On The Record

Maxi was so excited to land such a lucrative partnership. It had been three years since they opened the music production studio Northside Sessions with her boyfriend Tim. The two lovebirds had met at an album listening event about four years ago, where Maxi was attending as a guest, and Tim as the assistant production manager.

Tim hadn’t wasted any time. He had approached Maxi at the tail end of the event when he spotted her taking pictures on the red carpet with a friend. That brief chat had turned into a coffee date, then into a dinner, and eventually to weekend hangouts, and in six months they were talking about going into the music business together.

Maxi had just completed a one-year stint in a music school in Atlanta. Although her classes were mainly focused on building her skills as a vocalist, she had popped in to some music production and audio engineering classes when she got a chance.

She was fascinated by the grandeur of it all; the mixing console, the acoustic vocal booths, and the programming instruments. In her own way, she also saw this as an opportunity to learn a thing or two and maybe produce her own music one day.

Meeting Tim had changed her life. They were so aligned in their ambitions and career goals; they were both music buffs, and it felt like meeting the proverbial soulmate. At the studio, they mostly worked with upcoming indie artists, so it was so thrilling that they got a contract to produce several jingles for one of the biggest advertising agencies, Brightline Creative.

She remembers the first time Tim told her about the call he had with the account manager from Brightline.

“Darling, you won’t believe what happened a few minutes ago,” Tim shouted with excitement as he walked into their shared office in the studio.

“What? Please tell me The Crushers finally confirmed they would record their next album here.” Maxi was silently hoping that was the case. They had been chasing this recording contract with the rock band for so long, but it seemed like management was leaning toward their competitor, Ember Studios.

“Sorry to disappoint you. Not that.”

Tim went into detail about the call and pulled a seat next to her to show her the email that came in with the full contract and details they needed to know about the job at hand. They had ordered takeout from their favorite Chinese restaurant and champagne to celebrate. It didn’t matter that it was in the middle of the day; this was an opportunity of a lifetime.

What Tim didn’t know was that Maxi was spiraling internally. As she silently read the email from Brightline, she had spotted the name of the vocalist contracted to record the jingles. Sandra Parks. How could she forget Sandra?

Maxi and Sandra were in the same music class. While she couldn’t say they were friends, they had gotten along in the first two months before things became different.

Sandra was popular from the word go. She was tall, with blonde locs, always wore a smile on her face, and laughed a bit too loudly; you couldn’t miss her in class, even if you wanted.

You couldn’t say the same for Maxi. Just like in high school, she didn’t make friends easily, mostly because she kept to herself. She knew that registering for music school would take her out of her element; she would need to socialize and participate in creative exercises.

But this was not the reason why she was spiraling.

About three months towards the end of their one-year vocal music course, the two ladies had gotten into an ugly argument. Their songwriting and vocal coach, Mr. Scott, usually organized weekly performances for the class, where everyone had to write a song and perform it, and sometimes these small events took place in the school’s music hall.

To make it even spicier and more competitive, the classmates would allocate points based on the performances. This ranking system kept everyone on their toes; no one wanted to be at the bottom of the list. However, the overall score would always come from Mr. Scott.

In typical Sandra version, she found a way to lobby for herself among her classmates. There was no denying that she could sing, but it helped that she could speak in front of everyone and joke about her performances, even the ones that weren’t up to par. Maxi could not pull any of this off to save her life.

She wrote her songs in private, never sharing ideas with any of her classmates and just waiting for D-day to perform. If she was being honest, she hated how Sandra captivated her audience. But somehow, month after month, the two of them were always ranked as the top two, alternating positions on the board that hung in their music class.

Maxi worked twice as hard to beat Sandra, but she wasn’t lucky on most weeks. A few months in, something had shifted; suddenly Sandra was beating her consistently every week, and she had an idea why.

“Did you hear about Sandra and Mr. Scott?” Craig, who sat next to her in every class, asked one evening.

“What about?”

“So…you didn’t hear this from me. There’s a rumor going around the class that maybe the two of them are having a thing.”

“A thing. Isn’t Mr. Scott married or something?”

“Of course he is. But you know how these things go.”

Maxi was now putting things together. “Do you think that’s why I haven’t beaten her for about a month now?” She asked Craig, although deep down she knew the answer.

