More Than Anything (12 page)

“Very impressive camera skills. And one-handed, with a cone in the other, no less.”

“I’m going to send it to her. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Nah. Do your worst.”

I figure out how to message it to Melody, and by the time we’re finished with our dessert, I’ve got a message back.

I’m on the next flight. Don’t let him leave.

I laugh as I read it. He gives me a puzzled look.

“She says you have a nice smile.”

He drops me off at the building, waits until I’m inside, and then roars away. I stand in the lobby, watching the big boat pull off, and wonder about what just happened. I’m only seventeen, and he’s…he’s a lot older. And I know it was just ice cream, but it didn’t feel like just ice cream.

It felt like maybe he likes me. In a nonprofessional way.

Which is crazy. He’s famous and successful and twenty-seven. I’m none of those things. Or maybe a little of the famous, but still.

When I get into the apartment, I try Jeremy, but his phone goes to voice mail. He’s busy or asleep – good for him. I call Melody, and she picks up on the third ring.

“Tell me you at least made out with him.”

“Hi, Melody.”

“You can’t send me pictures of yummy man candy like that and not have at least made a play.”

“I figured you’d get a kick out of that.”

“What’s wrong with you? He’s like a complete rock star in his own right. Look at those eyes. I could get lost in eyes like that…”

“You just like the owner. You couldn’t care less about his eyes.”

“Is he totally ripped? He looks like a dream. I bet he’s got a six-pack. How about tats? I’m a sucker for dreamboat blue eyes and bad-boy tats.”

“You’re a sucker for anything in pants, Melody. It’s not like that. He’s producing me.”

“Is that some kind of code? How can I get him to
produce
me? Again and again and again.” She holds the phone away from her mouth. “Produce me, you bad man. Produce me now. Harder. HARDER!!!”

I wait until she’s finished giggling. “Derek called, but I missed it. I was at the show.”

“I saw. You’re taking over Hollywood, and you’ve only been there twenty-four hours.”

“More like thirty-something.”

“I saw your table in a couple of the audience shots. Was that…”

“Yup.”

“And…”

“Uh-huh.”

“I am so flying down there tomorrow. If you’re going to let all women down and not do your moral duty by this Sebastian stud, I’ll sacrifice myself for the cause.”

“What cause is that?”

“Don’t backtalk me, young lady. I need some production. Tha’s right, big daddy Sebastian. Pro-DUCT-shun!”

“Are you talking dirty to me?”

This time our giggling doesn’t stop as easily, and I realize I’m flying from the sugar and champagne. I sign off and plug my phone in to charge, and can’t stop smiling until I’ve turned the lights off, Melody’s crude jokes echoing in my head. I wonder what Sebastian would think of how his latest act is talking about him, and decide that if he could get a look at Melody, he might not mind.

Might not mind at all.

Steve’s waiting when I get downstairs the next morning, and we ride in silence to the studio. I see a Starbucks and ask him to pull over, and he nods, quiet as a ghost. I wonder if anything’s wrong, but it’s not my place to ask. So instead I run in, get a vente cup of coffee with a gallon of cream and a small truckload of sugar in it, and return five minutes later.

We make it to the studio with two minutes to spare, and when I knock on the door, a rail-thin man with a goatee and long hair pulled back in a ponytail opens it.

“Welcome. I’m John. Sebastian’s chief engineer. Come on in. He’s told me all about you.”

“Nice to meet you, John.” I follow him back to the control room, where Sebastian is sitting in an executive chair, feet up on a milk crate, listening to music. He looks up when I come in and grins.

“Welcome. Grab a seat. I want you to check this out.”

He rewinds, and the playback begins again. It’s a ballad, a little country twang. It opens with the chorus, then drops into the verse. The singer’s fluid, a tenor with a ton of feeling in his voice. When it’s done, I nod. “That’s an incredible song. Whose is it?”

He grins. “Mine.”

“You wrote that?”

“Sure did. And sang it. I’ve been saving it for the right act. Someone who could really make it come alive. How much do you like it?”

“A lot.”

“A lot a lot, or a
lot
a lot?”

“Whichever one is better. That was you singing?”

“Never mind the performance. You can stomp all over that.”

“No. I mean, you can really sing.”

“I usually wind up doing a lot of the background vocals on my productions. It’s just way faster for me to go in and nail it than to wait around for a band to try to get it right for weeks.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I’m kind of known for the sound. I go a little overboard sometimes.” He mentions two rock bands that were huge over the last five years. “That was me.”

I’m overly aware of how good he looks, how relaxed, and the thought of Melody springs to mind. I smile to myself, and he frowns. “What?”

“Oh, nothing. What are you thinking for arrangement?”

“I had this idea last night. We do a studio version with a whole band – the big production, grand piano, the whole nine yards. And then we have a bonus track with just you and your acoustic guitar. Just you and your voice. Or maybe just you and a piano. But something stark, so there’s nowhere to hide – only one voice, the words and melody, and the emotion.” He takes a sip of coffee from an oversized ceramic cup. “I watched your YouTube performances again, and I’d say your emotion is one of your big differentiators. That Alanis song blew me away, which is hard to do. I mean, her original version is a powerhouse, but yours took it to a whole new level, which is saying a lot.”

I’m flushing. I need to learn to get that under control.

But it’s not every day one of the top producers in music tells you you’re good enough to do a song that obviously means a lot to him. It’s clear that it does from the words. You don’t write lyrics like that, about loneliness and pathos and hopelessness, from an intellectual place. It’s too raw, and for a second it feels uncomfortably claustrophobic in the control room.

“I’d love to do it. You going to send it to Saul?”

“I’m thinking I’ll teach you the chords and we can record a demo of you doing it.”

