All the Right Things (Love in LA) (7 page)

She answered another
LA Weekly
ad posted by two guys who claimed they were producers. They were more than happy to work with her on recording a demo… for a price. After they discussed and negotiated, she chose to do two songs—one, an original they wrote, and the other, an original she’d written by herself. Several hundred dollars and a few recording sessions later, she was in possession of her first demo. It was rough, but she was immensely proud of having taken that next step towards pursuing her dream.

Unfortunately, Annie’s day job got in the way of her being able to pursue her singing as aggressively as she would have liked. She’d thought about auditioning for talent competitions in the past, but when it came down to seriously considering what she’d have to do to pursue the opportunity, she’d ended up changing her mind. A steady job was necessary to pay the rent and bills and keep a roof over her head.

Although her parents made a decent living, they didn’t have a ton of extra money. And they had always taught her and her sister that they needed to be responsible, self-sufficient adults. There wouldn’t be any handouts coming from them. Tough love, her father liked to say.

More than likely, they would have let her move back in with them if she needed to quit her job to compete, but she valued her independence and loved living alone. So far, she hadn’t felt strong enough to make the sacrifice and take the plunge. But with everything that happened recently, Annie wanted more than ever to take her life into her own hands to try to make something happen for herself.

As she looked at the clock, she realized that Casey had never called her. Frowning, she checked her cell phone, but there were no missed calls. She brushed her teeth and got ready for bed, debating whether she should try calling him or just go to sleep. In the short amount of time they’d known each other, she’d already become accustomed to talking to him every night.

Finally, she gave in and called him, holding her breath as she waited for him to answer. The phone rang once and then went straight to voicemail. A little stunned, Annie stared at the phone in her hand, her forehead crinkled in consternation. Did he just screen her call? She hung up without leaving a message and debated whether she should try calling again and leaving a voicemail, or if she should send a text message instead.

Deciding against either option, Annie put the phone down on her nightstand and climbed into bed. She leaned over to shut off the lamp, snuggled back into her mountain of soft pillows and then willed sleep to come quickly. But that would be too easy, and she didn’t do easy.

The alarm sounded louder than usual when it went off early the next morning. Annie had set it an hour earlier, having decided that she needed to start hitting the gym before work. If she was going to take this audition seriously, she had to start prepping for some real possibilities. They say the camera added ten pounds, so she was determined to start working towards losing at least that much. It was time to tone up and shape up.

When she got to the gym, she headed for the treadmills and did a light ten minutes of cardio to warm up before she moved over to the weights. She wanted to tone her triceps most of all. Working up a sweat and focusing on the exertion of her body allowed her to clear her mind for a short while, but as soon as she walked out of the gym, she started wondering why Casey hadn’t called her, yet.

Knowing she was being ridiculous, Annie shook her head free of the thought and headed for her car. Throwing her hand towel and half empty water bottle on the passenger seat, she slid in and shut her door before starting the car, then cranked up the volume as the vocal stylings of Justin Timberlake wafted over her. Listening to JT never failed to soothe her and make her feel better; he was the one man in her life who never let her down.

The day dragged by as it usually did while she was at work. She felt distracted and kept glancing at the clock to check the time. It was by far the most unproductive day she’d had at work in a while.

When Annie got home that night, she thought about calling Casey again, but immediately scolded herself and started working on her audition pieces again. She called Alex to come over and listen so he could give her some helpful critiques. After she performed all three songs for him, he was honest with her and pointed out the areas he thought she needed to work on, but overall, he approved of what she’d chosen to do.

She was brushing her teeth before bed when she remembered that she’d turned her ringer off and put her cell phone away. Retrieving it from the nightstand drawer, she checked to see if she had any missed calls. Casey had called her twice and left a voicemail.

“Hey, it’s me. Sorry I didn’t get a chance to call you back last night. We ended up going out for drinks to celebrate someone’s birthday and didn’t get back until almost three my time. Figured you might be in bed and I didn’t want to wake ya. I hope you’ve been working on the songs for your audition. Can’t wait to hear them. Give me a call back if you want. I’ll be up for another hour or so. If I don’t hear from you, have a good night.”

Annie checked the time of his call and pouted. He’d called almost two hours ago, and she was pretty sure he was asleep by now. She decided to send him a text instead. That way if he was still awake, he could call her back, or if he was already asleep, she wouldn’t disturb him.

Annie:
Hey, sorry for the late response. I had my phone on vibrate while I was practicing. I’m sure you’re probably dead to the world right now, so maybe I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Sweet dreams.

Surprisingly, Casey called her back right away, just as she was climbing into bed.

“Hey you, did I wake you?” Annie asked as she answered the phone on the first ring.

“Nah, I was just laying here in bed, thinking.”

“Oh okay, good. What were you thinking about?”

“You.”

Blushing, Annie smiled. “Oh really? What about me?”

“Well, I’ve been waiting for you to sing for me again, and I’ve been thinking about what I want to do with you when you visit next weekend.”

“Ha, I thought you were going to sleep on the couch if I wanted.”

Casey laughed. “Wow, girl, get your mind out of the gutter. I was talking about what activities—the non-sexual kind—I could take you to do.”