“Could be, but as I said, this is just gossip. Don’t quote me”

Maxi couldn’t push this conversation with Craig out of her head as she headed to the next class. What if the affair between the two was true? She knew the music rankings weren’t part of the final exam; it was just an exercise to make them better songwriters and artists, but she liked to win. And she hated the fact that Sandra might be getting the upper hand.

She made a drastic decision.

After the Thursday morning class, she walked up to Mr. Scott.

“Excuse me, sir, do you have a minute to chat?”

“Maxi. Sure, what’s on your mind? Do you mind if we walk? I have a meeting in my office in about 20 minutes.”

They walked out of the class towards his office. She started talking immediately. “I wanted to get feedback about my recent performances. Am I doing anything wrong?”

Mr. Scott turned to look at her. He wore a concerned look. “No, Maxi, you are one of the top students in this class. I’ve never seen such a great songwriter. For an amateur, your hooks are so emotive. Are you sure this is your first time taking such a class?”

Maxi was somehow thrown off by the response. She knew her writing was good, but she was never shy of receiving compliments. “Thank you for saying that. I’m new to this, just taking up all the lessons from your class.”

“So, what seems to be the problem?”

“Lately, Sandra has been outperforming me every week, so I thought you might have some pointers on how I can improve.”

“Aah, I get it now. You are worried about the rankings?” Mr. Scott chuckled. “You know that score has nothing on your final grade. It’s just to motivate you guys to be better at your craft.”

Maxi could now feel the embarrassment on her cheeks. She steadied her voice, hoping it would hide her nervousness. “Maybe a little.”

“You have nothing to worry about. I will give detailed feedback after the monthly quiz, and if you want, we could go through a song you are writing together.”

“Sounds good,” Maxi replied quickly, wanting to end this conversation and go hide somewhere in a corner.

They shook hands and walked in opposite directions. But before Maxi could go past the office blocks, she spotted Sandra standing outside Mr. Scott’s office. She slowed down her pace, keeping her eyes peeled for the front door, and in what felt like forever, her vocal coach and classmate fell into a warm embrace, laughing about something.

What surprised Maxi was that they didn’t even try to hide it. Yes, the two of them were adults, but she felt that it was unfair that Sandra might be getting preferential treatment over the entire class because the teacher liked her.

She couldn’t hide her anger the next time they saw each other, in music theory class.

“So, how long have you been seeing Mr. Scott?” Maxi scoffed without beating around the bush.

“What are you talking about?” Sandra responded, visibly rattled.

“You heard me. I’m asking how long you've been seeing our vocal coach?”

Sandra’s face changed; she was now laughing. “It’s really none of your business.”

Maxi didn’t back down. She walked a few more steps to stand in front of her desk. “It explains why you are always ranking first every week, while the rest of us are putting in the work.”

By this time, a few of their classmates had gathered around the two, listening carefully, no one taking a side yet. However, you could tell most of them were rooting for Maxi getting that confession out of Sandra.

Sandra was now visibly irritated. “It’s funny how you think that my talent is not enough.” She stood up to face Maxi. “Girls like you like to pick on people like me who are meant to be superstars. It's not my fault that you are shy or whatever.”

In a split second, Sandra was fighting not to fall over, finding her chair for support. Maxi had shoved her, catching her by surprise. She recovered quickly and shoved Maxi back, which prompted their classmates to intervene. As Sandra was pulled away, she made sure to remind Maxi that she was a loser, yelling at her for about five minutes before their instructor walked in.

That fight had soured any relationship the two could ever have.

Sandra, being the loud one, had managed to convince some of the classmates that Maxi was insecure. And they taunted her any chance they would get. That extended to the class ratings; for the first time, she started ranking way lower, and she felt that Sandra had something to do with that. They never uttered a word to each other for the rest of the academic year.

And now with this deal of a lifetime, Maxi and Sandra were about to meet again. If it was up to Maxi, she would have canceled the whole contract, but she had no say in it; their company needed the money. Also, this was Tim’s dream as well; she couldn’t destroy that for a tiff that happened years ago.

She made a decision. She wouldn’t mention this to Tim. This was her personal beef with Sandra; she would get through it.

##

Day one of production was as stressful as Maxi had expected. She was the first person at the studio, nervously checking that everything was in order. They were expecting three creatives from the agency. And Sandra.

The whiff of perfume hit her first. And then the signature loud laughter outside the door followed. Sandra was just as tall as Maxi remembered. She wore that big smile, and Maxi had to admit to herself that she was more beautiful than she remembered.

