Page 30 of Rival Hearts

“What do you have?” I asked by way of introduction.

“Mia Malone is looking for contributors for her next album.”

“Mia Malone.” Her name was at the forefront of everyone’s lips. “Her last album went platinum, right?”

“It did. And it’s still chugging right along. She might make multiplatinum.”

“She’s got a country-pop blend to most of her music.”

“You bet. It gets picked up by both genres, which is what makes it so lucrative. Think you can write it?”

I picked up the pen beside my notebook and tapped the page in a rhythm. That was what moved me now, the challenge. “Does she have a timeline? Or start writing and if she likes something, we’ll go from there?”

“You don’t have anything ready that might fit the bill?”

“No. You know me. I don’t start until you dangle the money. Seems to work well enough.”

There was a deep silence across the phone before Jack spoke. “You writing for yourself yet? I know a few labels who would love to put out another album for you.”

This was the part of the conversation I hated. Without fail, Jack circled back to my inability to write with myself in mind. Of course, my agent didn’t understand what was happening. All he knew was that I hadn’t written a single song meant for me since my first album’s release. When I thought about my writing process too long, it sent me into a creative panic. For whatever reason, the personal well had run dry. I needed direction—a genre, sometimes even a topic—and I could get up and running. But creating new material on my own without an incentive? Didn’t happen anymore.

“Someday.” I’d stopped being sure of that a few years ago. It was still my go-to line with Jack.

“You’d tell me if something was wrong, right? The plan is to get back in the game as a singer and a songwriter, yeah?”

I chuckled and settled deeper into my lawn chair. “Jack, are you getting paid? Do you make money off these songwriting deals?”

“That’s not the point.”

“Yeah, it is. The rest of it doesn’t fucking matter. You get paid, I get paid. We both get to keep doing what we love.”

“This is the part you love?”

“Yeah.” For the most part, that was true. I loved the creative spark, the flurry of mental activity, puzzling out a melody or chorus. I never admitted to anyone how I missed feeling a rush from something in my own life. My muse—the one who didn’t live in my bank account—had abandoned me. Quite often, I longed for her return.

“You’re amassing a long list of song credits.”

While I traveled, I’d taken every songwriting gig Jack had thrown my way. Once I figured out that money and some direction were the keys to my new process, I latched onto them like an addict. I wrote in jungles, on rickety buses, in tented camps while hyenas called out around, at the tops of mountains, and once while trying to recover from food poisoning.

“What are you getting at?”

“Your old label is wondering if you might want to consider taking on a music producer role for some of their up-and-coming talent. You’ve written a string of hit songs. It’s incredible, actually.”

I nodded even though Jack couldn’t see me. What to do with the train station had been on my mind, and becoming a producer would be an incredible next career step. Perhaps this was a goal for renovating that space. “Would they let me do it here?”

“There’s a studio in Little Falls?”

“If I made one, could I do it here?”

“It’s not too far from New York City. I’ll make some calls. You have the space?”

“Yeah. That’s not a problem.” The familiar itch to get up and walk rose under my skin. Every time doing something truly permanent in this town came up, I needed to move. Truthfully, I wasn’t sure I could force my roots deep enough to ground me here. There was a chance I’d never be truly happy here. Right now, I was as happy here as I’d been anywhere.

“Listen, I gotta go. Call me back when you know more. I’m definitely interested. But I’m also pretty happy writing songs.”

“Noted,” Jack said.

I hovered my finger over the red button to disconnect.

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