When Kalika walked into the recording studio, she saw JC rushing around, collecting various papers that had been scattered around the floor and table. He barely glanced up when she entered and didn’t stop moving.
“Where’s the fire?” she asked.
“I’m running late for this executive meeting.”
“Oh. Is that for the upcoming album?”
“Part of it. We’re also discussing a song for a soundtrack.”
“How was New Orleans?”
He shrugged, saying nothing.
“I heard Lance was still there,” she said.
“Yea, but he’s coming back today. He had better come back today. He’s got a track he has to get down and he promised to work on some arrangements.”
“Do you know why he’s staying in New Orleans?”
He finally looked up. “Why?”
She smiled nervously. “I was just wondering.”
He resumed getting his things together, already forgetting her eerily curious tone. “I’ve got no clue as to why he decided to stay. Maybe he wanted an extended vacation.”
“Maybe.” She watched him quietly. Her eyes held the same blind admiration that it always had before, she was still in awe every time she looked at him. But now, along with the intense respect and adoring look, was a shadow of a painful memory that lingered in her eyes. “So nothing interesting happened on the trip? You didn’t run into anyone? Meet any new people or…familiar friends?”
“Nope,” he rushed past her, “I gotta go.”
“All right. Well, good-"
He stepped out and slammed the door behind him.
“-bye.”
~~
At the executive meeting, Lance Bass was running late. When he did arrive, he surprised everyone by pushing a wheel chair in, containing a young girl who had evidently been used as a human punching bag. She was bruised, bloodied, and scarred, but underneath it all was something that could have once been called fragile and delicate.
While everyone gawked openly at her physical damages, one man barely noticed it. What caught his attention was the dewy hazel eyes that stood out amongst all of the scars. The eyes were a bottomless well of space and nothingness, but that wasn’t what was so incredible to him. Her face was a perpetual blank expression, but he didn’t see that either. What he saw was a girl who did not look beaten, who had accepted defeat but not because of her bruises, who did not cower before them in shame of her face, but stared back proudly at the room that was staring at her and offered no apologies for the way she looked.
Out of all the looks of horror and shock in the room, a single face smiled.
“Sorry I’m late,” Lance said. “This is my friend Hazel Fairchild.
Nobody moved at first but then one man, who gazed around curiously, took the liberty of standing himself and walked towards her. He shook her hand. “Hi. My name is JC.”
~~
Dustin Wisner was drinking whisky straight from the bottle when he heard the news.
His back could feel every spring that was contained in the old mattress he lay on, his feet resting on the pillow where his head should have been. The room was a cluttered mess of bottles, clothes, and his bed sheets that he must have kicked onto the floor the night before. He stared at the sickening yellow ceiling above him, counting the various water stains that had been caused by the rain, when the phone rang. Rolling onto his side, he pushed away a pile of trash and found the cheap, portable phone on the floor.
“Yea?” he answered. He had a surprisingly deep voice considering how thin and lanky his frame was.
“Dusty! Guess what my friend.”
It was his good for nothing agent, as his partner in crime liked to refer to him as. At the thought of the girl, Dustin smiled, which looked like a gruesome, wicked thing. “What is it Mitch?”
“The single you just produced guy. It’s number one!”
“Number one what?”
“The number one song on the billboard charts! You’re rich!”
Dustin sat up abruptly, dropping the bottle on the floor. It didn’t matter anyway. It was empty. “Say that again?”
“Your song for Lightning just hit number one on the charts. Everyone is talking about it. You and Meadow are going to be filthy stinking rich!”
Dustin didn’t know how to react so he sat still, his chest heaving. It was clear that he was not used to experiencing happiness and now that he had it, he wasn’t sure what to do with it. “Look…Mitch…I…this is great. I gotta go.”
“You have to go? But, why?”
