by Katia Rose
I missed a meeting with Atlas Records, an important one we’ve known about for months. They flew a bunch of executives in from Toronto, and when I didn’t show, they just moved on to the next band on the list.
It’s bad enough we didn’t even have the ‘Nevermore’ demo we were supposed to show them, Matt’s latest text reads. We need you for shit like this. You know that, Ace. Atlas doesn’t give a fuck about us unless we have you. Do you want them to fucking drop us?
He’s right about that. We rarely bring it up, but we all know it’s true: in Atlas’ eyes, I’m the face of this band. I’m the one magazines slap on their covers and I’m the reason fans pay overpriced premiums to get access to meet and greets. I usually see it as a kind of safety net, but Matt seems pissed enough that I could be wrong.
I dial his number. He doesn’t even say hello when he picks up.
“Where were you?”
“I was—”
“Oh, wait. I forgot that I don’t give a fuck.”
“Matt—”
He ignores me. “I don’t think you realize the kind of shit you’ve just put us in. That meeting was our ticket to the future of our career. I despise working with this label as much as the rest of you—much more than the rest of you, actually—but I’m trying to make the best of a bad situation, and you getting so fucked up you can’t even—”
“I wasn’t fucked up, man,” I cut in. “I was writing. I’m almost done with ‘Nevermore.’ I’ve had this...breakthrough, and—”
“You’ve been ‘almost’ done that song for two months, Ace. We’ve had extension after extension after extension. Atlas isn’t going to wait.”
“They don’t have to. We can start recording on Monday.”
That shuts him up, for a few seconds at least.
“Well if that’s true, that’s great,” he tells me, a hard edge still present in his voice. “The only problem is that we’re banned from using their facilities until you prove you’ve cleaned up your act.”
“Cleaned up my act?” I repeat. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means they’re not going to let us record with them until they’re convinced you’re no longer a ‘loose cannon’—their words, not mine; I would have called you something worse—and since our contract states we have to make two more fucking albums with these assholes before we release music with anyone else, this is kind of putting a stalemate on our career.”
Matt’s a drama queen when it comes to shit like this, but I can hear the hint of fear in his anger now.
“Look, it’s not that bad,” I try to placate him. “I’ll have the song ready. I’m serious when I said it was a breakthrough. I have this idea for the concept of the album—”
He doesn’t let me finish. “We’re meeting with Maxime today to sort this out. I already sent you the details. Be there.”
He hangs up.
Three hours later, we’re all sitting in the living room of the apartment Matt and JP share. The place is littered with JP’s half-finished ‘restoration projects.’ The guy has an addiction to garage sales and fucking around with minor machinery.
Maxime sits in an armchair while the rest of us crowd together on the sagging couch. Matt refused to hold the meeting in our basement rehearsal space, and I don’t begrudge him the fact. I forgot how much this guy actually looks like a goblin. It’s fucking creepy. I wouldn’t want him in the basement. I don’t know how Matt can handle having him in the apartment.
“I can make this all go away,” Maxime is telling us, “with un petit peu de coopération. Atlas has made it clear what they want.”
“Which is...?” Cole prompts.
“Rehab,” Maxime answers flatly. “Or AA. Some sort of structured professional help.”
I let out a sharp laugh. “That’s funny.”
No one else joins me. I lean forwards on the couch.
“Rehab? Seriously? I’m not addicted to anything. I spent two months on tour without drinking a single drop. In Europe, for fuck’s sake.”
Another moment of silence.
“I don’t think you’re an addict,” Cole finally says, stroking his chin like a fucking sage, “but I do think you could easily become one.”
I jump to my feet. “This is bullshit. Atlas can’t ask me to do that. There is nothing in the contract about anything like that.”
“C’est vrai,” Maxime offers, “but they can drop you off the label if you don’t.”
“They wouldn’t do that. We’re their biggest band.”
“You’re their fifth most lucrative asset,” Maxime corrects.
“We’re going to be their biggest band,” I argue back, “and they know it. They’re bluffing. They’re just trying to prove how big their dick is right now.”
Matt reaches up and pulls me back down on the couch. “A few months ago I would have agreed with you, but they’re getting tired of this. If they don’t feel like they can control us, we’re no good to them. It’s too soon in our career for us to survive the stigma of being dropped, especially from a label as big as Atlas. It would end us.”
I barely hear what he’s saying. There’s no way I’m going through with this. Rehab, counselling, ‘talking’ about my ‘problems’—that’s not an option for me. I was taught from a young age that skeletons belong in the closet and dirt belongs under the rug. No fucking way I’m letting some therapist try to shine the light of truth where it doesn’t belong.
There has to be another way out. I’m fine. I’m in control. Sure I miss meetings every now and then, but I wrote several songs in the span of two days. I fucking meditated last night.
Then it hits me.
“What if I had a personal meditation coach?” I demand, cutting off Matt’s continued speech. “Does that count?”
I can feel all the guys’ eyes on me.
