Look at Me

The first time I had my heart broken, it was a lie.

It aired in high-definition, and everyone was watching. I was wearing red fishnets under denim cutoff shorts and black Converse, and after he dumped me, I dumped a pitcher of lemonade over his head. The episode was called “Minna and the End of the Boy Next Door.” Not a month later, Target reproduced my entire outfit in their kids’ line.

The second time I had my heart broken, nobody was meant to see it, but it was on the cover of US Weekly anyway.

I was 17 years old and went to prom at the high school that I would’ve attended had I not been starring in my own television show for most of my adolescence. I wore a navy blue dress, strapless but still modest, and my corsage was a pale blue that matched my date’s boutonniere. He was my mom’s best friend’s son, and I’d had a crush on him since I was 10. I’d met dozens of celebrities, even shared my first kiss with one on camera, but I knew Jake was the one for me.

Like any other teenage girl, I imagined that prom would be perfect. I would dance with the boy of my dreams, he’d kiss me on the dance floor underneath a spinning disco ball, and I’d lose my virginity to him in a hotel room that night. That last bit was a fantasy I knew wouldn’t come true, of course, since I had a reputation to uphold. I was expecting a PG night—but a lovely night, nonetheless.

What I wasn’t expecting was for Jake to ditch me as soon as we arrived at prom so that he could spend the evening with the girl he was actually interested in. I wasn’t expecting a group of girls I once thought were my friends to gather around me and tease me to the point of tears. I wasn’t expect to flee the venue with mascara streaking down my cheeks, and I certainly wasn’t expecting paparazzi to catch the moment on camera.

Now, the power’s in my hand. I’m the one calling the shots, deciding what the public gets to see and what gets to remain mine.

And it’s much harder than I thought.

“Let’s take it from the top,” Candice says for what has to be the fourth time in the past half an hour. She taps her pencil against her notepad and smiles at me kindly. It doesn’t help quell the anxiety bubbling up in my stomach.

I set my guitar down on the floor and shake my head. “Let’s just call it a day. Start fresh with something else tomorrow.”

She raises her eyebrows, but doesn’t say anything. I know what she’s thinking: do you have something else? Anything else? Something that isn’t an absolute piece of shit?

I’ve been at this for three weeks now, paying for a studio that I can’t afford and playing the same notes over and over again in the hopes that they’ll suddenly start sounding like something that labels will want to distribute and radio stations will want to play. It isn’t getting any easier.

Who knew songwriting would be so difficult? Who knew that it would be this hard to find some bit of myself that’s interesting enough, relatable enough, to set to music and share with the world? Who knew I’d be so terrible at this that not even award-winning songwriter and my best friend, Candice Willard, would be able to help me?

Candice glances at her watch. “Let’s take a break, half an hour? Get some food, some air, Min. That’ll help. Get out of your head for a minute. Get out of this room.”

“Sure,” I say, forcing a smile for her benefit. I keep it on my face until she leaves the room, the door clicking shut behind her.

Alone in the room, I sink down into my chair and put my head in my hands. This is everything my mother was afraid of: that I would fail. That my history with Wombat, my reputation as a teeny bopper child star, would make people wary to work with me. That I wouldn’t be able to get where I wanted to be quickly, that I’d become dejected and give up. I can already imagine what my mom will say when I tell her what’s happened: You gave it your best shot, honey, but maybe it’s time to pursue other avenues.

Just when I’m about to text Candice and tell her that we’ve got to pack up and head back to LA, something jabs me in the back. Grateful for the momentary distraction, I reach behind the couch cushion and pull it out.

It’s a leather-bound book, worn but not old. I flip through it briefly, and when I don’t recognize the scrawl inside as Candice’s, I turn to the inside cover.

Property of Niall Horan

Don’t steal, ya wanker.

Shit. My first instinct is to stuff the journal back in the couch and pretend I never saw it. There’s something about the worn edges that tells me that this book means something. Whatever’s inside it is important. I don’t deserve to be holding it in my hands.

It’s not that Niall Horan is a genius or anything—his music is good, sells well, but isn’t anything particularly original. But Niall has what I don’t: he has the secret something that’s gotten him success in this industry. He sells records and plays nighttime talk shows and doesn’t seem miserable as he does it.

When I first told my mom I was coming to LA after graduation to make a record, she told me I was crazy. She told me she didn’t send me to college so that I could end up right where I was headed if I never left Wombat.  If she had things her way, I would still be living in Los Angeles, playing a version of myself on tv and dodging paparazzi on street corners in my free time. Back then, when “Minna and the…” was the highest-rated show on the Wombat Channel and I had extensions in my hair, the tabloids printed a story every other week about my mother and me:

Minna Locke’s mother is the puppetmaster!

Minna and the… stage mom from hell!!!

From West Virginia to West LA: Minna and Marla Locke, the Biggest Divas in town!

And so on and so forth. The tabloids weren’t completely incorrect: it was my mother’s pushing and shoving that got me an audition at Wombat in the first place, and it was pressure from her that kept me doing the show every time I wanted to quit.

Those times were plentiful. Having your adolescence broadcast in high-definition for all cable subscribers to see is no walk in the park. By age 16, I was tired of playing a fictionalized version of myself in a world where the worst thing that ever happened was when I didn’t make the cheerleading team and had to be the school mascot instead. I was tired of singing trite, contrived, meaningless songs that played on endless loop on Wombat Radio but never gleaned me any actual notoriety as a singer. I was ready to be done with “Minna and the…” and never look back.

Which is why, as soon as I got my GED, I told the producers we were on our last season, I applied for college, and I got the hell out of dodge.

Here’s what my mother doesn’t understand: this time, I’m doing things on my own terms. I’m making the record I want to make, the way I want to make it…

…which would be easier if I knew what kind of record I wanted to make. If I knew what I wanted to say. If I knew, after all these years playing television Minna and running away from her when I wasn’t playing her, who Minna Locke actually was.

But Niall Horan—he knows who he is. He’s a golf-loving, folk-singing ex-boybander who doesn’t know how to use punctuation, and he’s all of those things unabashedly. So maybe, I think, looking at Niall’s journal, maybe this is an opportunity.

But that thought doesn’t stop me from stuffing it back in the couch cushion when Candice comes back in the room.