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“Okay, but, like, what are you evendoingwith her?” Laurel asked, picking up another mushroom from her box and popping it into her mouth. “Are you writing stuff, or just doing backing tracks, or shaping stuff, or just telling her she’s a fucking genius? What realm of producer-dom are you living in?”
“Shaping, mostly.”
“I want to hear the songs,” Laurel said.
“Song. Single song.”
“Whatever. Then I want to hear thesong,” she whined again. “It’s the breakup song about Noel, right? I mean, obviously it is, everyone knows it. Ro read that the only reason she went to that party with him in Portugal was to get some fresh emotion right before you recorded it.”
“That’s insane,” Remy said.
“You don’t sound like you really think that,” Laurel said, waggling her eyebrows. Remy rolled his eyes. She wasn’tright, exactly—he didn’t truly think fresh Noel pain was why Vivi had gone to Portugal. But the idea wasn’t totally outlandish either, and it wouldn’t stop circling his brain like a buzzard.
Parish snickered in the space between Laurel’s delight and Remy’s exhale then took another mushroom out of his box—one that was considerably larger than Laurel’s.
“What’d you get?” Laurel asked, peering at his stash.
“A medley,” Parish answered with a wicked kind of grin. “Come on, losers. I’ve got an entire box of mushrooms to go through and only eight hours to do it.”
***
It was well after midnight by the time Remy made his way to Vivi’s penthouse room, primarily because Parish’s mushroom medley had resulted in him taking his shirt off, making out with a sex worker (who then yelled at him for not paying), and joyfully singing Nick Maddon songs at the top of his lungs. Remy and Michael finally managed to shove Parish into his own room; Laurel went to hers more easily, albeit giggling so loudly that angry hotel guests flung their doors open and glared. The smoky, flowery scent of Amsterdam clung to his clothing, overpowering the scent of carpet cleaner that he was beginning to think was as internationally consistent as the smell of Subway restaurants.
He knocked lightly on the enormous gilt door; Vivi opened the door in a bathrobe, smiling. She was wearing enough makeup that Remy was confident she hadn’t gone to sleep yet, despite the hour.
“You were awake?” he asked as he stepped inside.
“Yes.”
“This late?”
“I was making cookies for the next batch of meet and greets,” she said at nearly the same moment the scent of chocolate chips and vanilla struck him. He looked to the hotel room’s expansive kitchen and saw several trays of already-cooled cookies on the counter. The place looked like a luxe New York apartment, all minimalist and marbleized and, frankly, cold—which made the steaming plate of cookies feel particularly out of place.
“You reallydomake those yourself?” he asked, surprised. “Have to admit, I thought that was a line.”
Vivi grinned, looking proud, and they wandered toward the kitchen together, drawn in by the scent of vanilla and brown sugar. “I make all the dough before the tour then freeze it and have it delivered. Sometimes someone else has to do the actual baking though, if I don’t have time.”
“That’s…well, that’s sort of adorable and ridiculous,” Remy said, shaking his head.
Vivi blushed. “I know. But I always did it before things took off for me. I’d bring cookies and lemonade to my shows and recording sessions. It was a way to make me stand out, you know? A way for me to be special, make people stick around to listen to another song or whatever. Nashville is full of white girls with guitars, but damn if I couldn’t be the only one who brought you chocolate chip cookies.”
“Though to be fair, you also stood out because you were the only white girl with cornrows,” Remy said.
“Exactly. I had to make people like me despite those,” Vivi answered and reached for a cookie. She broke it in half, handed the free half to Remy, and nibbled on the one she kept for herself. “How was Amsterdam?” she asked, leaning against the counter as the timer ticked down on the batch in the oven.
“It was beautiful and vulgar in the best way,” Remy said then told her about the old sex workers and the DANGEROUS COCAINE SOLD TO TOURISTS sign that people who hadn’t watched their brother overdose thought was a riot. Vivi listened, pulling the tray of cookies out and replacing it with a final batch.
“And the places you get drugs—like the places for pot and mushrooms—are all called coffee shops. They have actual menus, like real coffee-serving coffee shops. Like, what to order to make you excited, or happy, or mellow, or whatever you want to be.”
“I think I’d heard about that before. Tuesday does that sort of thing when she comes here,” Vivi said thoughtfully. “She says it’s Amsterdam, that you’re basically required as an American to do mushrooms. She and Noel both, actually…” She drifted off, too skilled at subject changes to stop short—but there it was in the air anyhow. Noel’s name. There it always was.
“People think the song we’re working on is about him. That it’s your Noel breakup song,” Remy said as casually as possible, turning one of the cookies a bit with the edge of his finger.
“Yeah. My publicist told me,” Vivi said. “Ridiculous.”
“Is there—is that what you’re working on though, that you aren’t showing me? A Noel breakup song in that notebook?” Remy asked.
“I don’t…I mean…yes,” Vivi said.
