As It Seems

Ch. 2- Hoping for the best but expecting the worst

“Hello? Miss Farris?” Marissa asked, sounding a bit confused.

Guess I was too shocked to answer.

“Hello? Can you hear me?”

“Yes, yes I’m here, sorry” that was the best answer I could pull out of my brain.

What the heck could one directions management want with me? Did I do something wrong? Did they not like our cover of Little Things? Did we, like, violate some sort of copy right law? Uh oh…

“Good, good. As I was saying, I’m Marissa Maybrook, calling on behalf of the One Direction team. If you remember, Liam tweeted one of your videos out not too long ago, and the fans LOVED it. Our team has been watching you since, and we’ve seen every single one of the videos you’ve posted. We’ve seen nothing but positive comments and… well, I’m just gonna come right out and ask. We want to know if you and Miss Alainey would like to come by our studio in L.A., talk to the big guys up there, and possibly see if you guys would be a good fit with us at Columbia Records.”

I could not breathe, let alone speak. I guess Marissa took this as a chance to continue what she was saying, as if what she’s said already hasn’t been life changing enough.

“You know… see if we can get you guys a record deal or something. My team and I think you two are adorable and we’d love to have you working with us! This is a very sought after record label, so you have to impress a few people first, but from the looks of it, they’ll love you.”

Still couldn’t speak. But I managed to say “okay” and I think she could tell how big the smile on my face was.

“Does this sound like something you two would be interested in?”

“Of course! I mean, that would be a dream come true!”

“Awesome! I plan on calling Alainey right after I’m done talking to you. Would you prefer to talk to her first, or should I just call her first?”

I thought for a second, and then answered. “You can call her first.” I know how freaked she’d be if she got the same call as me. It’d be more exciting for her to be completely surprised by this.

“Alright, sounds great. I’m gonna call her, and then if she agrees, I’ll three way you both into a call so we can see about getting you both over to L.A. for a few days for some meetings and stuff. Talk to you in a bit.”

“Bye!” I said as I hung up.

Still can’t breathe.

~

About 10 minutes later, I got another call from Marissa, this time with Alainey on the line. I could tell she was just as freaked as I was. We talked for about 2 hours, first getting to know Marissa and making sure this was legit, and not some creepy scammer. Then we got down to business.

We were all set to go to Los Angeles in two and a half weeks. There, we’d have a driver, a nice hotel, and we would be given prepaid Visa gift cards to do all the shopping, dining, and exploring Hollywood we wanted while we had time off. If things went well in the first few days of meetings, we would start recording some of the songs I’ve already written. If that went well, we’d write some more, record more, and see how much we could get done in about four weeks. That’s right, I’d have four weeks in Los Angeles with my best friend and unlimited money. Could this get any better? Nope.

One thing though, it had to go well. If we weren’t a good fit for the company, we’d be back in two days.

No pressure.

Alainey and I spent the next two weeks perfecting ourselves. We had to be as likeable as possible, but staying completely ‘real’, in that adorkable sense. We shopped a little, danced a little, and practiced the hell out of our songs.