“Do you play piano?”

He shrugs. “There’s not a lot I don’t play.”

“You have the lyrics written down?”

“I can write a lyric sheet from memory.”

“Can you set the recording up so we can record you playing the piano while I sing it? At the same time?”

He nods. “It’s not great technique…”

“But it’s just a demo, right?”

He smiles. “I’m game if you are.”

Six hours later we’re listening to the playback of the second take of “Lonely Night,” and the hair stands up on my arms when the first notes of the piano underlie the opening hypnotic chorus, just my voice and the lone ringing notes of the Baldwin.

I turn to Sebastian when the final words die and the tape goes silent.

“What do you think?” I ask.

Sebastian turns to John. “How well isolated did you get the piano?”

“Probably not good enough to make any changes. Why? I didn’t hear anything off. Did you?”

“No, but you know me. I want the flexibility…”

“You’re going to get some bleed on the vocal track. That’s the main issue. But man, I know this runs counter to your whole philosophy, but…I think that was the take.”

Sebastian turns back to me. “To answer your question, I think you just recorded the first hit off your album.”

My eyes widen. “What? That? That was a demo.”

“You know the Rolling Stones? “Satisfaction”? The version that made them huge was originally a demo. The famous Keith Richards guitar riff? That was him playing what he wanted a horn section to do.”

“What are you saying?”

“We’ll come back to it, and maybe you’ll do it better later, but for my money, sometimes a take just has a certain something that you don’t want to mess with.”

“But…” I want to say that it was too easy. He can tell that’s what I was going to say, because he shakes his head and responds like I’d already blurted it out.

“For you, maybe.” He gives John a long look. “I have a feeling these sessions are going to be historic. Don’t overwrite anything.”

John nods. “Want me to run a copy for you to send to Saul?”

Sebastian shakes his head. “John, good buddy, no. I think this is important enough for me to actually get my ass out of the studio and drive over to Saul’s and play it for him myself. I want to be there when he hears it.”

I stand. “I’ve got to use the bathroom.”

“You know where it is,” Sebastian says as he toggles back to the beginning of the song again, making some minute adjustments, mixing in some reverb, playing with the equalization.

I go down the hall, lock the door behind me, and sink down the wall, gasping for breath, having as close to a panic attack as I’ve ever had. I don’t know what brought it on – maybe I’m scared of how good it went, and I’m afraid I’ll never match it.

My inside voice corrects me.
That’s not it. It’s that you know you’re a fake, and you’re afraid somebody’s going to call you on it. They’re going to find out. Sure, this one went okay, but that just opens you up to disappoint everyone even more when they learn the truth.

I clamp down on the negative self-talk. That’s Ralph talking, not me, not logic or even emotion. It’s his ugly poison in my head, and I’m letting him ruin one of the best moments of my life.

That’s giving him power over me I swore I’d never allow, and the panic is instantly replaced by anger. Anger that he can so badly mess with my head that I’m having to fight to breathe in a bathroom while two heavyweights are in awe of what I just did.

How screwed up is it that a lowlife loser can have that much of an effect on me? It’s not fair. There’s no way I’m going to blow this because of that asshat. If anything, I’ll make this about rubbing his stinking nose in it with every note.

I try to imagine the look on his face when I’m successful enough to buy and sell him ten times over, and that gets me up off the floor. I rinse my face with cold water, dry it, and return to the control room, completely composed, looking like nothing’s happened. Or at least, I sure hope that’s how I look.

Sebastian is talking in subdued tones with John, and they break off the discussion when I enter. Sebastian looks me up and down and nods. “I’m going over to Saul’s so I can see his expression when he hears this. John will email you a bunch of songs. Listen to them, and if there are any you like, we’ll take them up in the morning. I’d say we just set a record for the most productive first day of preproduction I’ve ever had. Congratulations, Sage. This is going to be a blast.”

The praise strengthens me, and for once I don’t blush.

“I’m glad you like it, Sebastian. Same time tomorrow?”

“Sure. Seems like it worked pretty well for you today. You need a ride home?”

I nod. Steve’s long gone. “Would you?”

Sebastian glances at John. “Send them as MP3 files, okay?” He turns to me. “What’s your email address?”

I give it to him, and we head for the parking lot, Sebastian with the flash drive in his pocket. The Porsche beeps at us like a yellow bug, and when I get in, it feels like I’m sitting on the ground, it’s so low. Its engine starts with a muted purr. The security guard waves as we back out and pull through the gate.

“It’s kind of funny that you see so many cars that can do two hundred miles per hour in a city where most people never go more than thirty or forty,” he says.

“Why do you have it, then?”

“This is one of those things I had to buy to prove to myself it was real. That I’d actually made it. This, and the studio. It seemed…it just seemed like a dream until I got the studio, stocked it with all my favorite toys, and bought the car, you know?” He glances at me. “No, you probably don’t. Not yet. But you’ll see. One day you’ll wake up and you’ll be number one on Billboard, and you’ll have your cup of coffee or whatnot, maybe watch some TV news, and none of it will feel real. That’s the point where you have to…do something. Buy something or do something lavish to prove to yourself it’s actually happening.”

I nod, and when I speak, my voice is quiet. “I do know the feeling. Everything…the show, my first plane ride, the apartment, now working with you…it doesn’t seem real.”

“Which is fine. Hold onto that sense of wonder. Bring it into the studio every day. I want you to prove something every time you sing. You need to prove that the world’s never heard anything like you – that nothing like you has ever happened before. We’re going to harness that. You’re going to do what you just did today: you made it real on tape. Nobody can ever take that performance away from you. It’s as real as these buildings, this car, your body. And we’re going to do it again and again until you’ve set the bar so high nobody else will ever come close.”