Five Years of Fame [COMPLETE]

18. A Day Off

Spring, Year 3, Month 4

It was unseasonably warm for early April. Yet another random warm day during what was Massachusetts's notoriously wet season. Molly kept saying summer was coming early but Reeve and Dani weren't so sure. Dani was positive a snowstorm was just around the corner waiting to sock 'em all when they least expected it.

But Reeve was grateful for the warmth. Especially on this particular day. All the windows in the studio were opened wide and the faint scent of dust that came from equipment being stored somewhere with little to no ventilation was slowly easing its way out with the breeze.

The sound of the city rearing to life outside provided ambient noise as the studio was deathly silent; not a good sign when two musical minds were supposed to be hard at work. The studio hadn't heard anything good for weeks and not a single musical phrase in days.

Reeve lay almost completely horizontal on the brown couch that sat in the exact middle of the room, her guitar lying lifeless beside her, her piano staring pointedly at her from the corner. But Reeve was staring at the wall of exposed brick, decorated with some of her favorite vinyl records.

It had been an attempt to decorate, give the room some life and color. They didn't particularly go with the antique rug underneath the couch that Dani had found in Reeve's attic and then hauled it all the way over, insisting it would help with heating costs if they covered some of the constantly cold hardwood floors.

Reeve only one more glaze from Anton away before jumping up from her spot and tearing all the records off the wall. She was staring at one particular cover, examining every element of the random photo collage that made up the cover, wondering how one very angsty and emotional guy could great such an incredible album and yet here she was, beating her head against a brick wall, metaphorically, trying to do the same thing and yet finding not a single note coming to her.

Anton let out a long sigh of air and Reeve turned her glare from the wall of great albums to her producer where he lay, also almost horizontal, in his swivel chair before a large desk, stacked high with equipment that was slowly accumulating a thin layer of dust from lack of use.

Before Reeve could say some snide remark, about what she wasn't sure except that it was to be cutting, Anton jumped from his seat.

"If you grab that clock from the closet, I'm going to throw it at you first and then out the window second," Reeve called after him.

Reeve had made the mistake of hanging a large analog clock on the wall, another attempt at decorating since time flew without consequence when she was working and she thought she needed to be somewhat aware of time passing. Its endless ticking drove her to throw it in the back of the storage closet the second day of her dry spell.

But Anton didn't throw down the clock onto the coffee table in front of her. Instead, he threw down a very old, almost completely decimated cardboard box, full to bursting with notebooks and loose sheets of paper. Reeve sat up slowly at the sight of her mother's faded handwriting on the side of the box, the words "Olivia's Notebooks" almost completely faded.

"No."

Anton started to protest immediately.

"We have nothing to go on."

"No."

"We have to do SOMETHING!"

"I said no!"

"Liv! Seriously! It might help, maybe jump start-"

"Anton! I said NO! We did this. We've already done this. Don't you remember? It didn't work. We're not doing it again! We're writing new material this time."