She took her throne, looking like she was in her rightful place behind the kit. The other night at the club wasn’t the first time I’d seen her drum. Her style had gotten grittier, yet more refined over the years. I never expected to see her going hard on stage at a rock club, but I figured I’d better throw out everything I knew about Maeve O’Day and start all over again.
Murray flopped down on the couch beside me, his attention squarely on Maeve. “What’s the deal with this song?” he asked in a hushed voice as she got herself situated.
“It’s impossible. I can’t even play it,” I admitted.
“You’re setting her up to fail?”
I turned my palms up toward the ceiling. “She could’ve said no. I would have.”
“Dick move.”
There was no point in denying it. “Basically.”
Maeve tapped her sticks together, and that was our only warning before she took off. Her rendition wasn’t perfect, and maybe a little slower than it should have been, but I was the only one who heard it. Jaws dropped through the room. Mo stood behind her, and I knew what he saw: both feet, working completely independent of each other, each kicking a different rhythm. Her arms competed with an unintuitive rhythm, and as she played, she got faster, more confident, matching the true tempo of the song.
I had to get up to watch her from behind the kit too.
My old man had taught my brother and I to play drums. He’d been into heavy metal, and always had friends over on the weekends to play in the garage. He was a decent drummer, but we both figured out pretty quickly we were better.
Watching Maeve move, the stamina in her playing, the passion in her rhythm, I knew without question she was better than I could ever dream of being. Eons better than Diego even, and he was mad talented.
It hurt a little to admit that. I’d been raised in an insulated world of heavy metal and punk where men ruled the stage and women cheered for them from the audience. There were only one or two female drummers I could really name off the top of my head, whereas the list of men I admired and tried to emulate was miles long.
My eyes were drawn from her hands to a bead of sweat making its way down her neck, rolling over her collarbone before descending between her breasts and disappearing beneath her shirt.
That was when I remembered why it didn’t matter how good a drummer Maeve was. Not when she looked like that, made me have thoughts I shouldn’t have been having. After Diego’s departure, we sure as hell didn’t need any more shake-ups. And if Maeve joined Unrequited, we’d be shaken, I had no doubt.
Her hands finally came to a stop, as did her feet. She swiveled in her throne to face Mo and me.
“Want more?”
Nothow was it?Orwhat did you think?She already knew how it was, and she could take a look at our faces to see what we thought.
“Play one of ours?” Mo asked.
She nodded, her ponytail bobbing. “Of course.”
Mo grabbed his guitar, and facing her, they played our most popular song, “Eighty Nights.” If someone had told me she’d one day be playing this song when I wrote it with Diego a few years ago, I’d have sooner taken a swing at them than believed them.
She played brilliantly. I had a feeling Maeve did most things with brilliance. They ran through two more songs before she got up, took a bow at Murray’s insistence, and shook hands with Clark.
“You want to wait outside?” Mo asked. “We just need to convene for a minute, then we’ll call you back in.”
Face damp with sweat, she gave him a wide smile, then grabbed her bag and walked out of the room with the assurance of someone who knew how awesome they were.
“Thoughts?” Mo asked.
“She’s hired,” Murray declared. “We’ve got the whole ‘M’ vibe going. Mo, Murray, and Maeve. It’s adorbs.”
“Now, wait a second. Let’s talk about this,” Clark started. “I don’t question her talent on the drums, but we have to think of your image too. Does Ms. O’Day really fit the image of Unrequited?”
“Uh...yes?” Murray frowned at Clark, not getting where he was headed.
I got it. By “image,” Clark meant Maeve’s body didn’t fit into some completely subjective standard of beauty.
“Are you saying adding a beautiful woman to Unrequited would be a…bad move?” Mo asked. “I seem to remember the Black Eyed Peas blowing up when they added Fergie.”
He crossed his arms over his chest, waiting for Clark to challenge him. There were times when I thought of Mo as a kid, and hewasyoung, but he had a backbone. He stood his ground when he needed to.