That Girl

It was raining when I had fully recovered. I was really thirsty, too, so I was really happy when I say up and noticed a tall glass of ice water on the nightstand, with condensation running down the sides. A few moments later, the entire glass was drained, and I slowly stood on my feet, walking off the shakiness with the ice-filled glass in hand. Leaning back the glass against my lips, I captured and ice cube and began chewing as I made my way out of my room and towards the stairs.

Padding down the stairs, I came across a very active kitchen. Kara and Jeannie were making enough sandwiches to feed a small orphanage, and Zack, Jack and Rian were jamming, while Alex was nowhere to be found.

I took a deep inhale, catching the light scent of the sandwiches.

“Stella! You’re awake!”

“I believe I am.” I said neutrally with a small yawn, before I was assaulted with the smell of turkey and cheese as Kara shoved a sandwich under my nose. I arched my eyebrow, and suddenly wondered how I’d managed to do it, thus the eyebrow fell back into place.

“I will be monitoring your eating and sleeping habits, since Alex is obviously incapable.” Kara said in a tone I’d never heard directed toward me before. She sounded… motherly.

I took a bite out of the sandwich, my lip nearly brushing her thumb. I chewed and swallowed before responding, “Who made the sandwich?”

Jeannie lifted a spatula from where she was cooking up a tuna melt in a frying pan, “Me!” She cheered without turning before her spatula dove at the sandwich, swiftly flipping it onto a paper plate and cutting it in half before Jack could say ‘Fuck me sideways.’

And believe me when I tell you that’s fast.

“I do believe Miss Jeannie is a girl of many talents, Jackary.” I said, slightly baffled at her impossibly smooth and quick method of cooking as she already had started making a cheese quesadilla. From my line of vision, I saw her neck darken in a blush as Jack grinned, looking up from his guitar.

“Trust me, I know.” He said suggestively, wagging his eyebrows with a smirk. I saw a flash of black before Jack was clutching his head, Jeannie wearing a mildly smug, yet also very authoritative look.

“That’s quite enough, you hormone-driven fool.” She said, stormy eyes glinting before she turned back to the stove, humming London Beckoned Songs About Money Written By Machines.

I let out a chuckle, “Well, we know who wears the pants in that relationship.” I whispered to Kara. She snorted, nodding in agreement, before her gaze set on my half-eaten sandwich.

Her eyes hardened. “Eat. Now.”

I complied without further dawdling as Alex came in through the sliding glass door, looking suspiciously disheveled.

I caught his eye, giving him an awkward look as I chewed the turkey and cheese bite. His face lit up with something infinitely more awkward before he walked towards me swiftly. “You’re okay!” he proclaimed, before I was enveloped in an extremely awkward hug.

My chewing slowed until my jaw was closed, but my lips still tightly shut, and I wore the most incredulous expression known to man.

Jeanie giggled as my eyebrow lifted to new heights.

Hands still at my sides, I swallowed, “Um, yeah. Were you expecting to be giving a corpse back to Pete?”

He slowly released me, running a hand through his hair: flustered. He gulped, “I just… I’m glad you’re okay.”

We stood there awkwardly.

“Soo…” Jack said, dragging out the ‘o’ for much longer a period than necessary. “Shall we hit up the studio?”

I shrugged, testing my vocal chords with a few varied versions of the Coffee Shop Soundtrack chorus.

“Yeah, she’s good. Let’s go.” Rian announced before Jeannie hauled me upstairs to ‘turn me into something fancy.’

“This is totally unnecessary.” I grumbled as she rifled through the small dresser that held my wardrobe.

“I swear,” she told me as she threw a pretty top at me, “you’ll thank me for this one day, when Alex jumps you and you two skip off into the sunset.”

*.*.*

“So,” I said awkwardly, headphones pressing my ears into my head, “just a demo for reference?”

Jack nodded with a completely straight face. Oh, he was up to something… “Just record the take so we can show Juliet how you imagined it.”

I bit my lip and deliberated the revised lyrics in front of me before shakily agreeing with a sip of water.

The end of the chorus played, the rack slipping into the bridge. I closed my eyes, the lyrics already engraved into my mind.

“I’m not coming back,
“I’ve done something so terrible,
“I’m terrified to speak,
“But you’d expect that from me,
“I’m mixed up,
“I’ll be blunt,
“Now the rain is washing you out of my hair,
“And out of my mind!
“Keeping an eye on the world,
“So many thousands of feet off the ground,
“I’m over you now;
“I’m at home in the clouds,
“Towering over your head.”

Seconds later, after the take let off, I drew in a shaky breath. “Good?”

