Page 31 of Rumor Has It

“Have you finished the book for Brier’s book club yet?” Mama asks me.

I love this about my mother. She knows when to drop it.

“No. I’ve been distracted,” I admit, mixing coleslaw dressing into the bowl of green cabbage shavings.

“Was it while watching Isaiah walk away in those jeans or toward you in a suit?” Aunt D points a banana at me and the three of them collapse into a fit of giggles.

Chapter Twelve

ISAIAH

I tried to keep it light at the winery store, but the sense of foreboding waltzing into the Sanchez’s Victorian set in before we even got here. It wasn’t only about me having to say goodbye to her either. Cassidy’s been aloof since we left the comfort of the inn.

I have to admit, I’ve mulled over Cassidy losing her position at the banquet hall and have tried to make sense of the situation. Something about Cris taking away a job his niece loved doesn’t jibe with the man I met yesterday. Although, logically, I’m aware he wasn’t the sole decision maker and that makes me wonder about her entire family.

The banana muffin and the tasty sautéed vegetables she showed me how pan-warm and whip into an omelette with the reheated filet mignon leftovers from the steakhouse are the only cooking of Cassidy’s I’ve eaten. But everything tasted fantastic.

I don’t expect her to stick around during this morning’s session. Except, something about Daveigh Sanchez’s conviviality reminds me of Cass. So, I hope she does. And perhaps Cris’s wife’s warm welcomes are another reason I don’t thumb my nose at him. If someone that sweet loves him, how bad can the guy be?

I pause in the hall to see if I can find Cassidy in more of the pictures.

Photos on the wall are something that’s missing in my house. I had the requisite wedding photo on a hutch in the formal living room. I took it down because I couldn’t bear to look at it and remember the girl I grew up with, who had so much potential—so much to live for.

I tuck my sadness about getting on the plane and my concerns over Cassidy’s career away, and I put on my stage face and enter Cris’s studio.

At the end of this session, the scent of fried chicken gently tickles our nostrils as we wait to be called for a late lunch. All three of our stomachs’ growl, and we get off track, discussing some of the better songs about not falling in love while we wait for Daveigh to call us for lunch.

I produced my songbook for Jake to look at. The melody he’s humming to the lines of one particular song I wrote are spot on. But Jake, a former drummer, taps his foot, adding an extra beat to the tempo I hadn’t considered until I heard it.

“Man, this has a vibe to it. I like how you’ve tinkered with wanting someone to have love, but the well is empty and you don’t have it to give to them. The whole while you’ve got everyone thinking it’s an unrequited love song. You’ve got an emotional high going and then, bam!” Jake smacks his thigh. “It crashes down and the listener is just devastated when they understand it’s not a conventional love song. We need to get Cris in on the harmony and make a move to finish this one.”

The truth is, the song Jake’s excited about isn’t as much about someone not falling in love with you as it is about not being loved at all. It came out of a place of sympathy for someone else, whose affections I can’t return because their mere existence is overwhelming and left me hollow.

The poetry is some of my best, but a lot of what I wrote immediately after Kylie passed away is despondent bullshit. Me being down in the dumps is a far cry from the energy working with Cris and Jake, and even the way I’ve felt in Cassidy’s company over the past twenty-four hours.

“Thanks for the compliment,” I say. “Though I don’t think this song fits with what we’ve come up with so far.” Or if I ever want it to see the light of day.

“If you change your mind, I want in on it.” Jake shrugs and continues flipping through my notebook.

I’m uncertain if Jake not pushing me to finish the song he’s interested in is part of his normal demeanor or if he and Cris have been handling me with kid gloves throughout our meetings.

Until they started talking about it today, I hadn’t known Cris was a widower, or that Jake knew Cris’s first wife. I guess having experienced a significant loss explains their willingness to work with me when my request was impromptu and not at all convenient given the holiday season.

I want the feather in my cap of a number one credited to Roomer, Ballantine, and Sanchez. Except, accepting Jake’s help to turn the song he’s got such faith in makes me feel like a heel for using someone else’s misfortune to my benefit. It’s no different from what the media did to me when reports of the accident came out. It also flies in the face of me insisting I’m not okay with the video director using images of my wife or from our marriage for the ballad currently on the airwaves.

But this song’s lyrics are also real, deep emotion and thatbamJake spoke of is a legitimate feeling I still have whenever I read the lines.

Maybe someday when I’m settled. I’ve eked out a place in their schedule for later this year—um, next year. It’s December, dummy. The advice they’ve given was money well spent. I’d spend it again a hundred times over.

The conversation trickles toward sampling tracks from old songs and remakes of classics.

“I knew…knowbecause we’re still on good terms… a woman with fabulous taste in music. Every time I thought I had her genre pinned down, she’d switch it up.” Jake rubs his chin. “I mean, I was never sure whose version of Elvis’Can’t Help Falling in Lovewas next on her playlists. And no matter what artist it was, that version was perfect for the moment,” he adds with a sentimental grin. “When we were both single, I could have married her in a heartbeat.”

“Why didn’t you?” I question.

“I had my head pretty far up my ass.”

Cris snickers in the background.

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