So there was no way around talking to Michelle, whether it suited her now or not.
Still holding the door handle in one hand, the other leaning against the door frame from the outside, she carefully pushed herself into the open door.
"Mrs Mimieux..." She waited a moment, but nothing happened.
"Mrs. Mimieux???!", she repeated now a little louder and in addition knocked carefully on the door. Scared Michelle looked up. She had obviously not heard her enter and was now scared to death. Immediately the energy changed, the brittle and inaccessible Michelle was back after this short moment of weakness.
"What do they want?" she yelled at Adolé.
"Ahem. Excuse me. I knocked. We need to talk about our project, she and I. We should decide what we want to do, what music we want to make together. Otherwise the band won't know which direction we want to go in anyway. And that's not good," she stuttered, for which she was immediately annoyed with herself.
"Can't it wait?" replied Michelle, simultaneously angry and monosyllabic.
"I fear not," Adolé returned truthfully. "The musicians don't even know to begin with what we have in mind, what we want to do. We haven't even talked about which fellow musicians we like or which music styles and songs we like. Somehow we should find a common denominator that stands for our work. A certain framework. So that even in our absence the musicians know roughly how our CD should sound...".
Undecidedly, Adolé remained standing in the doorway. She expected a reasonable reaction, but as so often, Michelle gave her the exact opposite.
"What makes you think I would discuss this with you? It was your idea, this collaboration. Then you'd better find a way to handle it yourself!" Then she got up, went to the door and slammed it in Adolé's face without another word.
5.
After this repeated failure Adolé was finally fed up. She was tired of running after that stuck-up piano player and chumming up. After all, she was an accomplished musician herself. What she had expected was a cooperation on equal terms, and in her world, this also included that the other component of this work would behave according to her level, her ability and her age. Who did this Michelle actually think she was?!
Furious she had returned to the studio musicians and had to calm down again. Furious, she told them that "Mme Mimieux", as she was called from now on, had not rested to tell her. Therefore she could do what they wanted, including Adolé, because of her, they wouldn't take Michelle into consideration any more - the main thing was that sometime an album was made. The only important thing was that it was presentable and that it could possibly be used for a collaboration with "Mrs. Mimieux", although this was demonstrably not the case. But as long as the studio musician, who was responsible for piano, piano and all other keyboard instruments and had an excellent command of them, could play the corresponding passages, everything was in order for Adolé from now on.
And now that the fronts had been settled and Adolé did not have to make any further efforts to please Michelle or to work peacefully with her, life was much more relaxed. Adolé at least felt freed from the pressure to establish a reasonable collaboration with the pianist - she had done everything. Ultimately, this was something that Mrs. Mimieux should also strive for and was also her responsibility. But if she blocked herself in this way, she would accept it from now on.
In the meantime it didn't matter to her how she had to look back on this session at the end of the studio time. At least a rather mannerly result was guaranteed and that had to be enough. In her eyes all this was not her problem anymore. After all, she had tried hard to create a common working basis and to provide polite manners - but thanks to "Mrs. Mimieux" unfortunately without success.
The next days were reasonably productive and quiet together with the team. While Adolé, as usual, came into the studio quite early and successfully composed and rehearsed one or the other song with a small group of musicians, Michelle always appeared - if at all - in the late afternoon and then stayed until late into the night. She had won over two of the studio musicians and was now working independently with them on other pieces. After all, they hardly overlapped in their presence in the studio.
Adolé, who was used to seeing the positive in everything, had finally made a conscious decision for this project and for an approach with jazz music and thus for a style of music that was still missing in her repertoire and that she liked very much. It was precisely this slightly swinging bar music that particularly appealed to her. With these rhythms one automatically imagined a smoky, sparsely lit New York cellar bar. She literally saw a lonely piano player playing evergreens by Frank Sinatra and Cole Porter, the Pepita hat on his head, an almost burned butt in the corner of his mouth and a whiskey glass on the piano. This was something completely new for her, a new experience she liked despite all initial doubts and in which she is now completely absorbed.
Now and then she even almost regretted that they basically had the world's best pianist in their immediate vicinity and at their disposal and could have worked intensively with her on these atmospherically dense and imaginative compositions. She loved studio recordings and had her most creative moments when she felt most comfortable, usually after hours in the recording studio, when the ashtrays were overflowing with the cigarettes smoked by the band and they had really grooved. Unfortunately, the stiff and unapproachable Michelle Mimieux didn't fit into the picture at all, who obviously did everything to sabotage a real team result and who seemed to be able to work alone, isolated and independent from the others in the studio.