“I’ll call you back. Bye.” Dustin turned it off and jumped out of his bed, kicking and pushing piles from the floor to find his shoes. When he did, he jogged out of the room and through the only other room inside the apartment besides the bathroom, the living room/kitchen and ran out the front door, absently leaving it open. He didn’t have anything worth stealing anyway. Jumping down a dark green flight of stairs, he went to the floor beneath his own and ran towards the apartment located underneath his.
He didn’t have to knock and just burst in.
The apartment was a replica of his own, but far more clean and furnished, a feminine touch could be seen everywhere. A tiny girl, slim and short, sat on the plaid couch reading a book. She had a unique look, indirectly beautiful, with small eyes and luscious, naturally red lips. At first glance, her face was like a puzzle with mismatching pieces, but once one really looked at her, it was like a flower that was blossoming before ones eyes. The features spoke for themselves, they did not flow together, but fought for equal attention. It was difficult not to stare at her for endless periods of time.
Her manner was stern and precise. It was as though every movement she made, she had taken several minutes beforehand to contemplate and dissect it. She was the type of silent that spoke volumes. She did not belong in the type of life she was situated in, she looked like someone who deserved better. A diamond in the rough.
Dustin Wisner and Meadow Quade had known each other ever since she was ten and he, twelve. They had grown up in the same neighborhood in Los Angeles, but that’s where the similarities ended. Dustin’s mother had died several years before and his father was a savage alcoholic. Meadow’s parents could have been spawned from the Brady Bunch. Dustin was constantly scraping for food and barely getting by in school, while Meadow always had plenty to eat and spectacular grades. His father despised Dustin and he had and still did worship the man. Meadow hated her parents, although they had been nothing except perfect and loving to their only child. Meadow seemed to hate everyone she came across. She never had a playmate, never had girls her age as friends. She fought with them instead, constantly getting into scraps in the school yard or stealing away their boyfriends just for the sake of pissing them off. She rarely got along with anybody.
Then one day, she had walked over to Dustin during lunch and they became inseparable.
Dustin wasn’t popular but he wasn’t a loner. He had his share of friends and could have had more, but he refused to follow the trends of his peers. He didn’t wear the right clothes on purpose, he avoided putting pictures or stickers on his folder, and he never participated in sports or any other school function. But he was great for going out and having a drink with the boys and was constantly invited to parties.
No one knew what to make of them. They went everywhere together but didn’t seem romantically involved. Yet, after the day she had approached him at lunch, his folder now carried a single picture of Meadow Quade. In high school they never went to school dances and always ditched classes. No one ever saw her with a boyfriend nor he with a girlfriend, but they were always seen with each other. They were the main item for gossip but they either didn’t notice or didn’t care. Most assumed the latter.
After graduating she disappointed her parents by refusing college, and he relieved his father by moving out, taking Meadow with him. Dustin had a dream, and that dream was to produce music. He couldn’t play an instrument and couldn’t sing a note, but he loved music and had an ear for it. There was nothing in the world more comfortable to him than a studio. There was nothing else he was good at except producing.
Now, at twenty-five and twenty-three, they lived in separate apartments in West Hollywood and were on the brink of becoming the two most popular producers in the business. They were Hollywood’s best kept secret about to be revealed.
“Yes Dustin?” Meadow said without looking up from her book.
“Meadow, we’ve done it!”
“Done what darling?”
Dustin stood impatiently, his thin body ready to explode from the excitement he wasn’t sure how to contain. “Our song! “Just Getting By” by that horrible group. Well, guess what?”
“It’s number one?”
“Yes! Meadow, isn’t this great? Our song is a hit! No more living in this dump or eating stale Chinese food, we’re moving up in the world.”
“I thought you liked what I’ve done with the apartment.”
“Screw this apartment.” He stalked up to her and grabbed the book away and flung it across the room. It flew and hit a wall, then sunk, dead on the floor. “We’re going to be a success. We’re going to be rich.”
Meadow placed her hands in her lap, her slit eyes staring up at him quietly. “That was very rude Dustin. Get my book please.”
He was shocked. Friends of his knew he was completely stubborn and wouldn’t lift a finger for anyone unless it benefited himself. Now, with a tired groan, he moved to pick up the book from the ground and roughly handed it back to her. “You’re ridiculous, you know.”
