From the Top - Chapter 29

I dragged myself down to breakfast the next morning, my limbs heavy and sluggish. Things might have ended well, but the stress from the previous day, with Amanda going to the hospital and spending most of the day thinking I was going to have to do it on my own had taken its toll on me, apparently. Even with winning, I’d tossed and turned all night.

Cole was already up when I made it down to breakfast, along with a handful of the other performers. He gave me a nod as I headed to the coffee pot and poured me a cup.

“Morning,” I mumbled, joining him.

“Here I would have thought you’d be in high spirits, after how well last night went,” Cole said.

I took a long sip, letting the hot liquid wake me up a little before responding, “Yeah, it was great in the end. But man, the rest of the day was stressful. I really thought I was going to have to go it alone up there.”

Cole shook his head, grinning at me. “Are you kidding me? You’ve been at the top both nights running. I’m pretty sure you could go up on that stage alone and still blow the roof off.”

“Unless they decide I didn’t follow the rules and send me home. Besides, I got lucky last night. You saw Vince go down, and he killed it night one. Had it been me and Amanda, I would have gone home. Them finding Linda to play with me changed everything.”

“I still think you would have come out first even if it had been with Amanda.”

“I appreciate the vote of confidence,” I said. “And hey, you were great last night too. You and Marissa really sounded good together.”

“Talk about someone carrying someone. Marrissa is amazing and did most of the heavy lifting. Plus, we have similar sounds, so it was easy for us to work together. I’m mostly just glad I didn’t end up on the bottom again.”

“Don’t talk like that. You’re a good singer,” I said.

“I appreciate it, and I’m not saying I’m bad, but we both saw what happened night one. I haven’t spent enough time on stage and who knows what the next competition is going to be. Honestly, I don’t think I’m going to make it much further.”

“Don’t talk like that, man. You’ve got real talent and you proved it last night. Don’t sell yourself short.”

“I appreciate what you’re trying to do man, but I’m just being realistic here. I got in over my head coming on this show. There are people here with way more experience than me...people like you. I don’t have the skills or training to keep up.”

“Look, even if you do end up being sent home, you can’t go down without a fight,” I said. “Make each performance your best, leave everything you’ve got out on that stage. That way, even if you do have to go home, you’ll leave a lasting impression. Everyone has to put in their stage time when they’re starting, and this is a hell of a stage to do it on. After this, everywhere else will seem easy.”

I could see he was about to try and disagree with me again, and I held up a hand, “Man, I got lucky. I had people willing to go way out of their way to give me shots. I got stage time backing a guy who had decades… literally decades, on stage. He then gave me a shot on the road, and then gave me my own spot up front. I got to make all my mistakes and learn to get comfortable with training wheels. You’re doing it the hardest way imaginable, and it’s going to make you a better singer. After all this, could you imagine being even a little nervous in front of just a hundred people? Don’t think of it as winning or losing. Think of it as building to the next thing.”

“I guess when you put it like that,” he said with a reluctant smile.

“Besides, don’t give up yet. You can still do well. Who knows what the next challenge is. Maybe we’re all going to have to do country classics or something.”

“I could only be so lucky,” Cole said.

“Either way, if you are going to go home early, you want people to remember you and build off of it. You’ve got to go down swinging. Do you think anyone’s going to remember Vince after his episodes air? No. Or they’ll remember him stomping off, blaming his partner. If you were picking a show to see, would you want to see that guy? So, use it, man. Go out big, doing the best you can.”

“I’ll try,” he said. “I appreciate the encouragement. I really do.”

“Hey, what are friends for,” I said, bumping his shoulder.

Before he could say anything else, one of the production assistants appeared and said, “Can we have all contestants in the living room, please?”

I could feel everyone around me tense up a little bit. This was the third and final challenge and what would decide who went to the finals. No one had touched the stuff behind the bar last night, even the contestants who’d partied the other nights. I think between seeing ten of us go home and Amanda losing her spot after she went to the hospital, everyone was forced to start taking this seriously.

As we shuffled into the living room, I took a seat on the couch next to Cole as the others filled in the remaining spots, which was easier now that eleven people were gone.

“Welcome to your final competition before the finals,” the producer, a woman named Bonnie, announced without preamble. “Each of you will be assigned a breakout hit song featured in a popular movie from the last forty years. You have complete freedom in how you want to do this. You can play it straight, trying to recapture the magic of the original, or you can reimagine it and make it your own. The only caveat is that we must still be able to recognize the original in it. Also, as always, you’re expected to show us something of yourself in this song. Even if you do a faithful cover, we still want to see you as an artist in your performance of it.”

More restrictive than the duet challenge, but I didn’t have to convince someone else how I wanted to perform the song, so I’d take it.

