Page 2 of Crescendo

“That’s not a thing.” She sighed, sinking back, raking a hand through her hair. “God, you’re a fucking disaster, aren’t you?”

“I am, yes.”

“Did they not like what you’d been working on? Or was it just you beating yourself up?”

I waved a hand in the air, equivocating. “They liked bits here and there. José really liked the tunnel theme. But overall, it was mediocre at best. But it was really the main theme that stuck… I couldn’t do anything until I’d figured that out, and what I was working with was horrible. Bland, clichéd, forgettable. It wasn’t worthy of the franchise.”

She sighed, scrunching up her face. “You really did have it bad… you never told me you were having a block with it.”

I put my hands up lightly. “I thought if I didn’t acknowledge it, it would go away.”

“Uh-huh. How’d that work out for you?”

“Hm. It left something to be desired.”

“Do they have a replacement?”

I smiled thinly. “Natália. I recommended her, reached out to her, gave her what I’d been working on and told her to do a better job than me, and the execs were just happy to not have to figure out something else from scratch. This will be a great break for her, too.”

She sighed through a sad little smile. “That’s sweet… I know how much you enjoyed the mentoring program. And I do see a lot of your style in her, too. I’m sure she’ll do amazing, and I’m sure with the pressure taken off, you’ll get a second to breathe again and get your flow back.”

“Maybe I just gave all my talent to her. She does incredible things with ostinati. I’m a hack compared to her these days. The spirit of music has left my body and entered hers, and now I’m just a decrepit—”

“Okay, let’s not do that.”

“Iamdecrepit, though,” I muttered.

“You’re thirty-one and you’ve hadonejob go badly. Maybe you need to do some more mentoring again? Maybe that can get you some inspiration?”

I laughed bitterly. “What am I going to teach somebody? How to cry into fried rice?”

“Come on. You know you’re better than that. You’reLydia Howard Fox,dammit. There would be a million people out there who want to work with you if you even floated the suggestion.”

“A million people I get to disappoint.”

“Lydia.”

I pushed out a short sigh, knocking back the rest of my drink and standing up. “Let’s get back to this conversation later. I need a walk or something.”

She stood up with me, instantly changing gears. She was a good friend like that. “Let’s pop down to the beach for a stroll. Water’s always calming for you.”

∞∞∞

Natália was doing a good job. Poor girl acted like she’d never scored in her life—The Quiet Oneswas shaping up to be the biggest project she’d ever worked on, by a lot—but it only took her a day and a half to pound out a title theme that moved me to tears.

Might have just been that I was in tears grieving my own hopes and dreams. But I wouldn’t say something dramatic like that, would I? Not in a million years.

Melinda looked after me while I was a sad, anxious wreck. My period showed up later in the day after the crash, which felt like insult to injury, even though I suppose literally it was injury to insult. And it was a few days after, once I’d finished makinglofty statements about filling a contrabass with stones and tying myself to it and throwing myself into the ocean, that Melinda had a clever smile on her face when I met her at our favorite local bar in Santa Monica.

“How’s it going,” she said with the classicsupnod as I slid into the seat next to her.

“You look like you’re in a good mood,” I said. “That guy you were talking about finally text you back?”

She wrinkled her nose, waving me off. “Ugh, nah, forget that asshole. There’s this girl I’m kinda talking to now, but that’s not what this is. I’ve got something I want to see if you’re interested in.”

“Is it a sixth-story balcony?”

“Jesus, stop talking like that, you sick freak,” she laughed, kicking the side of my foot. The bartender showed up with her cocktail—as usual, it was something I’d never seen before—and she’d ordered my dirty martini ahead of me, so I guess she was expecting me to be happy about the news she had. No pressure or anything.

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