Chapter Nine
The rehearsal space had a new smell today, like someone had died in it.
Which, Iona thought, was exactly the impression they wanted to give.
Like something was already dead. Her hands were sweaty, and she wiped them down her jeans.
She felt like she’d been staring at the door for the last twenty minutes.
Her guitar was in her lap, but she hadn't played a note.
Neither had Ellie or Cam. They were all just sitting there, waiting. Anticipating. Dreading perhaps.
"How did you do it?" Cam asked for the third time. She was perched on her drum stool, twirling a stick between her fingers. "Seriously, Iona. What did you say to her? Did you threaten her? Bribe her? Sleep with her?"
"Cam." Ellie's voice was sharp.
"What? I'm just asking!"
Iona shook her head. "I didn't do anything. She just called me and said she was coming. I don't know why. I was as surprised as you, I swear." Which was true. The phone call had come out of nowhere. She still didn’t really believe it. Maeve had been so sure about saying no.
Ellie looked at her with that calm, measured expression that had always made Iona feel like she was being gently x-rayed. "What did you have to promise her?"
"Nothing. I swear. I was as surprised as anyone." Fifteen years of silence and then suddenly her phone was lighting up like a grenade with the pin already out. "She said she wanted to try. That's all."
Cam stopped twirling her drumstick. "That's it? No demands? No list of conditions? No 'I require a bowl of green M&Ms and the blood of a virgin'?"
"Just… she's coming to try. No promises."
"That's very Maeve," Ellie said thoughtfully. She shifted on her stool. "Leaving herself an exit strategy."
"Can you blame her?" The words came out before Iona could stop them.
She thought about how they'd all scattered after the band fell apart.
How none of them had really tried to stay in touch.
How easy it had been to let the silence grow until it felt permanent.
"We weren't exactly beating down her door for the last fifteen years. "
The silence that followed was uncomfortable in the way only old friends could make silence uncomfortable.
The kind of quiet that had too much history packed into it.
The kind of quiet that happened because there was no need to say anything.
Everyone knew how everyone felt and putting words on it would be pointless.
Iona's phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out, grateful for the distraction, and saw Shepherd's name on the screen.
School called. Mo's in detention again. Something about graffiti in the toilets? She'll be late home. Tried calling you but it went to voicemail. Let me know if you need me to pick her up. S.
Iona stared at the message. Graffiti. Brilliant.
Just brilliant. As if she didn't have enough to worry about, her fourteen-year-old was apparently developing a side career as a vandal. Mo had been pushing boundaries for months now, testing limits like it was her full-time job, but this was new. This was escalation. A few weeks ago, it had been answering back to teachers. Before that, skipping homework. And then, of course, the eff off that had shaken Iona’s little world.
Each incident small enough to dismiss on its own, but together they were forming a pattern that made Iona's stomach knot.
She wondered what the graffiti said. Probably nothing good. Probably something that would require a very serious conversation that Iona didn't have the energy for right now.
She started typing a reply. Thanks for letting me know. I'll sort it when I'm—
The door opened.
Every thought about Mo evaporated from her head.
Maeve stood in the doorway, backlit by the corridor lights. She was wearing jeans and a jumper that had seen better days, her red hair pulled back in a messy ponytail. No makeup. No attempt at presentation. No effort to look like she'd come to impress anyone. Just Maeve, raw and real and herself.
She was thinner than Iona remembered. Sharper around the edges. But the eyes were the same. That fierce, cutting green.
Fifteen years.
And now here she was, standing in a dingy rehearsal room in South London, looking like she wanted to bolt.
Nobody moved.
Iona wondered if they’d ever move. Or if perhaps they’d stay like this forever, frozen and then dead and then mummified. It’d confuse archaeologists, she thought. What would they think?
Then Cam launched herself off her drum stool with a noise that could only be described as a squeal, crossed the room in three strides, and threw her arms around Maeve's neck.
The hug went on for slightly too long. Long enough that Maeve's face cycled through surprise, tolerance, and finally landed somewhere near resignation.
"Okay," Maeve said, her voice muffled against Cam's shoulder. "Okay. That's enough. You can let go now."
"I really can't," Cam said. "I've been waiting years for this. You're going to have to pry me off."
Ellie stood up and approached with more restraint.
She extended her hand for a formal shake.
Maeve took it. Then Ellie pulled her forward into an awkward half-hug that neither of them seemed to know how to execute, their arms at strange angles, patting each other's backs like distant acquaintances at a funeral.
"It's good to see you," Ellie said, stepping back. "You look… well."
"I look like I haven't slept in two days," Maeve said flatly. "Because I haven't."
"Still. Good to see you."
Maeve's eyes finally found Iona. For a moment, neither of them said anything. The air between them felt thick, charged.
