he asked carefully, referring to the band’s manager.
“No, of course not,” Phil said. “I won’t until you tell me to.”
“Please don’t until I give you the okay,” Brennan said, and released a slow breath. He could just imagine Chance’s fury when he heard about this. “I need to think about this, Phil.”
“Yep, of course. I’m emailing you the script right now. Take a look, tell me what you think. But let me hear from you. Don’t make me chase you down.”
“No,” Brennan said. “I won’t. But give me a few days.”
When he’d finished the call, Brennan sat a moment, staring blindly out the windshield, the possibilities racing around his head. It felt as if something had cracked inside of him. Light and sound were slowly filtering into that dark, dank space he’d been filling with booze for the last few weeks.
He finally put the car in gear and pulled out onto the road, driving slowly at first, then accelerating. He flew down the two-lane road, his speed hitting eighty-five. Phil had just cut the shackles from his body. He’d just set Brennan free.
Brennan exploded into a shout of laughter and banged a fist against the steering wheel.
Ten
Brennan read the script, “Out of the Desert,” in one night. His head had been filling with ideas for days now. He’d done some reading about Mexican drug cartels and deserts. He was working, filling in sheet after sheet of music notes and tempos. Ideas were turning, growing, feeding off an internal hum. He was finding his groove again.
It was a gorgeous, crystal-clear afternoon, the sky a cobalt blue, the air crisp. He walked out onto the terrace of his suite and turned his face up to the sun while he munched on some baby carrots. It was nice here by the lake. Personally, he couldn’t last an entire summer, but it was a good escape for a few weeks. He had to give his mother credit—she’d picked the perfect location for that.
He thought about going down to the lake. Maybe he’d arrange to rent a boat. When had he last been on a boat? Wasn’t it off the coast of Capri, with Dave Grohl? Yes, that was it—Dave’s daughters had been there, too.
Brennan turned to step back inside, but he happened to catch sight of a lavender bike with a big, wide seat and a handlebar basket leaning against the guardhouse. Through the w
indows of the guardhouse he could see Drago, his bulky form bent over his phone. Did the bike belong to his mother? It was hard to imagine her on a bike, but then again, it was hard to imagine a lot of what she did. He’d never known she was into karate until a couple of mornings ago.
He decided to walk down to the lake. He waved to Drago as he came outside and followed the brick path around to the back. The north wing of the house ended in a circular sitting room with windows that provided a panoramic view of the woods. The French doors were opened onto a terrace that Brennan had no doubt would be torn up and redone.
He walked in through the doors to have a look. The empty room smelled of paint; he supposed Magda had opened the doors to air out the room. Three cans of paint sat on the floor at a strangely angled brick wall, and on the wall, someone had painted four patches of blue, each one a little lighter than the last. But it wasn’t the patches that interested Brennan. It was the painting on the wall beside the patches. Someone had painted a body of water nestled between some hills, all of it different shades of blue. On the surface of the water was a small white boat.
It was a placid little painting that looked a little slapdash, as if someone had been bored and was playing with the paint. Of course Brennan knew who the “someone” was—the same girl who had chronicled her life in drawings in a sketchbook.
A scrape of something behind him caused him to turn. The artist was standing at the threshold, watching him.
“I didn’t expect to run into you,” he said, surprised to realize how pleased he was that he had.
“I wasn’t expecting you, either,” she said. “I’m waiting for someone to come up and look at this room so they can give my aunt an estimate for some work. They’re late.”
“Ah.” He looked at the wall again.
“That wall is coming down,” she said. “I mean, if you’re worried about the paint.”
“Nope. Not worried. It is a strange wall,” he said. He remembered his mother cornering him one evening when he was buzzed, talking about a wall that should come down, how a larger, open room would be ideal for summer. Brennan could remember thinking that three distinct living areas in one house seemed like at least one too many, and maybe even two.
“So you’re doing a little doodling, huh?”
“Doodling,” she repeated. “I don’t think I’ve called it that since I was in the first grade, but yeah, something like that. Just seeing what I could do with blue.” Mia walked to where he was standing and squatted down, picking up a paintbrush lying across an open can.
He hadn’t meant anything by it; he was just making conversation, really. He felt strangely awkward, as if he’d never talked to a pretty girl before.
She glanced at him from the corner of her eye and smiled a little. “So what do you think?” she asked, gesturing to the wall.
“Umm . . .” It was obvious she had some talent, but this scene, dashed up onto a brick wall, was not talented. “Is it Lake Haven?” he asked uncertainly.
She cocked her head to one side and studied the wall, too, as if she wasn’t sure. She dabbed a bit of light blue onto darker blue. “I guess it could be.” She gave him another sidelong look. “So? What do you think?”
Was she really asking for his opinion? Brennan looked at the fleck of paint on her cheek. “It’s nice,” he said.
Her eyes suddenly danced with light and she giggled. “No, it’s not.”
“No?” he asked, feeling uneasy now. What was he supposed to say?
“You know what I think it looks like? A high school art project. Lake in Blue,” she said dramatically, as if announcing the painting at a show.
“I didn’t think that—”
“Well if you didn’t, you should have. It’s really amateurish. Boring. But, in my defense, I only had blue.” She smiled and held up the paintbrush.
“It may be amateurish, but I’ve never seen such a good use of one color. You obviously have talent.”
