Taking Chances

You’re going to be fine, Zayn’s words of encouragement from that morning echoed through my head as I made my way through the front door of the recording studio, my hands stuffed deeply into the front pockets of my pea coat.

I wanted them to resonate inside me, but I was still nervous as hell. It wasn’t the contract itself that worried me. It was just the idea of discussing my album, my tour, the revival of my career with Simon Cowell. Everything was just entirely surreal and incredibly difficult to wrap my head around.

I entered the same room we used for my “audition” to find Gabby waiting for me. Upon seeing her, her warm smile, her familiar face, my entire body seemed to relax about ten notches.

“Hi, Bailey,” she greeted in her Southern twang, getting to her feet and smoothing down her sundress (though it was winter) to give me a hug. “I’m so glad that I get to see you in person again.”

“Me, too,” I answered honestly. “I really didn’t think it’d ever happen again.”

“Oh, I was sure of it,” she replied smugly as she settled back down, putting her chin in the air for the extra note of arrogance. “There’s no way you could stay away from the spotlight for too long.”

I hesitated for a second before sighing and coining one of Zayn’s phrases, “Whatever you say.”

A few minutes later, Simon walked in, a smile on his face. Gone was the intimidation factor that had been present when he asked me to sing for him. When he sat down, he had a very calm aura about him, and most of my anxiety disappeared completely. “Hi there, Bailey,” he started with a smile. “And it’s nice to see you again, Gabby.”

Gabby grinned back. “Alright, so according to the contract, she’s signed to you for the duration of one CD, including press coverage, and one tour. You can decide then whether you want to keep her for a longer period of time after you judge the success of her album and how the press receives her. Right?”

Simon nodded. “That sounds right to me. So let me get a couple things out there to start off with. Bailey?”

I turned to look at him, though my mind was still racing about what Gabby had said. I wasn’t signed on permanently? I was just on a trail basis? That idea made me scared out of my mind, since my last album hadn’t done as well as the studio expected.

“I want to say that here, your album’s going to be a lot less produced. It’s going to be much more of your raw voice instead of all that autotune shit that your old company did. That’s okay with you, right?”

“Absolutely,” I nodded immediately. “If you think my voice is good enough to stand on its own.”

“Oh, of course it is,” he scoffed. “And I’m thinking that your songs are going to be of more meaning this time around, which means that I want you to work with a songwriting team. They can help you pull out emotions and events that have happened to you. Your songs will have more of an impact with your fans that way, and they’ll feel that they can relate to you.”

I swallowed. I didn’t really have many life experiences. And the ones that I did have, I didn’t really want to share them with the entire world. They were kind of painful. “Sure,” I agreed, since I didn’t want to be a spoil sport.

“Great. I’ll give them a ring after this to set up exact times.” He leaned back in his chair, done with the official business. “Oh, and one more thing I want to get out of the way: on your last tour that you went on with the boys, I know that you just sang songs from your album.”

Gabby and I nodded, urging him to continue.

“I was hoping that you’d be able to do a cover or two. You know, something that will really show off your voice. Like the boys did, when Zayn sang I Gotta Feeling and Louis sang Valerie on this latest tour.”

A song came into my head instantly, but I bit my lip, holding it back. It was a hard song, for sure, and I didn’t know if I could hit all the notes. What if my voice cracked in front of everyone? Or, even worse, my voice cut off completely?

“You can have time to think of it, of course,” Simon added, probably noticing that I looked like my brain was close to leaking out my ears.

In my mind, I flashed back to Charlie’s audition, how she sang that Adele song so beautifully. She was nervous, I knew, from how she was shaking before she went onstage. Plus, Harry spoke here and there about how little confidence she had in her abilities.

What if everyone around me was right? What if I really did have talent that I wasn’t using to its full potential?

Only one way to find out.

“I think I have an idea,” I burst out, blushing as they startled with my sudden exclamation. “What about I Have Nothing by Whitney Houston?”

Gabby cleared her throat, while Simon raised his eyebrows at me. “That’s…Bailey,” Gabby whispered, leaning over and putting her hand over mine, “that’s a really hard song. The notes are extremely high. Are you sure you can do that?”

I replayed the chorus in my head and took a deep breath. Then was not the time to let doubt start creeping into its almost permanent resting space in my brain.

“I can do it,” I responded confidently, trying to ignore the voice in the back of my head that was screeching with self-consciousness.

“Well, I can’t just let you make a statement like that,” Simon spoke up, challenging me, though there was a sparkle in his eyes that let me know he was impressed. “Let’s hear it.”

I got to my feet and swallowed before starting to sing the song. Remembering the lyrics was seamless, since it had been one of my mother’s favorite songs while I was growing up. It frequently played around the house, my mother trying to sing along, though her voice sounded a lot like a cat getting run over by a train crossed with nails scratching a chalkboard. So the words were almost second-nature to me.

And although I hadn’t warmed up my voice in the least, I hit all the notes without straining myself much. Granted, my tone had been a little flat at some points, in my opinion, but I actually sounded fine.

A huge grin spread across Simon’s face, and he actually clapped a couple times, once I finished. “That was brilliant,” he assured me. Then, he turned to Gabby and added, very cockily, “You ought to listen to that one. When she says she can do something, she can do it.”

Gabby looked over at me, shock and pride written all over her face. “I guess she can,” she murmured.

I couldn’t help the smile from overtaking my face as I sat back down in my seat. “So, anything else we have to go over today?”

“No, I think that should be it,” Simon closed, getting to his feet. “I’ll give you a ring, Gabby, when I find out exact days and times for the songwriting meetings.”

“Sounds perfect,” Gabby agreed. She stood and shook Simon’s hand before he disappeared out of the room.

Right when the door shut behind him, Gabby turned around and shoved my shoulder. “Damn, Bailey! Why didn’t you tell me you had that voice before?”

I blushed and said very simply, “Because I didn’t even know myself.”