Bright Lights: Book One of the Talia Shaw Series

by Darcy, Christine J

  “We’re ready,” Teddy said.

  “I’m ecstatic,” Manny said, though it seemed to me to be an exaggeration. “Well, I’m sure you’ll want to settle in, and Ted, you’ll want to get home?”

  “You’re not staying here?” I asked Teddy.

  “No. I’ve got a place.”

  I scoffed. “Is it as nice as this place?”

  Teddy raised his brows.

  “You have to stay. I don’t want to stay here alone. I mean, only if you want… I completely understand if you need some space,” I backtracked.

  “I’ll stay,” Teddy shrugged.

  “Great,” Manny said. “And I’ll have everyone ready to go at 9am sharp. Have a good evening.”

  Manny handed Teddy a set of keys and took off in a red Porsche. Our driver was struggling with our luggage, so Teddy and I rushed to help.

  We all walked in together, equally in awe of the place. It was very modern, with grey wash walls, white furniture and wooden accents throughout. We moved deeper and I lost my breath at the view. A stairwell went down from the timber deck to the expanse of sand leading to the shimmering blue ocean. I could have melted. “This is definitely better than my place.”

  A bouquet of blue flowers sat on the white marble top kitchen counter beside three bottles of expensive looking champagne. Odd, I thought, since they definitely knew I was underage. I dropped my luggage and took a whiff of the flowers.

  “This is a beautiful house,” our driver said. He put down our luggage and stood waiting.

  “Thank you,” I said. “Oh, tip!”

  An Australian and a Brit who’d both been on an all expenses cruise for the last month, we had forgotten. I checked my pockets and knew my wallet was buried in one of my suitcases. I picked up a bottle and offered it. “Would you like a bottle of champagne?”

  He looked at it with wide eyes. “No, Miss, don’t worry about it.”

  “Please, I don’t have anything else on me,” I convinced him.

  “Thank you very much. Have a good day.”

  “You too, mate,” Teddy said as the driver left. “Jesus Christ, this view.”

  Teddy stood at the window looking out at the blue water mere metres away. I moved to stand beside him. “First one in the water gets first choice of rooms.” I unlocked and opened the sliding door, running as if my life depended on it. I could hear Teddy behind me, catching up. I willed my legs to go faster. I pumped my arms. I was almost at the water when Teddy grabbed my waist, pulled me back and behind him and jumped in in front of me. I couldn’t catch my footing and stumbled into the wash with him. I gasped at the cold water. Teddy came up with victorious fists.

  “I am the champion.”

  “You’re a cheat,” I sulked. He laughed and splashed water in my face.

  “I’m picking dinner,” I claimed.

  We wandered back up on the deck and lay out to dry in the last of the day’s sun. Once we were dry enough we went inside and looked around. Upstairs were three bedrooms. All of them bigger than my own back home but one of them extraordinarily grand, with a big canopy bed and a claw foot tub with a grand vista of the beach.

  “Enjoy it,” I said to him.

  Teddy shook his head. “You have it.”

  “No way! You won it fair and square.”

  “I did it for the victory, not for the room.”

  I jumped on the bed. “Really?”

  “Yes. Enjoy.” I smiled gratefully, falling back onto the fluffy cloudlike quick cover.

  He chose the second biggest room. It didn’t have a gigantic bathroom but it did have a wine fridge. “This is definitely your room,” I said, laughing.

  We explored the rest of the downstairs: it had an office, a living room, another outdoor area with a fire pit and a hammock.

  “Where do you think this leads?” I asked Teddy, pointing to a stairwell hidden behind the kitchen.

  “The sex dungeon?” he guessed. I laughed.

  “Nicolas Cage shrine room?” I guessed.

  “Vanilla Ice vinyl collection,” he threw back at me.

  “Ooh vanilla ice cream would be good,” I said, distracted by hunger.

  “Maybe it’s a cool room?” Teddy ventured. He passed me and started moving down the stairs. I followed. There was another door, this one locked. Teddy took the keys from his pocket and opened it up. It was dark. I grabbed Teddy’s arm, wary. He reached inside for a light switch and found it.