Tim was first at the door to meet the group. Maxi walked behind him, somehow hiding and silently hoping that her archnemesis would not remember her face.

“Hey guys. Welcome to Northside,” Tim said with excitement in his voice.

“Thanks. Your studio is way bigger than I expected,” Sandra said, eyes darting around the expansive studio filled with large monitors and racks of outboard gear. And then their eyes met.

At first, Maxi couldn’t tell whether Sandra was surprised or annoyed to see her.

“Hi Sandra. Welcome to our studios,” Maxi said with a nervous forced smile. But she walked towards her and stretched out her hand.

Sandra eyed her closely as she shook her hand. “I think we know each other. Maxi, yes?”

“Oh yeah, from school,” Maxi forced herself to say.

“You two know each other?” Tim interjected.

The two ladies turned to look at Tim. Maxi went first. “Yeah, we do.” She felt like she needed to give a further explanation. “When I saw the name on the email, I actually didn’t know it was the same person.” She lied.

She immediately realized her attempt had failed. Tim’s face scrunched up for a few seconds with questions, but he quickly moved on to welcome the other guys from the agency.

The next few minutes were a blur for Maxi. She followed Tim’s lead as he did everything to make their guests feel welcome. He led a brief meeting, providing details about how the whole recording process would take place.

Seeing Sandra again had revived buried feelings; the anger she held onto for the last few months of their course, and the low self-esteem she carried into starting her career. Maybe if she explained the whole situation to Tim, he would understand where she was coming from.

Tim, on the other hand, was on cloud nine. He was seated next to Sandra, listening to her explain the jingle she had written before she could go into the booth. They were laughing and exchanging notes, which somehow filled Maxi with a tinge of jealousy. The executives from Brightline had left after the brief meeting, so it was now the three of them in the studio.

As Tim walked away to set up the recording booth, Maxi realized that it was just the two of them in the room. She figured the best way to avoid any further conversations with Sandra was to act busy. So she pretended to work, opening tabs on her laptop but basically doing…nothing.

“You are doing well for yourself.” Sandra interrupted her thoughts.

“Sorry,” Maxi replied.

“Oh, I was saying you landed on your feet after school. This is a nice studio.”

“Thanks.” That’s all Maxi could muster the courage to say. She could feel her anger rising. It wasn’t enough that the two had never addressed the issues they had years ago. And it felt like Sandra was saying all these nice things about their studio to mock her.

As she pretended to work, she opened the YouTube app and typed in Sandra's name only to discover how successful her music career was. She was playing in a band every week at a local club and had just released a five-track EP that was doing well. How did she not know all this?

In all honesty, she never wanted to hear anything about Sandra after they graduated. She partly blamed her for how dejected she felt. While those rankings never meant anything, the unfair treatment followed her to the music industry. She lost so many chances to girls that producers and event organizers thought were prettier than her or had more personality.

What she didn’t know was that Sandra also resented her. Her ego was inflated post-graduation; she thought she could have anything in the world as she had with Mr. Scott. Out in the industry, things were different; requests for sexual favors were a common thing that she didn’t want to do anymore. She wanted to prove that talent was enough.

That clash with Maxi had put things in perspective for her. She hated that Maxi had been courageous enough to confront her, which also started eating into her self-esteem. A few years later, she had Googled Maxi’s name and discovered an article from an interview with the Northside Sessions team.

Now sitting in this studio, she envied her and hated her in equal measure. How did her life turn out so perfect? Quiet girls never made it so far in the music business, but Maxi had clearly outmaneuvered the system.

“Ready when you are,” Tim shouted from the door of the recording booth, holding a pair of headphones.

“I’m ready, give me just a minute,” Sandra replied.

“You are not doing so bad yourself,” Maxi said before Sandra could leave to start recording.

Sandra forced a smile. “You can say that. But what you've got here is better than I imagined; you can record at any time, I presume.”

Maxi just nodded. She had realized that Tim had that impatient look on his face. “You should go record,” she said, signaling to the booth.

Sandra stood up and picked up her phone and notebook that had some of her lyrics. “I think we should maybe…talk, that’s if you have some time.”

“Sure. I can do that,” Maxi replied curtly.

What did she want to talk about? There was nothing that could change things for them. Those years of bullying had wrecked anything she might have wanted to say. But now, facing Sandra, she hoped that maybe, once and for all, they could set the record straight. And hopefully, she could get an actual apology, on the record this time.