I walk towards my kitchen at the end of the back of the house. ‘Can I get you a drink of anything? I have lemonade, pomegranate and orange sparkling, water, tea, coffee…’
‘Why are you being so formal?’ Jess removes her shoes by the front door, leaving them on the mat. ‘I’ll have a cup of camomile, please.’
I make the tea and we both go to the living room, where my own lukewarm cup is waiting for me on the coffee table. ‘Mimi is going to be coming over in just over an hour, and I know we’ve a lot to discuss…’ Jess starts. ‘But I think for the next hour or so…’ She trails off and takes another sip of her tea. ‘Sienna, can we just hang out as friends?’ Her voice cracks. She must be exhausted.
I’m exhausting her.
‘Sounds good to me,’ I say. It’s been a while since Jess and I were able to hang out as friends. That side of us is constantly overwhelmed by her duties as my publicist – especially with the new album release. We knew our relationship would change when I hired her, but we did it anyway because I needed her near me all the time, even when I was on tour, but she couldn’t afford to leave her job – which she also hated, by the way. I didn’t have a publicist at the time – Mimi was a one-woman band.
Mimi has worked with me since the beginning. I signed with her at an agency after we hit it off straight away. She had a somewhat similar upbringing to me in housing association housing, but she was in Manchester, and I was in Hemel Hempstead.
Mimi worked with me and a few other clients untilInfinite Ghostskyrocketed my success. I hired her in-house and it was me and her against the world until Jess joined us. The three of us make so much sense.
I run my hands through my hair which is still full of hairspray and gel, so my fingers don’t make it very far.
‘Chorus?’ Jess points to the only words I have written on the page.
I nod.
‘God, has Xavierreallyhurt you?’
‘No, stop!’ I laugh, clutching my stomach.
I always cringe when someone is reading a first draft of something I’ve written. It’s not finished; it’s not ready for human consumption. Even Jess.
The only person I’ve ever been semi-comfortable reading an early draft is Luc Nicholls. He understands the creative process as a writer himself, that the first draft is just about getting something down on the page.
I’ve been staring at theDark Daylightpage for days – usually a sign the idea is not working for me – but the songfeels more relevant than ever. Maybe it’s too personal. I could do with some help. The kind of help that Luc’s writer’s brain and fresh take once gave me. Ten years ago when I let him in. When he helped with a few songs, mainly onSweethearts Inside at Night, always writing under his pseudonym: Luke Lukeson. When I struggled to endGive Us A Smile, Love, it was Luc who wrote the final line which has become iconic over the years. So simple, but so beautiful.I’ll smile when I’m given a reason to. It was exactly how I felt, but I didn’t know how to put it into words.
‘Tell me what’s going on with you,’ I prompt.
‘Oh, you know me.’ Jess flips her hand dismissively. ‘Things fizzle out very quickly.’
My shoulders slump and I place a hand on her arm. Watching Jess, who has always loved love, stop believing in it slowly, has broken my heart.
‘I think maybe I just need to accept that maybe this isn’t something that will happen for me,’ she smiles.
‘Someone’s out there for you, Jess.’
‘Why’s he hiding then?’
Jess’s phone buzzes in her lap and she clicks it a few times. ‘Oh, fuck sake.’ She gets up and grabs her laptop from the bag she dropped at the door when she came in. I hadn’t even noticed she’d brought a bag with her.
‘What’s up?’
It must be bad. When Jess is in crisis mode, she’s on her laptop, not responding to any outside noise. She hits the keys, clicks her mouse.
‘Jess, what’s going on?’ There’s a pleading in my voice that I don’t want to be there.
‘Behind The Sceneshave pictures of you and Jonny, and they’re saying I’ve given them a comment… It’s the same comment I gave theMail… They must have just copied it.’
‘Oh, that’s not as bad as I was thinking.’
Her head snaps up and there’s almost an anger in hereyes. ‘They also have pictures of Xavier leaving here on Thursday night.’ She runs her hands through her hair and pulls at the roots. ‘I swear to god, Sienna.’ She shakes her head, but it’s not a joke anymore. ‘I cannot help you if you don’t tell me everything.’
‘He was here for all of like five minutes,’ I protest. ‘He showed up because I hadn’t answered his texts, but I sent him home as soon as he knocked on the door.’ I throw my hands up weakly. ‘He didn’t even come in.’
I swear Jess almost looks relieved.