  The room lit up. It was dark, black and timber accented like the rest of the house. There was a red velvet lounge and a black leather recliner in the first room. Through a glass wall we could see the room beyond it, a control room with a couple of big leather wheelie chairs and hundreds of buttons and switches on the control panel. Through the glass beyond that, a state of the art studio with microphones, pianos, guitars, a drum kit… everything we needed to make our album.

  “Oh my god,” I said. “Did you know this was here?”

  “No idea. I thought we were going in to IMG to record.” Teddy moved into the control room and then into the studio. I followed him. He picked up a guitar.

  “That is a cool guitar,” he said, awed. I went over and touched it. I played a few chords. It was in tune. “Play something,” he said, as he moved back into the control room.

  “What do you want me to play?” I asked.

  He fiddled around with the controls and then I could hear his voice, garbled through the speaker system. “Sorry?”

  “I said what should I play?”

  He considered, “Let’s hear a little Sails?”

  I smiled. A little red light came up above the window between the studio and the control room. Recording, I guessed. I started playing. He smiled as he watched. When I finished, I went in to the control room. He played it back for me. It sounded good. It sounded really good. But not as good as it sounded when we got the professionals in there.

  At 9am, three guys and a gal, all wearing some version of plaid and two of them with beards, arrived at the house. Teddy introduced me to all of them, Joe, dark skin, red plaid, Jesus hair and beard, Merrick, blue plaid, no beard, looking like a young Jared Leto, Vinny, strangely paler than Teddy with orange hair and an orange beard and Lucy, a tatted up Latina, with a red plaid headband.

  “We didn’t do this on purpose,” she said pointing to the plaid before she engulfed me in a hug. “I’m a hugger, sorry.”

  They were all like Teddy. They’d known him forever. Maybe that was why. They were very easy with me. We became fast friends as we played them our songs and started recording. I still felt nervous, playing. Sure, they were my songs now instead of the Betty Coopers, but I’d never been so nervous in front of so few. Lucy played every instrument under the sun, so we bonded easily. Vinny played guitar and he and Merrick mixed, and Joe was our producer. He was the most serious of the bunch but he seemed to like our stuff. He was very quiet mostly but then he would come out with a “Yes!” and a clenched fist when he was really into it which gave us great encouragement and amusement. I became more comfortable with them the longer we went on. They took the songs Teddy and I had written together and built them up, building layers in them and moulding them until they were ten times better than they were before.

  When I finally finished Bettys, I played it for Teddy first. He was just as quiet as he was the first time he heard it. Then he made me play it for the group. They were just as quiet. Lucy seemed angry and left the room for a bit.

  Joe spoke up. “She’ll be alright.”

  Vinny smiled at me, sadly, knowingly.

  Merrick kissed my cheek and whispered, “It’ll hurt some folks, but it might make some feel better.” They recorded it just me and the guitar. Joe asked Lucy to play a little violin. We all sat there watching her as she listened to the song and figured out exactly how much or how little it needed. She played it, built up the sound to crescendo until the song was finished. It had me in tears.

  Within two months we had finished the record and had se
nt it to the label.

  “You can’t just tell me what you think?” I asked Manny, on the phone he had given me which I had actually started to use.

  “We can discuss it this afternoon. There are a few people here who want to meet you,” he advised me. It had been a week since we’d sent the record and had heard nothing. Then Manny was demanding we go in for a meeting. I was terrified. So, I dragged Teddy with me to the IMG offices in Downtown LA.

  We told Reception our names and they directed us to level 15. We got into the elevator and my stomach began flipping. I kept thinking of every scenario. They hate it and are going to make me payback all the money they’d spent on me. They hate it and they are going to make me remake it with Betty Coopers songs. Or somebody else’s songs. Teddy seemed to sense my thoughts because he turned me to look at him.

  “You’re overthinking. They’ll love it,” he assured me. The elevator opened and we got out in a bright red hallway. I straightened my dress, the one nice dress I had brought with me, and we turned left as directed. We came face to face with a glass doorway with another reception desk on the other side.