“Sure,” Maxime answers, looking a bit stunned.
“Done,” I assert. “When do we start recording?”
8 Maarval || OIJ
STÉPHANIE
When I walk into the kitchen at the AMM house, Guita and Luc—another one of our volunteers—are both hunched over a laptop on the kitchen counter.
“What’s up?” I ask, nodding at the laptop as I get the cash box out and set my coffee can down on the table.
Sherbrooke Station didn’t show up for my class today. I thought I might open my eyes after meditating and find Ace Turner sitting in the back row, giving me that lethal little smile of his, but he didn’t turn up at all.
Probably hungover, I tell myself. Probably for the best.
I haven’t been able to stop thinking about him. He looked so lost, standing in the dark street on Thursday night, the shadows deepening the hollows of his cheeks and the purple skin under his eyes. He looked so damn beautiful and lost, like a diamond ring glittering in the gutter.
A few years ago, I would have jumped down into a ditch for a guy like that. I would have seen the sparkle, and I wouldn’t have cared how dirty I got going after it. I know better now. I dragged myself out of the mud with a promise to never get sucked back in again.
“Stéphanie, did you hear me?”
Guita and Luc are both staring at me over the top of the laptop screen.
“Desolé,” I apologize. “What did you say?”
“I said,” Guita repeats herself, “that we’ve gotten a request I think you’ll be interested in.”
“A request?”
Luc points toward the screen. “It’s an email that came in today. Someone is looking for private meditation classes.”
“Do we...do that?” I ask.
“Normally no, but they’d like to pay for them.”
I feel myself tense up at the words. That goes against everything we stand for here. The entire organization is run on donations and volunteer work. This is the kind of place everyone can feel welcome, whether or not they’re able to pay for it.
Guita must know exactly what I’m thinking because she rushes to explain more.
“I didn’t like the sound of that either,” she tells me, “but they’ve also offered to make a...well, a considerable donation to the association. They’d like to take classes once a week and offered to pay the teacher for their time in addition to the donation. I thought of you, Stéphanie. I know that with ta maman...Well, I just thought you might want to consider it.”
I haven’t told Guita everything about my mom, but she’s been my confidante on more than one occasion. She knows enough to understand that times have rarely been anything but tough.
“I couldn’t do that,” I answer firmly. “I don’t do this for money. If you want me to teach a private class and give whatever money they offer to the centre, I’ll do it, but—”
“Guita and I have been going over finances,” Luc interrupts me. “We’ve already made much more in donations this summer than we did last year, and with this new donation, we have enough to cover our costs for awhile.”
“Still, I—”
“Stéphanie.” Guita steps out from behind the counter and puts her hands on her hips. “This is a place that exists to help people, in any way that it can. You bring so much positivity to our association, and if we can give even a bit of that gift back to you, we want to do it. This isn’t about money. This is about kindness and gratitude and helping the people we care about.”
Guita is hard to argue with even on a regular day. When she goes full on Meditation Mother on me, I can’t say no to anything she asks.
“Merci,” I murmur. “That means a lot. I still don’t think this is right, though.”
“Would knowing how much you’d make per week change your mind?” Luc asks.
He gives me a number, and my eyes almost pop out of my head. With the extra hours at the studio, I’d be doing well enough to keep both my and maman’s fridges full of food—cheap food, but still, food.
“Does that interest you?” Luc prompts.
“I think that would interest anyone,” I joke. “That would make a big difference for my family. How many sessions a week would it be?”
“Two,” Luc answers. “An hour and a half each. Their schedule is flexible, so you could fit it in with your other work.”
I’m just about ready to agree, but there’s one last question on my mind.
“Who are these sessions for?” I ask.
Luc chuckles. “We, uh, don’t actually know that. The message came from their representative, someone named Maxime Beaulieu. I think they must be some kind of lawyer or politician, someone who doesn’t have time to send their own emails.”
I’m already trying to add the new sum to the total of my usual cheque from the studio. I’m going to grab a calculator as soon as this conversation is done.
“Okay, you’ve convinced me,” I tell them. “When do I start?”
Three days later, I’m sitting on one of the folding chairs in the AMM’s library. I figured we could start in here to go over my new student’s experience with mediation and their expectations for the sessions before we move into the meditation room itself.
The association has never been able to afford an air conditioning unit for the house, so I sit directly in the breeze coming from a floor fan and tap my fingers against the side of my chair. My new meditate-ee is already ten minutes late. I hum the tune of the Jenn Grant song I set my contemporary choreography to. I just came from the studio, and in my head, I’m still correcting students and shouting encouragement as they flounder through the complicated roll combos.
Another five minutes tick by as the whirring of the fan drones through the room. I push up out of my chair and start walking through some steps on the hardwood floor before spinning my way through a few à la seconde turns.
I almost fall over when I hear the applause coming from the doorway.
“I thought you might be a dancer.”
I whip around to face the person speaking. I’m met with the same chiselled face and lanky, black and denim-clad body I’ve been thinking about for days.
