Chapter Fourteen
The rehearsal space still looked suspiciously like a cold crime scene, but today Iona didn't mind.
Something had shifted after Manchester. Not that anyone was talking about it.
God forbid they actually address whatever was crackling in the air between them all like static electricity before a storm.
Instead, Maeve was being pleasant.
Which was, in a way, worse.
Or at least novel to deal with.
"Your B string's sharp," Maeve said, and then added, "I think," as if she wasn't entirely certain of her own expertise.
Iona stared at her. She didn’t think she’d ever heard Maeve qualify a musical observation.
The woman had once told a Grammy-winning producer that his mix sounded like "a cat being drowned in a blender" with absolute confidence.
She'd reduced a sound engineer to actual tears at a festival by describing his work as "competently mediocre. "
"Are you feeling alright?" Iona asked.
"Fine. Why?"
"You're being nice. It's unnerving."
Maeve's mouth twitched. Not quite a smile, but close enough that Iona felt her stomach flip. "I can be nice."
"You can't, actually. That's sort of your thing."
"Maybe I'm trying something new."
"Please don't. We've only just got used to regular Maeve. Pleasant Maeve is going to require a whole new adjustment period. Potentially therapy."
Cam had paused mid-stick-twirl to watch this exchange with the expression of someone at a tennis match. Ellie caught Iona's eye and raised an eyebrow that said both everything and nothing.
"Right," Cam said, breaking the moment with characteristic subtlety. "Shall we run through the new arrangement? Before whatever this is gets any weirder?"
They played. It was good, better than good actually, the rough edges from Manchester starting to smooth out.
The song they'd rebuilt together, the one with the happy accident that had become intentional, sounded like it belonged to all of them now rather than just Maeve.
Her voice wrapped around the melody like it belonged there, like it had always belonged there, and Iona found herself watching the way Maeve closed her eyes on the high notes, the slight furrow between her brows when she concentrated.
She took a breath.
Okay. This was a problem. Watching Maeve was what had got her into trouble fifteen years ago, and apparently she'd learned absolutely nothing in the interim. Two marriages and a child later, she was still staring at Maeve MacDonnell like a lovesick teenager. Pathetic, really. She should pull herself together. Maybe go on a date. Didn’t people join apps nowadays? She should do that.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She ignored it. Then it buzzed again. And again.
"Take it," Maeve said. Not unkindly.
Iona stepped away from her amp and checked the screen. Shepherd. She answered, tucking herself into the corner by the door where the reception was marginally less terrible and the smell was marginally more bearable.
"How was Manchester?"
She felt herself grin. "Good. Really good, actually."
"That's what I heard. Word is you didn't completely embarrass yourselves."
"High praise."
"I'm cautiously optimistic, Iona. Cautiously. Which means I need you all to stay under the radar for a bit. No press, no social media, nothing that draws attention until we've got actual material to back it up."
"We can do that."
"Can Cam?"
Iona glanced at Cam, who was currently attempting to balance a drumstick on her nose. "I'll talk to her."
"Good. Because I'm working on something. Something big. Can't tell you what yet, but if it comes through, this could be real. Not just nostalgia-circuit real. Actually real."
The word sat in Iona's chest, warm and terrifying in equal measure. Real. They could actually be real again. "Shepherd…"
"Don't get ahead of yourself. I said if. There's a lot of ifs between here and there. Just keep your heads down and keep rehearsing. I'll be in touch when I know more."
He hung up before she could ask more questions, which was very Shepherd. All cards held close to the chest until the last possible moment. She used to find it infuriating when they were married. Now it was just familiar.
Her phone buzzed again immediately, and she nearly dropped it.
Not Shepherd this time. Mo's school. Christ, what was it this time?
The voice on the other end was pleasant in the way that only school administrators could manage while delivering bad news. Yes, Mrs. Faith, Mo's behavior has been concerning lately. Talking back in class. Not paying attention. Homework consistently late. Refusing to participate in group activities.
"We're not suggesting suspension again," Mrs. Webb continued. "We just want to understand if there's something going on at home that might be affecting her. Any changes in the family situation?"
Iona pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and index finger.
"Her father and I divorced some time ago," she heard herself say, which was true but also happened several years before Mo started channeling teenage rebellion.
"Perhaps she's having a delayed reaction.
I'll talk to her." Best not to mention the marriage that came after that one.