  We were just about to open the door as Laurie Siler appeared, being led out of the main offices by a pretty woman in a pencil skirt and bow blouse. He noticed Teddy first and gave him a familiar smile. Of course, they knew each other, Teddy had written for him. Then he noticed me and smiled wider, surprised. Teddy opened the door. Laurie was so much taller than I thought. Taller than I had imagined. But even more gorgeous. I warmed up when I remembered my dream. His tan skin was so smooth. His eyes were a deep green.

  “Well, hello,” Laurie said, his eyes full of mischief. I was suddenly struck by the irrational fear that he knew what I was thinking. That he somehow knew I had dreamed of him and exactly what had happened in that dream.

  “How’s it going, mate?” Teddy asked, hugging his friend. The pencil skirted woman excused herself and went back to her reception desk.

  “Better now that I can see your gorgeous face,” Laurie said, gently patting Teddy’s cheek.

  “Talia Shaw,” Laurie said as turned his attention to me. He came in for a kiss on the cheek and I froze a little. He knew my name. His expression became serious. “I’m sorry about that night. It’s awful.”

  That night. The night of the accident. I was a monster. Because all I could think was that he remembered seeing me. “Thank you,” I said, automatically.

  He lightened up, and I was grateful for it. “I’ve got something that belongs to you,” he said.

  “What?” Teddy asked, fathomless.

  “What are you doing later?” Laurie asked us both but then clapped his gaze firmly on me.

  “I’m not sure,” I answered. Manny came out behind Laurie and looked at us with wide urgent eyes. Teddy noticed, too.

  “Here you are,” he said, offering a nod to Laurie. “We better get in,” he said as he ushered me through.

  “I’ll see you soon then,” Laurie said.

  “Yeah, man,” Teddy answered. Laurie waved goodbye, that same knowing mischievous smirk on his face. I smiled and waved back before Manny and Teddy pulled me out of view.

  We moved through the office, a quiet space with glass walled private rooms and red leather sofas, toward another double door. Manny opened it up and we went through to a grand conference room. There was a balding man with thin wire rimmed glasses, and a tightly buttoned woman with an auburn pixie cut, seated in one corner of it, both of them with serious looks on their faces. I wanted to turn back around and go with Laurie.

  Manny pulled out my chair and I took a seat. Manny sat near the two label execs and Teddy sat beside me.

  “Welcome to Los Angeles, Miss Shaw,” the man said with faux enthusiasm. It felt strange to be welcomed to the city I’d been living in, but I nodded in thanks all the same. “I’m Ray Hollis and this is-”

  “Clara Rothe,” she finished for him curtly.

  “Nice to meet you both.”

  “How are you liking the place in Malibu?” Ray asked. His friendliness made me just as uncomfortable as her unfriendliness.

  “It’s great. Thank you.”

  “Have you done any exploring of the city?” he asked.

  “Not really,” I answered.

  “We’ve got to get you a tour guide. What about Disneyland? Have you been to the magical kingdom yet?”

  I was getting antsy with this series of questions. I guessed where they were leading. They were getting ready to send me home having wasted their time and everyone else’s. But if I’d been to Disneyland perhaps I wouldn’t have wasted my own time. I think Teddy could sense my impatience. He spoke up, “We haven’t left the studio much. Working on that album we gave you a week ago.”

  “I think they are eager to hear your thoughts,” Manny tried to play devil’s advocate. I had been mentally preparing to hear all the reasons they hated what we’d done.

  Clara opened up a manila folder in front of her and held out a stapled stack of paper for me. I stood up, reached over and grabbed it. I wasn’t exactly sure what I was looking at. On each page there were a series of tables with ticks in various places and below that, a paragraph or two. I flipped through and they were all the same in structure. Words and phrases stood out to me; ‘At the same time poignant and uplifting,’ ‘I played the album over and over again,’ ‘Who is this girl?’ and ‘heartbroken’. My heart beat faster. I imagined the people listening to the songs Teddy and I had been pouring ourselves into. They liked them. They really liked them.

  “What is it?” Teddy asked me.

  I handed them over to him. I wanted to hug him so badly, but I felt so stifled in that room. I looked up at Ray and Clara. Ray was smiling but Clara maintained her serious expression.