"Hi," Iona managed.
"Hi."
Such tiny words to carry so much weight.
Cam clapped her hands together, shattering the moment with characteristic subtlety. "Right! Brilliant! The gang's back together! Well, most of the gang. The important parts of the gang. Should we… do something? Play something? Has anyone got champagne?"
"No champagne," Ellie said quickly, with a fleeting glance at Maeve. "And maybe we should ease in."
"I don't need easing," Maeve said. She crossed the room and picked up the battered microphone stand, examining it like she was checking for structural damage. "We're here. Might as well see if this is a complete waste of everyone's time. And I don’t drink anymore. Just so you know."
Classic Maeve. Iona had forgotten how blunt she could be. Or maybe she hadn't forgotten, just filed it away somewhere she didn't have to look at it.
They took their positions. It felt strange, standing where she'd stood so many times before, guitar in hand, but with fifteen years of distance making everything feel tilted.
Ellie was checking her bass, adjusting the strap.
Cam had settled behind her drums, already doing little fills to warm up.
And Maeve was at the microphone, not looking at any of them.
"So," Iona said into the silence. She didn't know why she was talking. Just needed to fill the gap. "How are you finding London?"
Maeve glanced at her. For a second, something crossed her face. Honesty, or the edge of it. "Overwhelming," she said. "Loud. Too many people. I'd forgotten what it was like to be surrounded by that much… everything."
Iona waited. There was more there, she could tell. Something Maeve was holding back.
"But it's fine," Maeve added, her voice flattening out again. "Nothing I can't handle."
And there it was. The shutters coming down. Maeve retreating into her hard shell.
"Ready?" Ellie asked. Her voice was steady, but Iona could see the tension in her shoulders.
"Let's just… start with something simple," Cam suggested. "The opening of Summer Days. Just to warm up."
They all knew Summer Days. It had been one of their first songs, back when they were teenagers writing music in Ellie's parents' garage. Before the record deal. Before I Wanna Be a Star. Before everything went sideways.
Cam counted them in.
The first few bars were rough. Worse than rough.
Ellie's fingers sounded like they were fighting the bass strings, finding notes a fraction late.
Cam started at a reasonable tempo and then, predictably, began to speed up like she always did.
Iona's guitar sounded thin without the vocals, just a skeleton of a melody.
And Maeve hadn't even started singing, just stood at the microphone with her eyes closed, waiting.
Then she opened her mouth.
The first note hit Iona somewhere behind the ribcage.
It wasn't perfect. Maeve's voice was rougher than it used to be, lower, with an edge that hadn't been there before.
Time had done something to it, worn it down and built it up in equal measure.
But it was still unmistakably hers. Still that voice that could make you feel like she was singing directly into your soul, pulling out secrets you didn't know you had.
The music tightened around them. Ellie found her groove, her fingers finally settling into the familiar patterns.
Cam pulled back on the tempo, settling into something steadier, that eager rushing tendency finally under control.
And Iona's fingers remembered what her brain had almost forgotten, finding the progressions by muscle memory, weaving around Maeve's voice like they'd never stopped.
It wasn't the same. How could it be? They were all older, rustier, carrying the weight of years of separate lives.
But somewhere in the middle of the second verse, something clicked.
That intangible thing that had made them a band in the first place.
The way four separate instruments could stop being four separate things and become one thing.
When they reached the end of the song, Iona's heart was pounding. She put down her guitar and realized her hands were shaking.
They looked at each other. Cam was grinning like she'd just won the lottery. Ellie had actual tears in her eyes, though she'd deny it later. And Maeve…
Maeve was smiling. Just slightly. Just at the corners of her mouth. But it was real.
Iona took a breath, then another, the oxygen not filling her lungs properly, not like the music had.
Then Cam whooped and pumped her fist in the air. Her phone buzzed and she glanced at it, her expression shifting briefly into something private before she tucked it away. "Sorry, just need to…" She was already heading for the door. "Back in a minute. Don't make any major decisions without me."
Ellie watched her go with a knowing look. "She's been doing that a lot lately."
"Secretive," Iona agreed.
"Since when does Cam have secrets?" Maeve asked. There was genuine curiosity in her voice, underneath the customary grumpiness. "She used to tell us everything, whether we wanted to hear it or not."
"People change," Ellie said quietly.
"Yeah," Maeve said. She sniffed, shrugged, then looked up at them both. "Okay," she said.
"Okay?" asked Iona.
"Yeah. Okay. Let’s do this." Her voice was grudging, almost comically reluctant. "One album. That's all."
Iona laughed. It burst out of her without warning, full and bright and surprised. Then Ellie joined in, then Cam came back and looked at them in confusion, and even Maeve laughed then.
One album.
The Stage Girls were back.