She smiled, pleased, and re-opened the book.
“Meadow, aren’t you in the least bit glad about the news?”
She sighed and put the book down. The subject of looming success and riches seemed to bore her. “Yes, I suppose. I think that I’m much happier for you though. You’ve dreamt of this for so long and I’m glad you’ve finally got it.”
“Imagine the possibilities for us! Do you know what it means to have the number one song in the country? Every group is going to want to work with us. And why shouldn’t they? We’re good and we work hard, it’s about time we got some recognition.”
“Yes Dustin, you’re right.”
“Then why don’t you smile for goodness sakes!”
She smiled.
“Very funny.” Dustin walked over her and took a seat on the couch. “You’re ruining my good mood, thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
He sighed and rested his head back, grinning at the ceiling. “This is great. Who will we work with next? It’s going to be on our terms, that’s for sure. And no more of those disgusting pop groups either. I can’t stand them.”
Meadow had already resumed reading her book. “I do hope they’re interesting.”
~~
“This is looking good guys. My office has been flooded, literally, with phone calls and letters. The whole music industry is looking for you guys. They want you, you’re hot. Now is your time and we’re going to make this happen. Each choice we make here is crucial and has to be taken carefully and cautiously.”
Mitch was looking across his desk at his two producers that he had made his top priority for the past three months. Dustin and Meadow were like black and white, dark and light. Meadow was definitely the dark. Mitch liked Dustin; he was infatuated with the bottle, but he was dedicated and hard working. Not many people could look past his thick head and see the talent that lay in the brown, bulging eyes of the young man, but Mitch could.
Meadow was one person Mitch did not get along with, although he didn’t show it. She never spoke to him or to anyone. Whenever he tried to arrange a meeting with her alone, she would immediately say “I’ll have to check with Dustin and see if it’s ok,” and she always did, and he always said it wasn’t ok. Dustin was stubborn, but when it came to Meadow, he was entirely possessive. Nobody knew what was going on in the relationship except to say that Meadow never left Dustin’s side.
“So what is the next step?” Dustin asked, Meadow ignoring the conversation entirely and shifting through a pile of pictures she had found on Mitch’s desk.
“Well,” Mitch sat back, “You guys have got to get back into the studio as soon as possible. Come out with another hit album. This shouldn’t be a problem, you have tons of offers coming in. The problem lies within who you want to work with next. Got any ideas Dusty?”
“No clue. How about you?”
“There’s a couple of groups that I think would be good for you. I got a very interesting call the other day…” He stopped when he noticed Dustin was no longer paying attention. Meadow was showing him a picture she had found interesting.
“Who is this?” Dustin asked, tossing the picture to Mitch.
“Oh, yes, that’s who I was talking about. Like I said, I got an interesting call from this group. They’re ‘N Sync.”
“No way,” Dustin said to Meadow. “I told you, I don’t want to do another pop album.”
Mitch sat up. “This isn’t another pop group Dusty. This is the big leagues. They’re the number one pop group in the nation right now. If you do this record and it’s a smash, you’ll explode. No one will be able to touch you guys.”
Dustin chewed on that. “I don’t know. Are they any good?”
“The best. I wouldn’t bring it to your attention if they didn’t have any talent. There is one minor problem though.”
“What is it?”
Mitch was hesitant. “Well, on this album, you’ll have to co-produce.”
“With who?”
“One of the members.”
“No way,” Dustin immediately said.
“Which one?” Meadow asked.
This surprised both of the men in the room. It was the first time Meadow had spoken to Mitch the entire meeting. “Uh, the one on the far left.” He handed the picture back to her, which she studied closely. “His name is JC Chasez. He’s got some experience under his belt, he produced a lot of their last album. He called specifically asking for you two.”
“This isn’t how I normally work,” Dustin said. “My conditions are that Meadow and I work alone.”
