And Love Said No

Esme sat on the floor in the middle of her hotel room. There were notebook pages sprawled all around her with bits of ideas written in chicken scratch. Because Esme didn’t want to change the ending to her story, she had no motivation to try. It had already been a week since Dan had called her about it, and so far, she only had vague ideas of what to do. Nothing seemed to fit. Nothing told the story she wanted to tell.

“Ugh.” She groaned and slouched against the bed. “I need to get out of here.”

Esme rubbed her eyes and tousled her hair. She hastily snatched the pages off the floor and threw the crumpled ball into the recycling bin. She gathered her belongings and left the hotel, escaping into the sunlit city.

With dark sunglasses to cover the bags under her eyes, Esme blended into the crowd. She crossed the street and walked toward the nearby park. She put her hand in her purse and hoped to find a pack of cigarettes. Her forefinger grazed the cardboard of the box, and she pulled it out to find a single cigarette inside. She pulled out her lighter and lit the cigarette, letting the smoke permeate her lungs.

In the heart of downtown Los Angeles, a park boiled down to a patch of land cordoned off from businesses. If you’re lucky, there would be green grass and maybe even some flowers. The Maguire Gardens did not appear to be much of a garden at all: two benches were placed in the middle of a grassy area surrounded by trees.

“I just need to relax.” She told herself as she paced the perimeter of the park.

There was something else on her mind. Today was Ville’s birthday. She wanted to call and wish him, giving her a chance to hear his voice and see how he was doing. She didn’t know if that was the best thing for them, though. What if he was already moving on? She hadn’t bothered to ask Jussi about him, knowing that he was already caught in the middle of it. Esme pulled out her phone. It was 12:19 in LA, which meant it was past 10pm in Helsinki. She stuffed her phone back in her pocket. No, I shouldn’t.

Jussi was right. She was alone here. Charlie was able to distract her, but it wasn’t long before the emptiness in the pit of her stomach returned. There was only so much Esme could do before she had to face reality. She dropped the cigarette butt and snuffed out the light. She looked around for a nearby convenience store where she could replenish her stock. There was a 7-Eleven across the street and she made her way there.

When she walked in the store, she was greeted by the sound of a sports announcer narrating a baseball game on TV. The cashier was transfixed on the screen. She walked around the aisles to get something to eat but quickly realized that the nicotine craving was killing her appetite. Instead she walked past the shelves of gossip magazines and junk food to the register.

“Hi, can I get a pack of red, please?” she asked as she tapped her foot.

“Here you go.”

The cashier slid the box onto the counter, and she traded it for a 5-dollar bill. In the time she took the seven steps to the street, she had opened the pack and placed a cigarette in her mouth. Esme started walking around the block, hoping that she would see something to motivate or inspire her to write.

She stopped at an art gallery that looked promising. She put out the cigarette, the eighth one she’d had from the new pack, and walked inside. It was a long hall with paintings equally spaced apart on the walls and a few hung on columns in the middle of the room. There were two other groups, a couple and a family with a small child, who admired the pieces. Esme stopped in front of the first canvas, a purple and blue hued scene of a picnic by the lake. She skipped past it to the next and continued down the line. They were nice to look at but they didn’t inspire her story.

Her series was about a middle-aged medical examiner who becomes haunted by the sins and troubles of the people she examines. Most of the people were victims of gruesome murders, but she saw the uglier side of the crimes: the lives they had led. She grows more and more troubled in every book and feels like she must right their wrongs so they can truly rest in peace. However, in doing so, she neglects her own life and her own relationships.

Dan was right. Esme couldn’t write a happy ending. Unfortunately, she needed turmoil to inspire her, not mundane pictures as pretty as they may have been, and Esme was dealing with enough in her life. She needed to resolve her own troubles before she could delve into the fictional world.

Esme left the gallery and walked back to the hotel. As soon as she entered her hotel room, she pulled out her phone and tapped Ville’s name in her list of contacts. It was 11:37 in Helsinki, and she didn’t know if he would even be conscious to answer the phone. He’d likely be a few drinks down the hole.