“Mmm. That’s debatable,” she said skeptically. She dipped down again, dabbed the brush into another small can of paint, and then stood up. She leaned to one side, intending to dab more paint on the wall. But she misjudged where she was in relation to the paint cans, and tried to hop over them to keep from stumbling. She was too late; she stumbled and Brennan caught her arm to keep her from falling, and her wet paintbrush connected with his belly.
“Oh my God!” She stared with horror at the smear of paint on his T-shirt. “I am so sorry!”
“Don’t be,” he said, looking down. “It’s just a T-shirt.”
“Yes, but it’s a clean T-shirt and I don’t think you have a lot of those. Take it off. I’ve got a little turpentine. I can get the paint off as long as it’s wet.”
“That’s not—”
“Take it off!”
“Okay, okay.” Brennan took it off. “This shirt is nothing special . . . other than clean, apparently.”
She wasn’t listening. She was down on her knees with the paint cans. She’d put the brush aside and was pouring a bit of turpentine onto a rag. She looked up, her hand outstretched for the shirt . . . but her gaze landed on his torso, and she faltered. He could practically feel her gaze sliding down his chest, lingering at his waistline. Her cheeks turned red.
“Hello?” he said.
She snatched his shirt and turned her full attention to it, although the red in her cheeks just seemed to get brighter. “I’m so sorry,” she said again, and quickly came to her feet. She bent over the shirt, dabbing at the bit of paint on his shirt with the corner of the towel. “Painting 101, don’t smear it on other people. I could die.”
“Don’t die. You have to finish this wall.”
She glanced up at him; Brennan merely smiled. Her blush deepened even more and she concentrated on the shirt again. “You are talented, Mia,” Brennan said. Hell, he didn’t know how talented she was, but from what he’d seen of her drawings, it looked like talent to him.
She shrugged. “Maybe a little.” She handed him his T-shirt. It stunk now.
“If Magda puts it in the wash right away, I hope the rest will come off,” she said, and eyed his chest again.
Brennan could feel her gaze on the inside, tingling through his veins. He could feel it on his skin, could feel the path her eyes took. For a man who had stood on a stage without a shirt and knew that women ogled him, he was unusually shy. But then again, in all those times, he couldn’t recall actually feeling a look quite as intimately as he was feeling this one.
“You know, Mia . . . if you believe you only have a little talent, that’s what you’ll have. You have to believe in yourself. No one else will if you don’t.”
Mia blinked. A smile suddenly lightened her face. “Oh no,” she said with mock gravity as he pulled the T-shirt on over his head. “A pep talk. Allow me to spare you the effort, because I’ve had quite a lot of them from well-meaning people lately. But here’s the thing—I’ve been at this a very long time. I know what my talent is. And you know what? I couldn’t cut it.”
“You won’t know if you don’t—”
“Try,” she finished for him. “I did. Hey, it’s the truth and I can say it,” she said to his look of surprise. “Not everyone is cut out to be a world-class artist. My work lacks vision, among other things. Trust me on this—I have a degree in fine art and I know what I’m talking about.”
She turned around and stooped down to put the lids back on the paint cans.
Putting aside, for the moment, that she wasn’t buying what he was selling—another new experience for Brennan outside the tiny realm of his mother—he wasn’t sure if she wanted him to argue or not. Quite unexpectedly, he understood this unusual woman, because he felt the same way about music. For every true musician he’d known in his life, he’d known ten more who worked hard at music but would never discover some innate talent for it.
On the other hand, he also knew that the song he was currently trying to find in him was nothing but a few chords right now, and it would pr
obably sound very amateurish to Mia if he were to hum it. The difference was that he was older than she and probably more experienced. He’d been making music long enough to know that it would turn into something real. He’d learned to trust his talent. He’d learned to keep hammering away at it until it became something.
He looked again at the wall. “Tell me, what do you see in your painting?” he asked curiously.
She snorted. “I know what I don’t see.”
“What?”
“There’s no movement to it. No story. Not that I would expect that, given that I have four cans of paint and nothing to help create the movement. But that world? It looks like it is stuck in molasses. Without movement, it lacks soul.”
“Maybe your true talent is art criticism,” he said solemnly.
She giggled, her gaze still on the wall.
Brennan couldn’t help himself. He put his hand on her shoulder. Mia flinched, but she didn’t move away. “Relax,” he said, and let his hand slip away from her shoulder. It didn’t belong there. “Let the work come. Don’t worry over it, just relax.”
“Maybe your talent is art instruction,” she said with a saucy sidelong look.
“Smartass,” he said with a grin. “I’m only trying to help. You always seem so keyed up when it comes to your work.”
“Are you kidding? How do you know?” she asked with a disbelieving laugh. “What do you know about my work?”
“Only that every time I look at something you’ve done, you tense up. Look, I’m just offering a piece of advice from experience. If the vibe is missing, it will come to you.”
“An art instructor and a philosopher,” she said cheerfully. “Who knew?” She used the back of her hand to push her hair back, managing to smear another dash of paint across her cheek.
“Laugh if you will, but I really am both of those things. I’m a musician. So I guess I know a little something about the artistic journey.”
Mia suddenly burst out laughing. “You’re a what?” she cried, and laughed again. Her face transformed with her amusement—she was beautiful when she laughed.
“What?” he asked, unable to suppress his laugh, too. “What’s so damn funny?”
