The Good Life

I woke up to the beautiful California sun shining through my window. I got up and took a shower and blow dried my mid-back length chestnut hair into natural waves and then walked into my closet and got dressed for work for the day. I chose a pair of black skinny jeans, an all over zebra print t shirt, a yellow vest, and my brand new high top black and white checkerboard converse.

I walked into the kitchen, ate a bowl of cereal picked up my oversized hobo bag, my bright purple zip up hoodie jacket and the directions to the studio by uncle e-mailed to me. I hopped into my brand new car and drove to the label.

As I walked in, the girl at the front desk smiled at me, “Kayden?” She questioned me. I nodded, “That’s me.” She handed me a stack of papers, “Your uncles on the fifth floor, tell the receptionist there who you are, she’s expecting you, and he’s the fourth door on the right.” I nodded trying to remember everything she just told me, “Thank you…Laura.” I said as I looked down at her gold name plate placed on the edge of her desk, she nodded as she picked up the phone and answered, “Hollywood Records.”

As the doors opened on the fifth floor I noticed the girl I guessed was the receptionist standing behind a rather large desk directly in front of me, there were two bright red couches placed on either side of me as I walked out the elevator and saw an extremely long hall to the right, and a rather large fish tank against the wall to my left, then I noticed the girl behind the desk was putting all the items on her desk into a box. “Um hi, I’m Kayden…” She looked up from the box, “Oh yeah, I’m Melanie, you can go ahead to your uncle’s office, fourth one on the right.” I smiled, “Thank you.”

I walked down the long hall and observed all the doors on the way down the hall the first door on the left seemed to be a restroom and from then on the doors were numbered studios 1-6, Studios 1,3, and 5 being on the left and 2,4, and, 6 being on the right, after Studio 6, she came face to face with a door that had a name plate that read, ‘Robert A. Tripp’ I knocked and then swung the door open, “Uncle Tripp.” I called in a sing song voice.

He looked at her and grinned, “Well look what the cat dragged in.”

“Oh yeah? That had to be a pretty big cat, where’d he go?”

He laughed at my sarcasm, “Always the charmer Kay.”

“So what am I going to be doing in this dump anyway?” She joked.

“Well you met Melanie up front I presume?” She answered him by nodding her head, letting her attention drift to the view from the window, where she saw the amazing view of downtown Los Angeles, this caused her to smile. Her attention snapped back to her uncle when she heard him say, “…so that’s pretty much what’s going to happen.”

“Wait what?” I looked at him confused. “Geez Kay, in one ear and out the other, you’ll be taking Melanie’s spot, she jus got married and she’s moving to New York with her husband.”

“I see, I see.” Just then Melanie came in and handed me a one subject notebook, “There you go.” She smiled. I looked in between the two, “And what is this?” Melanie let out a small chuckle, “This my dear is your guide to being the fifth floor receptionist, I’ve written down everything you need to do each hour of every day, when you have breaks, when you need to pass out the mail, etc. etc., all in here.” She said while tapping the notebook that now lay in my hands.

I opened it up to the first page and read out loud, “Starbucks for the hot shots, nine o’clock a.m.” I looked up to meet her eyes, “Hot shots?” I asked, “Yeah, your uncle, Mr. Turner, Mr. Nottingham, and Mrs. Young, the four music producers on this floor.” I nodded and said, “Alright then, I guess I’ll get going, how do I pay for this?” Uncle Tripp jumped up and went to his desk drawer, “Oh I almost forgot, here you go.” He handed me a black platinum card, “You’ll need this while you work here, it has no limit and you may use it for things you are told to pick up and your gas, and that’s all.”

“Sounds good” I said while grabbing the card from him and shoving it into my wallet, I grabbed my keys and thanked Melanie and headed back towards the elevators.

I made it to my car and drove to the Starbucks I saw a couple blocks away from the office on my way in this morning. I pulled in and went in and ordered for my uncle and my new coworkers and waited.

From then on I got their order, ran into Joe, got coffee on my brand new shoes, and now my phone’s missing…

So I went back in the door and ran back to the counter where I had set my phone down, only to find that it wasn’t there, “Well isn’t this just amazi-”

“Looking for this?” I whipped around to see, “…Joe, thank God.” I grabbed my phone from his hand and hugged it to my chest. He let out a small chuckle and said, “I saw you looking for it out there,” he said while nodding his head toward my car, “I figured you’d be back.” I smiled, “Why thank you, but now, I’m late,” I said while looking down at the time on my iPhone. I turned on my heel and pushed open the door, “Kayden?” I heard from behind me and couldn’t help but smile, “Yes Joe?” I turned to face him, “Expect a surprise around hmm, twelve o’clock.” I scrunched my eyebrows in confusion then looked down to my phone and held it up to him as if to say, ‘On this?’ he answered my nod with a wink and I turned back to head to my car.