Mrs. Webb made sympathetic noises and suggested counseling and said they just wanted what was best for Mo, really they did. Iona made all the right responses and hung up feeling like she'd failed some test she hadn't known she was taking.
What was she missing?
When she turned back to the room, Maeve was watching her.
"Everything alright?" Maeve asked.
"Fine. Mo's school. Nothing serious." Iona pocketed her phone with what she hoped was casual ease. "Where were we?"
They didn't ask more questions, which she appreciated. Cam was too busy checking her own phone anyway, pulling a face before she shoved it back in her pocket with suspicious haste.
"Late night last night?" Ellie asked Cam, deceptively casual.
"What? No. I was home by eleven. Reading. A book. In my flat. Alone."
"You don't read books. I didn’t know you could actually read," Maeve said.
"I'm expanding my horizons."
"What book?" asked Iona.
Cam's mouth opened and closed. "A… thriller. About a detective. Very thrilling. Lots of detecting."
"What was the detective's name?"
"Detective… McDetective. From the… Look, can we rehearse, please? Some of us are taking this seriously."
Ellie caught Iona's eye across the room with a look that said very clearly: should we be worried about this?
Iona gave a tiny shrug in return. Cam had always been chaos incarnate, but this particular flavor of evasion was new.
Usually she told them everything, whether they wanted to hear it or not, in graphic detail, with hand gestures and sound effects.
The fact that she was hiding something was almost more alarming than whatever the something might be.
Which was just what she needed. More people acting mysteriously. She picked up her guitar again.
Whatever was going on with Cam, it would come out eventually. Things always did.
THEY RAN THROUGH two more songs before Iona checked her watch and felt her heart sink. "I've got to go. Mo's school let out twenty minutes ago and she's meant to be picked up today, not getting the bus."
"Right," Cam said. "Off you go then, mother hen."
"I'm not a mother hen."
"You absolutely are. It's endearing. Go tend to your chick before she pecks someone."
Iona gathered her things, guitar back in its case, bag slung over her shoulder. The others were already packing up too, the session naturally winding down. She dropped a kiss on Cam’s cheek, then Ellie’s, then she hesitated at the door.
Maeve was wiping down her microphone, a ritual Iona remembered from the old days. Some things hadn't changed. The care she took with equipment, the methodical way she wrapped the cable, the slight frown of concentration.
"Same time tomorrow?" Iona said, which sounded stupid.
"Unless you've got a better offer."
"My schedule is depressingly free."
Maeve almost smiled again. Two almost-smiles in one day. Iona was going to need to lie down.
She should just go. She should walk out the door and get in her car and pick up her daughter and not make this complicated. That would be the sensible thing. The adult thing. The thing a woman with two divorces under her belt should know how to do by now.
Instead, she crossed the room to say goodbye properly, because what if Maeve noticed that she kissed the others? What if she was making it weird? What if… A quick kiss on the cheek. Friendly. Normal. The kind of thing people did all the time without turning it into an event.
Maeve turned at the same moment Iona leaned in, and they both went the same direction, and instead of a friendly cheek-kiss there was a collision of foreheads that sent pain exploding through Iona's skull.
"Ow," Maeve said, stepping back with her hand pressed to her head. "What the hell?"
"I was trying to kiss you goodbye. On the cheek. Friendly."
"You headbutted me."
"You turned!"
"Because you were coming at me like some sort of affectionate missile!"
They stared at each other, both rubbing their foreheads. Cam was laughing so hard she had to brace herself against her drum kit, tears streaming down her face. Even Ellie was struggling to keep a straight face, her shoulders shaking with suppressed amusement.
"You two are hopeless," Cam managed between gasps.
Iona's face was burning, though whether from embarrassment or the impact she couldn't say. "Right. Well. I'm leaving now. Before I cause any more head injuries."
She fled, aware of Maeve's eyes on her back, aware of the throb in her skull where they'd connected, aware that kissing Maeve had always been painful, one way or another.
In the car, she sat for a moment before starting the engine.
Her thoughts kept coming back to Shepherd.
What could he possibly be working on? A TV appearance? Some kind of reunion documentary where they'd all have to pretend they hadn't spent fifteen years carefully not speaking to each other? The possibilities spiraled through her head, each more elaborate than the last.
Could they actually be big again?
The thought was terrifying. Also thrilling. Also completely absurd. She was a thirty-something single mother with two failed marriages and a pottery studio full of unsellable vases. She had no business dreaming about main stages and comeback albums and whatever Shepherd was mysteriously scheming.
And yet…