Interview Location: Claire's Kitchen -- Jason Pritchett
He's sitting at the kitchen counter with an empty plate in front of him. Very comfortable. Like he owns the place.
"Claire made me a promise last week. Strawberry French toast. I watched Luke for three hours so she could go do whatever Claire does when she gets two free hours. Errands probably. She loves errands." He pauses. "Anyway. I came to collect."
He showed up at Claire's at eleven with his backpack and his notebook and the specific energy of someone who had not forgotten a promise.
Claire opened the door, looked at him, and immediately said, "Can this wait?"
"No."
She looked at him for another second. "You watched him for three hours."
"Three hours and fourteen minutes. He tried to microwave a football."
Claire closed her eyes briefly. "Come in."
The house was its usual organized chaos. Phil was somewhere, Jason could hear him doing something enthusiastic in another room. Luke was on the couch playing a video game and didn't look up when Jason walked in, which was fine. Haley was at the kitchen table with a magazine. Alex was at the other end with a textbook, which was very on-brand for a Saturday morning.
Claire went to the kitchen and started pulling things out of the fridge. Jason dropped into a stool at the counter.
"Jason's here!" Luke called, still not looking up from the game.
"I know, I let him in," Claire said.
"Cool."
That was the full extent of it. Jason appreciated that about Luke.
Haley looked up from her magazine. "Hey. You go to my school now right?"
"Yeah. We have like opposite schedules though."
"I know, I never see you. Which is kind of whatever but also like, you exist, which is nice." She said it totally sincerely and went back to her magazine.
Jason nodded slowly. That was a very Haley thing to say.
Alex didn't look up from her textbook but said, "Did you know there's a theory that our entire universe exists inside a black hole?"
"I saw something about that online actually."
Now she looked up. "Really?"
"Yeah, like a week ago. Some scientist said we might be in one right now and we wouldn't even know."
Alex looked genuinely pleased that he knew this. "Most people think that's crazy."
"I mean. It kind of is. But also maybe not?"
"Exactly." She pointed at him like he got something right on a test and went back to reading.
Claire was cracking eggs at the stove. The kitchen already smelled good. Jason opened his notebook out of habit and looked at some lyrics he'd been messing with, not really working, just looking.
* * *
The French toast came out exactly as promised. Strawberry, powdered sugar, the whole thing. Claire set it in front of him and he looked at it for a second.
"I love you, Claire."
She pointed her spatula at him. "Don't push it." But she was smiling a little.
He ate. It was really good. Claire sat across from him with a coffee and for a few minutes it was just that, the sounds of the house around them, Phil laughing at something in the other room, Luke's game going, Alex turning pages.
"How's school going?" Claire asked.
"Good. I think. It's only been a week."
"Making friends?"
"Tommy's there. And I talked to a girl in English."
Claire raised her eyebrows in that way she had. "A girl."
"She has a boyfriend."
"Ah."
"I said I could wait."
Claire looked at him. "You said that out loud?"
"Yeah."
"And she didn't leave?"
"She laughed."
Claire considered this. "Okay. That's actually pretty good."
"I know."
He was halfway through the last piece of French toast when his phone buzzed on the counter. He glanced at it.
Tommy.
He picked it up.
A SoundCloud link. One message above it: yo.
Jason stared at it. Two days. Tommy had said two days and it had been 5 days.
He made a sound that he would later describe as a noise and not a scream, but it was pretty close to a scream.
Claire put her coffee down. "What happened?"
"My song. Tommy finished it. The produced version." He was already clicking the link. "Can I play it through your speaker? Please."
"The Bluetooth one in the living room, yeah, go--"
He was already off the stool.
* * *
He connected his phone to the speaker in about thirty seconds. Claire came and stood in the kitchen doorway. Haley looked up from the magazine. Alex closed the textbook. Luke paused his game.
Jason hit play.
For a second there was just the beat underneath everything, slow and low and moving, the way it had sounded in Tommy's room but bigger now, fuller, like it had been waiting to breathe.
Then Jason's voice came in.
Send me your location.
Claire's head tilted slightly. She was listening.
Let's focus on communicating. Cause I just need the time and place to come through.
Haley had set her magazine flat on the table. She was looking at the speaker like she wasn't sure where the voice was coming from.
"Wait," she said quietly. "Is that you?"
Jason nodded. He was watching the room more than listening to the song. He knew the song. He wanted to see what it did to people who didn't.
The chorus hit. Send me your location. Let's ride the vibrations. I don't need nothing else but you.
