Chapter Seventeen
The producer's name was Aria, and she had the kind of energy that made Maeve want to take a nap. Which was inconvenient, because she was supposed to be singing.
"From the top," Aria said, snapping her fingers. "Give me the chorus again. I want to feel it in my teeth."
Maeve exchanged a look with Iona, who just shrugged and adjusted her guitar strap. Easy for her to be relaxed. Iona was good at people. Maeve was good at avoiding them.
They'd been at this for two hours now, in a proper studio that Shepherd had secured.
White walls, expensive equipment, the smell of fresh coffee, and someone's attempt at aromatherapy diffusers that wasn't quite masking the underlying tang of bleach.
Aria had arrived in a leather jacket and combat boots, taken one look at the four of them, and declared that she could work with this.
Whatever that meant.
Shepherd had worked with her before, adored her, and, as far as Maeve could tell, wasn’t sleeping with her, which was generally a good thing in the music industry.
Keep bodies out of it. Make it about the music.
The woman had produced three platinum albums in the last five years.
She'd also produced a documentary about urban beekeeping, which Cam had found hilarious and wouldn't stop mentioning.
"Ready?" Cam called from behind the drums, already bouncing with barely contained energy.
Ellie nodded from the bass position. She looked tired today, but she always looked tired lately, except whenever anyone asked if she was alright, she just smiled and said she'd been staying up too late binge-watching something.
Maeve had stopped asking about it. She still thought something was going on, though.
Ellie was the quiet one, the sensible one.
But then it was always the quiet ones, wasn’t it?
She wasn’t like Iona, she didn’t think Ellie was having an affair.
On the other hand, was Ellie a serial killer?
How the hell would Maeve know? It had been fifteen years. Maybe Ellie had taken up new hobbies.
"Let’s go," Aria said.
They played. The song was one they'd built together over the past weeks, piece by piece, argument by argument.
Maeve had brought the bones of it, a melody she'd been carrying around for years without knowing what to do with.
Iona had suggested the key change. Cam had added that ridiculous fill that somehow worked.
Ellie had grounded the whole thing with a bass line that felt like a heartbeat.
It wasn't perfect. But it almost was.
Maeve let herself sink into the music, the way she always did when things were going right.
Her voice found the notes without her having to think about them.
Iona's guitar wove around the melody, answering it, challenging it, making it better.
Behind them, Cam and Ellie held down the rhythm like they'd been doing it their whole lives.
Because they had, Maeve supposed. That was the thing about playing with people who knew you. They could predict where you were going before you got there.
When they finished, Aria didn't say anything.
She just stood there, arms crossed, head tilted to one side like she was listening to something none of them could hear.
The silence stretched. Maeve found herself holding her breath, which was ridiculous.
She'd performed in front of thousands of people.
She'd had record executives tell her to her face that she was talented but too difficult to work with.
She'd heard the word "no" so many times it had lost all meaning.
One producer's opinion shouldn't matter this much.
"Well?" Shepherd asked from the corner. He'd been pretending to answer emails on his phone for the past hour, but Maeve had seen him watching. His thumb had been hovering over the same spot on the screen for at least ten minutes.
Aria grinned. "I think we've got something."
The studio erupted. Cam whooped and threw her drumsticks in the air, then scrambled to catch them before they hit the very expensive mixing console.
Ellie actually smiled, which felt like a small miracle these days.
Iona set down her guitar with the careful reverence she always showed her instruments and turned to Maeve, her whole face lit up with something that made Maeve's chest feel too small.
"We did it," Iona said.
"Don't get ahead of yourself. She said we've got something. That's not the same as actually having something."
"Can you just accept that something good happened? For once? Just this once?"
Maeve opened her mouth to argue, but Iona was already hugging her.
It was brief. A few seconds, maybe. Iona's arms around her waist, her cheek pressed against Maeve's shoulder because of the height difference, the smell of her shampoo. Then it was over.
Except this was the third time now. Manchester, after they'd nailed the gig. The rehearsal room, when the song had finally clicked. And now this.
It was becoming a habit.
Maeve stepped back, putting a careful distance between them.
She should stop this. She shouldn’t even think about it.
After so long, there was no way Iona would be interested.
Not after everything that happened. Not after Maeve had destroyed everything they'd built and slunk off to Scotland to lick her wounds.
Iona didn't seem to notice the distance, already turning to hug Cam, who was still bouncing around like an over-caffeinated golden retriever.
A habit, Maeve thought. Habits were dangerous. Habits led to expectations. Expectations led to disappointment. She'd learned that lesson the hard way, years ago, when she'd expected the whiskey to make everything better and it had made everything spectacularly worse instead.
