The appliances would have to be replaced, but that was all right. These were sort of an off-white. She’d get stainless steel.
She stood back and got a picture of the whole room. Then she ran her hand over the laminate countertop. “Quartz would be a big improvement in here.”
“New cabinets, too?” Conrad asked.
“No.” She opened a drawer, inspecting the condition of it, then moved on to the upper cabinets and looked at those. “I think they could just be painted or resurfaced. Maybe with a nice light color.”
“Color?” He seemed surprised.
She smiled. “Do you think I don’t like color?”
He laughed. “I honestly wasn’t sure.”
“What if I told you I could see these cabinets in a soft buttery yellow with white quartz countertops and a blue and white tile backsplash?”
“Really?” His brows lifted. “That sounds pretty nice, actually. You wouldn’t get tired of it?”
“No, I don’t think I would. But if I did, I could always have the cabinets painted again.”
“And the walls?”
“White.”
“You always know what you want, don’t you?”
She smiled at him, letting her gaze drift over him. “Yes. I do.”
Jules gave Cash her car keys and sent him to the Dolphin Club early, along with some money to buy himself lunch. Then she texted Jesse to give him a heads up that Cash would be there sooner than expected, but that she was staying home to work on new music.
I hope you don’t mind, she added.
Not at all. I can put him to work. Although I’ll miss you.
Same. That wasn’t a lie, but the truth was, she needed some alone time to think about the rest of her album. One great song wasn’t enough.
And she didn’t want the rest of them to be throwaways. The pressure was no joke. Especially with the way everyone who’d heard Dixie’s Got Her Boots On had reacted.
She strummed that tune first, quietly singing along but without any real effort. She just wanted to get herself back in that same headspace. She thought about the natural progression of what would happen next in Dixie’s story.
What would happen if Dixie had really walked into a bar, found her husband cheating on her with another woman, gotten him home, and then shot him.
Jules slowed the song down considerably and changed it to a minor key, giving the song a more plaintive and haunting sound.
Dixie would want to get rid of the evidence.
What was the best way to do that? Jules could only think of one thing. Fire.
She started singing softly, not really sure where things were going just yet. “House on fire, flames climbing higher…”
That wasn’t quite it, though. Something about it was too real. She understood what that meant, but knew it wasn’t something she’d be able to explain to most people. She smiled. Jesse would probably get it.
She added a bluesy little riff and nodded. That sounded right. “House on fire, flames climbing higher, memories turned to ash…” No. She tried again, thinking through a few phrases. “House on fire, flames climbing higher, dust to dust, ash to ash, with a little bit of luck, this too shall pass.”
She smiled. She was getting somewhere. She kept it bluesy as she worked her way forward, stopping every once in a while to jot down the lyrics she liked.
Amazing herself, she had the rough first draft of her next song in less than an hour. Some of the lyrics needed work and the bridge wasn’t quite there, but House On Fire was good. She was happy with it.
Could she do more? She tried to really sink into the story she was telling, and what the mood of the album would be. A woman empowered? A woman driven to a dark place? The consequences of her actions?