Page 18 of Your Rhythm
5Sick Muse || Metric
KAY
“You look like a zombie.”
“That’s not a very nice way to talk about your Work Wife, Pierre.”
Pierre shrugs in his desk chair. “Honesty is the best politic.”
“Policy, Pierre, policy.”
“Whatever. You thought ‘chicken’ in French was ‘chicon.’”
“I still think that’s an understandable mistake!”
I can act as offended as I want, but I know his zombie comment is accurate. Monday morning hit me like a freight train. Weekends are always busy for me since that’s when most things ‘Arts and Culture’ are going down in the city, and I never caught up on my sleep after hurrying to finish my Sherbrooke Station article on Friday night.
I keep wondering whether Matt has read it yet. I can’t get the picture of him in the crowd at Café Cléo out of my mind. He had his head thrown back, his hair dark with sweat, and all his features were brushed with a breathless kind of bliss. I knew exactly what he was feeling in that moment: the kind of freedom that only comes from letting go of yourself, from giving up your hold on reality and letting the music create a new one for you.
I used to feel like that when I went to shows. I remember walking into the bright lights of the lobby after the first real concert I ever went to, head swimming with sound as me and my friends replayed all the highlights together, buzzing with that post-show energy that sometimes lasts for days.
Even then, at just fifteen years old, I realized there were stories in those moments, and that I wanted to be the person to find them, to give them a voice. Music is one of the most powerful things we have; it takes over us to change the way we think and feel. I knew something that could shape so many lives was worth investigating and keeping a record of.
I don’t think the vision fifteen year-old me had in mind involved sitting in a decrepit office full of even more decrepit co-workers, but here we are.
If anyone could fit the phrase ‘how are the mighty fallen,’ it would be me. Not even a year ago, I was rising up the ranks at the Montreal headquarters ofLast Bastion, the most successful music magazine in the country. I worked my ass off getting a journalism degree and building my portfolio in Ottawa, before taking an internship with a blog in Montreal. I was working two jobs on top of that to pay the bills whenBastionpicked up a freelance editorial I submitted. They offered me a regular position soon after.
For awhile, everything was perfect. I had a tiny but gorgeous apartment downtown, a stupidly hot boyfriend I was crazy about, and it was literally my job to go to concerts all the time and interview my favourite bands. I worked sixty hour weeks sometimes, but I loved every second of it. That was before a clash with Atlas Records sent my career down the drain.
I keep my head bent over my keyboard for most of the morning, trying not to fall asleep. I’m just about to give in and drift off for a few minutes when Marie-France’s sharp voice rings out behind me.
“Kay,à mon bureau en cinq minutes.”
“D’accord!” I answer, whipping my head towards her and doing my best to look conscious.
I wait for the five minutes she mentioned before following her order to report to her office. I take a seat in front of her desk, glancing at the view of Boulevard René-Lévesque out the window behind her.
“Your story today was good, Kay.”
I try not to let my eyes widen. Mary-France isn’t very forthcoming with praise.
“I sent you on that interview as an experiment.Ma niècecan’t stop talking about Sherbrooke Station. She says all the young people love them. I wanted to see what would happen if we shifted our focus a bit.”
Now my eyes really do go wide. ‘Experiment’ and ‘shift’ are foreign concepts around here.
“The truth,Mademoiselle Fischer, is that thisjournalis failing.” She lets out a heavy sigh. “I don’t mind telling you that; it’s no secret. Our sponsors are pulling out, and the ones that are left say I need to do something and fast. I don’t know how long I can keep us going, but I won’t give up without a fight, Kay. I’ve worked with the people here for a very long time, and I respect them, but I also know that if they lose their jobs they probably won’t find anything else. I owe them enough to at least try savingLa Gare.”
I’ve always found Marie-France kind of comical, marching around the office in her pantsuits and old lady loafers, but there’s a dignity, an iron resilience in the way she sits in front of me now with her hands clasped and her jaw set.
“So,” she continues, “I’m going to take a chance, Kay. I have six months to turn things around. I’m going to expand your section of the paper. I’ll take Pierre off sports and he can help you. I want you to cover your usual range of topics, but I’m personally assigning you to another story on Sherbrooke Station. Your interview was very popular. I want you to prepare an article to coincide with that big show you mentioned they’re doing in Montréal this June. As long as there’s no major news we need to cover at that time, I want to give youla une.”
“La une?” I repeat.
Literally it means ‘the one,’ but I don’t know what she’s actually referring to.
“‘La une’is what we call the front page.” She gives me one of her rare, grimacing smiles. “I want this to be big, Kay. I want a story everyone will be talking about, and I think you’re the one to write it. Give me controversy. Give me an angle no one has done yet. Here”—she taps a copy ofLa Gareon her desk that’s opened to my article—“you hint at some tension within the band now that they’re with these Atlas Records people. I think you should start from there. Get the whole story.”
Red flags start going off in my head, blocking out the vision of my name on the front page ofLa Gare. Mentioning Atlas Records in a two paragraph story at the back of the paper was one thing. A front page feature on their relationship with one of their bands is something else.
