Some Kind of Miracle (12 page)

"S
o what’s shakin’, good-lookin’?” Harry Brenner asked, showing her in, and right away she felt that soaring sense of being surrounded by luxury in Harry’s high-ceilinged Mediterranean-style house. Harry’s two golden retrievers sniffed her until he said, “Boys!” And then they moved away through an open glass door, toward the pool.

Harry had to be past sixty by now, but Dahlia saw him checking out her body with a leer. A housekeeper appeared and asked if she wanted something to drink, but she was afraid she was too nervous to hold a glass, so she refused. Having Harry Brenner falling for one of her songs could be a life changer. Last night she’d made a list of all of the things she could do with the money, and the first one was to fix up her house.

Now she was chattering away, trying to make small talk with Harry as they walked across the tile floor to
ward the glass doors, then outside past the pool area, but it wasn’t coming easily. It was one thing to chitchat with some half-asleep, naked client under a sheet who was paying her for a massage. But this was a music-business hotshot who could decide to push a little business her way that could make or break her career.

“You ever get married all these years?” Harry asked her.

“Not yet,” Dahlia answered. Her stomach hurt. Just one hour, she told herself. For one hour you have to give this everything.

“Me neither,” Harry said

A couple of months earlier, Seth had bought her a book on creativity, and even though she was sure it was worthless, she read it one night when she couldn’t fall asleep just because it was the one that was sitting on her night table. The author said it was a good thing to repeat the words “Turn on the power” to yourself before you started to work or before you were about to go into an important meeting. The book said that we all walk around every day on low voltage, but saying “Turn on the power” to ourselves would remind us to turn it up and get the dynamic forces to kick in.

Dahlia had said those words today, screamed them all the way over to Harry’s house as the van careened around the bends on Mulholland Drive, but she was still a basket case. Especially when she followed Harry across the pool area into the building he had converted from a guesthouse into a studio, and she saw what she now remembered had been so intimidating
the last time. It was that wall of gold records and the dozens of photos everywhere of Harry standing with his arm around every star in the music business.

“Well, I hope you have something as good as that one we worked on together. What was the title? Something about kids?”

“‘My Kids Are My Life,’” Dahlia said.

“Great little song. Long time ago, though. When was it?”

“Eight years,” she said, avoiding his eyes, because she was afraid hers would show that for the last eight years she’d been out of the business and miserable.

“Let’s cut to the chase,” Harry said. “Whaddya got?”

She was at the piano now, trying to get comfortable with its touch, with the play of the keys, but her hands felt cold and a little stiff. She pulled out a lead sheet and took a deep breath. “This first one is called, ‘Don’t Make Me Laugh.’ It’s kind of a mellow, bittersweet—”

“Pass,” she thought she heard Harry say. But he couldn’t have said that already, without even hearing it. Or could he? She felt an aching in her chest, and she was afraid to look at him, but she made herself turn, and when she did, she saw that his mouth was set in a deep frown.

“No one gives a shit about mellow and bittersweet these days. What else?”

“But it’s so—”

“What else?” he asked, and the harassed expression on his face made her sure that what she’d suspected when she called him yesterday was true. That when she bumped into him at Denny’s and he urged her to call him and bring him songs, it was nothing more
than a Hollywood invitation. Meaningless, not intended to be taken seriously. He never imagined she would take him up on it, and that was why, when she’d called, he’d sounded stuck, trapped, foiled by his own phoniness. And that was how he looked now. Trapped and wanting the meeting to be over.

She tried out a little jazzy tune on him called “Dude.” It was an update of a song she’d written about Seth when they’d first started dating. Harry sighed, said “Fun,” when she sang it, but leaned on the piano and yawned a huge yawn right at her. She tried a rock tune she loved, one she’d written within the last year called “You Get Me,” but Harry was expressionless when she finished, and she could feel heartburn creeping into her esophagus. She only had two songs left now: “Images” and “Hang In.” Halfway through “Images,” the studio phone rang, and while she was singing the bridge, Harry answered it and talked animatedly to somebody on the other end with his back to her.