“Yes, I know. But this is a great opportunity. This could open up hallways of doors for you both. Why don’t you meet with them at least?”
Dustin looked at the girl next to him. “Meadow?”
She was still staring at the picture, her eyes scrutinizing the face that had brought the picture to her attention in the first place. He was attractive, he had an amazing set of pale blue eyes, dark hair, and a face chiseled to perfection. Even through the picture, she could sense something about him that she had barely seen before in any other face. She was instantly intrigued.
She looked up and said in a commanding voice, “Let’s meet them.”
~~
The scrapbook wasn’t as one would have expected. Occasionally she would come across a tiny magazine or newspaper clipping and there were no magazine covers or fashionable pictures of himself or the group. The pictures were mostly of scenery, specific places he had wanted to remember, the tree which he wrote his first song under, the first studio he had ever been inside. There were scraps of paper pasted or taped everywhere, mostly describing his surroundings at the time or with pieces of unfinished lyrics. The pictures of people were only of his groupmates, Polaroid’s that he had taken of special moments, like a picture of them on the first stage of their very own headlining tour, or of them holding the finished product of their first album.
There was one picture that stood out for her. It was the only picture of just himself. He was sitting at a table, probably on the tour bus, concentrated on a song. Next to him was a window and blurs of green and blue passed by, like the outside was the one moving instead of him. She was in love with that picture. She was in love with the entire book. Frequently, she would lock herself in a room and take it out, looking over the pages for the hundredth time, running her fingers over hand written words, careful not to smudge the pencil marks. It became a living thing to her, a painful entity that she would never let go.
There was only one page that she had looked at only once. It was the last page, the page he had made specifically for her. There wasn’t much too it, just a poem and a picture. The picture was a Polaroid of the bus stop. The poem was a blow to her chest.
Love is real
It is not just in novels or the movies
It is fact and it is standing here right in front of you
So if you open your eyes
Oh what a sweet discovery
There is hope and there is joy and there is acceptance
So now let all the light that collects on your plants
Keep you warm and make you smile
And I will be there with this pen in my hand
To record all the while
You’ll be laughing so loud that the house will shake with sound
And everything will be as new as the day it was found
Love is real
It is not just in long distance commercials
Or something that you thought you felt back in high school
So I will turn black and white
Become that horoscope you’re reading
It predicts something good is on its way
And then I will send you the world green and blue
In a box through the mail
You can open it up, hold it right in your hand
And be glad that it’s there
And be glad that you’re there
Now you can feel all the knots in your stomach start to untie
And suddenly it’s not so hard to say you’re all right
Love is real
It is not just in poetry and stories
It is truth and it will follow you everywhere you go
From now on
So if you just cast off your doubt
Then your lips would answer for you
Oh my darling when you smile
It is like a song
And I can hear it now
(Bright Eyes)
Sita had not cried the first and only time she had read it. She only sighed, breathing out the agony she felt, and closed the book, clutching it to her chest until she fell asleep.
~~
As Dustin Wisner paced steadily around the small studio, throwing quick, harsh glances at the girl sitting on a chair, he kept envisioning an ice cold can of beer in front of him.
The day after they had agreed to it, ‘N Sync had caught an immediate flight to Los Angeles to come and meet them. Dustin had been impressed, but barely. Meadow said nothing. Yesterday they had met the group for an early, light lunch in a much too expensive restaurant. He looked at Meadow and could see it in her eyes that she too longed for some good Chinese food. In a silent agreement, he had been designated to do the talking, as usual. He had a game plan. He would do the album under one condition: he and Meadow worked alone. He had expected the group to agree with him immediately. Those kinds of groups never had a mind of their own anyway, they only wanted the record to be another pop smash, they didn’t care how it was made.
JC Chasez had proven himself to be the very definition of the unexpected.
With the first glimpse of him across the table, Dustin could see the look of stubbornness and unrestless passion that he had thought an obsolete dream to exist in any other man in the world. He saw the unstoppable goal, like a solid brick wall, that no one and nothing could break through or move in a pair of blue eyes. He felt as though he had found an equal and an adversary all at ounce, and he felt an inner part of him that he thought he had soaked up with alcohol come to life and actually smile.