Adolé had resigned herself to it, but she still could not understand it. She hadn't been thrilled either when Roswitha came around the corner with this unusual idea, but by now she understood the meaning behind this action and even had something like fun with it. Besides, she knew - because she had tried it over and over again without success over the years - that there was absolutely no point in resisting Roswitha once she had got something into her head. She was too experienced and too determined for that, Adolé knew that.
So at some point she simply started to see these experiences, which were not the order of the day for her either, as an enrichment and change in her everyday touring life. At first, she was reluctant to accept them, but then at some point this certain desire for the unusual and experimental outweighed, in which every outsider saw no sense at first, but which was nevertheless there at the end, and that quite obviously. It was astonishing how positive something could be, if you just gave it a chance. Suddenly she even enjoyed it a lot, because nobody expected something like this album from her. So it was just good. That was the special attraction.
Therefore, there were no rules that could be followed or broken. Adolé could not understand that a grown woman like Michelle Mimieux, at her age and with her experience, would not see it the same way, but would prefer to behave like a pubescent teenager in front of the whole team.
Adolé sighed softly once more and, lost in thought, made his way to the kitchen. It was already later than usual when she thoughtfully pushed open the door to the kitchen with her foot to help herself to the coffee machine as usual.
In one hand she held her empty coffee cup, in the other her mobile phone, which she looked at incessantly as she made her way, as if by remote control, towards the refrigerator, next to which the coffee machine was placed. The other musicians had already finished their work and Adolé wanted to take the opportunity to give some of the scores a little more fine-tuning, especially since there had been nothing to be seen of Mrs. Mimieux all day long.
She liked being in the studio all by herself sometimes. Finally a piece of freedom, although there was no question that she also enjoyed teamwork and only in this way the most extraordinary pieces were created. It would be so beautiful and so practical if "Mrs. Mimieux" would at least leave her mark on her music, at least on paper. Her unique and special playing would do the record and the individual songs so much good.
"And so do you," thought Adolé amusedly - this nef
arious bar atmosphere of the twenties, just like in the days of the RatPack - and in the middle of it all, the stiff Michelle Mimieux, who just sat there apathetically and obviously swallowed a stick. Adolé couldn't let go of this image, because it didn't fit together at all - on the one hand this music of pure joy of life, on the other hand this controlled, fun-loving musician, who obviously denied herself any joy in life. Adolé grinned and wondered why "the Mimieux" made life so difficult when everything could be so simple. She should loosen up!
Lost in thought, she went further into the kitchen and around some of the kitchen furniture, further and further towards the coffee machine. Inexpediently, it was placed on the side of the kitchen room and therefore not near the entrance. Suddenly she noticed that, contrary to her expectations, she was not alone in the studio. She blinked in the sparse light of the extractor hood through the jumble of kitchen utensils hung there at the bottom end and suddenly stopped moving. In the semi-darkness, she recognized the shadowy outlines of Michelle Mimieux, who had pressed her cell phone to her ear, pushed completely into the shadows of the farthest corner. She apparently also thought she was all alone in the studio at the time. While leaning against one of the stainless steel cupboards, she was fortunately looking in a different direction, engrossed in a half-French, half-German discussion.
Adolé was deeply frightened and stopped as if rooted to the ground. This situation was unpleasant for her, she did not want to have to go through such a delicate encounter with the pianist again, but at first she did not know how to free herself from this situation, which was unpleasant for both of them.
While she was still standing there, feverishly pondering how to leave the kitchen room quietly and unnoticed, she heard fragments of sentences that were clearly confidential and under no circumstances intended for a stranger, let alone for her. Apparently Mrs Mimieux was involved in an argument, because Adolé snapped up angry half sentences like "...I don't know how... "...do what I can...", "Mon Dieu... "...hard to implement... ", ""I don't like it at all! "...on.
To avoid intruding further into the privacy of a person who had already clearly shown her what she thought of her, Adolé carefully began to move backwards, turning around and tiptoeing out of the room. While she continued to hold her empty coffee cup tightly with one hand, she tried to shimmy along the stainless steel polished kitchen cupboards towards the exit with the other hand. As quickly and as quietly as possible, she crept over the floor tiles, still wet from cleaning, further and further back in the direction from which she had come, when she suddenly got stuck on one of the pots placed underneath the shelf and rattled it loudly to the floor.
At first she stood still as if frozen, but then she turned around. Her heart was pounding in her throat, hot and cold became like her.
Like a cat, Michelle Mimieux only needed a few elegantly quick steps until she was with her, the mobile phone still in her hand, but pressed firmly to her chest.
"How dare you?! Why are you listening to other people's conversations!!?" Michelle Mimieux also indignantly addressed her. She was not even out of breath after her short sprint, which had covered the not inconsiderable distance from her hiding place in the semi-darkness of the farthest corner to the unhappy Adolé, and now she built herself up in front of her. "What impudence!" she added without waiting for an answer.