All that was left for her now was to figure out how she was going to keep from falling apart in front of him. To find a way she could stop herself from sobbing right here at the way this had gone. After all the investment she had in its going well, how could this happen? After she’d finally managed to get a shred of confidence back in her work. Look at me sitting here, she thought. Doomed to be a masseuse until my hands break off because I can’t sell another song.

She thought of Sunny’s song and the lyrics she’d written for it. “What’s Happened to Me?” What
has
happened to me? she wondered. Why am I falling
apart like this? Now Sunny’s tune and her own lyrics repeated again in her head, and she started to play it softly just to avoid standing up and walking toward the door, because she knew if she did, she would cry in front of Harry. So instead she sang softly. “I keep getting in my own way, unable to change. Everybody sees it, and they say I’m acting strange.”

The tune was coming out of her hands just the way Sunny played it and the way Dahlia had learned it by watching her play it, and she was singing it through quietly. Then, without looking at him, she felt Harry Brenner shift his weight and turn to face her, and she could tell he was leaning in to listen, and she sang it out, louder, going with it, getting bigger, and then wailing it. Copying Sunny’s biggest voice, and she sounded pretty damn good for someone who hadn’t sung in front of anyone but her boyfriend in a long, long time.

She didn’t have to see Harry Brenner’s face to be able to tell that he loved the song. She could hear it in his breathing, tell by the way he kept moving closer to the piano. And after she belted out the final plaintive line—“What’s happened to me?”—she hesitated for a minute before she looked at him, just to postpone the moment that she already knew was inevitable.

“Now,
that
is a great fucking song! You wrote that? That’s got to be your best tune. That’ll be the next Faith Hill hit. I have got to get it to her, because she will slay them with that song. And you were saving it for
last
? Sweetheart, you ought to open with that one. As I’m standing here, I swear to you, this is going right to number one.” He was spinning out, already
humming Sunny’s marvelous tune. “The day I saw you in Denny’s was the luckiest day of both of our lives. Ay, ay, ay. Let me take you to lunch, let me take you wherever you want to go. I’m telling you, cute-face, that is some drop-dead song. And believe me, I don’t have to say this. I could say, ‘Let’s get it out there, let’s see what people say, let’s take a shot with it,’ but I am swearing to you like I know my name—this is a hit. Where’s the lead sheet? You got lead sheets?”

“No lead sheets,” she said numbly. Now she had to tell him.

“You got this on a CD?”

“Uh…no. I don’t have it on CD.” And I didn’t write the music, just the lyrics, and I can’t sell it to anyone, was what she thought. But she couldn’t say that now.

“A tape?”

“I don’t.” Okay, this is when I’ll tell him. I’ll say, Sorry to break it to you, Harry, but I can’t let you have this song.

“So let’s do this. You take five while I set up the mike, and then we can lay it down with you and the piano. Then at least I’ll have it when I see Faith Hill’s people. Will you do that for me? Your old buddy Harry? You wrote that melody? That is like the old days of the Beatles.”

This song
would
be incredible for Faith Hill. It could be huge. It could make the songwriter very, very rich. Her heart was pounding in her ears, and she couldn’t look at him.

“What? You got something more important to do?” he asked.

“No, but, Harry…” What was the point? Sunny wouldn’t sign a contract to sell this one either, because Sunny thought it was okay just to sit in the cuckoo farm and play songs for the other zombies. And here was this biggie from the music business wanting to turn one of her songs into a megahit. This wasn’t going to fall apart like the Marty Melman deal. This had a million possibilities.

I’ll do this for Sunny, Dahlia thought. Of course. I’m doing it for her. When it’s the biggest song since “Happy Birthday,” I’ll say I had to do it this way so she could have the money she needs. To do what? Oh, I’ll think of something. She’ll agree if I tell her that the money is going to find new ways to make people with mental illness get well. Great idea. We’ll name a pavilion after her at some mental hospital.

Harry was hurrying around the studio, into a back closet, emerging with a microphone and a headset, pulling a mike close to the piano.