He knew that he would work with JC, but he didn’t want to give in so easily. JC didn’t expect him to. He started questioning him, challenging him with his tone and his replies, stating the reasons that JC could not be allowed to work with them. He had enjoyed the answers that JC gave, smoothly and calmly, with a sense of reason behind each reply. Dustin would have continued on like that.
That’s when Meadow interrupted.
Dustin hadn’t been prepared for her to agree so hastily to work with JC. He had been even less prepared for the strange look of earnestness he had seen on her face.
He looked at her again, as he paced around the studio. His steps were not nervous but angered. She sat calmly, studying him passively with her small eyes. They had arranged to meet with JC today and waited for his arrival. Neither of them had spoken about the lunch, although Dustin had a swarm of questions that he wanted to ask her. He didn’t, however, because he feared her answers.
The door to the studio opened and both turned to see JC enter. His posture was impeccable, his body a solid, stiff straight line that one would have thought to be a painful position to maintain if he didn’t look so relaxed and oblivious to the way he held himself. He brought an impersonal, uncomfortable air with him, but his presence was so startling and tangible, that it neutralized the air and insisted the others in the room to stare at him as if they were driving past a horrible accident on the freeway. On the other end, he didn’t seem to notice anyone else around him.
Meadow had jumped to her feet. If Dustin had noticed, he would have been angry, but he was watching JC as well. JC was eyeing the studio equipment. After a careful inspection, he looked at them. “So shall we get started?”
Dustin crossed his arms over his chest. “What exactly are you intending to do?”
“Let you listen to something.”
“For what purpose?”
“To let you decide if you want to work with me,” JC said, walking towards a machine and turning it on. He took a square container out of his jeans pocket and opened it to produce a disc. Placing the disc in the machine, he turned on a couple more items and then went directly to the outboard, entirely at home. Dustin knew that it was the first time JC had ever been inside that particular studio.
Dustin and Meadow weren’t given a chance to question him, when sound began to pour out of the speakers around them, flooding the room and touching their ears like invisible currents. Dustin could hear all of the droplets of sound that made up the ocean of the song and was frozen still by the mastery in which it was put together. He didn’t just hear noise, he heard music, he heard the thought inside of the song, the intense personality split open and drained of blood to be put into the song.
It took him a minute to realize that one of the sounds he was hearing was that of a voice. He knew almost by instinct that it was JC singing. He could feel the power behind the voice. A strange sensation swept through him, something he had never felt before; the immediate desire to capture that voice, to have it, to own it. His fingers twitched, longing for the dials and switches they needed to experiment with the voice, to bend it any way they wished and have the security of knowing it could never be broken. Already, ideas and sounds flashed in his mind, faster than a strobe light, and he barely had time to recognize them in his conscience.
When the song was over, he looked up and saw JC watching him. “It was supposed to be on our last record,” he said, finding no need to point out the subject that he was talking about. “It was cut.”
“Let me guess? Not pop enough?” Dustin said with an obvious air of disgust.
JC nodded.
“Trey Remy has no ear for music.”
“He’s a businessman. He only focuses on the industry part of ‘music industry’, which is ok, because he leaves the music part up to me.” JC paused. “So will you work with me?”
“Hell yes.”
JC grinned and Dustin found himself returning it. He felt as if, for the first time in his life, he was facing an equal, a comrade. It was the first time he had ever forgotten Meadow’s presence in the room. Neither of the men seemed to have remembered she was there. She noticed it and made her own smile secretly, to herself.
“Who brought us to your attention?” Dustin asked.
JC remembered the day when a soft figure in a business suit had entered the studio with a proud, invigorated smile on her face, slamming down a CD on the desk he had been working on. “I’ve found them,” was all she had said.
“Kalika Perne,” he answered tonelessly. “Do you know her?”
