Playing for Love at Deep Haven
Read Playing for Love at Deep Haven Online
Authors: Katy Regnery
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Women's Fiction, #Contemporary Women, #Romance, #Contemporary, #Contemporary Fiction, #New Adult & College
PLAYING
FOR LOVE AT DEEP HAVEN
Enchanted Places — Book One
Katy
Regnery
Copyright © 2013 by Katharine Gilliam Regnery
Sale of the electronic edition of this
book is wholly unauthorized. Except for use in review, the reproduction or
utilization of this work in whole or in part, by any means, is forbidden
without written permission from the author/publisher.
Katharine Gilliam Regnery, publisher
This book is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or
are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons,
living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved, including the
right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
Please visit my website at
www.katyregnery.com
Edited by: Chris Belden and Melissa
DeMeo
First Edition: January 2014
Katy
Regnery
Playing for Love at Deep Haven : a novel / by Katy
Regnery – 1st ed.
ISBN:
978-0-9912045-0-2
For my readers, because I’m nothing without you.
And
for Drew, who always loved “Morning Has Broken,” and didn’t mind a little heavy
metal.
Table of Contents
. . .
slammin
’ in . . . the
. . . sun . . .
The lyrics
tapered off as an intense guitar riff repeated over and over before fading out.
Zach Aubrey switched off the radio, disgusted. Of all the songs he had written,
“
Slammin
’ in the Sun,” recorded by Savage Sons, had
been his biggest hit.
More like my biggest sellout.
He pushed the
window-down button on the door of his SUV rental and leaned his elbow on the
sill, catching a glimpse of his dark gray eyes and mop of chestnut hair in the
side mirror. The sun, which had been high for most of the six-hour drive north,
was setting, and the warmth felt nice on his bare arm, heavily tattooed to look
like a shirtsleeve.
His mother’s
voice echoed in his head, thick with censure, “You went to Yale for
this
?”
Zach had never
intended to write heavy metal music for popular, mediocre bands. Once upon a
time, his dream had been to write a rock musical-opera hybrid, like
Hair
or
Rent
mixed with the steel of
Tommy
.
Something vital and gut-wrenching, bursting with anthems of brooding youth that
represented the soul of his generation. Instead, he’d abandoned his dreams and
hocked his talent for royalties, directing his manager to sell his songs to Cornerstone
Records, one of the biggest, flashiest labels in Manhattan.
For a while it
had been a pretty good gig. Over the past few years, Zach had written more than
thirty songs for the big heavy metal bands on Cornerstone’s label and toured
six times with several of Cornerstone’s bands as a back-up guitarist. Though he
hadn’t saved much money, his royalties provided a steady and comfortable income.
But he’d grown
weary of writing-for-hire, with other bands getting the credit for songs he'd
written. He was tired of being on the road. He’d recently decided it was time
to give
Phenomenon
, his rock opera, a
chance.
When he informed
John Lewis, Senior Vice President at Cornerstone, that he wouldn’t be writing for
the label anymore, it had initially surprised him that John offered the use of
his Maine vacation house for a writing getaway . . . until John had rolled his
eyes and added, “Get this opera business out of your system, Z. Then come back
and write me a chart topper.”
The patronizing tone
in John’s offer pissed him off. Was John hoping that a few weeks in the woods
would lead Zach straight back to Cornerstone for the easy work of churning out more
three-chord hit songs? If so, John was in for a little disappointment. While
Zach couldn’t turn down the offer of a quiet place to write, complete with an
in-house studio and no distractions, he had no intention of returning to
Manhattan to write more shitty, meaningless music. Zach had bigger plans for
himself.
His phone buzzed
in the console beside his seat, followed by the dramatic chords of Led
Zeppelin’s “Kashmir.” Zach grimaced as the display lit up with the name
Malcolm, the lead singer of Savage Sons, who was not happy about Zach’s
impromptu getaway. He looked out the windshield at the sign that read “WELCOME
TO MAINE – The Way Life Should Be,” and then back down at the phone, wavering a
moment before pressing the answer button.
“
Malc
?”
“Zachariah!” The
British singer’s thick
Brummie
accent filled the car,
as demanding as “Kashmir,” just not in a good way.
“Yeah.”
“Where are the
new songs, Z?”
Zach took a deep
breath, counting from ten backward.
“Didn’t Tracy
tell you? I’m out of town.”
“We need four
more for the album,” Malcolm whined, the same high tenor voice that belted out
one hit after another, surprisingly feminine when he was agitated.
