Suzie’s House 379 : Written By Committee

Gene stretched his leg out and accidentally kicked Emma. She hopped off his bed for a minute, looked around his room, and settled on the floor. Tracy tried to move the guitar off her lap and slapped him in the chest with it.

“Sorry,” she muttered without even looking at him.

“There’s no room in here,” Ben grumbled as he got off the floor. He accidentally stepped on Bruce, who grunted. “And I need to get some writing done anyway. Come on, Lisa. This is their thing anyway.”

“Wait. I wanted to hear the lyrics again.” She stayed on the floor.

“You can hear them when they’ve got it figured out. Don’t you want to meet that deadline Mrs. Audrey gave us?”

“Yeah. Fine.” Lisa shoved off the floor. Ben was already in the hall before she got to the door. As she passed Tracy she loudly whispered, “so needy.”

“I heard that!”

“And defensive,” she muttered. “Are you sure you can come up with everything on your own?” She asked Tracy with a kind of hopeful note.

“We’ve all got futile imaginations. I’m sure we can come up with something.” Tracy grabbed the paper they were writing the lyrics on.

“You mean fertile?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Will you come on?!” Ben reached into the room and grabbed Lisa’s hand.

Gene could hear the two of them arguing all the way down the hall to Ben’s room.

“So then it’s Emma’s stanza, right?”

Tracy put the beat up paper on her lap and held the pencil over it like some kind of hunting bird about to dive into water. Eagle, maybe? Gene wasn’t entirely sure how eagles hunted, but he’d seen a painting of one with a fish in his claws, so maybe that’s what he was thinking.

“So… then there’s the bit about Emma singing in an abandoned house. Seems like there should be more to it. I got nothing. Emma?”

“Um… ah… well maybe:

He thinks he’s so sly with all the pinching and th-th-theft.
He’d take my soul if there was anything left.
And the f-f-folks never see a thing. No matter what he does
He’s Mr. Perfect. He can do no wrong.”

“It doesn’t quite fit with the music.” Tracy screwed her mouth to one side.

Gene told himself to stop thinking about kissing her. “We can fix it later.” He carefully looked away.

“Hey, I want a stanza, too,” Bruce said. “Something like….” He stared into the air for a minute. “How about, ‘I’m no fool, but they think I’m a tool. Always up for the gig, but they give me a gag and nobody listens. Only my uncle gives a damn. And even he doesn’t listen. Nobody listens.”

“I don’t know.” Tracy furrowed her brow. “Shouldn’t it be in… what’s that thing Lisa’s always saying…” She glanced at Gene for help, but didn’t keep her eyes on him long enough for a response. “… third person? You know – ‘ He’s not fool, but they think he’s a tool.’ That kind of thing.”

“Wait.” Emma looked over the words on the paper more closely. “Aren’t I the one who’s going to sing this?”

“Right. See? It has to be in third person.”

“I don’t know if I can sing that part about your uncle.” Emma bit her lip and wrinkled her forehead.

“It’ll be fine. I’ll have just the right mask for you.” Bruce grinned.

“What about Justin and Kate? Shouldn’t we call them so they can add their own stanzas?” Emma looked around at each of them with eyebrows raised.

“Huh.” Bruce looked contemplatively at his shoes. “Do they even have something to stanza about?”

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