“As an added bonus,” she said, “you’re going to get more time with this one. You’ll have the rest of today, all day tomorrow, and the morning the day after to rehearse and prepare. Your performances will commence that evening where, as always, your judges will evaluate the performance on how it was informed by the original and how you showed yourself in it, as well as on the music itself and your stage performance. You’re also going to have access to more control over the staging. We will have producers ready to talk to you about anything specific you want done in your performance and work it out. You’ll also be allowed some time the afternoon of the performance before the crowd and judges arrive, to rehearse your performance this time with your full presentation, to work out any timing issues.”

Everyone looked excited about that. Most had only played small stages, local coffee shops, or busked, and hadn’t had a chance for any big productions. While I appreciated that level of show, I’d only gotten the full thing a few times. It had been enough, though, to know it wasn’t my strong suit. Lyla was much better at spectacle than me, and for both the Charlotte show and when we opened for Linda, I’d let her take the lead on it. But, if everyone else was going big, then I needed to go just as hard.

She started calling up people one at a time, telling them their movie. Cole got a romance from about ten years ago that had been huge. While I didn’t love the incredibly over-the-top ballad that had been everywhere that summer, I could think of some ways he could turn it a bit country and still make it work as a big country-style ballad instead of the more diva-driven pop song it was.

Just as Cole sat down, Bonnie held up a card and said, “Charlie, you’ve got ‘Shattered Dreams’ from the movie ‘Skyfire.’”

I was shocked and almost stumbled. So far, everyone had gotten songs from this millennium, but that was from like, the late eighties. True, it was one of the biggest movies ever made, enough so that even I knew about it, but I couldn’t imagine anyone asking for a reimagining of it. Worse, I did know ‘Shattered Dreams.’ It was the synth-heavy tear-jerker of a song with full orchestration and just huge R&B vibes, sung by a four-person group that did a ton of harmonies. It was an incredibly dated song, and really out of my style. I also couldn’t help but notice I was the only one who got a song done by a group, rather than a solo artist.

It almost felt like a kind of sabotage from the producers, although I hadn’t thought I’d done anything to upset them. Worse, I didn’t even have much time to think about it as they hustled us out the door to go to various recording spaces in and around the studio lot. I was on the lot this time, taken to a smaller recording stage not far from the sound stage where we filmed the performances.

As I stepped inside, I froze. Sitting on a stool by the mixing board was none other than Trey Mitchell, quite possibly the biggest celebrity in Hollywood. I knew I was doing a song from his movie, but he’d made it like forty years ago, and I was basically a nobody. At no point did I even consider they’d have someone from the movie here, let alone Trey Mitchell.

Mitchell glanced up from his phone and gave me a brilliant white smile, staring at me with those piercing blue eyes.

“Hey, Charlie,” he said, standing up from the stool and grabbing my hand, shaking it. “I understand you’re going to cover a song from ‘Skyfire.’ I tell ya, I don’t envy you that. Soul Express was something else back in the eighties. That song went huge, so it’s going to be big shoes to fill.”

“I … I’ll try my best,” I said, trying to get a hold of myself.

First JoDee Blanchard, now Trey Mitchell. It was kind of mind-blowing.

“So,” he said, waving me into the chair where the sound mixer would normally sit. “The producers of the show asked me to come down and give you some thoughts on the movie, maybe answer some questions about it, and see if it helped you really get the feel of it. I guess they hope I’d be able to tell you the secret of how that song got so big, but I swear, I’ve never been a music guy; what you all do is a little like magic to me. I just stand in front of a camera and play make-believe.”

He gave another big smile. I don’t even think I noticed all the words he said. The way he focused his entire attention on you when he talked to you, it kind of made the rest of the world disappear. I swear he might have been the most charming person I’d ever met.

No wonder he was a movie star.

After much too long of a pause, I asked, “It must have been incredible working on a film that huge back then. Was this your first big film?”

Mitchell nodded, sitting back on the stool, “Yep. I’d done some small stuff and had a supporting role the year before, but this was my big break. It was something else. Huge special effects, and this was before computers did most of the work. A stacked cast. We knew we were onto something special, although I don’t think any of us expected it to explode quite like it did. And that song, man, it being number one for, like, seventeen weeks, really helped. You couldn’t get away from it. It was also the right song for the movie. They didn’t record it until after we finished principal photography, but they really captured the emotion of that moment in the movie. Helped make it transcend.”

“Did you get to hear the song before the movie came out?”

“Sure. I mean, I heard it at the preview screening, but Arnold Teirn, the director, invited us all in after they handed in the song and let us see a scratch cut with it edited in. Whew, let me tell you. It really hit. It’s such a big, emotional scene, and when they put the song over it… man. It was something else.”

