‘I think I would have.’
I reach out to turn the radio dial up in a bid to muffle the feeling that comes whenever I think about Jo. Beyoncé’s ‘Crazy in Love’ fills the car, the brass riff bold and joyful.
‘What the hell is this song?’ River asks, starting to tap his hands against his thighs, bouncing his head a little in time with the drums. ‘I like it. I like it a lot.’
‘Thisis Beyoncé!’ I laugh. ‘My God, I cannot believe your universe doesn’t have Beyoncé!’
When the song has finished River reaches out to turn the radio back down. ‘She’s great.Beyoncé. Man. I can’t believe we live without her.’
‘So who’s the biggest pop star in your world then?’ I ask. ‘Ariana Grande? Rihanna? It’s not Shawn Mendes, is it?’
‘They’re popular, sure, but no one’s as big as Dangerlady and the Cool Cats, obviously.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Dangerlady and the Cool Cats?’
I side-eye him. ‘Yeah, so you’re going to have to immediately tell meeverythingabout Dangerlady and the Cool Cats. Right this instant.’
‘Y’all don’t have them here?’
‘Um,no?’
River sits up straighter in the passenger seat. ‘Well, Owl, I simply must sing you their number one hit – it’s a sort of electronica, yacht rock fusion and it’s called “In a World of Hot Hot Dance”.’
Then to my shock and delight he starts to sing, complete with accompanying dance moves that are so utterly terrible they should technically give me the immediate ick.
But they don’t.
Not at all.
Quite the opposite, in fact.
*
When we get home, I’m laughing so much at River’s rendition of ‘In a World of Hot Hot Dance’ that a surge of optimism, combined with the brief reprieve from the anxiety that’sbeen knotting my stomach for weeks, leads me straight to my laptop to see if our ‘learn something new and have fun learning it’ experiment did in fact loosen my brain up like the library books said it might. I perch on the edge of the sofa, poise hopeful fingers above the laptop keys and wish and pray that Cassidy will do something, saysomething. That the movie I’ve had running in my mind for so long will get the hell off pause and kick back into action.
Come on …
I squeeze my eyes shut. ‘Please, please, please,’ I mutter.
Nope.
Nothing.
My characters are still completely stuck, static in the town square, Ethan awaiting Cassidy’s reply to his proposal.
My shoulders sink. ‘Fuck,’ I mutter.
‘No luck?’ River grimaces as he switches the kettle on.
‘Nothing.’
When the doorbell rings, I close the laptop lid and answer the intercom.
‘It’s Bridget,’ she says, her posh voice tinny through the speaker. ‘Can you let me up?’
I buzz her in and head out into the hallway to meet her. She looks busy and mildly harassed as usual, but her hair is now back in its usual perfectly neat red bob, her cream sleeveless trouser suit is so pristine I wonder, not for the first time, how someone who traverses smoggy old London on a motorbike manages to always look so immaculate.