She watched Iona congratulate Ellie, watched her laugh at something Aria said, watched her move through the room like she belonged there.
Like she belonged everywhere. Iona had that gift.
The ability to walk into any space and make it feel like home.
Maeve had never understood how she did it.
Maeve walked into spaces and made them feel like everyone should probably leave.
The kiss had been fifteen years ago. A lifetime.
Half a lifetime, technically, which Maeve tried not to think about too hard because that meant she was getting properly old.
Iona probably didn't even remember it. Why would she?
It had been so brief, so fleeting, one moment out of thousands.
One thing that Maeve had carried around like a bruise she kept pressing to see if it still hurt.
Which it did. It always did.
Besides, Iona had never come looking for her.
Not once in fifteen years. Not a phone call, not an email, not even a message through a mutual friend.
Maeve had made herself easy to find, relatively speaking.
She'd stayed in one place. Written songs with her real name attached.
Anyone with Google and five minutes could have tracked her down.
But Iona hadn't looked.
Not that Maeve blamed her. She couldn't blame her. She'd been a disaster back then, drinking too much, fighting with everyone, burning bridges faster than she could build them. She'd destroyed The Stage Girls with her own two hands and expected everyone else to clean up the mess.
Iona had cleaned up her own mess instead. Got married. Had a kid. Built a life. Did all the things that normal people did when they weren't busy self-destructing.
Maeve had spent that time putting herself back together, piece by piece, and she still wasn't sure all the pieces were in the right place.
But that was her own doing. Her own responsibility.
She took responsibility for her own drinking.
She didn't get to blame anyone else for the choices she'd made.
The point remained. Out of all the moments they had shared together, that kiss was next to nothing. Iona had built a life regardless and Maeve wasn’t going to blame her for that. Nor was she about to remind Iona of something she’d almost certainly forgotten.
"Maeve." Shepherd appeared at her elbow. "Can I have a word?"
She followed him out of the studio and into the corridor, which was quieter, but not by much. Someone in the next room was playing scales badly. The same five notes, over and over, with a pause between each repetition that suggested they were checking sheet music.
"What?" She folded her arms.
"Aria’s on board," he said. "She wants to produce the festival set. She thinks if we can capture that energy live, we've got something special."
"Great."
"Which means we need a setlist. And we need to record it for streaming. Lakeside has a deal with one of the platforms. Every main stage act gets their performance uploaded within twenty-four hours."
Maeve's stomach clenched. "Right."
"Got a problem with that?" Shepherd’s eyes were hard.
Maeve shook her head.
Shepherd studied her for a moment. He had that look on his face, the one she remembered from the old days.
The one that said he was about to ask something she didn't want to answer.
She'd seen it plenty of times before, usually right before he asked her if she was sober enough to perform.
"I need to ask you something," he said. "And I need you to tell me the truth. "
"Your wish is my command, oh great agent."
"Are you drinking? Or anything else?"
The question still made her gut turn to water. She took a breath, felt her jaw tighten, felt the old defensive anger rise up in her chest. Then put it away as something useless. "No."
Shepherd eyed her. "I'm not trying to insult you. I'm asking because I need to know."
"And I'm telling you. No. I haven't had a drink in fifteen years. I go to meetings. I call my sponsor. I do all the tedious little things that tedious sober people do to stay tedious and sober. I'm boringly, relentlessly clean."
Shepherd nodded slowly. "Okay."
"That's it? Okay?"
"No." He reached down and unlatched his briefcase. "I'm going to need you to sign something."
"Sign what?"
"An indemnity contract." He was flipping through folders, not quite meeting her eyes. "Basically, it says that if you relapse, and it affects the band's performance or reputation, the studio isn't liable for any losses."
Maeve stared at him. "You're serious."
"The studio insisted. It's standard practice for anyone with a history."
"A history. That's a polite way to put it."
"I'm a polite person." He was digging through the briefcase now, shuffling papers. "It's not personal, Maeve. It's just business. Everyone has to protect themselves."
"Fine." The word came out sharper than she intended. She couldn’t be angry about this. What he was asking was fair, was her due, was the price she paid for all her mistakes. "Give me the thing. I'll sign it. Sign whatever you want. Bring it on."
He pulled out a stack of papers, and as he did, something slipped free and fluttered to the ground. A letter, official-looking, with a school crest at the top.
Maeve bent to pick it up before he could. "You dropped this."
She glanced at it automatically, the way you glance at anything that lands in your hands. It was addressed to Shepherd, something about a meeting with the headteacher, something about Mo's recent behavior. The words "concerned about" and "pattern of disruption" jumped out at her.
And then, at the top of the form, the full name of the student in question.
Maureen Faith-Nixon.
Maeve's heart stopped.