An Unsung Melody

Chapter One

Chapter One

Justin: Just landed stateside after some time in Sweden. Sorry it's been so long. What are you up to?

Ashley: Well hello to you too. Lance has me spending the next couple of weeks recording in Orlando. Any chance you'll be in Florida any time soon?

Ashley: Don't ghost me again already.

***

Ashley was back in the recording studio. Her life, she mused, followed an interesting cycle; the cycle of the music industry. Weeks, months, or even years were spent in the recording studio. Then you go out and promote it. Get people excited to see what you've poured your heart and soul into. Just about the time the first single is released, you begin rehearsing for a tour, you let the single sell for a while, drop the CD and promote it like crazy until the tour begins. Then months are spent on the road across the country, a different city every night. And then, it ends and you go back into the studio to see if you can do it again.

Sometimes, it got old. She was tired and feeling the weight of every one of her twenty-six years. In the grand scheme of things, she knew twenty-six wasn't old, but on this particular day, it felt exhausting.

Day one for Ashley wasn't going well. Three years earlier, she had switched from Johnny Wright as her manager to having Lance and his production company manage her career. During her last tour, Ashley had spent more and more time writing. She'd asked Lance about doing some of her own songs for this album, but he wasn't super excited about the idea. He told her to leave it to the professionals. He probably had a point; and he had talked her into working with some new producers on this new album. She had been excited about the prospect of new ideas, but if all the songs were going to be like this, she wasn't sure she had it in her.

"I'm not sure you're getting the rhythm of what we're going for on this song," one of the co-producers said over the mic into the room. "Let's give it another try; remember we're going for a club song this time! We want something that people can dance to."

Ashley pushed down the sigh that tried to escape and gave him a thumbs up. She closed her eyes; the room and its stark lighting were starting to give her a headache. They started the playback music, and she moved to the beat, trying to get a feel for it once again. Her moment came and she sang the words she already memorized over the course of the morning. She did her best to infuse the words with the enthusiasm that she knew they were asking of her, but when she finished the first chorus, they cut off the music, and she tore the headphones off, running her fingers into her hair and grabbing the roots of it, she growled.

"Hey Ashley," the same producer came back on the mic, "let's take a break. Get some water, someone is here to see you."

"Thanks," Ashley waved, trying not to look at the small window that was starting to make her feel like a caged animal, she sunk to the floor and grabbed a water bottle. She heard the door to the booth open but she didn't look up, expecting it to be Lance since he'd said he would stop by.

"Well, I'd say that was a bit of a lackluster performance, but I'm also questioning who choose that song for you."

Ashley's head snapped up in surprise, "Justin! What are you doing here?"

Justin reached down to pull Ashley up off the floor and into a big hug, "You said you were in town recording, so I thought I'd stop in. Day one, right? Not going well?"

Ashley let the sigh out she'd been holding in all morning, "Not super well today. I think I've just got to get back into the grind of it all. I had a week off last week, and it's been hard coming back."