time: 11:53 AM
subject: Damn Black Keys
I bet your earlobe is quite tasty too. I should nibble on it next time I see you. BTW, I have to run. Have an interview with The Black Keys now. And all I’m going to be thinking about is you…
I place my phone next to me on the counter, and I am grinning—ear to f**king ear—as I happily watch the cooks whip up a bowl of white rice with sautéed veggies. I wonder if they can tell I’ve been flirting, because right now I am glowing, absolutely glowing, and I know I’ll be rereading that e-mail exchange far more times than I should. But I’m okay with that. Because it’s been so long since I’ve had this kind of back and forth. This kind of attraction that’s not a lie.
The woman behind the counter thrusts the bowl at me and hands me some chopsticks. I dive into my food, and I’m actually humming as I eat. I put down the chopsticks, root around in my purse for my notebook, and open it up to the working title for my newest song, “Mixed Messages.” I jot down a few quick thoughts. The things I can do in ten minutes.
Then a sliver of doubt runs through me. He’s not saying those sexy things to get me to agree to the article, is he? My mind starts to swim with the underhanded possibilities, even though the way he kissed me didn’t seem fake at all.
But then, at least I’m writing again. It’s a muddle of a song, but maybe there’s something there. Maybe flirtation, maybe mixed messages, is what I need. So I check my phone one more time just in case.
There are three new messages. But they’re not from Matthew. There’s one from Aidan: Hey Jane, just wanted to circle back on the Gay Men With Straight Wives meeting. Hoping you’ve had a chance to think about it. Talk soon. Aidan.
Then one from my sister reminding me she has more potential publicists for me to consider.
Then one more from Jeremy and it’s titled, Got a Club?
Jack London said, “You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.” Studio time is booked for you two weeks from now. I assume you’ll be ready. Consider the attached your clubs.
I click on the attachments. They are tickets for the Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Natural History, even the Intrepid Air and Space Museum.
I write back: Air and space? Want me to write a song about hot sailors?
His reply: Whatever it takes to make a new album, Black. Whatever it takes.
Tick, tock.
Chapter Nine
I pick up Ethan from school that afternoon, since it’s my turn to have him for a few days.
“Want to go see some dinosaurs?”
“Rawr!” is his answer, and we head to the Museum of Natural History.
“Should I write a song about dinosaurs?” I ask as we check out the Tyrannosaurus Rex that we’re both sure comes alive at night, just as it did in one of our favorite movies.
“Yeah! Write about triceratops. Those are cool!”
“What else?” We head over to the Giant Whales exhibit, where Ethan stares, goggle-eyed, at the massive blue whale. “If you could write a song about anything, what would it be?”
He screws up his features in a thoughtful expression. “You should write about carbon. Because we still have to fight carbon. Did you know we’re trying to defeat carbon just like Voldemort,” Ethan says seriously, looking at me as he tugs my hand and pulls me over to a replica of a whale heart that we can crawl through. “But you can’t defeat carbon because it keeps being made. But you have to try.”
I laugh as we head into the aorta. “I guess you’re still in the middle of that global-warming unit at school.”
I spend the rest of the week with my boy, taking him to and from school, using all of Jeremy’s clubs, and finishing “Mixed Messages,” even though Ethan tells me I should write about whales, naval ships, and Egyptian warriors. But the fact that I managed to write a song gives me the confidence that I can do the story with Matthew. And not just because he sends the most fantastic e-mails, but because I actually have the primordial makings of what everyone’s been asking for—what’s next.
As I get ready to return Ethan to his dad, my phone buzzes with an e-mail. My mouth waters when I see Matthew’s personal e-mail address pop up.
from: [email protected]
time: 3:03 PM
subject: Distractions
Do you have any idea how hard it was to focus on The Black Keys earlier this week?
from: [email protected]
time: 3:04 PM
subject: Innuendo
How hard was it?
from: [email protected]
time: 3:05 PM
subject: Yes.
Extremely.
I close the e-mail, and wipe the stupid smile off my face, and the sexy images from my brain.
“Time to go see your dad,” I tell Ethan, and we’re off to Bloom’s Books on Lexington Avenue. Once inside, Ethan darts through the store to his favorite section, and I find him pulling the Captain Underpants collection—the story of an elementary school comic-book superhero—one by one off the shelves. I promised him anything he wanted, within reason, when I won my Grammy. He chose books. This makes me happy.