While Adolé was still busy maintaining her composure and coming up with a plausible explanation, she looked down, which did not further irritate her opponent. Michelle Mimieux continued to express her indignation vehemently.
"I've never experienced anything like this before," Michelle Mimieux pointed out with her delightful French accent.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to," Adolé began stammering. "I thought I was alone and I was just going to the coffee machine when I..." And that was as far as she got. Again the Frenchwoman cut her off abruptly.
"They can tell that to whoever they want! Mind your own business and don't snoop around after me," she yapped at Adolé. "But I wasn't... ", she continued to try to explain herself and calm down, but Mimieux was not reassured.
It took Adolé a while to get her act together and then she realized that "Mrs. Mimieux" had approached her in a completely inappropriate manner, since she had not done anything reprehensible. So slowly it was enough for her. She began to collect herself, straightened up and looked Michelle Mimieux straight in the eyes. She took a deep breath, hoping fervently that her voice wouldn't break away when she answered her firmly:
"So Mrs Mimieux, I've had enough too! Who do you think you are? This is a music studio, in case you haven't noticed. We work here and record here - unfortunately without you - already for days "our" common record. Or should I say: my record?! Because every attempt to integrate it has failed miserably so far. Why actually?! What is their problem? Why is there nothing to be seen of them here most of the time!
And if I take the liberty of entering the communal kitchen in the middle of the night during my work, which should actually be our joint work, to get a coffee here after exhausting recordings, please don't blame me. I've done that a dozen times before, without meeting you here by chance and noticing too late how you are hiding in the last corner in the semi-darkness like an immature teenager, as if you had something to hide. Plus, I had no way of knowing they were even here. After all, they haven't shown themselves all day today!"
She was astonished that the otherwise rebellious and quick-witted pianist had not yet interrupted her. So she continued speaking unmoved. "...and now, if you'll excuse me, unlike you, I have business here. And my management does not wait! “
With this she circled the amazed French woman and left her standing in the kitchen, simply baffled.
6.
Several days had passed since the incident in the communal kitchen. Adolé was feeling well. It was liberating to be able to get the frustration off her chest so directly. Michelle had shown up in the studio even less than she had anyway and in the end she had disappeared from the face of the earth. "Well, actually," Adolé thought almost amusedly, "the situation is unchanged. She's not here after our "conversation" as she was before..."
She was right, apart from the fact that her recording counterpart had at least buzzed secretly through the studio, nothing had changed - now you couldn't even see her anymore. Basically, she and the team were happy about it, because now at least they were among themselves. Somehow everything always had its good sides.
Roswitha was also at the end of her Latin and that should mean something. She, as one of the leading responsible persons, could look back on the recordings so far, because fortunately, thanks to the creative studio team, they went quite well, independent of the French troublemaker. But of course she was not happy with the situation.
This was not what they had imagined when she and Ella cooked up this amazing scheme. After all, the plan was to collaborate with two world stars, whose experience and musical talent and emotions would be equally shared in this work. Instead, Adolé had taken sole responsibility for the work with the studio team, while Michelle kept completely out of it. Worse still, Michelle's occasional and unpredictable presence in the studio also caused great anxiety. Her main absence and non-participation in this major musical project had long since become the norm. However, her sporadic presence generated additional work, because the press had to be made to believe that they were working together as an equal team.
But Adolé also did not know a solution how to bring the French winger to her senses if she simply did not keep to her contractual obligations - except, of course, that afterwards the financial returns had to be divided up accordingly. After all, Mrs Mimieux had contributed almost nothing to the project.
She had already talked to Michelle's manager because of her unexpected stubbornness, but her intervention hadn't helped either. So they had generally prepared themselves to carry out the project on their own. Given the situation, Adolé was not at all dissatisfied. After all, at least it still meant that she could do what she wanted
and did not have to deal with the pianist and her probably controversial opinion. At least that!
And so the originally jointly planned project went ahead, albeit moderately, but somehow satisfactorily under these adverse circumstances.
Roswitha only had one last idea to ease the generally difficult relationship between the two musicians, including the studio team. So on a Saturday evening, she invited everyone to a joint dinner in a hip Hamburg restaurant.
She hoped that everyone involved in the project would meet under neutral circumstances and perhaps get to know each other in a new and more relaxed way. This would possibly give new impulses, not only for the development of the music in the project. Especially for the poisoned relationship between the two main protagonists, this was to be a final attempt at debate. Convincing Adolé to participate was, as always, not difficult, as she was never averse to a good meal. Ella, however, had had to use all her powers of persuasion and appeasement to convince Mrs Mimieux to go to the restaurant that evening and behave in a reasonably respectable manner.
The Pianoplayer: A lesbian love story Page 3