AJ buzzed again, trying to temper Winifred’s tantrum, “If you leave, Winnie, you’re in breach of contract.”
“Then, I fucking quit! Fuck you all! This is a joke!”
She raced off. I stood to pace. AJ banged his head on the edge of the board.
“It’s all gone. All over!” I panicked as the band argued on the other side of the booth. “Goodbye UniVox! God, it’s so stupid that I even care this much!”
“You care because you want revenge for missing out last year,” AJ said. “And I feel awful, you know? The song deserves everything.”
“It’s just a pop song, AJ.” I pulled at the roots of my hair. “No one is going to die over it.”
His eyes softened as I met his gaze. “It’s okay to admit it means something.”
“Oh, stop it with the puppy dog eyes and sympathy, mate! You’re going to make me sick!”
“What? I just want to see you get justice. This is your song?—”
“And if we lose all our studio time, it doesn’t matter, does it?” I said. “It’s justasong. I will be able to pay the bills?—”
“‘Justice’ isthesong, Marit. You know it and so does everyone in this place.”
Barry chimed, “We’re losing time here. We’ve got an idea and I think we can still salvage this.”
I crossed my fingers and braced.Please don’t suggest that Alicia sing lead. The song is all wrong for her.
I buzzed the band back. “I will pay for another slot. We need to find a new singer. I can’t get someone here in the next ninety minutes. Sorry.”
Alicia stepped up, “Our idea is you can sing it.”
“I don’t… I’m not singing lead, Li. I’m a fucking guitarist.”
“Who has a killer voice,” Barry chimed. “Why not you? You sold us on this song. It is your baby.”
“Yeah, well, It’s not the right song forme.”
“Come on and try it. Please!” Alicia pouted and made prayer hands.
I buzzed a last time. “Fine. Your pleading worked this time—and this time only.”
Alicia jumped excitedly.
“I think it’s a good idea,” AJ shrugged.
I lifted the cans from the music stand and adjusted the mic to my much shorter stature. The snicker elicited from the band eased my worries. AJ gave a thumbs up. I nodded at the band. Barry counted us in. I hadn’t performed in a studio in the past few years beyond a demo. My hands shook and my stomach churned. Before the chorus’s first bar, I called it off.
“I’m just not in the mood to do this upbeat song,” I said.
“It’s not upbeat, though,” Alicia said. “It’s a ‘fuck you’ song.”
“Justice”wasa fuck you song with an unmistakably hooky riff—one I wrote in no time while in my feelingsover my previous UniVox failure. I listened to Bea and Alicia and channeled my rage over my former mentor for burying the song that should have won last year’s UniVox along with all my hopes in a Stockholm trash heap.
I counted us in again, feeling better, but still not right.
I called back to AJ. “How much time do we have left?”
He checked. “Twenty minutes.”
I cringed. It was a three-minute song, but we barely nailed the first minute and were starting from square one.
