December 24th [COMPLETED]

15. Big Bear

A/N: according to the official timeline, George goes and works with Wes Keats on a new album after working with Ali Sykes.

George threw a duffel bag full of clothes she hoped would be warm enough along with her favorite acoustic guitar into the trunk of her car. She'd miss her usual electric that she wrote on but Big Bear exuded acoustic energy just as much as Palm Spring exuded electric.

Sydney had offered to go with her, to drive them both up the mountain but George couldn't fight the onslaught of nausea that rolled up the sides of her abdomen at the thought of spending two hours alone in the car with Sydney. They had been trapped in that big lonely house on the hill that the label was letting her stay in long enough with nothing to do. George needed space, literally and personally.

She knew what was happening. She had heard of this technique too many times from too many of her friends and colleagues when they worked on contract negotiations. Concept was stalling.

They were mad she hadn't automatically resigned last year for another five years and they were punishing her. Every project she had been offered, every artist who had reached out to get her to work with them had been denied. And every time George asked Julien why, all he could do was shake his head and shrug. She knew that look. He was helpless. The command had come from upstairs.

And so George had found herself trapped. The walls of the house had started creeping inward on the third day and by the end of week two, George was sure she was suffocating. Not even the mixing job Tommy had sent her way for 7Ships' next album could give her the breathing room she so desperately needed. No, she had to drive two hours inland to Big Bear Mountain for that.

The obnoxious wide highways shrank the farther George got from the city. The top of her car was down and the air rushed through her hair, forcing on her those deep breaths she hadn't been able to take in two weeks. The traffic lessened and the scenery grew green as she headed up the mountain. The air tasted sweeter and George felt a pang of homesickness for Ali's compound in New York, for Wes Keats' log cabin in Asheville, a homesickness for anywhere that wasn't Los Angeles.

Her little vintage Mercedes made it up the mountain just barely. George was greeted by forests of evergreens towering over her as she wound her way along the top. A chill wind raced through her hair now and forced out the dry, harsh wind of the desert below. This was the space she had been craving, this was the air she had been starved of.

The house rented for the writing camp was several blocks from the cute little quaint downtown area and set into the side of the mountain. It was large and bulky, imitating an old-fashioned log-cabin theme that George had only seen done right when Wes Keats had done it. There were too many hints of LA for the house to feel authentic but at least the ceilings were high and there was a chill in the air. The ever-present heat of downtown was another cause for George's hasty retreat.

George put the top up and left her car parked among the slew of others. She entered the house and turned left when it opened up into a wide living room with a roaring fire and a large grand piano just begging to be played.

There were about twelve other people already loitering in the living room, George left them to play the piano. She passed a large dining room and a bustling kitchen filled with catering staff on her way to the bedrooms. She ignored the first few opened doors and headed for the ones at the end, the room furthest from the rest of the house. She was rewarded with a large double bed and an en suite bathroom.

George ignored both of these as she set down her duffel bag and headed for the glass doors that led out to a secluded terrace. Below her, the mountain dropped down into a wave of evergreens that seemed to stretch all the way to the mountain peak on the other side of the ravine. There wasn't a building insight. George may as well have been in Asheville for all the people she could see.