by Katia Rose
“So you are French. I was wondering. You speak both languages perfectly.”
“How do you know I’m French?”
For a second he looks taken aback by the harshness in my question, but then he reverts to smirking.
“Stéphanie,” he mimics, exaggerating the French inflection way more than I did.
“Whatever. You’re named after a card game,” I fume.
He laughs for the first time. “I knew it. I knew you could get mad. I just wanted to see it for myself.”
He leaves me standing there speechless and clutching the coffee can as he turns to join his friends where they’re already walking towards the edge of the park.
“Goodbye, Stéphanie,” he shouts over his shoulder.
The Association building is just a few blocks away from the park. Loose change clinks around in the coffee can as I walk over with it hugged against my chest. This little walk on Sundays is usually one of the highlights of my week; I’m done at the dance studio for the day. I have the whole evening ahead of me to relax and enjoy the almost exhilarating rush of clarity that comes after a good meditation session.
Except today wasn’t a good meditation session.
I can still feel Ace’s eyes on me, see him smirking like he’s pulled back a magician’s curtain and found the secret trapdoor.
I see you, he seemed to be saying, and you’re a fake.
I dart across a busy road and onto the quiet, tree-dotted street where the AMM headquarters are. My yoga mat slips out from under my elbow, unrolling itself on the cracked sidewalk, and I let out a string of French curse words.
Relax, I tell myself as I bend down to roll the mat back up. You know that’s not true.
He was just an asshole out for a walk in the park who decided it would be funny to bother a pretty girl in her meditation class. The same thing has happened a few times before, and I never let it ruin my session for me.
Once I have my mat back in order, I walk up to the tiny porch on the front of the Association building. The roof overhead slopes heavily to the left and the shingles are peeling off like sunburnt skin, but there’s a pot of geraniums blooming on the step and a bright welcome mat on the floor.
I step inside and make my way down the narrow hallway of the converted two-bedroom house. Guita is in the kitchen/office, watering yet more pots of geraniums as she sings to herself in Arabic.
“Bonjour, Stéphanie,” she greets me in her rich Lebanese accent.
“Salut, Guita.”
I drop the coffee pot onto the table and grab the cashbox and logbook out of one of the cupboards.
“Comment était votre session aujourd’hui?”
“The class was okay,” I answer her. “There were more people than I expected in this humidity.”
She hums in response and continues with her singing. I dump the contents of the coffee can out and tally up the total before depositing it all in the slots of the cash box.
“Donations were good today,” I let Guita know. “Maybe we’ll finally get the porch fixed up. Sometimes I’m scared it’s going to collapse on my head.”
She lets out a silvery laugh and sets her watering pot down.
“You don’t seem like yourself today, Stéphanie. Usually you’re smiling and chatting and dancing when you come in here after your class.”
Guita is one of the most observant people I’ve ever met. After learning her life story over the years I’ve been coming to the AMM, I realized that figuring people out quickly is practically a skill she needed to learn to survive.
The thought puts my issues today into perspective. I shrug.
“I just couldn’t focus as much as usual. It was like I was back in the early days.”
We share a small smile. Guita was the one heading the Sunday sessions in the park when I first started coming to classes. She’s been dropping bits of wisdom into my life ever since.
“I’m going in the meditation room myself for a bit soon. Why don’t you join me?”
I agree without hesitation. Just being around Guita has already made me feel better.
The front room of the house is part lecture hall, part library, with a few crowded bookshelves and a pile of folding chairs stacked in a corner. The second room is for indoor meditation classes. It’s decked out with a plush carpet and big patterned cushions scattered all over the floor. Two huge potted bamboo plants flank the doorway, and artwork done by another one of our volunteers hangs on the walls.
Guita claims a pillow for herself, sinking to her knees and straightening the paisley skirt that matches her deep blue headscarf. I take the pillow across from her, and without a word to one another, we both close our eyes and start to breathe.
This is why I meditate.
I slip right into that deep level of concentration I couldn’t reach today in the park. The sound of Guita’s humming fades, then the room itself, and eventually even my breathing seems distant—separate from where I am right now. The sensation is like sinking and flying all at once. It’s the same heated rush of power combined with a cool sense of control that I always feel when I’m the middle of nailing a dance routine.
When I open my eyes twenty minutes later and stretch my arms up above my head, my mouth is pulled up into a smile I didn’t even realize I was wearing. Air pumps in and out of my lungs. Blood throbs in my veins. My muscles flex, ready to take me wherever I need to go.
I am strong. I am capable. I am at peace.
You’re here. I feel the words of my mantra vibrate through my entire body. You’re not there anymore. You’re here. You’re here.
3 Just || Radiohead
ACE
“He looks like a goblin.”
JP is not wrong. Maxime Beaulieu has the sharp nose, sharp nails, and sharp, toothy smile of an evil fairytale creature. I would not want to be around this guy while tripping on acid.
Every media-induced childhood instinct I have is telling me not to trust him, but that’s exactly what Atlas Records is asking us to do. The label set up yet another interview with a prospective manager to take over the still-vacant position. It’s been months since they coerced Shayla, our old manager, into quitting.
