Hmm. I guess I needed to go listen toSpeak Now.
It was not lost on me that Anna was mentoring me as much as I was mentoring her.
Also that it was the summer of the girl: girl power songs, Anna the girl prodigy, Marion the patron of the arts.
Gretchen.
I thought about what Gretchen had told me about her dating travails. I thought about her experience with Scott. I thought about how she weathered it all, how she absorbed criticism and… well, abuse and just kept going.
I sometimes wondered, if all of that stuff hadn’t happened to her, would she have given me her phone number? Did I meet her too late?
Too late for what, though?I asked myself when my brain went in this direction. It wasn’t as if I were in the market for a relationship, even if Gretchen had been.
“I’ve been thinking aboutmyalbum, too,” Anna said. I could almost hear her grin through the phone. “I still can’t believe I can say the words ‘my album’ and have it be, like, a legitimate concept.”
“Honestly, I think self-belief is half the battle.” For some reason I’d never had any problem in that department, at least artistically. Thanks to my education this summer in sexism and double standards, I wondered how much of that was because I was a dude.
“I go to a pretty rigorous school,” Anna said. “I had to fightmy mom to let me go there because it’s not my local school. Getting there is a pain. She won’t drive me, even though she doesn’t work. I have to take two city buses, and my days are long. What if we worked on the demo, but, like, slowly? Maybe we could do some studio time over school breaks, if those times work for you. I know that’s probably the opposite of the way it should work. You’re probably supposed to do it all in a big intense burst of creativity.”
“Screw how it ‘should’ work. There are no rules. And I think this is a great plan. Finishing high school is important. Probably college is important, too.” I hadn’t gone, but I wasn’t as smart as Anna. “So yeah, let’s squeeze it in when we can. And honestly, if it’s a success, your life is gonna change. So I think it’s good to have as much of your education done as possible by that time.”
“And if it’s not a success, I still have an education.”
I agreed with her, but only because I didn’t want to sound too crazy-intense by assuring her I knew she’d make it. But I did. I knew she’d make a successful album more than I knewI’dmake a successful album. Oddly, I was OK with that. I just wanted to record my songs. We’d see what happened after that.
“I’ll look into booking a studio in the Twin Cities,” I said. “Marion will probably have some leads. You want to send me the dates of your winter break? We can book some time, noodle around, and see what comes of it.”
The end-of-camp finale the second session was “Hey Jude.” It went fine, and the music kids did a respectable job collectively and individually. But the music counselors and I agreed afterthe fact that we should have repeated “Bohemian Rhapsody,” which had been a smash instead of merely fine.
Finebasically summed up that entire second session, aside from my songwriting, which had gone more than fine. But the public-facing, camp part of things had been unremarkable. Gretchen’s replacement had been a Russian ballerina named Irina who mostly kept to herself. Without Gretchen as the ringleader, evening artists’ swims fell by the wayside. Maiv got lost in a flurry of work. I barely saw her, and when I did, she was covered in paint and mumbling to herself. I still had drinks with Jack, but we’d never talked much to begin with. I hadn’t had any prodigies this session, which was for the best, as I could probably only handle one prodigy at a time.
Marion knocked on my door the morning after the final show and handed me a printout of an email. “This is an engineer-producer I made contact with through a mutual friend. He said he’s happy to help with your project. In general, but he also apparently has a cancellation next week if you want to jump right into it. He’s got four days of time free.”
“Tempting, but I should go home.”
Right? Auden would need me.
“I was just thinking Anna probably doesn’t start school until after Labor Day,” Marion said.
Hmm.
“You’d have momentum, camp still being fresh in everyone’s minds,” she said. “You could try out this engineer, then get serious about booking more time later, whether it’s with him or someone else.”
“Let me talk to Anna.”
“Did you meet her mom and dad at the end of last session?”
Mom andstepdad, I wanted to correct, but I held my tongue. “I met her mom.” Her stepfather had not come, which, given what I knew about him based on Anna’s delightfully vicious song, had not been a surprise.
“Did you float the idea of doing some recording with Anna?”
“Yes, and she was fine with it. Too fine, actually.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m not going to insert myself into Anna’s family dynamics, but I feel like her mom has the potential to turn into a big-time stage mother. She said she would clear her schedule to be at any and all recording sessions.” Yet she wouldn’t drive Anna to school. “Anna won’t want that.” Which I knew on account of Anna’s making a dramatic choking motion from behind her mom when her mom said that. I didn’t want it, either. How were we supposed to lay down tracks about her shitty stepdad with her mom in attendance? “I’m afraid her mom will ruin the vibe, you know? I don’t think Anna can be her usual creative self with her mother hovering.”
“Ah. Sometimes the parents of our campers can be… challenging.”
