She wondered what the glue was between them. Was family, when you had one, really that strong?
For a moment, she wondered what her life might have been like if she had more family. A dad who loved her. Grandparents. She hadn’t even asked Jimmy about family she might have. She’d reasoned there probably wasn’t, because, if there had been, surely one of them would have reached out to her. There had been a number of birthdays where she’d greeted the postman just to see if there had been a card sent from America from a grandparent.
There never had been.
The bickering continued. Alex rolling his eyes and whispering something into Jase’s ear. Luke thrusting his middle finger in Ben’s direction. Perhaps they’d simply been a band and in each other’s lives for long enough to know that this was how they interacted.
Why hadn’t one of them quit? Or gone solo? Or started another band?
Beyond family, she wondered if this was simply a side of life she’d avoided growing up in Conwy, surrounded by fields and the River Conwy and the vast expanse of the Irish Sea. Sure, there had been mean girls, the ones who wore too much makeup for school and hung around at night down the lane that ran alongside the Spar, but there hadn’t been the constant undercurrent she’d felt when she lived in Manchester.
That it was the friendliest place on the earth, until it wasn’t. How everyone had your back, until they stabbed you in it. Perhaps growing up like that had you permanently on the defensive.
But then, she’d never seen a city unite the way Manchester did. She’d lived there when Manchester had processed the aftermath of the bombing at the Ariana Grande concert. She’d joined the vigil in St. Ann’s Square when the crowd had spontaneously broken out in a rendition of Oasis’s “Don’t Look Back in Anger.” Zoe had gotten them tickets the evening after the tragedy to see Broken Social Scene at the Albert Hall, and she cried as the concert ended with every person in the room singing along to the words be courageous at the end of the song “Backyards”. Music had helped people process their grief in a way she’d never seen before.
Music could be so overwhelmingly unifying. It didn’t make sense why it drove the band apart. Unable to stand the band’s fighting energy any longer, she headed to her office. Once at her desk, she sat down, wanting to process and annotate all the notes she’d taken throughout the day. Not that she was a legal secretary by any means, but if someone had needed minutes, her notes would suffice.
She’d made note of her father’s suggestions, of the band’s reactions, and her own feelings about the situation. Twenty minutes later, she saw her father walk by her door. “Jimmy,” she shouted. “Can I talk to you for a second?”
He looked at his watch. “Sure, I have about fifteen minutes. What’s up?”
“I’m curious about your thoughts on the discussion the band had with you on Monday about the album. I know you were able to pressure them into continuing, but I think maybe Jase was right. I played the songs back-to-back, and I’m not seeing the story.”
Her father leaned his hip against the doorframe. “Go on.”
“Well, the lyrics progress right. It starts with anger at being alone in the first two songs. Then it moves through unrequited love into something tangible. A new relationship. Something new and growing. But I don’t feel like the music changes with it. There’s something missing in tone. And I wondered if you saw that.”
Jimmy eyed her cautiously, then looked over his shoulder, before stepping closer. “Sometimes it’s as much about what the label wants as what the artist wants. Sometimes between the label and myself, we see a different avenue to gain following. These guys have got momentum because of a specific song, not because of a love for their back catalogue. So, it’s up to us to guide them, especially when they are relatively inexperienced when it comes to the big leagues.”
“But what if creating a sound to fit a moment isn’t what they want? What if they want more longevity than that?”
Jimmy shrugged. “I don’t hear the band complaining.”
“I feel like Jase is trying to express that.”
Jimmy huffed. “If Jase could actually express himself without throwing a tantrum, they’d be better off.”
Cerys tapped her pencil against her desk. “There’s nuance here though, right? Aren’t you the bridge rather than the accomplice? You have a reputation of your own as this incredible producer. Do you struggle with not letting your own creativity shine through?”
“My job isn’t to shine through, that’s the band’s job.”
Her father was being obtuse, she could feel it. “Then why aren’t you listening to Jase? His ideas are strong. You’re letting Parker Moseley’s ideas shine through, and that’s not the same thing at all.”
“Cerys.”
“Don’t Cerys me like that. As you reminded me, at work, I’m not your daughter, I’m an employee. You don’t talk to the other sound engineers like that, so you don’t get to use that tone here. It’s a serious question, Jimmy. You totally get what I’m saying about the songs and the album. Yes, they’ll get radio play for a while, but they don’t tell a story. So why are you letting Moseley have so much influence?”
She didn’t tell him that she’d overheard his call. He didn’t need to know that she was more than capable of watching and listening.
“Sometimes you just have to listen to the guy who pays the bills. You’ll learn. You okay getting home?”
It was the first time in five weeks of her being there that he’d asked. As much as she didn’t want to, a part of her softened. It was a sign that, in some way, he cared. “Yeah. I’ll be fine. I just want to wrap some stuff up.”
As she watched her father disappear out of the front doors, she couldn’t explain the pull in her gut, the part of her that was so damn honest, that wanted to look out for the band.
Because despite their roughness, she could see something more in them, something that could be channelled. A rawness that made them unique. She saw Alex’s exuberance and natural flamboyance. She saw Ben’s quiet determination and Luke’s raw energy. She saw Matt’s focused intent. And in Jase she saw . . . heck, she saw conflict, and loathing, and anger. But something else also called out to her. It was as if she felt the confusion and the repressed talent and the need for something even he couldn’t express, and she couldn’t put a label on it, either.
“Night, Cerys,” Ben said as he walked by with Alex.
“Night, guys,” she called out. Luke and Matt followed behind them.
“You guys go ahead, I’ll take the second car in a minute,” Jase said. “I need to talk to Cerys about vocal lessons.”
Cerys eyed him uncertainly as he watched the band leave the building. “You’re going to do them?”
“Fuck, no. But I think you’ll be honest with me about something. Do you think we should drop that song?”
Cerys took a deep breath. “I feel like that’s something you should decide between the band and Jimmy and Parker.”
Jase leaned on the doorframe, just as her father had, but his silhouette reminded her of those viral videos where a nerdy guy suddenly gets red-lit from behind and reveals a smoking hot six-pack. She was glad the office lighting wasn’t so great that he could see the embarrassment that tinted her cheeks pink.