Annie blushed again, but this time out of embarrassment. “Oh, right. Well, I’m easy. Whatever you want to do with me is fine.” Pausing, she pulled a face, realizing how that must sound.

“Uhh, that’s what she said?”

Annie laughed. “Somehow I knew that was coming.”

“Sorry, couldn’t resist. Anyway, I was thinking about taking you to Chinatown and then maybe also going down to Fisherman’s Wharf.”

“Sure, that sounds fun.”

“Cool. So do I get my serenade now?”

“Sure, why not?” She took a deep breath. “Okay, so for my first back-up song, I decided to go with one by Rihanna that I heard on the radio recently. It totally has a power vocal.”

“Nice, let’s hear it.”

This time, Annie was able to start singing for him without needing to do as much nervous preparation. As she sang each line, she felt herself relax and begin to really get into the song. By the time she finished, she was beaming. It felt so good to be singing again… and to be doing something positive for herself.

“Wow, that was incredible. I know that song and you did it justice. The judges would be crazy not to send you through to the next round. In fact, you might want to consider doing
Rihanna over Gin Wigmore, and then have that be one of your back-up pieces instead.”

“You think so?” Annie couldn’t help sounding a little skeptical. She wasn’t sure how she felt about doing a slower song for the initial audition. It could be a good or bad thing, depending.

“Yeah, I do.”

“Well, what about the other song I’ve been practicing?”

“Oh right. Who was it by again?”

“Haley Reinhart.”

“Hmm, never heard of her.”

“She placed third in season ten of
American Idol
… has kind of a bluesy, soul sound.”

“I missed that season. Well, sure, go for it. Whenever you’re rea—,” he tried to say as he broke off in a yawn. “Oh wow, excuse me. Whenever you’re ready.”

“Oh God, I’m keeping you from your sleep. I can let you go.”

“Don’t worry about me—I can survive on very little sleep. Come on, princess. Sing to me.”

She couldn’t help giggling before she took a deep breath. “Okay. Here it goes.”

Quickly, she dove into the song, not wanting to keep him on the phone longer than necessary. After she finished, Annie’s face fell as Casey told her that it was decent, but that it should definitely be one of her back-ups. She thanked him for taking the time to listen and promised she’d call him after she got home from the auditions on Saturday. As she ended the call, Annie pondered what he said. Maybe she should pick a different third song. Even if it was a back-up, she wanted them all to be great.

Checking her playlists for inspiration, she bit her lip in concentration. After listening to several more songs, both slow and up tempo, a light bulb went off. Quickly, she searched through her iTunes library and pulled up the song she was looking for. Humming a few bars, she Googled the lyrics for
Gravity
by Sara Bareilles. She sang it through once and grinned like the Cheshire Cat. It was perfect.

Annie had a terrible time getting to sleep on Friday night. She had spent hours going through her closet with Alex, trying to pick the perfect outfit for her audition, finally settling on her favorite skinny jeans and a flowy, sleeveless top made of white linen with embroidered blue and green flowers along the neckline and hem of the shirt. It was cute, yet comfortable, and went perfectly with a pair of aqua blue espadrilles she’d recently purchased on a whim.

After printing out directions to the venue, she packed a small bag with healthy snacks, a few water bottles, a thermos of hot tea, two pomegranate Rock Star energy drinks, her iPod, her Kindle, make-up, breath mints, deodorant and body spray; a girl could never be too prepared. Her gas tank was full; she had stopped at the gas station on her way home from work so she wouldn’t be rushed to do it early the next morning on her way to the audition. She had rehearsed the three songs she’d chosen until she could sing them in her sleep. Hearing her hum all day at work probably had her co-workers on edge and prepared to kill her just to shut her up. Everything was ready to go. There was nothing further to do other than get some sleep.

Yet sleep continued to elude her until the wee hours of the morning. It was around two before she finally drifted off, just to be rudely awakened what seemed like mere moments later by the extremely loud alarm clock she’d set on the nightstand right next to her head.

She noticed that it was still dark outside as she hurried through her shower, Annie did some vocal warm-ups as she scrubbed herself vigorously. It didn’t take her long to dress, but she took quite a bit of time applying her make-up and fixing her hair before she was finally satisfied with the final result. She slipped on her espadrilles, took one final look at her reflection in the floor-length mirror that was attached to her closet door, grabbed the bag she had packed and the directions, then headed out, locking her door behind her.

Alex was already outside waiting for her, leaning against her car with two steaming cups of coffee in his hands. Annie gave him a grateful smile as she took the cup he offered her.

“Are you sure you don’t like women?” she asked teasingly.

“Positive,” he said with a wink as he climbed into the passenger seat. “Let’s get this show on the road!”

At this godforsaken early hour, traffic was non-existent; it only took them twenty minutes to reach their destination in Hollywood. Annie parked her car in a nearby lot, and then they began the short walk down the street to the venue. To her surprise, the line was already wrapped around the block. There had to be at least a hundred people in line, and it wasn’t even five o’clock, yet—the time the website had listed as the starting hour for people to line up.