I got back to work and gave everyone their order and went back to the receptionist desk, set down my purse and sat in the big rolling chair and opened my notebook, and looked at number two, and read to myself, ‘Answer the phone if it rings, there’s an extension list on the receiver, artist usually get here around 10 o’clock they know what studio to go to, just check and make sure everything is in order in their studio when they leave.’

‘Excellent’ she thought as I headed to the bathroom and propped the door open so I could hear if the phone rang. I took off my shoes and stared down at my purple socks with white lightning bolts on them and laughed to myself and began to try and clean the coffee off of my shoes.

Joe’s P.O.V.

After I spilled my coffee on Kayden and she walked out the door, I smiled to myself, she was so cute, and I couldn’t help but smile when I looked at her. I ordered another coffee and was waiting to pick it up when I saw an iPhone sitting on the counter, I looked around at the surrounding tables and there was only one other older man who accompanied me in the Starbucks and he was talking on his cell phone.

I picked it up and slid my finger across the screen to unlock it and saw Kayden’s face smiling up at me, along with the face of a German Sheppard, once again, I couldn’t help but smile at her face. I looked out the window and saw her patting down the pockets of her pants and vest and jacket, knowing she was looking for her phone I went in and set a reminder for noon that said ‘Call Joe ;)’ and then he added himself as a contact in her phone. He smiled to himself and stood back a bit as she frantically searched for her phone. After I gave her phone back I went and sat at a table, I still had thirty minutes before I had to meet Nick and Kevin at the studio. I sat back and let my thoughts wonder to Kayden, she didn’t recognize me and treated me just like another person, I liked that.

I sat there another fifteen minutes enjoyed my coffee and decided to head to the studio a little early, Nick and Kevin were always nagging me about getting there late I was going to beat them I thought to myself as I threw my cup away and headed for the parking lot.

When I arrived at the studio I greeted the receptionist and got in the elevator and pushed the number five.

Kayden’s P.O.V.

While I was attempting to clean my shoes I heard the elevator ding. I didn’t think anything of it, seeing that Melanie said most artist arrived around ten. That is until I heard a, “Nice socks.” I looked in the mirror and my eyes met with a pair that a recognized, I whipped around to make sure it was him, “You’ve got to be kidding me, Joe.”

He looked at me just as shocked, “What are you doing here? Where’s Mel?”

“She’s moving to New York with her husband, what are you doing here?”

“Well I heard her say that but I didn’t know she was being serious, hmm.”

“So you still didn’t answer my question Joe..”

“Well, my brothers and I have a band, The Jonas Brothers, maybe you’ve heard of us?” He hope that she’d say no, for once he just wanted to meet a girl who didn’t chase after him, or freak out when he walked by or scream—

“Nope never heard of you guys, sorry…” I replied quite embarrassed, and I broke eye contact with him and looked down at my socks.

“Well that’s a relief.” My head snapped back up and I looked at him confusion written all over my face.

He laughed and said, “You have no idea how happy that makes me, my brothers and I have to avoid large crowds and bring a security guard everywhere we go, it’s tiring, but we love our fans to death, it’s just refreshing to meet someone who doesn’t already know everything about you.”

I nodded, “Well I have no idea what to day to that, but I’m glad that your glad that your glad about meeting me.”

My statement caused him to knit his eyebrows together in confusion and I could see his lips repeating my statement in his head and I just had to laugh, he too began to laugh.

Then I noticed there were two boys standing behind him, I nodded towards them nd he turned around and said “Oh speak of the little devils, this is Nick,” I went and shook hands with the younger of the two, and he gave a small smile, “and this is Kevin,” he said as I made my way to the older one. “Nice to meet you both I hope--” Just then the phone started ringing and Mr. Nottingham stuck his head out of studio 4 and said, “Boys, you ready?”

I ran to grab the phone leaving my shoes on the granite counter in the bathroom as the boys filed out.

Joe’s P.O.V.

Mr. Nottingham called for us to come into the studio. Nick and Kevin were already on their way down the hall and Kayden went to answer the phone, I turned to leave and saw her horribly stained converse sitting on the edge of the sink…’My fault’ I though, then I got a brilliant idea, I walked to the sink and lifted up the tongue on the shoe and repeated the number in my head ‘. 7; Remember 7 Joe’ I though to myself.

Kayden was going to get a little surprise tomorrow.