Dustin shook his head, then looked back, startled by the memory that someone else was in the room. “Meadow, a friend of yours?”
“You know I have no friends Dustin,” the girl replied politely.
“What made you want to work with us?” Dustin asked, facing the other man once more.
JC smiled and shrugged his shoulders. “I heard your song.”
~~
Hazel Fairchild hummed as she took a seat in between the large white pillows of the couch in the living room. She had placed a bag next to her and opened it, taking out books, a notebook, and a pen, which she placed neatly in the glass table before her. While most would have looked upon the task before her with reluctance and misery, she smiled pleasantly, anxiously waiting for the study sessions that she found herself frequently looking forward to.
“I’m ready,” she announced to the apartment.
“I’ll be there in a second,” a voice from the kitchen called back to her.
She sat back impatiently, her large eyes taking a stroll around the room. She had lived there for almost three months, this was her home now, this was where she belonged. Everything she had every wanted in life was contained in that simple city. Her dreams came true every time she looked upon the anxious faces of the children at a nearby day-care center that she read to every Friday, her confidence rode high every time she left her college with another successful test score, and she sighed in blissful contentment every time she came home. Home, not the walls that surrounded her, or the furniture, but the presence of the man that lived there with her.
Without realizing it, she stood up and began walking around the room, allowing her fingers to travel over walls and furniture, feeling beneath her fingertips a warmth that came from belonging and having finally attained safety and comfort. “Is JC coming tonight?” she said, continuing her path, her feet sinking into the soft blue carpet beneath her.
“I don’t know. You know how busy he is lately, with all the producing and mixing he has to get done. Especially since the last track was laid down yesterday.”
“Chris finally got it?”
“Thankfully. I thought Dustin was going to murder him in his sleep if he didn’t get it right.”
She smiled and approached the large fireplace. She had never paid much attention to it before. Picture frames and awards were scattered on the mantel, but she had always passed them over without much interest. She didn’t know why, that night, she felt her interest sparked. Leisurely, she examined the American Music Award, a memory of a time when Justin had paid her a visit and was examining that same temple flashing in her mind. She didn’t understand why she thought of that now.
“It’s a picture of my ex-girlfriend,” he had said while picking up one of the pictures. She remembered which picture it was and, with a sudden curiosity she couldn’t explain, searched for it and picked it up.
She almost dropped it.
“It can’t be…” It had been three months since she had seen the blond hair, the playful face, the expensive clothes. She had tried to reach both of the girls, but her limited attempts had all failed or she had forgotten. There had been so much going on, she had just put them in the back of her mind. Now, they were suddenly thrust forward.
She remembered that day Justin had been there and she had asked, “Where is she now?”
“I’m not sure,” he had answered, “They both went away somewhere and I haven’t seen her since.”
They both went away…both… Her head shot up and she checked the other pictures, not having to look long. It was a simple photograph, containing just one girl, her smile clearly forced but as radiant as ever, her midnight hair shining in the flash of the camera. Hazel was gripping the picture. She screamed. “Lance!”
She didn’t see him run into the room instantly, she hardly felt his hands gripping her shoulders, his eyes searching her now colorless face that refused to look away from the picture frame she held. “Hazel, what is it? What’s wrong?”
“I…I…” She looked up at him and turned the photograph around. “You know Sita Perne?”
“Yes, of course, she…” His own eyes widened. “How do you know Sita?”
“I met her and Karen months ago. Sita’s my best friend.”
“What!?”
Somebody rang the doorbell.
Lance and Hazel kept their eyes on each other, the shock in their faces reflecting each other in a brilliant light of discovery and disbelief. “Come in,” Lance said distantly, his voice automatic.
They both looked to see JC enter the door. He stopped short when he noticed their expressions. Then his eyes wandered down to the picture Hazel still held out. Lance waited to see anger, confusion, something on his friend’s face, but no emotion was evident. Only his question gave any clue as to what JC was thinking.
“What’s going on?”
Lance released his grip on Hazel and faced JC. “We’ve found her.”