“Sing it just like you did for me. Start out slow with that kind of soft, reflective quality, then start putting the emotion into it, and then build into that kind of caterwaul sound, ’cause that will really get the message across, and that’s where it really starts to rock out,” Harry said, looking around to make sure everything was in place in the studio, then backing out and closing the door with a hiss, leaving her to look out at him through the glass.

Dahlia’s insides were trembling, and she had a
queasy feeling in her chest and an aching around her shoulders. This was either the worst crime in the world or the smartest move she’d ever made. Either way, just doing it made her feel so sick to her stomach that she was trying to remember if she’d seen a bathroom anywhere on the way in to the studio, because she was sure she wasn’t going to make it through this recording in the middle of this lie. Oh, c’mon. It’s only half a lie, her rationalizing self told her, as if lies could be fractionalized. You did write half of this, so you’re only half a thief.

“Okay, babe. Want to sing a few bars so I can get a level?” Harry’s voice from the booth startled her. He wanted her to sing the song now. The song that Sunny created. Well, this was it. This was when she had to tell him. Harry, this isn’t just my song. This is a song idea that belongs to my cousin, who also wrote the tune, who doesn’t even know my lyrics for it exist, and who will never sign a deal with you or anyone.

This is a song by a woman who would smear nail polish on a contract and play the song for her drug-filled gang of mental patients before she’d ever let you have it, so I’m sorry if you misunderstood my singing it as my having written it alone. In fact I didn’t even think of the hook. That was hers, too. So your falling for this song would really be a problem, since there’s no way you can sell it to Faith or anybody else. That was what she was going to tell him now.

“Uh, Harry…,” she said.

“Let’s hear it, good-lookin’!” Harry said.

Dahlia took a deep breath, which made her feel a little dizzy, and then, instead of telling Harry the truth,
she let herself play the opening chords of “What’s Happened to Me?”

“Sounds good,” Harry said, interrupting her. “Don’t waste it. Let’s lay one down just for openers. We’re rolling, so start anytime.”

“I keep getting in my own way, unable to change. Everybody sees it, and they say I’m acting strange.” Sick, I am sick, she thought, and weak and spineless, and Seth is right about me. I am such a jerk with my big dreams of glory that I won’t give up, to the point that I am stealing my poor cousin’s tune and her idea, and I can’t stop myself. But I don’t have the guts to admit it, and I don’t know how to get out of it, and I should be running out the door right now.

“What’s happened to me?” she sang, full of anger at herself. And, when she finished, Harry’s voice came over the speaker into the studio.

“Wow!” he said. “We got it, and it is to die, babe! I’m not letting you outta here until you make me a lead sheet.”

“Look, Harry…,” she protested.

“Trust me, sweetheart,” Harry said. “Invest another half hour in putting this into my computer, it’ll pop out a lead sheet, and you’ll be naming all your rich children Harry, after the guy who made you famous.”

By the time Dahlia got back to her van, Harry Brenner was opening the door for her and helping her in gingerly, only now he was handling her as if she were a precious commodity.

“Sweetheart,” he said, “I can guaran-fuckin’-tee you that this piece-of-shit vehicle of yours is history as of this moment. In fact, if I were you, I’d stop in at the
Ferrari dealership on your way home and ask if they’ll give you a trade-in.” Then he laughed and reached into the car and took her face in his two hands, so close that his too-sweet cologne gave her an instant headache.

“I want you back here in one week to play me everything you’ve got that sounds as good as this last one, so I can get you a big deal somewhere. Then all you have to do is churn them out, and I’ll be your manager.” He kissed her on each cheek, gave her a thumbs-up, and backed away so she could leave. Dear God, she thought, let this pitiful trash-can-on-wheels start, so I can make a decent exit.

She was amused at how dramatically different Harry’s good-bye look was from his impatient, let’s-get-this-over-with hello look. The expression on his face as he watched her drive away said that he adored her madly, that she could trust him, that they were a team who would knock the music business on its ass. My God, she thought, if he only knew.