Page 6 of Two Hit Wonder

"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—"