Operation Haylor

Chapter 2 (Written by Josh)

My phone buzzed. New email from Juliana.

"Absolutely."

I smiled. Optimistic, as usual. Operation Haylor would never make it past the drawing board. I was sure of it.

Just as I logged out of my email, the phone rang. It was Jordan, the keyboard player in my band. I answered it. "Hello? Yeah...yeah, I got the Cd's. I've already sold some copies!"

I listened for awhile. My breath quickened.

It's a good thing there was a chair behind me. I found myself sitting down before I knew what was happening. "You're...you're kidding. Forty thousand subscribers on YouTube? We just set up an account last month! We only uploaded three videos!" I could barely breathe. "Huh? Yeah, I'll check our band email right now!"

I could barely hold my phone steady as I logged onto our band's email account.

It's a good thing I was still sitting down. I called Jordan right back. "Jordan! We have sixty-seven new emails! And ten of them are from record companies!"

I knew we were on our way to something big...something bigger than anything I had ever experienced before. With a record contract, we were only a hit song away from a trip to the Grammy awards. After a trip to the Grammy awards, we were only an album away from performing duets with established stars. And that meant....

It was a long shot. But a spark of hope began surging through my veins.

I typed a quick email to Juliana. "Yeah...I think we can pull it off!"

The day had come. It was our first trip to a professional recording studio.

I was nervous as heck.

I knew how important it was to have a good appearance. I decided to wear dark colors; for some reason it felt like a pop-star thing to do. I put on black skinny jeans and a gray dress shirt. I wanted to look good, but I also wanted to be comfortable. I needed to sing my best today.

We were going to James Boulevard Studio in Nashville Tennessee, one of the premier studios in the music capitol of the world. How our new manager had managed that, I'll never know. I guess that's why they call them managers...

I nearly fainted when we walked through the doors. The equipment was unreal, and the instruments were of astronomical value. The studio host approached and individually shook our hands. "You're right on time," he said cheerfully. "I just finished a recording session with Taylor."

"Taylor who?" I asked, looking around.

He laughed. "Taylor Swift, of course!"

There was no chair behind me this time. I landed flat on my back on the studio floor.