“Why’s that?” I demand, letting the first thought that flies into my head slip out.
I’m in a pair of jean shorts long enough to be professional and a loose knitted top. Instead of answering my question out loud, Ace just lets his gaze travel up and down my bare legs.
Right. In the days we’ve been apart, I forgot that he’s not just a beautiful mess. He’s also a maudit connard who doesn’t know the meaning of the word inappropriate.
“Up here,” I snap, as his eyes linger on my thighs and I fight the sudden urge to clench them. “We don’t have any lectures or classes today, so...what exactly are you doing here?”
“I have a private session booked.”
The bottom of my stomach drops. There’s a rushing in my ears that’s more than just the noise of the fan. My face must betray my shock, because Ace smirks at me.
“I take it by your reaction that you’re my teacher,” he drawls, “and you didn’t know I was your student.”
I open my mouth to speak, but he holds up a finger.
“And before you ask, no, I’m not fucking with you. I didn’t know either.”
“I thought you were a lawyer,” I babble, “Luc said...”
I trail off when I notice his stare of confusion and try to pull myself together.
“Do you still want to go through with this?” I ask.
He pushes off from where he’s leaning on the doorframe and steps into the room.
“Why wouldn’t I?”
Just a few minutes ago I was calm and focused, caught up in the movements of my body and the gleam of sunlight on the floorboards. Now I’m on high alert. My thoughts whirl around as fast as my spins from earlier, but without any of the same control. There’s just this cyclical feeling, like I’m a planet launched out of my orbit, revolving towards some inevitable crash. Surely he has to feel it too?
“I just want to make sure you’re comfortable with this,” I tell him.
He grabs a folding chair from the stack against the wall, flipping the seat down with just a jerk of his arm before settling himself in it and leaning back with his arms crossed over his chest. With him seated in front of me like this, it almost feels like we’re set up for some kind of performance.
A private show.
“I’m comfortable if you are.” He lets his smirk drop. “You can tell me if you’re not. Really. I can find someone else to be my coach, no questions asked.”
Comfortable is the last word I’d use to describe myself right now, but deep down I know he’s being genuine. He wouldn’t hesitate to leave if I told him to.
I let myself sink into my own chair.
“Let’s give it a try,” I offer, “but if I catch you with your eyes open when they’re supposed to be closed, we’re done.”
“Got it.”
“And I don’t do refunds.”
The smirk is back. “Got that too.”
“Good.” I tug on the hem of my shorts. “So I planned on starting this first session with a discussion about your expectations—you know, why you’re here, what you want to get out of meditation, how much you’ve meditated before. That kind of thing.”
After four years of teaching at the dance studio and two years of volunteering with the AMM, slipping into Instructor Mode is something of an instinct for me. I can feel my focus coming back with each sentence I speak.
“Honestly,” Ace answers, reaching up to scratch the back of his neck, “I’m here because I have to be. My manager dropped me off at this place and then literally hung around in his car to make sure I went inside. This is part of an...arrangement with my record label.”
That explains a lot. His band mates practically frog-marched him to that session in the park. It makes sense that he’s only taking these classes because of an obligation. Still, I feel a weird pang of disappointment to know he doesn’t actually want to be here.
“No one has to do anything,” I tell him. “That’s one of the most important things I’ve learned here: you always have a choice
. The consequences of not coming to classes here might be so bad they make you feel powerless, but they’re still an option. You just decided this one was better.”
I remember the day Guita first introduced me to that concept. I stayed behind after the group session to debate her on it for almost half an hour, and I left still not believing it was true. It was only after a few months of meditation that the idea really sunk in.
Everything is a choice: our thoughts, our feelings, where we go and what we do. Even if the only other option is giving up, it’s still there, and there’s a certain power to that.
“You believe that?” Ace asks me, his arms still crossed in front of him. “You believe there’s always another option?”
“I do,” I answer without hesitation.
There’s a challenge in his tone when he asks, “Is breathing a choice? Is the urge to swim to the surface when you’re drowning, or...”—he pauses and shifts in his chair—“or to pry a pair of hands off your neck a choice?”
“We’re talking about rationality here,” I protest, ignoring the shiver creeping up my spine. “Those are survival instincts. They’re—”
“You don’t think human beings can feel something so deeply it becomes a survival instinct?”
My counter-argument dies in my throat. His words clang and echo in my head with a deep kind of truth I want to reject but can’t. He tilts his head, inviting me to contradict him.
“What do you love most, Stéphanie? What do you want so much you can’t not have it?”
I’m the teacher here, but somehow he’s asking the questions now.
“Think about that and then tell me again what your opinions on choices are.”
What do you want so much you can’t not have it?
I knew the answer before he even finished the question. I would move a mountain just to be able to dance. I have moved mountains, in my mind at least. Even when I swore I was done with it, that I’d never slip on a pair of ballet shoes or turn another pirouette again, the need to move to music—almost primal in its urgency—never left me. It clawed at me from the inside out until I had to let it escape.