“Es?” his deep voice answered. It had been far too long since she’d heard his voice.

“Yeah, it’s me.” she said hesitantly. “Hey, Ville.”

“Hey, swe–Hey.”

“I just wanted to call to wish you happy birthday. So, um … Happy Birthday!” she bit her lip. “I hope you had a good one.”

“Oh, thank you.”

“I didn’t think I would catch you on the phone. I thought you’d be at the bar with the guys or something.”

“They’re around, I just stepped into the alley.” he excused. “How are you?”

“I’m okay. I am–Actually, I’m just having a bit of writer’s block. Dan said that the ending doesn’t fit the series. Something about marketability–I don’t know. I kind of stopped listening to him after it registered that I would have to re-write ten thousand words worth of plot.”

“I’m sorry about that. It’s your story though, you should be able to tell what you want. Who is he to say whether or not it fits?”

“I tried arguing with him already, but it wasn’t going anywhere. I knew he wouldn’t change his mind. Besides, he’s the one paying me money, so I couldn’t push him very far.” She smirked.

“And you’re stuck?”

“Mhmm.” She leaned her forehead against the window and peered outside.

“So… Is there a chimney in your hotel room?” Ville chuckled and Esme joined in the laughter; it broke the tension that cast over the conversation.

“Shut up! I haven’t smoked that much… half a pack or so today. Nothing compared to you.” She twisted around to lean against the wall and curled her hair around her forefinger.

“I know I’m biased, but I still think you should come back to Finland. You need the doom and gloom of home to wake you so that you can write something that’s true to you. Not just something the industry wants.”

Ville was always good about preserving his craft despite what the record producers wanted him to do. Esme wavered in comparison. “Anyway, how are you?”

“Good. I’m back home for a while, most of the shows are done. We’re playing in London next week, but other than that, I’m home for the holidays.”

“That’s good, that’s good.” Esme hesitated to ask, but she was too curious. “So, have you been writing music lately?”

“Here and there. It’s kind of hard to stay awake after the show, you know, it takes a lot out of me, but um, yeah. Making little voice notes and stuff to keep track of melodies.”

“Oh.”

Esme chewed the inside of her mouth. He sounded good, and she didn’t know if that upset her or comforted her. She didn’t know what else to say but she wasn’t ready to hang up. She could hear the sound of Ville’s even breath, the only signal that he remained on the line.

He was right. She needed to stop spending money in a lavish hotel and return to the comforts of her homeland to get past this. There was a reason she left; undoubtedly, getting away from the scene of Helsinki for a few weeks could not erase the 15 years of memories with Ville. But she couldn’t stay here, not when she felt so alone. She needed the company of her friends.

“I miss you, darling.” Ville whispered into the silence.

Esme had to close her eyes to keep the tears from spilling out, and she murmured hoarsely, “I miss you, too, V.” She brushed her cheeks. “It’s getting late, I’ll let you go. Happy Birthday, again. I love you.”

“I love you.” Ville replied. It was partly out of habit, but it was mostly because they still meant it.

She hung up the phone and crawled into bed. She hugged the body pillow and put her leg over it so that it was as close to her as possible. Her head was buried in another pillow to muffle the cries. Esme sobbed, drenching the pillow in her tears. She hadn’t cried since Jussi had visited her hotel in Helsinki, opting instead to bottle her emotions. But now, she let it all out at the thought of everything that would change now that she and Ville were no longer together. She wouldn’t be able to hug him and smell the nicotine and deep cologne that stained his clothes. The next time she saw him–because she would inevitably see him whether it was in the small city of Helsinki or somewhere on tour with friends–she couldn’t tell him about her troubles and her worries. She would hear about the happy moments in his life through the grapevine; worse yet, she would have to see him become closer with another woman. Esme cried at the loss of her best friend, a wonderful Finnish poet who knew her inside and out and loved her nonetheless.