Kylie Cantrall's Arc

Chapter 19 of 78

Kylie sat at the piano while her mother waited in the doorway. Arianna set the puppy on the rug and slid onto the bench beside her. The unfinished song sat on the music stand, three lines written, the rest blank. Her mother wanted proof by Sunday. A finished script would sound like a script. Kylie needed something her mother could not fake in her head. Kylie stood back up. "Give me a minute." She went to the shelf and brought back the wooden writing board Arianna had made her months ago. Pink hearts on the sides. Music notes carved along the top. "Song for Arianna" printed at the center, then blank lines under three verse headings and two choruses. Kylie set it on the piano lid where her mother could see it. "This is how we work," Kylie said. "She sends me a board. I fill a line. I send one back. We've been doing it a year." Her mother stepped closer. She read the empty lines. "It's empty," her mother said. "Because I only write on it with her in the room now," Kylie said. "That was the rule I made last month. I didn't tell you because I didn't tell anyone." Arianna took the pen from the tray at the bottom of the board. She wrote one line under Verse 1 without looking at Kylie. She passed the pen over. Kylie read what Arianna had written. Then she wrote the answering line under it. She passed the pen back. They filled the first verse that way, one line each, no talking. The puppy climbed onto Arianna's foot and fell asleep. Kylie's mother sat down on the arm of the couch. She watched them trade the pen four more times. When the first chorus was done, Kylie turned to the piano and played what they had written. Arianna sang the top line. Kylie sang the harmony under it. The song was rough. The seams showed. Neither of them stopped to fix anything. When they finished, her mother didn't speak for a long moment. She reached out and touched the corner of the board. "You don't share a pen with someone you're hiding from," her mother said. "Finish it before I fly out Sunday. I want to hear the whole thing once." "You're staying," Kylie said. "I'm staying," her mother said. "And when the label calls in the morning, I'll be the one who answers." She carried her suitcase down the hall to the guest room and shut the door. Kylie set the pen back in the tray. Arianna's hand was shaking a little. Kylie covered it with her own. "She said yes," Arianna whispered. "She said Sunday," Kylie said. Two days to finish a song that had taken a year to start. And the label would call at sunrise, past her mother now, straight at them.