Page 37 of Two Hit Wonder

They were really doing this. She couldn’t believe they were really doing this. Her heart leaped up into her throat, and she forced herself to swallow it back down again. "Where's Maeve?" she asked.

"Terrorizing the sound guy," Cam said. "She didn't like where he'd positioned her monitor."

"Did she use words, or just a look?"

"Bit of both. I think he might cry."

Iona found her in the tiny backstage area, which was actually just a storage cupboard with ideas above its station. Maeve was adjusting a cable with the intense focus of someone defusing a bomb.

"The acoustics in here are appalling," Maeve said without looking up.

"It's an open mic night in Manchester. Were you expecting the Royal Albert Hall?"

"I was expecting functioning equipment."

Iona leaned against the doorframe. Maeve's hair was escaping from its braid, red curls springing free around her face. She was wearing her usual uniform of gray and black, but she'd rolled her sleeves up to her elbows, and there was a tension in her shoulders that Iona recognized.

"You're nervous," Iona said.

"I'm not nervous. I'm irritated."

"You can be both."

Maeve finally looked up. Her green eyes were sharp, defensive. "I haven't performed in front of people in fifteen years."

"I know."

"Real people. Strangers. Not just you lot insulting me in a rehearsal room."

"I know."

"What… what if I can't do it anymore?" The words came out fast, almost angry. "What if I get up there and my voice doesn't work and I freeze and everyone realizes I'm not…"

"Maeve."

Maeve stopped. Iona stepped into the cupboard, which put them approximately six inches apart because there wasn't room for anything else. "You've spent years writing songs that made other people famous," she said. "You wrote a song that won three Grammy nominations for someone who couldn't carry a tune in a bucket. Your voice works. You're going to be fine."

Maeve stared at her. Then something shifted in her face, a crack in the wall she kept so carefully maintained. "How are you not terrified?"

"Oh, I'm absolutely terrified," Iona said cheerfully. "I've just had fourteen years of pretending to be calm for Mo. You learn to fake it."

"That's not remotely comforting."

"Wasn't meant to be. Come on. We're on in ten."

✽✽✽

Maeve stood at the side of the tiny stage and watched the sparse crowd settle into their seats. Twelve people. Maybe fifteen. A man at the bar who might have been asleep. The woman behind the taps, still radiating professional boredom.

This was nothing. This was pathetic. She'd played arenas once, for God's sake. She'd stood in front of thousands of people and opened her mouth and sung like it was the easiest thing in the world.

That was years ago. That was a different person. A drunker one, certainly.

Cam was setting up her kit, which involved banging things and making far too much noise. Ellie was running through a silent fingering pattern on her bass, face calm, though Maeve noticed she was pressing her left hand against her thigh between runs, stretching her fingers out like they ached. Iona was tuning her guitar, humming under her breath, apparently as relaxed as if she were sitting in her own living room.

Irritating. Completely irritating.

The host, a bearded man with a clipboard and an air of someone who'd rather be anywhere else, shuffled to the microphone. "Right, next up we've got… The Stage Girls?" He squinted at his list. "Is that right? Sounds familiar. Anyway, give them a hand."