“What was it like filming that scene?”

“It was tough, real emotional,” he said thoughtfully. “By that point, Drew and Natasha, our characters, had been through so much together. Her death just gutted him. I had to channel all that loss and pain. We knew we got it on the day, just from the crew’s reactions, but once we saw the finished cut, with the song behind it… Yeah, it makes sense it was such a hit.”

“It must have been hard, pulling up all those emotions.”

“For sure it was, but it’s what we do. People want to see real emotion up on the screen, so we’ve got to really tap into something personal to give it to them. But … I think in that moment, there’s more than sadness, you know. There’s also some hope in it. Like even in the darkest moments, there’s still something worth fighting for. Drew had to find that hope to keep going after losing Natasha. I think that’s what resonated with the audiences, and why it got so big.”

I wasn’t so sure about that. I’d only seen the movie once, but I remembered the explosions, shooting, and jumping off cliffs more than I remembered sadness and hope. I mean, I did kind of remember his character’s wife’s death scene, but it wasn’t life-changing or anything.

I wondered if he was saying this because that’s how actors need to talk about their movies, or if he really bought into it.

“And what about when you were just listening to the song, not tied to the movie?” I asked. “Did it hit any differently?”

Mitchell pursed his lips. “You know, it still carried that sad, wistful quality. The harmonies especially get me every time. But it also made me feel nostalgic. Took me back to that time, making the film. It was such a special experience that the song always reminds me of.”

I wasn’t sure of what else to ask. I came at music from a very different place than an actor, and while this was helpful, I’d have to really think about it if I was going to figure out how to have it help with my performance. I could also see he’d checked his phone a few times while we were talking. I imagined someone on his level was busy, and the last thing I wanted was for him to remember me keeping him hostage, grilling him.

“Well, thanks for taking the time to chat with me,” I said. “It’s been amazing getting your take on the song and movie. Definitely gives me a lot to think about for the performance.”

“Happy I could provide some perspective,” Mitchell replied, standing up and shaking my hand again. “You’ve got your work cut out for you, but you wouldn’t be in this contest if you couldn’t hack it. Right? I’ll be watching when it airs and rooting for you.”

“That means a lot coming from you. I’ll do my best to make you proud.”

With a wave and another flashing grin, Mitchell headed out while I tried to wrap my head around how this was going to work, although I didn’t have a lot of time to think. Either they were holding the musicians back until we finished, or Mitchell’s timing was impeccable because within five minutes, the session musicians showed up so we could start working on the song.

The first run-through was rough. We started with just going with the song as written, and it sucked. Or at least, it sucked if I was going to stay in the competition. The song itself was fine and sounded mostly like original. A little looser and messier, but that was to be expected for the first time through. What it didn’t sound like was me. It also sounded incredibly dated. For a song that was so popular for a good five or ten years, this would never get radio play today because it felt … old. The synth especially.

I had no problem with keyboards, and we’d had a fair amount of it when Marco was in the band, but that had sounded different. This was more electronic, not in the sense of the style of the movie, but as in literally electronics. In the eighties, I was sure it sounded cutting edge like what they thought the future was going to sound like, but here in the future, it sounded grating.

Over the next four hours, we made adjustments and tried different things out to get the song where I wanted it to go. I was looking to keep the essence of the original but make it a more modern version of the song, leaning on modern pop and rock influences and losing the synth sound entirely. The session guys got it, and they were amazing to work with. They all had just a ton of experience and were actively trying to get the song where it needed to be. Unfortunately, nothing we were trying was working.

The more pop we took it, the more we lost the melancholy sound. While I hated the synth, it did add that element that the keyboard alone didn’t bring, and moving that melody to other instruments didn’t feel right. But putting even a little synth in brought back that dated feel instantly. It was too big of a song, with too much instrumentation to be slowed down much without sounding strange.

After four hours, I called a halt to everything and told them I’d think about it overnight and get back together with them the next day. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do, but I knew I needed to figure out something because playing this song as it was would send me home.

I skipped breakfast with the other contestants the next morning. As soon as I’d come back from the recording studio the night before, I’d found a more or less quiet corner of the house to keep working on the song. Or rather, figuring out how I was going to work on the song.

I couldn’t actually start practicing it and ironing out the details until I worked out what my hook to it was. I was still clueless when I’d gotten up after finally falling asleep around one, completely exhausted. This was our last challenge in the pre-recorded parts of the show, with the final fifteen of us going on to the live semi-final and then final episodes. Those were the ones that would get the big numbers and the one where people would start taking us seriously. People who got out in these first rounds would fade away, forgotten.

I was damned if I was going to make it to the last of these, only to go home before the live episodes.

