tryst // h.s

ten

Chapter ten: week one.

Zara

''Hello love.'' Cheryl says as I walk through the door to meet her. ''I'm so glad to have you back'' I sat with her.

''I'm happy to be here. Thank you for this chance.'' I smile and hugged her.

''You and I need to talk about some stuff before we get into everything.'' She opens a notebook and motions me to come look.''First, we need to find songs that fit you best. I know you like some oldies and I plan on playing that card with you because I can see how much you like it.''

''I'm much more comfortable with old music, yeah.'' I smiled sheepishly.

''I get that now, but you have to understand that in order to succeed here we have to throw on some popular stuff.'' I nod. ''Okay, good. For the first week, the theme is number ones so I had to look at some charts.'' She takes some papers out of a folder. ''Here, I've enlisted some songs that I think you'll do beautifully but I feel like this one is the best, just to introduce you to the crowd.'' She pointed out.

''When love takes over, I love that song''

''That's great love! Do you think you can manage? You can totally tell me your input, remember I'm here to mentor you, not judge you.'' She gave me a reassuring smile.

''Yeah, I'd like to sing that song.''

''Good, now let's hear you.''

I stood in front of her and I started to sing to the track like it was karaoke with the lyrics sheet in my hand. I sang the part that I knew before looking at her in the eyes and she smiled at me. Then began the part that it's faster and it's much more fun to play. I really like this song and Cheryl did an amazing work choosing it. I ended up and she applauded me.

''That was beautiful, Zara.''

''Thank you, it's actually a fun song to play.''

''Glad you enjoyed it, love.'' She got up and took my hands in hers. ''That's what this is about, you having fun. And remember, this is a learning process so we need to communicate with each other.''

She talked to me for a while and I was really glad that she was my mentor. She's only nine years older than me so it's easy for us to get along but she's still really mature and has experience and knowledge to impart among us. She said that she will try and help my find my style of music, that we well be experimenting with different genres and stuff from different eras. She gets that I have a vast array of music knowledge, when it comes to singing, and nothing technical about it but we would work on that.

I know I want to do music that I enjoy listening, not just for other so listen but for me to like. The good thing about this competition is that, since each week there's a different theme it pushes me to get out of my comfort zone and try new things.

Monday

I woke up at 7 am to get to the shower before anyone else could. I took my stuff in order to get dressed inside and along with my shampoo and conditioner. My hair tends to get frizzy if I use any other shampoo so I always get the same one that smells like vanilla.

Once I'm out of the shower I dry myself off and start on putting my underwear and then I put on some jogging pants along with a sweatshirt and my sneakers. I brush my teeth and get out of the toilet were Rebecca is waiting.

As I enter the room I leave my necessaire that holds my personal stuff for the shower. I start blow drying my hair as I comb it down.

This feels so surreal, I can't believe this will be my life from now on, as long as I stay on the show obviously, but I'm going to sing in front of thousands of people and I'm gonna be on the telly, huh, tell that to my six year old self, she would have shitted her pants.