She stared at me. “No.”
“Yes.”
“When’s the last timeyoutalked to Frank?” she asked. “He’s still—?”
I had to laugh. I said, “He’s notthatold, Ryan. I think I sent him an email last year on his birthday.”
Ryan shook her head and said, “Shit.”
I didn’t tell her about how Frank still asked how Ryan was doing after all these years or that he’d mentioned to me that he listened to her every song.
“You’ve been busy,” I said. “He understands.”
“It’s not an excuse,” she said. “That settles it. We’re going.”
Jasmine
It was late summer—when Ryan, Wilder, and I were having coffee up on the rooftop again, during one of our little low-stakes hangouts that had replaced our studio sessions—that she got her creative momentum back.
She and Wilder seemed to have gotten over whatever issues they’d had and were sitting on the wicker couch across from me again. I once joked to Skip that those two would make a good pair, but he said, “Don’t you dare speak that into existence. We can’t lose that guitarist.” Ha. So I dropped it.
Ryan had a look on her face like she had a secret, and she gave me a small smile as she set her phone on the table.
“So ... I’ve been working on a little something,” she said, and tapped the screen.
Her voice sang out a little tinny through the iPhone speakers, just her and the banjo.
Wake me when you’re lonely / Don’t pace the floor alone / Keep me like a secret, baby / I’m waiting by the phone.
And there was another:Someday will you take me / To that house up on the hill?
I grinned at her. “Sounds like we’re back.”
A third song started playing automatically.Just a whisper in the night / That’s how all of this went down ...but Ryan picked up the phone and winked.
“That one’s not ready yet,” she said. “That’s for the next album.”
It was a recording of what would eventually be “Hear Me Now.”
Serge
I was surprised when it was Ryan who called a meeting with me, not Skip. In fact, looking back, I am not sure he even knew about that meeting—she told me he’d gotten busy and she wanted to get started talking about the next project, but I didn’t really connect with the others about it until later.
But she was always a step ahead. So I suppose it shouldn’t be a surprise.
She wanted it to be what I would call an “autobiographical allegory.” No clear through line of a plot with this one, but a cacophony of imagery and symbolism that was representative of her life and career up to this point.
Hamilton would be featured significantly, and she asked whether I’d be willing to make a trip with her and the others to do some early location scouting.
“It will be a big project,” I said. “But you came to the right person.”
We left for Massachusetts soon after that meeting.
Frank
Mari orchestrated the whole thing. It was a beautiful moment. Oh, it was beautiful.
She invited me out to coffee to get me out of the studio. There we were, at Halligan’s on Bay Road once again like no time had passed. I couldn’t believe Mari was back in town! I was so glad to see her, told her how much her folks missed her, how quiet it had been around Hamilton since Ryan had left, and then her. Asked after her harp practice.