Jack cheered loudly, doing a fist pump as Rian gave me a white smile and a thumbs up. Zack smiled shyly and nodded, while Alex sat nonchalantly at the soundboard, “One more take?”

I nodded before exhaling heavily, and drawing more air in for the retake.

Two takes and half a water bottle later, we reviewed over the take, all of us sitting in the ‘ring of couches’ as we had dubbed it. Jack lay across the coffee table, chewing on a red pen with his hands cushioning his head from the wood. Zack bit his thumbnail, looking through my lyric book without my permission or care as he leaned up against the table right next to Jack’s face. Rian was splayed out across the pleather couch as Alex and I were perched opposite each other, him on the loveseat, and me on the ground, using the high couch as my mildly awkward footrest.

“There’s something missing.” I said, index finger over my lips, and thus hindering my speech, “It sounds too…”

“I know where you’re going,” Alex agreed, my eyes slowly lit up with realization as we spoke, my hunched posture straightening out rapidly, “Something’s not right, and it’s not the voice or the lyric. It’s the-.”

“BRIDGE!” We exclaimed in unison, my pointer finger in the air as he clapped.

“It’s missing the overlay!” I said loudly before face palming. There was silence for a few seconds as we tried to come up with the backing part. It couldn’t just be the chorus, because it was a duet, and it would sound way too contradicting lyrically, and working out the tempo would just be awkward. I scrunched my nose up in my hand, my chin resting on the heel and my fingertips pressing on the tip of my nose.

Then an object was shoved in my face.

My notebook. With the small part we had cut out circled in red pen. Looking up, Zack brandished the red pen, and Jack the notebook. I smiled widely. “You two rock.”

Jack ruffled my hair, “You know it, sista.”

I snorted, before looking at the circled excerpt, “This could only word for the first half.” I said skeptically.

“But it adds to the effect of the next half. You could do some harmonizing lines and then just finish it off a cappella. It’ll kick ass.” Zack shrugged as he sat down on the other side of my legs.

Then a shit-eating grin split across my face as I retracted my legs, jumped up and tackled Zack in the ultimate hug, pretty much straddling him. “Zack, did I ever tell you that you’re a fucking genius?”

His hands moved to my hips, pushing me slightly away from his torso before chuckling nervously, “No, you’ll have to remind me more often though.”

I smiled widely, pecking him on the cheek before slipping off his lap and standing up, skipping to the recording booth.

*.*.*

“Gig!” I announced as I made my way into the kitchen, seeing Rian catch up on his summer reading while Zack was reciting random phrases in Spanish that were so convoluted that no legitimate Spanish speaker would understand him. Alex chomped on barbeque Lays while writing in his lyric book, smudging some words with orange as he went. Jeannie was dancing around the kitchen, preparing lunch. Such good food…

After correcting his grammar and kicking Jack off of the chair (really, who reads upside down?), I set the itinerary down on the kitchen table. Jack got up quickly, making grabby hands for it. I smacked his hands away before explaining the details:

“It’s on Halloween. I got you in on the Baltimore Bash.” I told them, “The album is finished, so it’ll be out by the bash.” What was it now, early August? I’d finished mixing a week ago.

Zack whistled, “That was fast.”

Jack coughed out a ‘that’s what she said’ before I elbowed him in the ribs and continued, “Call at eight in the morning, sound check slot at noon, and- Jack.”

Of course he had the attention span of a goldfish, but I expected better from Jeannie. Making out in the kitchen was so nineties, too.

“Alex,” I giggled in an unnaturally high pitched voice, knowing she would hear, and take the bait. After all, she though Alex would jump me, yeah? “Oh Alex, stop! Not in front of everyone!” She bit, breaking apart from Jack with slightly smudged lip gloss as her eyes flicked to me wildly. I cleared my throat awkwardly as Alex shot me an incredulous look, mid-bite. “Well then, now that I’ve got your attention. Bash. Halloween. All Time Low set at nine p.m. Oriole’s Stadium. Ditching school. Be ready by seven a.m. You can continue making out now.”

I sighed heavily before retreating to the porch, taking the itinerary with me. I plopped down on the wicker loveseat, staring at the Gaskarth lawn.

I missed Ryan and Spencer and Brendon.

“What, we’re not good enough for you?” Alex joked with a small smile, plopping down next to me.

Oh, so I’d said it out loud. I sighed again, leaning back in the seat. Alex twiddled his thumbs for a moment before speaking again.

“Thanks.”

“For what?” I asked, straightening up in genuine surprise.

“For the gig. For the album… Just, thanks.” He said before pursing his lips and heading back inside and leaving me frustrated.

Nice then mean.

And it’s an endless cycle.