Katie Friedman Gives Up Texting! (6 page)

I got up to look at the caller ID. BLOCKED. I hesitated for a second, then picked up the phone. “Hello?”

“Is this Katie?”

“Yes?”

“This is Kit St. Claire.”

It took me a minute to process this.
Kit St. Claire?
I remembered meeting a Kit. Then it hit me.
KIT.

“Kit?”

“Yup. You remember me, right? I work for Jane.”

“Oh. Uh … Oh, yes. I remember you.” It was hard to hear myself—or anything—over the pounding of my heart.

“Do you have a minute to talk with Jane?”

I had a
year
to talk with Jane. “Um … Of course! Yes.”

“Great! Hold on a sec.”

As I waited, my parents looked at me with puzzled expressions on their faces. I'd told them about meeting Jane backstage, but nothing about her asking me to write a song and send it to her. I hadn't told them about that, because it seemed so ridiculous to think that anything would come from it.

But now, it seemed like something might.

“It's a long story,” I whispered to my parents.

“That's okay, we've got time,” said my dad.

I rolled my eyes at him and waited. And waited.

And waited some more.

After about two full minutes, with my parents staring at me the whole time, I decided to come clean. “Jane Plantero from Plain Jane is calling me, I think about a song I wrote,” I told them, trying to make it sound as normal as possible. “I'm waiting for her to come to the phone.”

My parents stared at me. Finally my mom said, “You write songs?”

“I do now, I guess,” I said. On the word
guess
I heard a sudden fumbling on the other end of the line, a familiar voice yelling, “Not if I can help it!” at someone, and then a huge, quick laugh.

It was definitely her—Jane, of Plain Jane.

On the phone.

Calling me.

If only life were recorded, I would play that moment over and over and over again.

“Hey, Flattery Girl, what's going on?”

“Um … Well, I can't believe you're calling me.”

Another loud, rock-and-roll laugh. “Yeah, well, here I am!”

I tried to laugh too, but I think I was hyperventilating, so I'm not sure any noise came out.

“Katie, I have a question for you. Did you really write those lyrics Pops Ramdal sent me?”

I nodded, but then realized you can't hear a nod over the phone, so I said, “Yeah.”

“Well, they're good,” said my favorite songwriter ever. “They're really good.” Then she yelled off the phone, “Right, Kit?” Then back to me: “Kit thinks so, too.”

“This is unbelievable,” I said.

Jane laughed again, and said, “Yup, it is kind of unbelievable. I was reading this song, and I was thinking about this girl in middle school, feeling these intense feelings, feeling a little trapped by them, and not quite knowing what to do with them, and then finally realizing that writing is the way out. Writing is freedom.”

I was shocked that she could get inside my head so accurately. “Wow,” I said. “That's amazing. You totally know exactly how I was feeling.”

Jane laughed softly. “I wasn't talking about you,” she said. “I was talking about me.”

Neither of us spoke for a few seconds after that.

“Well, I
was
feeling sad,” I said, finally. “When I wrote it, I mean.”

“Ah. Well, sometimes it takes a little sadness to let the art out.”

I nodded again, but this time I felt she knew I was nodding, so I didn't say anything.

“So listen, sweetie,” Jane continued. “We're taking a break from the road, and I've got a little time on my hands. So how would you like to come down to my studio tomorrow afternoon and have a look around? We'll talk about these lyrics of yours, figure out how to turn it into a real song. You game?”

You know how you have the moment when you say to yourself, “My life is changing forever, right now,” but you don't really believe it, or you don't really trust it, even though you're hearing it with your own two ears?

I was having that moment.

“I would absolutely love to come to your studio,” I somehow managed to say into the phone. I glanced at my parents, whose eyes were going wide. “I would be totally honored.”

“Great! I gotta run, so I'm going to put Kit back on the phone. She'll talk it over with your folks, work everything out. Sound like a plan?”

“Absolutely,” I said. “Thank you so, so much!”

Jane laughed again. “No, thank
you
,” she said. “The world needs people who can write. Turns out you're one of 'em. It's a gift, and I'm here to make sure you don't waste it. See you tomorrow.”

“See you tomorrow,” I said, but she was already gone.

I handed the phone to my mom and sat down at the kitchen table, trying to get a handle on the most amazing five minutes of my life. One thing kept running through my head: This fantastic thing that was happening to me was all because of a boy whose heart I had just broken.

Life is really weird sometimes.

 

16

TWO PELICANS

I knew I was in a different world
when we drove through the gates at Jane's house and the first thing I saw was a huge marble statue of two pelicans playing guitar.

“What on earth is that?” said my mom.

“Two pelicans playing guitar,” I answered.

