Chapter Three
The problem with being in a band, any band really, was that there had to be an unspoken understanding that everyone was at least passably good at their job. This, Iona thought, was not currently the case. Unfortunately.
"Sorry, sorry, that was me." Ellie stopped playing and shook her head, pressing a hand briefly against her temple. "I lost the rhythm. Let's go again."
They'd been at it for three hours now, holed up in the basement rehearsal studio that Cam had secured through someone she "knew from a thing.
" The studio smelled faintly of sweat and stale beer, the walls were covered in egg cartons that someone had optimistically labeled "soundproofing," and the heating was either off entirely or attempting to recreate the surface of the sun, depending, apparently, on the hour.
Iona wondered if the place had been used as a torture chamber.
Very possible, considering the kinds of people Cam generally knew.
She could feel sweat trickling down her back beneath her t-shirt.
"From the top?" Cam asked, sticks already raised.
"From the top," Iona agreed, positioning her fingers on the frets.
They made it through exactly eight bars before Cam started speeding up.
She always did that when she got excited.
The drums pushed faster and faster, like a runaway train, and Ellie scrambled to keep up, and Iona's guitar part started sounding less like melodic accompaniment and more like something being fed through a woodchipper.
"Cam!" Ellie called out.
"What? What did I do?"
"You're doing it again."
"What? I'm not doing anything."
"You’re speeding up. You always do it."
"I do not always do it. Name one time."
"Right now. Literally just now."
"That doesn't count, I was in the zone."
Iona let her guitar hang from the strap and reached for her water bottle. This was the fourth time they'd had this exact argument. In three hours. She was starting to understand why bands broke up so often.
Mind you, they’d definitely had this argument before. If she closed her eyes, they could be fifteen and practising in the school music room again. Well, with one very prominent exception. She sighed.
The worst part was, they all knew what was missing.
Who, who was missing, not what. Nobody wanted to say it.
They were all being terribly, painfully polite about it, like middle-aged women at a disappointing dinner party, complimenting the host's dry chicken while silently calculating how soon they could leave.
The Stage Girls had always been four parts.
Lead guitar, bass, drums, and voice. Iona's guitar sounded thin without vocals over it.
Ellie's bass wandered when there was no real melody to anchor to.
And Cam's drums, enthusiastic as they were, just sort of…
filled space. Like furniture in an empty house.
"Let's try something else," Iona suggested when the silence had stretched on too long. "How about that B-side we used to do? The one with the bridge that went…" She hummed a few bars.
"The one Maeve wrote?" Ellie said carefully.
Iona stopped humming. "Right," she said. "Never mind."
Another silence. Cam started doing a complicated fill on her snare drum, just to have something to do with her hands.
Ellie sat down on a battered amp and rubbed her eyes.
She looked tired, Iona noticed. More tired than usual.
The kind of tired that seemed to live in her bones rather than just her face.
"You alright?" Iona asked.
Ellie looked up, startled. "Fine. Just… it's bloody hot in here, isn't it?"
"It's like a sauna. Smells funny too," Cam sniffed. "I know a guy who does air conditioning, if we're going to be here regularly. Although he might still be in prison, actually, I'll have to check."
"Of course you do," said Ellie.
The studio door opened before Iona could respond, and Shepherd Nixon walked in.
Shepherd looked exactly like he always had: tall, graying at the temples in a way that somehow made him more handsome, wearing a suit that hung just right.
He had the kind of face that wasn’t handsome and yet was more attractive than if he had been handsome.
Iona had never been able to explain it. Well, no more than she could explain why she’d fallen into his arms after Maeve had left.
Still, they’d both gotten Mo out of the deal, something she was eternally grateful for. Mostly.
"Ladies," Shepherd said. "Don't stop on my account."
"We weren't playing," Iona said.
"I know. I could hear you from outside." He pulled up a folding chair and sat down, crossing his legs at the ankles. "Let’s just say I won’t be calling Musical Express for a cover story, and you won’t be being interviewed by Elijah Stone any time soon.
I could hear something. I'm not sure 'playing' is the word I'd use. "
"We're rusty," Cam said defensively.
"You're not rusty. You're absent." Shepherd's gaze moved between the three of them, assessing.
It was the look he got when he was about to deliver bad news and wanted to make sure everyone was sitting down first. "I've listened to the demos you sent. Although I’ve got to say, recording something on an iPhone and sending it to me on WhatsApp isn’t the way these things are usually done.
And now I've listened to you in person. And I’ve got to be honest with you. "
"When are you ever not honest?" Iona asked. She had a feeling that she knew what was coming.
"I try to soften it sometimes. For your sake." He uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, elbows on knees. "You three are fine musicians. You always were. But The Stage Girls was never about fine musicianship. It was about something else entirely."
"Chemistry," Ellie said quietly.
