“Third,” I correct her.
“You speakthreelanguages?”
“Four, actually. Thai because of my mum, and Swedish, obviously. Then English. And I also learned German at school. Oh, and I am conversational in Norwegian, Danish, and Dutch, so I guess that’s more than four.”
“Wow!” Cassie is all big-eyes and parted lips.
“Oh, you didn’t think an angry Asian woman like me could be intelligent too? That’s your first mistake. Most of us angry women are the ones who are paying the most attention.”
“I guess that makes sense,” Cassie says with a little frown that is somehow just as pretty as her smile.
“Anyway. You rewrite your verses, and I’ll do mine? And then I guess we’ll do the chorus together?”
“Sounds good.” Cassie nods.
“Let me just copy down these.” I get up and rummage in my bag for a pen and paper.
“No, it’s okay,” Cassie calls out. “I’ve memorised the words already. And I’ll just remember the new ones.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, that’s how I do it. It’s all up here.” She taps the side of her head, and it’s so fucking goofy I feel myself smiling. I’ve done a lot of smiling since we arrived in this hotel together. I didn’t expect that, and I’m not sure I like it.
I also didn’t expect Cassie to be so honest with me. About wanting to kiss women. About being happy to fuck with our managers, our labels, and the mother-fucking patriarchy.
Dare I say it, Cassie Everard is very close to impressing me – and all while looking so fucking cute in her smock top, flared jeans and all that honey-blonde
hair. I wonder how early she got up to perfect those waves or if she slept in curlers. Curlers and a floor-length Victorian-esque nightgown, no doubt. A mental image immediately fills my mind and has me chuckling to myself.
“What’s so funny?” Cassie’s question brings me back to the present moment.
“Nothing,” I say, and I stop sniggering. “Let’s get to work.”
Thirty minutes later, and I’ve absolutely ruined Cassie’s song sheets with scribbles everywhere. But I think I’m close to having the words I want to sing. From what she’d said, I’d expected Cassie to sing out her lyrics, to test the words in her mouth and check they matched the rhythm and the tune. But she’s almost deathly silent, and every time I’ve looked across the table at her, she’s had her eyes closed and her lips pressed into a thin line.
It's like she’s turned completely inwards, finding the music inside herself and being filled up by it. It’s like this hotel room, the outside world and I have all disappeared, and Cassie is in her own universe full of notes and words. I find myself leaning forward in myseat, wanting to slip into that world she inhabits, wanting to know what it’s like there, wanting to know what it’s like inside her mind.
Suddenly, her eyes open, and they connect with mine. They widen as she realises I was staring at her. I should look away or explain myself or crack a joke about her disappearing inside herself, like she wanted to escape me already, but I don’t say anything. And I don’t avert my gaze. I like having her questioning blue eyes on me. I already knew I liked shocking her, but apparently, surprising her is just as much fun.
“What?” she eventually asks.
“You were in another world,” I say.
Cassie huffs out a soft laugh. “Yeah, that happens a lot.”
“Were you really just singing to yourself? In your head?”
“Yes…” She blushes, cheeks turning almost as pink as her full lips. “It wouldn’t have helped you if I was singing out loud when you were doing the same.”
“I would have survived. I could have moved away to the bed or even gone to the bathroom.”
“There was no need, really. I find it easy to sing in my head. I do it a lot.”
I wait for more words, a deeper explanation, but it doesn’t come. She casts her gaze down at her hands, and I miss her stare more than I should.
“Have you come up with something?”
“I think so,” she says. “I mean, it’s not perfect, and I actually haven’t changed that much, but I think it gets the message across. You know, if someone was looking for that particular message.”
