Page 21 of Follow the Rhythm
“Hi, I’m Grace. We didn’t get a chance to meet before,” Grace said, extending a hand out for Bea to shake.
“A pleasure,” Bea simpered. She didn’t return the handshake.
Grace mouthed, “Okay, then,” and slumped in the seat across from me.
Ursula arrived carrying a laptop. To my surprise, Jess trailed behind her, a stack of papers in her arms. My stomach dropped as if I’d stepped off a cliff, but I thought I held myself together well. It felt like I’d manifested her appearance by brooding about her all morning.
She was wearing descenter again, but I could still detect her tart lime and ginger scent underneath it. She met my eyes,looking defiant, and I nodded in greeting. Jess settled in the seat next to Grace.
“Told you you’d get to know her,” Grace whispered to me, smiling smugly, and tugged affectionately on Jess’s long, dark braid.
Jess glared at her and hissed, “Be professional.” She was wearing a high-neck shirt, so I couldn’t see any bite marks.
“I’m not one for small talk,” Ursula said abruptly. “Here are the concepts I’ve been working on.”
She plugged in her laptop and started flipping through a prepared deck. “I think we keep the overall stage design pretty simple. No moving parts. But we lean into the dark fantasy theme of the last album with lighting, video, and a few larger set pieces.”
Into the Gardenwas a concept album about a man spiraling deeper and deeper into madness. In hindsight, I should’ve asked more questions about some of Michael’s lyrics.
I looked over at Jess. She was rapt, completely absorbed in Ursula’s explanation of the set pieces she wanted to build, including a massive tree that would be rolled out in the middle of the set for several songs.
Charlie, the tour manager, arrived, a bit out of breath. “Sorry, Urs,” he said, grinning. “Hope I didn’t miss anything too important.”
When he looked towards Jess, his whole body stiffened, and her eyes grew impossibly wider. Charlie opened his mouth but didn’t say anything. Jess was radiating tension. He nodded at her and then sank into the seat next to me.
“Don’t make this a habit,” Ursula snapped at him.
“What? Oh yeah, sorry,” Charlie said, sounding a little dazed.
Grace met my eyes and raised her eyebrows. “What was that?” she mouthed. I furrowed my brow and shook my head slightly.
“As I was saying, Jess here has some great illustrations. I think we could adapt them for video,” Ursula said, pulling up a slide of art prints. Each was a woman with an animalistic aspect: a woman with antlers rising from beneath her hair, one with ram’s horns curling from her forehead, one with massive wings like an owl, and a woman with the ears and nose of a rabbit. They were brilliant, but also desperately sad somehow. I flicked my eyes to Jess again.
“Oh my god,” Bea said, wrinkling her nose. “Those are awful. You can't seriously be thinking of using them.”
Ellis shushed her, and she glared at him. But he was staring from Jess to the illustrations on the screen with a look almost as dazed as Charlie’s. Jess had angled herself completely away from him and was refusing to look at anyone except Ursula.
“Jess?” he asked, sounding choked. “Is that you?”
Chapter 6 - Jess
What an absolute clusterfuck. First Charlie shows up, and then Ellis had to choose my first meeting with my new boss to finally get his head out of his ass?
When Grace had called me to say the tour production manager was looking for a junior designer, and she’d agreed to meet with me, I’d thought she was joking at first.
“She wants to meet withme? Based on what? My weird online store that I showed you?” I’d asked.
“And your portfolio,” Grace answered. “I can Google things, too. She said you seem talented, and she likes your sense of humor. I think she bought one of the possum stickers.”
I hadn’t wanted to take the meeting, but my bank account was crying out for mercy already. Turns out paying for all my food, rather than eating Austin’s delicious cooking at the Center, was pretty expensive. Even though the thought of seeing Ellis again made me go hot and cold with dread, I didn’t have the luxury of saying no to a paying gig.
The interview with Ursula, conducted over Zoom, had gone really well. I instantly liked her give-no-fucks vibe. She was tough, and told me bluntly that it would be a ton of work, but sheseemed fair. She also promised extra payment if the band agreed to use some of my illustrations in the show.
“I only got one real reservation,” she had said at the end of the meeting. “The Omega thing. Is that gonna be a problem? Cause I thought you girls had to be bonded to, ya know, not go crazy.”
“No, it won’t be a problem. When you get to be a crusty old Omega like me, the… impulses are easier to control. It also helps when you basically hate all men.”
Ursula groaned. “Don’t talk tomeabout being old, kid. And as long as you promise not to go feral on me, you’re hired.”