  “This is the focus group feedback we gathered in the last several days,” he explained. “I’m sure you’ll agree that it is extremely positive.”

  “Wow,” Teddy said next to me, flipping through as I had to take in as much of it as he could. He knocked his knee against mine.

  “We hadn’t expected it so be so positive,” Clara said.

  I tipped my head to the side, trying to work out whether that was a diss or a compliment.

  “We’re all a little bit obsessed to be honest,” she said, a hint of a smile peeking through. That was a shock. Teddy laughed a little beside me. Manny was smiling wide.

  “What this means is, the release is going to be much bigger than originally planned,” Manny explained.

  “What?” was all I could spit out.

  “Interviews, appearances, performances, we’re putting you out there, Miss Shaw. Are you ready for it?” Ray looked at me discerningly.

  “I-” wasn’t sure.

  Teddy clapped me on the back. “She’s ready.”

  “Perfect,” Ray said, clapping his hands together once.

  Clara’s phone buzzed and she touched Ray’s arm. “We have another appointment. Manny can get you organised.”

  “Yes I can. Thank you for your time,” he said, standing. We all stood, shook hands and Ray and Clara breezed out the door. As soon as it closed behind them I jumped into Teddy’s arms. He squeezed me tight, lifting me up.

  Manny cleared his throat and Teddy dropped me. We turned to look at him. “I’m so proud of you, Talia. And not surprised, Ted. I’m very happy for you both.”

  “Thank you, Manny.” I had given Manny such a hard time. But, it wasn’t his fault that the label had forced this album from me, which in the end turned out to be such a relief and now a joy. And he had always been kind in other respects. “Really,” I reiterated.

  He seemed a little struck by my genuine display of gratitude. He smiled and nodded. Teddy held out a hand and Manny shook it.

  He looked up at the clock on the wall. “Well, we have a lot to do today. Shall we get moving?”

  “We do?” I asked. He ushered us from the room and led us back down the hallway.

  “Do I need to be here for this?” Teddy asked, as
if he knew what was coming. I looked at him desperately. I didn’t want to do whatever was next alone.

  “You don’t need to be here but feel free to tag along,” Manny confirmed.

  “What’s happening, Manny?” I asked.

  He pressed the button for the elevator which opened right up. We all stepped in and he pressed level 7. “Like Ray said, the release is going to be a lot bigger than originally envisioned which means the individual shots we took as part of the Betty Coopers release are not going to work. We’re going to need to do a photoshoot, which is where we’re heading now, as well as get you set up with a stylist, security, driver, PR, at least one music video… Oh god, I almost forgot, did anyone take any BTS?” he directed that question to Teddy.

  “I might have a few on my phone. As might the rest of the fellas,” he shrugged.

  “Can you get everything sent to me?”

  Teddy nodded. The doors opened up and moved across the hall to another double doorway. A photographer and half a dozen assistants were shuffling lights up against a coloured background. Two women and a man, dressed head to toe in black, shuffled around three clothes racks filled with colourful outfits and a shoe rack, seven layers high with heels and sneakers and boots. In the middle of the room was a row of light framed mirrors and chairs in which sat three hair and makeup artists scrolling on their phones. They jumped up as we arrived.

  I was quickly forced into the empty chair, and a young woman, who introduced herself as Megan, was releasing the bobby pins keeping my curls off my face and spraying something fruity into my hair. Teddy took the seat beside me, texting away. Another woman, Vienna, a little bit older, she told me, starting wiping the makeup from my face to start from scratch. “Nothing you could work with, huh?” I asked. I had taught myself makeup the way most girls my age had, YouTube tutorials, but I had an unsteady hand and I was terribly impatient.

  “Sorry, love. We’ve all got our skills,” she said.

  Megan re-curled my hair and another woman, who didn’t speak at all even when prompted, started doing my nails.

  Teddy shoved his phone in my face and I looked at the picture on the screen. Lucy and I singing backup vocals for a track. We were smiling and dancing by the microphone. It was a great picture. I guessed that is what Teddy had been doing, gathering behind the scenes pictures. “Show me more,” I said.