Page 52 of Together in Harmony
Never again.
And yet here we are.
Harmony comes into the sound-booth, collecting a new pen from the desk. “Mine died,” she says. Then she looks at me. Her perceptive brain sees I’m in turmoil.
“Hugo? Are you alright?”
I’m not alright.
She puts a hand on my arm.
Shit, I realize I said that outloud. “Want to talk about it?” she asks me.
“Talking is what made everything fucked up in the first place,” I say. “Sharing my feelings with someone other than Asa and Lennox has torpedoed my life.”
Harmony nods. “I’m sorry. Finding people you can truly trust is not easy.”
She understands. I study her as she scribbles with the pen to make sure the ink will flow. I make a decision.
“Did the others tell you about Brookes?” I ask.
“Just that you were in a relationship with her, and she did some weird art exhibition about your time together. I’m so sorry, that’s terrible.”
“It’s fucked me up. I shared everything with her; my feelings about my parents, ex-lovers, Asa and Lennox. I told her about all the stupid crap I've done in my life. Driving drunk, taking drugs, cheating and lying. Then she makes paintings out of my quotes, stuff like that. She called the show ‘An Ode to Narcissism’. Now I heard that she is writing a book. More revelations about my life, all in black and white, for the whole world to read.”
“Is the book going to be that bad, if she has already done the art show thing?”
Unfortunately, yes.
“The art show thing just gave hints and snippets of our year together. This book? It’s going to go into detail about everything. People will get hurt by my careless words. A lot of the stuff I said to her, I didn't even mean. Brookes would get turned on by me shit-talking people. I know it’s not an excuse, but I thought it was a game. Private between us, but all the time she was taping me on her phone.”
“But isn’t that illegal?”
“Brookes lives in Manhattan, so all this happened when I was there with her. It’s one-party consent for taping laws in New York.”
I slump down in an office chair. “I feel so bad for Asa and Lennox. Yeah, we are in a very successful band and all that, but we have always worked hard to be decent people. Not get just full of ego and think we are special, just because we got lucky. I’ve ruined that now. We’ll look just like all the other assholes in this industry.”
Harmony comes over and wraps her arms around me. I continue to talk. Now that I've started, I don't want to stop. It’s cathartic.
And I don’t want her to let go. As long as I am talking, she will be holding me.
“Harry, you know our manager, wants us to ‘lean in’ to the bad-boy thing. He says that I can be the dark and troubled one in the group. He doesn’t see a problem. But he also just sees us as a product and not as people.”
“Lean in?” says Harmony. “That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard! Who leans in to being an asshole?”
She frowns. “Actually, scratch that. A lot of people do. Not you though, Hugo. It’s obvious that is not who you are. Do your parents know what is coming down the pipeline?”
I shake my head. “I’ve been too chicken-shit to call them. I should though. It's only fair. They already freaked out and nearly disowned me over the whole art exhibition thing. Fuck knows what they will do with a book.”
Do I actually care about my parent's feelings? They will hate the book, obviously, but they'll hate it for their sake, not mine. They will worry about their high-profile careers and high-society friends. Not their low-brow son, and his low-life bandmates.
If there are any people in the world more snobbish than my parents, I'm yet to meet them.
Harmony releases me from her hug, and my body feels cold without her. Happily she then picks up my hand and squeezes it. “Anticipating a scary thing is often worse than the scary thing actually happening.”
I stand up and give her a hug, kissing the top of her head.
“You are absolutely right. Now let’s get back to work, I shouldn’t have been bending your ear.”