We’ve turned down everyone they’ve set us up with, and they’ve told us everyone we’ve brought in ourselves is ‘unsuitable.’ Technically we can hire whoever we want as a manager, but as Atlas has already proven, they have the power to make sure things go their way. It’s complete fucking bullshit.
“Yeah, that dude totally eats babies for breakfast,” Cole adds.
Maxime is busy taking a phone call outside the Atlas meeting room we’re in, giving us a chance to talk.
Matt runs his hands through his hair, looking more stressed out than ever.
And they think I’m the one who needs to meditate.
In our months without a manager, Matt has taken on a lot of the job himself. I’d almost feel bad for the guy if I didn’t know that being up to his neck in band-related stuff is his definition of a happy place. I swear he has wet dreams about shit like bookings and rehearsal schedules.
Not that this band means any less to me than it does to him. We started it together, just the two of us. Every time we get up on a stage, I feel like I’m being born again, like we’ve lit a fire that feeds on everything we are and burns away all our mistakes until we’re pure. I’d never give that up for anything, but unlike Matt, I’d rather just show up for gigs and studio sessions and let the rest all sort itself out.
“Yes, he is a goblin,” Matt sighs, “but we can’t keep functioning without a manager. Atlas wants production on ‘Nevermore’ wrapped up by the end of the summer so they can get a video in the works, and we can’t deal with all that if we don’t have a manager. We’re losing out on bookings, too.”
“Bookings?” JP groans. “We just toured for two months straight.”
“We’re playing bigger shows now,” Matt explains. “Bigger shows need to be booked farther in advance, and we need a manager who can nail them
down for us.”
“So we need the goblin to work his goblin magic,” JP surmises.
“We need a goblin,” Matt responds. “It doesn’t necessarily have to be this goblin, but we have to stop dicking around and just pick someone, even if it’s only for awhile.”
Outside, I hear the muffled sounds of Maxime yelling at someone in French.
“I miss Shayla,” JP says, stating what I’m sure is on all our minds right now.
Shayla was some kind of warrior priestess reborn as an entertainment manager. She scared us all shitless, but she believed in our band when no one else did, and she got us to where we are today. I know I’m not the only one who wishes we had her charging into all our meetings, leather jacket on and a take-no-prisoners glare on her face.
I glance at Matt and see him staring down at the floor, wearing a guilty expression. His now-girlfriend, Kay, is a music journalist, and the leaked draft of an article she wrote was the catalyst for us losing Shayla. Kay wasn’t supposed to be interviewing the band, but Matt went behind everyone’s backs to give her a shot at getting the ‘true Sherbrooke Station story’ when our newly-found fame was starting to tear us all apart.
“Hey,” I tell Matt, “cool it on the self-loathing. If you and Kay hadn’t done what you did, Shebrooke Station would have fallen apart. We lost Shayla, but we got to keep the band, so stop feeling so fucking chagrined about it.”
They might not be the most delicate words of encouragement, but he gives me a grateful nod all the same.
The door opens and Maxime strides back into the room.
Slinks back in? Prowls? Lurks? How do goblins move?
“Desolé, mes gars. Sorry, guys. I had to take that. Now, back to the opportunity I was just going to tell you about.” He settles down in a chair opposite the couch the four of us are crammed onto. “This is strictly confidential at the moment, but the organizers of the new La Rentrée festival have reached out to me.”
“La Rentrée?” I repeat.
It’s the French equivalent of ‘Back to School.’
“You haven’t heard of it?” Matt asks me. “It’s a new festival they’re putting together this September, aimed at all the students. It’s supposed to be like frosh on steroids, but all the acts were booked ages ago.”
There’s like three hundred festivals in Montreal every year so at first I’m not surprised I haven’t heard of this one, but Matt doesn’t stop staring at Maxime the whole time he speaks. I know that glint in his eyes, and I see the way his fingers are drumming against his leg; Matt wants this gig bad, so it must be a huge deal.
“There’s a rumour going around that one of the headliners is about to drop out,” Maxime explains.
“Headliners?” Matt repeats. “Cage The Elephant is headlining. Fucking Tame Impala is headlining.”
Shit. This isn’t some frosh week block party. This is a serious festival if they’re booking acts that big.
“And Foster The People,” Maxine continues, “but one of them—I don’t know which yet—might have a scheduling conflict, and the festival is reaching out to the top managers in Montreal to talk about replacements.”
His pointy mouth stretches into a goblin smile that makes my skin crawl. “Of course, if you were my band, you’d be the first name I’d offer up.”
There’s something creepily possessive about the way he says that.
“I think we’d like some time to discuss this,” I announce.
Maxime holds up his hands. “Take all the time you need, mes gars. You know where to find me. I just want to make sure La Rentrée knows where to find you. I owe the manager of GHOULS a favour, and I’d be tempted to get them that headliner slot if I don’t find anyone else.”
Another one of those toothy smiles and he’s gone, a few of his business cards left lying on the table in front of us.
“Fucking GHOULS?” JP exclaims. “No way are they taking our headlining spot.”
“Technically it’s not our spot,” Cole reminds him.
He jumps up off the couch. “This is our city! People here want us, not some maudit caves from Toronto.”