"Chemistry. Magic. That indefinable thing that made people want to listen." Shepherd spread his hands. "You don’t want to hear it, but that thing was Maeve."
Iona felt the name hit her like a punch in the belly. Fifteen years, and it still did that. She'd thought she was over it. She'd married someone else, for God's sake. Two someone elses. But some wounds apparently didn't heal. They just scabbed over and waited.
"We can find another singer," Cam said, though her voice had lost some of its usual confidence. "I know a woman who—"
"Cam." Shepherd cut her off gently. "I've been in this business for twenty years.
I've seen dozens of bands try to replace their lead singer.
It almost never works. And in your case…
" He shook his head. "The Stage Girls had a sound.
It was Maeve's voice. Without it, you're just three talented women playing cover versions of your own songs. "
"That's a bit harsh," Ellie said.
"That's reality." Shepherd stood up, brushing imaginary lint from his suit. "I want to help you. I do. But I'm not going to represent a band that can't deliver. If you want me as your agent again, you need Maeve."
"She won't come back," Iona heard herself say. Her voice sounded strange in her own ears. Hollow. "She made that very clear when she left."
"Then convince her." Shepherd picked up his briefcase. "You've got my number. Call me when you've got something worth selling."
He was at the door when he paused and looked back at Iona. "Actually, walk me out?"
It wasn't really a question. Iona unhooked her guitar and followed him out into the corridor, which was somehow even worse than the studio. The carpet was sticky underfoot and the lighting had a weird green tinge to it that made everything look sort of moldy.
"This isn't just about business," Shepherd said, once they were out of earshot.
"Isn't it?"
"No." He turned to face her, and there was something in his expression that Iona recognized.
It was the look he used to get when they were married, when she was about to do something impulsive and he was trying to work out how to talk her out of it without seeming like a condescending arse.
"I know you, Iona. I was married to you. I watched you for years."
"Slightly creepy when you put it like that."
"You rush into things." He said it gently, but the words still stung. "You throw yourself in headfirst without checking how deep the water is. And sometimes it works out, and sometimes you end up drowning."
"Is this about the band, or about Maeve?"
Shepherd's silence was answer enough.
"I thought so." Iona folded her arms across her chest. "It was fifteen years ago, Shepherd. We were kids."
"You were nineteen. And I was twenty-four, and I remember very clearly what it was like to watch you around her.
" He reached out and touched her arm, a gesture so familiar that it made Iona's throat tight.
"I'm not saying don't do this. I'm saying…
be careful. Know what you're walking into.
You loved her once, and it nearly broke you when she left. "
"I didn't love her," Iona said automatically.
Shepherd just looked at her.
"Fine. Maybe a little." She huffed out a breath. "But that was a long time ago. I'm different now."
"Are you?"
"I have a daughter. A mortgage. Gray hairs I have to dye out every six weeks. I'm a completely different person."
"And Maeve?"
Iona didn't have an answer for that. She had no idea who Maeve was now. She only knew who Maeve had been: fierce and frightened and furiously talented, with a voice like honey and smoke and a self-destruct button she couldn't stop pressing.
"Just… be careful," Shepherd said again. "That's all I'm asking. For Mo’s sake, if not for mine." He left before Iona could respond, his footsteps echoing down the sticky corridor.
When Iona walked back into the studio, Ellie and Cam were exactly where she'd left them. Cam had moved on from the snare drum to doing paradiddles on her own thighs, which couldn't be comfortable. Ellie was still sitting on the war-torn amp, looking at something on her phone with a frown.
"Well?" Cam said. "What did he want?"
"To warn me." Iona sat down on the floor, not caring about the dubious stains. "About Maeve."
"That's his job as your ex-husband," Ellie said mildly. "Warning you off beautiful Irish women with terrible life choices."
"She made one terrible life choice," Iona protested. "She's probably completely different now."
"She's probably exactly the same," Cam said. "Leopards. Spots. Et cetera."
"So, do we really want to do this?" Ellie asked. "Or are we going to quit right now?"
Iona stared at the ceiling, which was covered in the same egg cartons as the walls. Someone had drawn a rude picture on one of them in marker pen. It seemed fitting, somehow.
"We've got no choice if we want to go ahead," Ellie said finally. "We have to get Maeve back."
Iona gritted her teeth, then nodded. "Alright, I'll go." They could leave it, couldn’t they? Just walk away from everything. But now that they were actually here, actually doing something, Iona was… almost complete in a way she hadn’t felt for longer than she cared to remember.
"You can phone her," Cam said.
Iona snorted. "Like she's going to answer the phone to any of us. I told you, I'll go."
"Why you?" said Ellie.
Iona just looked at her.
The question hung in the air between them, surrounded by egg cartons and bad lighting and the ghost of everything they'd once been. Iona sighed. "You know why."