She looked at me. “Thanks for clearing that up.”

We were met at the door by some guy who introduced himself as Nigel. He had an English accent and hair down to his butt.

“Jane's in the Plastic Room,” Nigel said.

My mom and I looked at each other.

“It's a room with a lot of plastic in it,” Nigel explained.

“Oh,” we said.

And off we went to the Plastic Room, which was filled with giant plastic chairs, couches, and tables. They were all brightly colored and incredibly shiny. It felt like what a room might look like in a four-year-old's dream.

Jane was on an orange couch, with her eyes closed, wearing a pair of headphones the size of a small country. She was swaying slightly back and forth, moving to the beat of something. She had no idea we were standing two feet in front of her.

My mom and I looked at Nigel. “Give her a minute,” he said.

Approximately eight minutes later, the song ended and Jane opened her eyes. She saw us standing there and broke into a big smile.

“Yo!” she hollered, whipping off her headphones and leaping up from the orange plastic couch. She hugged me, then hugged my mom. “Welcome to Two Pelicans!”

“Thank you,” said my mom. “Now, about the pelican thing—”

“I
love
pelicans,” Jane said. “Always have. Was obsessed with them as a kid. They are the most awesome-looking creatures. I would have pet pelicans but this environment is just all wrong.” Jane gestured around the room. “You like the Plastic Room?”

“I've been meaning to ask you about that, too,” said my mom.

Jane knocked her hand against the table. “Plastic! Ugh! The hardest material to get rid of. Doesn't decompose. Just sits there taking up valuable earth space. So I decided to start collecting plastic and making good use of it. I got a whole company now dedicated to collecting plastic and making furniture. It's actually doing really well.”

“That is so amazing,” I said. “You are so amazing.”

Jane laughed her big laugh. “Cut it out, Flattery Girl! I just got lucky. But you know something? I got lucky because I worked hard. And I believed in myself. So, yeah. How's that for a segue?”

“What's a
seg-way
?” I asked.

“A segue,” Jane explained, “is a way to go smoothly from one song to another. Or one topic to another. And I want to go from the topic of me to the topic of you.” She looked at Nigel. “Is the Black Room ready?”

“Ready,” Nigel confirmed.

Jane turned back to us. “Let's go.”

We followed her down a long hall, around a corner, out a door, across a stone path, through a cottage filled with manufactured pelicans of all shapes and sizes, and finally, into a giant barn that was completely dark except for one red light blinking on the far wall.

“Hold on a sec.” Jane disappeared into the darkness. Suddenly there was a sharp click, and dim light filled the room. Everything was black—the walls, the couches, the carpeting, even the huge refrigerator in the corner.

“Can I ask why you call it the Black Room?” my mom asked.

Jane roared with laughter. “Holy smokes, Katie, your mom is a funny girl!”

But I wasn't paying attention. I was staring. Because the room was filled with more instruments and musical equipment than I thought existed in the world. Guitars, basses, keyboards, amps, mikes, a beautiful grand piano. All completely black.

“Wow,” I whispered.

“Help yourself,” Jane said. I looked at her, confused, so she clarified. “Play anything you want.”

I think that was the moment my eyes bugged out of my head.

“I can't.”

Jane walked over to a completely gorgeous pitch-black Gibson Les Paul guitar, picked it up, and put it in my hand. “Can't isn't an option,” she said.

I didn't know what to say, so I just stared down at the guitar. Then I played one chord—E major. It sounded like the most perfect chord ever.

“Jane, you are being so incredibly kind to my daughter,” my mom said, sitting down on one of the black couches. “Do you mind if I ask you one question?”

“Shoot,” said Jane.

My mom thought for a second, then said, simply, “Why?”

“Jane's from Eastport,” I reminded my mom, as if that answered the question.

Jane plopped down onto the rolling chair behind the massive soundboard. She started rolling back and forth, playing with knobs.

“Katie, did you show your parents the lyrics you sent me?” asked Jane.

“No,” I said quickly.

“Why not?”

“I don't know.”

“Do you mind if I show it to her?”

I glanced at my mom. “I guess not.”

Jane pushed a button and my lyrics came up on a huge screen hanging from the ceiling (which was black, btw).

I looked at them and suddenly felt terribly embarrassed.

How do you

Speak the words

That you never thought would be spoken?

How do you

Break the heart

That never has been broken?

I watched my mom as she read the lyrics. Her face looked like a combination of shock, concern, and pride.

Afterward, she looked at me. “Now I get it,” she said. “Now it makes sense.”

Jane's eyes went back and forth between my mom and me. “What does?”

I jumped in. “My parents have been telling me that I text too much, that I IM too much, Instagram, Snapchat, all that stuff,” I said.