Just the mention of those wife beater-wearing asshats gets me going. GHOULS are an alt-rock trio who run in the same circuit as us and hit the charts around the same time we did. They’re also the biggest douchebags to scar the earth with their existence, and they hate us for always being just a few spots ahead of them on every list we both make. I once got in a Twitter war with their front man before I stopped and realized I was actually stooping to a fucking Twitter war.
Our fans loved it, though.
“We need to hire this guy,” I decide, “just so we can get that gig. I’m not handing over the biggest festival besides Osheaga to some jackasses who spell their name in all-caps.”
I actually have no idea if this is the biggest festival besides Osheaga, but suddenly I want it as much as Matt does.
“You’re just pissed you tied with their singer in that ‘Best Haircuts in Indie Rock Right Now’ poll,” Cole jabs.
“I did not even see that,” I lie.
“I did!” shouts JP. “I posted it in our Facebook group!”
“Hear me out on this,” Cole continues. “The gig sounds like hot shit, but if we know the festival will want us—which they will—can’t we just call them up ourselves?”
Matt’s about to answer when his phone pings with a text.
“Bastard,” he swears, staring down at the screen. “It’s Maxime. He just got off the phone with the festival. Tame Impala dropped out. Maxime told them he wished he could offer Sherbrooke Station, but that he has GHOULS ready to go instead.”
JP grabs one of the business cards off the table and pulls out his own phone. “That’s it. I’m calling Maxime, one Frenchman to another.”
He waits for the call to go through and then starts a rapid-fire conversation in French so fast even I can’t follow it. I pick up a few phrases like ‘contract’ and ‘put him on the line.’ About ten minutes later, he hangs up and tosses his phone onto the couch. We all stare at him expectantly as he pulls a pair of Ray Bans out of his pocket and slowly slides them on.
“Move over, Tame Impala,” he announces. “Sherbrooke Station is back in town.”
Then he bursts out into a French rap song I’m pretty sure he made up himself.
Later that evening, I’m out on my balcony with my Epiphone. The sunburst acoustic is just the cheap model most kids get for Christmas as their first guitar, but I bought mine myself when I was sixteen years-old. I think that’s why I’ve kept it after all these years; it’s the first thing I owned that wasn’t purchased by someone else. It’s the first thing that was really mine.
I have a whole guitar collection I’ve poured thousands of dollars into over the years, and I love those fucking things more than some people love their own kids. My Epiphone will always be the one that feels most like home to me, though. The strings need changing and there’s a crack in the wood under the bridge that means the sound is never quite right, but I strum through some Radiohead songs anyway, mumbling the words without really committing enough to call it singing.
Normally I’d have a bottle of Jack sitting beside me on the concrete. I cleaned my supply right out before we left for Europe, and I haven’t gone to the store to re-stock. I shouldn’t buy more. I’m not even sure I want to, but I know I will. Music used to be enough to wind me down on its own; now it’s like all my comforts have to come in pairs—a two-by-two, Noah’s ark-style parade of failed coping mechanisms.
Music and whiskey. Whiskey and sex. Sex and weed. Weed and music.
And poetry, I think, glancing behind me at the books stacked in precarious piles and lying with cracked spines on the floor. I used to read poetry.
That always filled the same space inside me as music did. That’s why I learned to play guitar: to turn all the words and sounds in my head into something more than a churning cyclone, because for some reason they never came out right on a page.
I break off in the middle of the C chord intro to ‘Just’ and rest my arm on the top of the guitar. I can’t remember the last time I played one of my own songs for fun; outside of rehearsals and shows, it’s always somebody else’s patterns my fingers follow on the fret board, somebody else’s words that come out of my mouth.
We’re supposed to be working on our new album right now. We’ve already got a handle on a track we’re hoping will be the first single—a song called ‘Nevermore.’ The guys are just waiting on me to finish the lyrics before we wrap up dicking around with it and start the actual production phase.
I told them I’m almost done, but I don’t even have a chorus yet. There’s this idea lurking in the back of my head, a shapeless shadow that disappears every time I turn around to corner it. I need the right bait if I’m going to trap it.
Whiskey and sex.
I didn’t sleep with anyone during the entire European tour. I had German girls pressing their tits into my face, and I didn’t even unhook a single bra or unbuckle my belt for any of them. I told myself I was just tired, that without drinking, the insane tour schedule was getting the best of me and sending me home alone to my bunk in the bus every night. The truth is, once the music started slipping away, everything else that keeps me grounded started to fade with it.
Not that I lost interest in sex completely. I stopped acting on it, but that craving to have a soft body arching under mine never totally went away. I run my fingers up the frets again, imagining a dim room and someone’s hot breath in my ear as my thighs flex between splayed legs and my teeth clamp down on a pale shoulder. I like leaving bruises. I like hearing those little gasps that are caught between pleasure and pain.
And blondes. I really fucking love blondes.
I wonder what Stéphanie would be like in bed. Would she fight back? Would she thrash on the mattress as I pinned her hands above her head? Bite down on my lip when I kissed her and leave me with bruises of my own?
She looked way too much like sunshine to not be capable of an eclipse.