Chapter 30

Corey arrived at the Power Plant the following week with Clyde in one hand and her journal in the other. In Professor Drop’s loft, the members of A-Game were slung over the furniture as if they were still hung over from their last meeting. They looked bored, scrolling through their phones or dozing, but Corey’s entrance elicited some life from them. She was greeted with hugs and fist bumps and then they settled down to business on her first official day on the job. They entered one of the glass rooms and sat on a long row of couches while Professor Drop stood before a glowing console of recording equipment that had rivaled any set-up she had ever seen in her twenty-five year recording career. If she didn’t know better, she thought they were launching a space shuttle instead of a comeback for a boy band. 

“I thought that today,” said Professor Drop, “we might begin with a vision board.”

The boys looked at one another and a couple of them nodded.

“I have a song,” blurted Corey.

All eyes heads swiveled to Corey, and her stomach dropped.

“Sometimes, with the Toddlers,” she began tentatively, “I’d go off by myself and then come back with a first draft or whatever. Just as a place to start…” She turned to Professor Drop, not wanting to alienate her host, “If that’s cool. It’s your show.”

To his credit, Drop spread his arms wide. “She came prepared, boys.”  

“Wonderful,” said Deaver. He smiled wide and leaned forward in his chair.

“Let’s fucking hear it,” said RJ.

Corey crossed the room to get Clyde, wiping her suddenly sweaty palms on her jeans as she went and talking over her shoulder. “It’s just an idea. A sketch really, but…”

Oh, shut the fuck up already, she thought. You can play anytime, anywhere, and for anyone, so do your damn job.

She sat down on a stool in front of A-Game and Professor Drop and curled her hand around Clyde’s neck. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She strummed an A Major, and in a sweet and earnest voice, she sang:

It’s been a little while since you’ve heard from me,

I’m not the same boy that I used to be.

I don’t mind you took your eye off the prize,

But I’m back now baby and you need to realize…

She paused, letting the reverberations of her last chord die out, then opened her eyes to stare down Brody and growled.

“…I’m the motherfucking apex.”

Brody fell back in his chair, eyes wide. She began plucking and slapping a dirty rhythm and zeroed in on Kriss next.

“You’re just raptors, I’m the T-Rex…”

She saw the beginnings of a snarl curling his lip, but she swiveled her head toward RJ.

“Girls’ll holler, it’s just a reflex…”

Then she found Deaver, who was staring at her with his mouth wide open.

“Best stick around for what comes next…”

She swung around and pinned Drop with her gaze for the last line of her chorus.

“Cos I’m the motherfucking apex!”

She clamped her finger over the fret bar, cutting off all vibrations and the silence flooding the studio was total. The members of A-Game looked at one another and she cleared her throat.

“Um,” she began, then the words began to spill out of her to fill that deafening silence, “so I thought Brody could sing that intro, and when you kick off the chorus, each of you could take a line and maybe we could call the record Apex because if Ascent was a statement of purpose, then the next logical step is Apex since you’re reminding everyone that you’re the kings of the mountain…”

Deaver was the first to speak. “Is it just me or can we skip the vision board?”

Then Kriss began a low chant. Corey couldn’t quite make out what he was saying, but suddenly he was on his feet, in a crouch, and crossing the room toward her. It wasn’t until the others were chanting it that she realized what they were saying.

Co. Rey.

Co. Rey.

Co. Rey.

Then they rushed her all at once and before she knew it, her feet were off the ground. As a forty-one year old woman, she was not accustomed to her feet leaving the ground, but RJ and Kriss hoisted her onto their massive shoulders with ease and paraded her around the studio. She squealed and protested and laughed, but the chants of Co-Rey continued until a catchy industrial beat boomed forth from the speakers. They turned and saw Drop at his mammoth board, bumping in place with a wide smile on his face.

“Again!” he shouted over the beat, and Corey thought it had been a long time since she’d felt a part of a team, and she remembered that she didn’t hate it.