Tommy had layered something underneath the chorus, a high note that sat just behind Jason's voice and made the whole thing feel wider. Jason hadn't heard that part in the final mix yet. He made a mental note to tell Tommy that was the right call.
Claire walked further into the room. She was leaning against the wall now with her arms crossed, not in a skeptical way, in the way people stand when they're actually paying attention to something.
The first verse moved through. At times I wonder why I fool with you, but this is new to me, this is new to you. Alex had stopped pretending to look at the textbook.
Initially I didn't wanna fall for you. Gather my attention it was all for you. So don't take advantage, don't leave my heart damaged.
Haley said, "Oh that's actually--" and didn't finish the sentence.
The chorus came back and Luke turned around on the couch. He looked at Jason. "Bro is that actually you singing?"
"Yeah."
Luke turned back around and nodded once. "That's fire."
The second verse came in. I don't wanna fall in love off of away messages, so let's get personal. I got a lot of cool spots that we can go. I'm only acting like this cause I like you.
Haley pointed at the speaker. "That line." She didn't say which one. She just pointed.
Just give me the vibe to slide then. Oh I might make you mine by the night.
Claire made a small sound. Not a word, just something that meant she was following it.
The chorus came back one more time and moved into the bridge. Ride ride ride, come and vibe with me tonight, I don't need nothing else but you. Jason's voice went softer there, the way he'd done it in the closet, and Tommy had kept it exactly like that.
Then the outro. The do-do-do's, the oh's, the mmm's, all of it trailing off like a conversation that doesn't need an ending.
The song stopped.
The room was quiet for a second.
Phil walked in from the hallway. "Was that music? That was really--" He looked around at everyone's faces. "What'd I miss?"
"Jason made a song," Luke said.
Phil looked at Jason. His face did the thing it did when he was genuinely impressed and couldn't figure out how to make it a bit. "That was you?"
"Me and Tommy. He did the production."
"That was--" Phil shook his head. "That was really good, Jason. Like actually really good."
Jason looked at Claire.
She was still standing against the wall. She had her coffee in her hand again even though she didn't remember picking it up. She looked at him the way she sometimes did, like she was seeing something she'd been waiting to see.
"Well?" he said.
She shook her head a little. "Play it again."
Interview Location: Claire's Living Room -- Jason Pritchett
He's on the couch. The house is back to normal around him. He looks like someone who just had something confirmed.
"She asked me to play it again. Claire. She asked me to play it again and then she asked me what the story behind it was and I told her and she just nodded and said it came through. The feeling came through." He pauses. "That's the thing about Claire. She doesn't say stuff she doesn't mean. So when she says something like that you can actually keep it."
He glances toward the kitchen.
"Also the French toast was incredible. That part was also important."
* * *
He played it again.
The second time through was different because everyone already knew where it was going and could just be in it. Haley listened with her chin in her hand. Alex had her textbook open again but she wasn't reading it. Luke had turned fully around on the couch.
When it finished the second time Claire set her coffee down.
"Okay," she said. "Tell me about it. Where did it come from?"
Jason thought about it. "It's about wanting to be close to somebody but not knowing how to just say that. Like instead of making it complicated you just ask for the simple thing. Where are you. Come here. That's it."
Claire nodded slowly.
"There's no one specific," he added. "In case that was the next question."
"It wasn't." She picked up her coffee. "But the feeling is real."
"Yeah."
"It comes through."
He didn't say anything. He just took that and put it somewhere useful.
Haley was looking at him with actual consideration, which was not a look he usually got from Haley. "You should put it on MySpace," she said. "Like your music page. People share stuff like that."
"I don't have a music page."
"You should make one. I'll help you set it up." She said it like it was obvious. "You need people to hear this."
Alex looked up. "She's right. If something is good and accessible it finds an audience."
"That's not a statistic," Haley said.
"It's a principle."
"Same thing."
"It is not the same--"
"I'll make the page," Jason said, mostly to stop it before it became a whole thing.
Both of them looked at him.
"With Haley's help," he added.
Haley pointed at him. "Tomorrow."
"Tomorrow."
Luke had gone back to his game but he called over his shoulder, "Play it one more time."
Jason looked at Claire. She shrugged like it wasn't up to her.
He played it one more time.
Interview Location: Front Porch -- Claire's House -- Jason Pritchett
Heading out. Backpack on. He stops at the top of the steps.
"Three plays. They listened to it three times. Luke asked for the third one." He lets that sit. "Luke." Another pause. "Tommy's gonna lose his mind when I tell him. Two days of work and Claire is in her living room asking to hear it again." He starts down the steps. "Okay. We're doing something. This is real."