Broken Strings

Thirteen

Brock

Fame is very corrosive and you have to guard very strictly against it – Edward Norton

"Okay, what do you think of this?"

A pause as Caroline listened to the string of notes that Bailey played on the piano. Then, "I like it. Lyrics?"

"I was thinking something like this—" Bailey slid a piece of paper with scribbled words on it across the top of the piano towards Caroline who was sitting on a stool at the other end, a guitar balanced on her lap. "But I'm not sure yet."

Caroline read over the words that had been written, her mouth forming them but making no sound. Her light brown hair was unbound and strands of it kept falling into her face no matter how many times she paused to tuck it behind her ear.

From the corner of the studio, seated on a plush leather couch, Brock watched the two women work. It was clear that they had developed an easy rapport with each other and both had a significant degree of expertise though Caroline had a habit of deferring to Bailey whenever she wasn't entirely confident about something. Bailey was like a mentor to Caroline, Brock had learned. She'd taught the other woman to play guitar and write music and though Caroline had gone on to work and mentor under different individuals in the industry, the trust and camaraderie they shared was palpable.

Brock felt very out of sorts as he watched them work and all at once he was very aware of how little songwriting he'd actually done in his career. Frontier had always selected his music for him. Finding songwriters to develop pieces specifically for him. Often, they'd sent pre-recorded demos for him to listen over and while they welcomed his feedback, it wasn't always incorporated unless it would inhibit his ability to perform the song on a stage at some point.

Bailey, it seemed, had an abundance of creative freedom. She wrote most of her own music and though she often collaborated with the other songwriters at Eclipse, Bailey had the final say about what went on each of her records. She had sampled some of her new music for him, a collection of songs that ranged from heartfelt to dance to kill-my-ex. All of it was good and more than a few had the potential to go far.

The one song of Bailey's that stood out the most was one she hadn't even sung. It was framed on the wall, a simple sheet of white paper peppered with blue ink behind a piece of glass. Above it was a painting: a near-solid black image broken up only by a single dot of white in the dead centre of the page.

"What's this?" Brock had asked when he'd entered Bailey's studio.

He hadn't noticed it the day before when she'd given him the tour. Of course, they'd only stopped into the studio for a moment before they had found themselves on the back deck with cool glasses of pink lemonade, discussing his future musical direction.

Brock had walked over to the framed sheet of paper and read the lines of lyrics and chords that had been written out. His eyes skimmed the first verse and landed on the chorus.

Welcome to the void. It's dark inside and empty. There's nowhere left to hide. The world is grey, my hope is gone. There's nothing left, I can't move on. Welcome to the void

Bailey had looked up, her eyes glassing over slightly as she swallowed. "Nothing really. It's just a song I wrote last year."

"Is it on your new record?"

"No." Bailey had taken one breath. Just one single laboured breath. "I'm sure you noticed a bit of awkwardness last night when we talked about the rough year we had leading up to Noah winning that bull riding championship?"