And because Roswitha Adolé had always been well managed, lovingly cared for her, and success spoke for her, Adolé had so far always managed more or less without resistance. Of course, sometimes the whole spectacle had gotten on her nerves, especially when Julius had apparently promised more than had been agreed at the beginning of their arrangement. But in the end this arrangement was for the best of everyone. Her audience, as much as she liked it, did not need to know every detail of her private life. Somewhere there were limits.
Adolé would have loved to have been inspired by a role model, by a great German star, be it from film, sport, journalism, music, news or theatre, whatever! It would have been much easier to follow a woman who was in the public eye and who publicly admitted that her attention and love was directed towards other women, no matter what reprisals she was threatened with.
But this has not yet been seen in the entire German media landscape, although it was difficult but possible in other countries, for example the USA. Women such as Ellen DeGeneres, Martina Navratilova, Jodie Foster, Ellen Page or Wanda Sykes went ahead there, and even though a stiff headwind blew in their faces from time to time, they were generally happy with their decision and on the whole, even professionally, had no significant disadvantages due to their honesty. Even better - through their common interests and their common proud approach they had created a bond that richly rewarded them for living a different life concept. Their community went far beyond a simple network. They had a real community, were popular and role models for all those who had a similar situation.
Such a thing was unthinkable in Germany!
...a circumstance of which Adolé became painfully aware again and again and which she regularly cursed, for it weighed on her soul like a burden of a hundredweight.
Scattered thoughts. Adolé pushed them aside. She forced herself to concentrate on the current studio session. Although she couldn't deny her nervousness, because Michelle wasn't in the studio yet, but would surely arrive there sooner or later, she took a new track together with the musicians and started to record it with all attention. This also made a good impression, no matter who was watching her and sooner or later joined the recordings.
And as expected, it didn't take long before she noticed Michelle behind the darkened studio glass that separated the mixing console area from the room with the microphones.
As if in defiance, she set out to achieve musical excellence and decided not to expose herself, ignoring the Frenchwoman at first and pretending that nothing had happened - what she could do, Adolé could do three times!
The song demanded all their attention and skill anyway. It took her a little over an hour before she could deal with doing something else than singing for the first time. There was a short pause, which Adolé wanted to use for a short visit to the toilet.
While she was still concentrating on singing this song, in the hallway in front of the studio she walked indirectly directly into Michelle, who had lowered her head and was wearing dark sunglasses.
"Oh sorry! "Adolé came out automatically, when she - still busy with her song - unintentionally ran into Michelle. "Don't worry," it came back succinctly from the pianist. While she tried to escape the situation, Adolé seized the brief opportunity, grabbed Michelle by the sleeve and pulled her into a corner of the aisle.
Uncertain as to what she should say, she struggled for words and finally said, without apparent excitement, "What are you doing here? Where have you been? Why didn't you contact me?!"
As Michelle tried to free herself from the persistent grip, she wriggled back and forth and finally fought her way free. She glanced angrily at her wrinkled sleeve and finally squeezed out a short "I had work to do!" before turning and grudgingly walking down the corridor towards her own recording room. What remained was a confused, wounded and stunned Adolé.
17.
Adolé awoke again from a viscous sleep. She ran out of possible reasons for a valid reason for Michelle's impossible behaviour.
In the meantime she doubted herself. Had she only imagined this night full of love, familiarity, tenderness and wordless harmony?
A lot had already happened to her, at least until she decided to actively withdraw from the world of women. But this phenomenon of an unexpected, but dreamlike night of love, which was followed by complete ignorance, she just couldn't figure out.
How could all this have happened? How could she let herself be taken by surprise like that? After all, she didn't even know Michelle. Why hadn't she just been careful and stood firm? And what had gone wrong in the end that Michelle actually believed that she could simply wipe away this night of multiple highlights as if it had never happened...
All this was still a mystery to Adolé. Secretly, she knew very well that even before Michelle's love affair had begun, she had wanted more than just a decent working relationship. Of course - this was also desirable, since it was mainly up to her to drive the "joint" project. But beyond that, and Adolé knew this very well, she had had her eye on the pianist since the first meeting - she didn't kno
w why herself. Apparently, she was attracted by the difficult and extraordinary. Sometimes she was a mystery to herself, also the fact that she obviously did not think with her head but with her heart.
But there was something about Michelle from the beginning that fascinated Adolé.
Thank God she was not twenty anymore and had experienced similar situations before, even if the intensity and closeness with which she had spent this one night with Michelle was not so familiar. At least she was able to distract herself with her varied work and thus ensure that this nonsensical reaction of Michelle did not affect her so much and at least was not very effective.
Nevertheless, sooner or later a solution was needed. For their CD project alone, which was actually the focus of attention. After all they were not in kindergarten here. And she hadn't imagined this passion and devotion on this decisive night.
She was at a loss.
There was no escape. Alone she found no way out of the situation, no matter how hard she tried and weighed the facts against each other again and again. So Adolé decided to confront Michelle at the appropriate time. But first she had to get hold of hers. Up to now she escaped the situation again and again, in which she stayed away from the studio and therefore from her work, contrary to every agreement and also signed contracts. How unprofessional!
But Adolé was sure that at some point she could see them and then address everything. And she was very curious about these answers!
18.
Tough days went by, days when time seemed to stand still and when the work in the studio suffered noticeably. Adolé spent hours alone in the studio during the day. Since Ella also found no means to convince Michelle to devote herself to her duties in the recording studio, Adolé had given up resignedly. She wasn't even sure anymore if Ella, who should know everything about her protégé and have him under control, even knew where exactly she was and why she refused her work so consistently.
Roswitha, on the other hand, still took her job very seriously and had acted decisively. After all talks with Ella had failed and they would otherwise have been stuck with the not inconsiderable production costs, she unceremoniously relieved most of the musicians of their duties and released them for other projects. As a result, Adolé was able to work with an admittedly very talented musician, who was able to record the songs one after the other with different instruments and a technician alone in the studio. But this was not what she had expected at the beginning of the project - nor what it could have become in the meantime. She spent the nights more and more regularly in the hotel bar before she retired to her room, depressed and red wine blistered.
Again and again she lay curled up in her bed, doubting and brooding. Again and again she was overwhelmed by the stabbing pain of despair and powerlessness and the bitter realization that there was simply no reasonable explanation for this behavior. And that's that! Michelle had simply taken advantage of her and the situation, and even though the expected headline in the corresponding celebrity news had not yet come, her prestigious scalp together with her dignity was already hanging in the overcrowded trophy cabinet of the French piano player, who probably still couldn't believe in her ecstatic stupor of victory how naive Adolé had been, how easy it had been to lure her into her arms and what a triumphant coup she had achieved that night.