Or maybe Pia doesn’t care.
This is a thought I’ve had more times than I can count in the month since Pia stormed out of the recording studio. I know she was angry with me, but what I can’t determine is why exactly she was angry. Or rather, which specific thing that I did or said upset her the most.
My gut wants to tell me that it’s because I didn’t clarify to Ramona what the song was about. But surely Pia didn’t expect me to blatantly tell the music industry’s most-read publication that thesong is about two women in love? Surely she didn’t want that kind of attention on us, on her, before the song is even released? Because that’s exactly what would have happened. And I can only imagine just how catastrophic that would have been. The fallout from our managers, our labels, the rest of our band members. The possibility is too messy to think about without getting a headache. I know because I have been thinking about it far too much over the last few weeks.
Taking a sip of water, I spare the menu a glance. Not that I’m hungry. At all.
Loss of appetite. Poor sleep. A permanent sinking feeling in my stomach that’s nauseating. These are just some of the things I’ve been struggling with since I last saw Pia, which is why I felt like I didn’t have a choice but to ask Kevin if he could organise a meeting between us. It was easy to use our upcoming EP release as an excuse, and he’d therefore been more than enthusiastic to make the necessary arrangements. He didn’t think anything of it until I let it slip how shocked I was when he’d come back to me with a day and a time from Pia, via Martin, Femme Fatale’s manager.
“You seem surprised,” he’d said with a frown as we’d sat down for a meeting to discuss the contract that I’d finally paid a lawyer to go through with me.
“Well, yeah, I…” I’d composed myself a little. “You know what she’s like.”
“Oh, yeah, I know,” he said with a harsh scoff. I elongated my neck, feeling immediately defensive of Pia. “A fucking mess.”
“No, she’s not,” I’d said with a firmness that surprised us both.
After staring at me with narrow eyes for a few seconds, Kevin readjusted his tie and moved my contract in front of him, signalling his desire to switch the focus of the meeting. “Well, I hope she’s on time for you. In fact, I’d not go until an hour after the reservation starts, otherwise you’ll be waiting forever.”
He wasn’t wrong.
I wait for half an hour. And then another. I order a salad and a breadbasket and make both last an additional forty minutes. I spend the time thinking about that meeting with Kevin and how I’ve managed to convince him to let me add a break clause to the contract. I remind myself to feel proud that I stood up for myself to get that, and I try not to question if I would have ever done it had I not spent that night with Pia, had I not gotten to see what it looks like to be a woman who knows what she wants up close and … personal.
As my second full hour of sitting alone at the white-clothed table approaches, someone approaches me. They’re just a shadow at first, and I hold my breath as I turn to see them. But as soon as I do, I’m exhaling with disappointment.
It’s a young, pale-faced white man wearing an ill-fitting suit and a sheen of sweat across his forehead. “Miss Everard?”
“Yes,” I say, and then I see him hold out an envelope with two words written on it. The handwriting is cursive and sweeping, and it’s only from the curve of the C and the prongs of the E that I know it’s my name.
“From Miss Lindberg,” he says, and then hands over the envelope.
I spend a quick moment thinking how odd it is to hear myself and Pia talked about as “Miss Everard” and “Miss Lindberg” when to the world we are so many other names. But that thought passes as soon as I realise that this envelope is all I’m getting from Pia today. Maybe ever.
“Oh,” I say. “Is she not coming?”
His face goes beetroot red. “I’m afraid not.”
I nod and hold onto the most difficult smile of my life. I already knew the answer, and yet still it hurts. “Well, thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he says, and he rotates on his heels only to pause and then turn back again. “Actually, if you wouldn’t mind.” Hereaches into an inside pocket of his blazer and produces a business card. “My girlfriend loves you. Would you mind signing this?”
He places the card and a pen in front of me on the table. When I see the logo for his employer, Silver Waters, Femme Fatale’s record label, my stomach flips. This is all so … distant, insignificant, telling. Pia using a – I study the business card until the words become clear – junior associate from her label to communicate with me.
“There you go,” I say after signing the business card as best I can with a shaking hand. Autographs are easy enough for me as it’s just a few loops and swoops of my pen. Apparently, nobody expects you to actually sign your own name coherently.
“Thank you so much,” he mumbles, and then he’s gone for real.
I look at the envelope he left me with for a very long time. I’m terrified to open it. Terrified that it’s some secretary-typed note asking me to not make any further contact. Terrified it’s a handwritten letter that I can’t read because my brain is already so tired and worked up. Terrified it’s nothing at all. An empty envelope that will give me more answers than a twelve-page letter.
Suddenly, the fear makes me move. I rip open the envelope and open its mouth wide.
There’s no letter or note inside, but there is something.
I pull the Polaroid photo out slowly, completely clueless what it could be of.
When I turn it, I see the one thing I hoped for more than a handwritten letter.
It’s a photo of Pia. Not her face but her torso and…my shirt. The blue blouse she tore open that night. She’s wearing it over her naked body, the two torn sides separate enough to reveal a strip of her olive skin, the faintest lines of where her breasts begin. But all this is out of focus, blurred a little in the background as there is something in front of Pia’s body that absorbs all the light. It’s Pia’s hand, raised out in front of her, all her fingers curled down apart from one: her middle finger. It’s long and thin, with a pointed nail, painted black. It’s as aggressive as the expression on her lips, which are on the very edge of the image’s frame. A scowl. A hard, mean scowl that sends me the exact same message her finger does.