“Ace is on it.”
“Don’t want Ace.
Ace is crap. You did the other six.”
“I’m out of
town,
Malc
. Not coming back for a week.”
Or two. Or ten.
“Anyway, you need a couple
of ballads for that album, and I write angry.”
“I
want
angry. I want that head banging
shit you do. This album’s supposed to be fierce.”
“Sorry, man. No
can do. Johnny said ballads.”
“Bollocks to
that!”
“Ace’s got some
good stuff for you. Give him a chance.”
Honestly, Ace’s work
was nowhere near as good a fit for Malcolm as Zach’s. Ace always managed to
write a song that somehow demanded more of Malcolm’s voice than Malcolm could
give, and the recording sessions generally ended up with Malcolm throwing a
tantrum. The melodies were too intricate, with intervals that, even with a key
change, Malcolm had a hard time handling. Often Zach—who not only had a gift
for writing hits but also for tailoring his music to his clients’ sometimes
meager talent—had to come in to rework the tunes so that Malcolm could sing
them more comfortably.
“Ace’s stuff is
shite
. He doesn’t get me, man. Listen, I’ll pay you ten a
song to come back now, Z. Four songs. Forty bags of sand. Cash. From my own
pocket. Crazy amounts of green. Gold strings on your Stratocaster!”
Zach tapped his
teeth together. Forty thousand dollars
was
a lot of money for four songs, and a private arrangement with Malcolm meant
instant money now and royalties later. He could write these four songs in his
sleep and walk away with a big check. Shit. Shit, shit, shit. It would help.
He’d be able to quit studio songwriting for months and concentrate on his own
project with that kind of cash. He wouldn’t have to “write for the man” or tour
for a while as a hired guitarist.
“Where am
ya
, anyway?” Malcolm demanded. “Maybe I could—”
The idea of
Malcom
Singer showing up in Maine was all Zach needed to
make his decision final. He took a deep breath and winced at turning down so
much money. “Can’t do it, man.
Gotta
be somewhere.
Ace’s got you.”
“Fuck Ace. Get
your
arse
back to New York now, Z, or I’ll—”
“I’m losing you,
Malc
.
Malc
? Malcolm? Hey
man, if you can—”
“Don’t pull this
shite
with me, Z.”
“—hear me, I’ll,
uh, I’ll call you in a couple weeks.”
“Zachariah!
Za
—”
Zach hit the red
End button on his phone, then leaned up and switched off the Bluetooth. Just as
he expected, the phone started buzzing and vibrating on the seat console beside
him, but he ignored it, driving farther and farther north as the sun dropped
behind the trees. It had the effect of backlighting the autumn oranges and reds
like they were on fire and amped up the visual beauty the same way plugging
straight into the board amped up the sound on his guitar. Shocking in its
clarity, astonishing in its volume, and all-around satisfying. Nah, he wasn’t
going back to the city to write for Malcolm. Fuck, no. The whole point of this
getaway was to be unreachable—to live far off the beaten path for a few weeks
and see if he still had something beautiful, something worthwhile, to give to
the music world.
As if on cue, he
heard her words in his head from long ago, her faint Maine accent making him
flinch with longing:
Something beautiful,
Zach. Write me something beautiful.
As always, her
voice, and its accompanying memories, made his heart twist with regret. After almost
a decade, he should be over her. He should have moved on by now, and really, in
every way but the one that mattered most, he had. Physically, aside from his
hair and eye color, he was unrecognizable from the gangly, pasty-faced kid he’d
been at Yale. Zach was hard-bodied from hours in the gym and tan from his
frequent gigs in California and the Southwest. He glanced down at the rings on
his fingers, the leather and rubber straps on his tattooed wrists, and ran a hand
through his shaggy hair. Oh, yeah. He’d changed a lot, thank God.
Over the years, he’d
figured out how to relate to people, too, although deep inside he still preferred
his own company in the absence of hers. She’d been the only person with whom
he’d ever felt genuinely comfortable. But socially, he’d finally learned how to
assimilate: drinking heavily with other songwriters and musicians during his
first few years writing and touring for Cornerstone, tattooing and piercing his
body as a way of embracing the heavy metal world that had been his home since college.
When other kids had learned to socially adjust to their peers in high school,
Zach had been forced to nurture his musical talent in relative seclusion. Of course,
his personal growth had been delayed, but he’d finally—mostly—caught up with
himself.
In spite of
these outward and inward changes, though, Zach had never been able to totally
let go of her. She lived persistently, achingly, in his heart, tormenting him in
quiet moments. Losing her and her love was like a curse: he was convinced that
it would take love to write beauty, and love had been elusive since he lost her.
This wasn’t about female companionship—Zach had plenty of women vying for his
attention, and he was never lonely for friendship or fucking. But love? No. No
one came close to the place she still occupied in his heart, and sometimes,
when her voice echoed in his head, the sudden burst of agony—of regret—could
take his breath away. Angry songs came easily. Fury came easily. Sad came
easily, but he hated sad. Sad was weak and useless, and he refused to write it.
As for beauty?
Zach scoffed.
Beauty felt impossible.
Over the next
two weeks, he was determined to chase it down. Even if he had to remember the
once-terrifying feelings that had made him stupidly push her away. Even if he
had to unearth the dormant, though potent, memories of a love he’d never felt
for anyone before or since. He was determined to do whatever it took to get out
of the songwriting rat race, and make a new name for himself by writing
something fresh and beautiful—something that would have made her lips tilt up
in a smile and her sable eyes sparkle with approval.
Suddenly,
nothing seemed as important to Zach as cutting the cord that bound him to his
unfulfilling life in New York. Without giving it another moment of thought, he
picked up his phone, drew his arm back, and lobbed it out the open window onto
the highway.
Wow. Okay. Cord cut.
Then he put her firmly
out of his mind and stepped on the gas. He wanted to make it to Winter Harbor
by sundown and ruefully hoped that turning down Malcolm wouldn’t be the newest
addition to his long list of regrets
.
***
Violet Smith
pulled into the gravel driveway, relieved that the dusk still afforded enough light
for her to see the wooden arrow that pointed into the woods, etched with the
words “Deep Haven.” She drove for a tenth of a mile, bouncing and crunching under
a dark canopy of heavy tree cover, until the woods cleared to reveal a rambling,
pristine four-bedroom house and, beyond, glimmering in the setting sun, the
water of Winter Harbor.
She pulled up in
front of the house and cut the engine, taking a deep breath, then sighing in a wobbly,
exhausted way as she released the steering wheel. She laced her fingers and
cracked her knuckles, the clicking sound oddly satisfying, as it released hours
of driving tension. She didn’t remember the drive from Greenwich, Connecticut,
to Maine, being quite so long. Then again, she’d never done the driving, or
made the journey, alone.
Shep
had always taken care
of the arrangements and trip planning. She’d happily sat beside him in the car,
reading on her Kindle as he drove them up and back.
Her eyes misted
with tears, and she blinked them away, taking off her glasses and massaging the
bridge of her nose. The whole world was hazy without her glasses or contacts,
especially at twilight, when shapes lost their edges and blurred into gray. She
certainly couldn’t
drive
without
them, but it felt nice to be free of them for now, so she set the glasses
carefully in the cup-holder. She opened the car door and swung her body out
into the cool, brackish air.
Winter Harbor.
It wasn’t
Shep’s
Bar Harbor, the lights of which she
could make out across the bay, but it still smelled like the same heaven.
Her flip-flopped
feet were chilly in the October evening air, but it didn’t matter. As soon as
she settled in, she’d take out her fuzzy fleece slippers and live in them for
the next two weeks. For now, she just wanted to stand on the deck of her rental
house and say hello to the sea.
Do you smell it, Vi? Heaven?
She heard the
echo of her own laughter in her head, felt the imprint of
Shep’s
palm pressed against hers, pulling her toward the beach, sunlight dancing on
the water and making his light blond hair sparkle.
“Once a Mainer,
always a Mainer!” she’d exclaimed as her feet sank into the sand, letting
herself be pulled along, letting
Shep
lead the way.
Violet stepped
onto the deck carefully in the waning light, placing her hands lightly on the
railing, and sighed contentedly. What a lucky break to run into Lena Lewis at
Whole Foods in Greenwich two weeks ago. Violet had shared her recent challenges
in completing her second novel, and Lena, an acquaintance from the Junior
League, had offered the use of her house in Winter Harbor, Maine, as a writing
retreat. Lena had explained that since her divorce she couldn’t bear to visit
the four-bedroom, harbor side mansion, and as long as Violet was willing to pay
$1,000 to cover two weeks’ worth of utilities, maid and handyman service, she
was free to use the beautiful house. Despite Violet’s strained finances, she
wasn’t able to refuse the tempting offer and immediately sent a check to Lena in
exchange for a set of keys.