I was almost relieved when one of the production assistants came through the house, making an announcement for us to all gather in the living room, since it gave me an excuse to walk away from the music. I’d been making no headway, but had also been refusing to give up, which was only creating frustration and making every new attempt worse.

“Attention contestants, mandatory meeting in the living room in 5 minutes!” she said as she walked through the kitchen and into the back set of … whatever rich people used these rooms for.

I could hear some people start to make their way in that direction as I picked up, everyone as confused as I was. We’d been on a two-day cycle since we started, getting our challenge day one, performing at the end of night two, and all prep in between. I’d assumed, and from the sounds of everyone else, so had they, that this would be the same, just with a longer practice period in the middle. So it was a little surprising they’d suddenly call us for a meeting when we already had our assignments.

Getting to the front room, I saw Cole sitting off to one side in an oversized armchair.

I made my way to the living room, nodding at a few other contestants who were already seated. Most looked just as confused as I felt. Cole was standing near the fireplace, fiddling with his guitar pick.

“Hey man,” I said, walking over. “Any idea what this is about?”

Cole shook his head, “No clue. Kinda weird timing, right? Figured we’d just keep working on our songs today.”

“That makes two of us. So how’s the song coming along for you? Making any progress?”

“It’s alright, I guess. I’m still wrapping my head around the style. Sasha Pauldin, the lady who starred in that movie, was waiting at the soundstage when I got there to practice yesterday. I don’t know her real well, since she mostly does romances, but my mom’s a huge fan of hers, which is why I knew who she was. Mom’s going to flip when I tell her.”

“Man, that’s cool,” I said.

“Yeah. She was pretty nice. I told her I was thinking about doing the song from her movie in the style of the older country stuff, before it started getting more pop. She thought it sounded like a good idea. I mean, I doubt she’ll watch the show, but getting the blessing was nice. How about you? Still struggling?”

“Yeah, I just can’t get my head around it. Yesterday’s session was a complete bust. Everything we tried sounded like crap. I told them I’d have a new angle when we got back today, but so far … nada.”

“Sorry yesterday sucked so bad,” he said, reaching over and giving me a pat on the shoulder.

I appreciated it. I honestly wouldn’t know what to say to someone in my position either.

“It wasn’t all bad. I got to meet Trey Mitchell when I got there.”

“Really? Dude … what was that like?”

“I mean … it was great. How else could it be? You hear about people with magnetic charm, but when you meet one. Man. He kind of makes you feel like you’re the only one in the room when he’s talking to you. I know he’s kind of crazy, or whatever, but I swear. Most charismatic guy I’ve ever met.”

Before he could respond, the producer clapped his hands loudly to get everyone’s attention.

“All right, everyone, listen up! We’ve got an important announcement before you head off to practice today.”

The chatter in the room quieted down as all eyes turned to the producer.

“As you all know, tomorrow night is your final performance before we move to the live shows. However, we’ve decided to change things up a bit to make it more…exciting.”

A murmur ran through the contestants, and Cole and I exchanged a glance. More exciting probably meant bad things for us.

“Tomorrow’s show will now feature a head-to-head round. We will divide you into three groups of five and one group of four, due to Amanda’s early departure. You will each perform the song you’ve been assigned, competing against the other people in your group. The judges will then choose one performer from each group to eliminate, which leaves fifteen people going into the live rounds.”

The murmuring exploded into shocked gasps that, at first, I thought was kind of dramatic. I mean, they were already planning on eliminating four people tomorrow, since the live show starts with fifteen people for the semi-finals. This only meant that, instead of competing against everyone, you were only competing against a handful of people.

Thinking about that, I realized what the twist was. Instead of just the four worst people going home, it would be the worst out of each group. If the best people ended up in one group and the worst people ended up in another, then someone who would have almost certainly made it through to the live shows was going home, while at least one person who should have been out would go in their place.

So now it was not just what song you got, but also what group you got.

The producer held up his hands to quiet everyone back down and said, “I know it’s a big twist, but I’m sure you’ll all live up to it. Okay, we’ll call out your groups. You won’t have to do anything else, and these are still individual performances, but this way you’ll know who you’re competing against tomorrow.”

They started calling through names. The groups were pretty well matched, but one had two of the weakest contestants in it, both of whom I would have put money on going home tomorrow night. Which meant we were getting at least one upset.

By the time they reached the final group, the one with only four contestants, it wasn’t a surprise who was going to be in it.

“Charlie, Marissa, Cole, and Dillon, you’re in group four. Okay, that wraps it up. The vans to take you to the studio lot and your assigned locations should be here in a few minutes. Good luck everyone.”

Cole gave me a weak smile as the producer left and everyone started getting ready to head out, ”Well, damn. This really sucks.”

I raised my eyebrows. “What does?”

“That they put us together in the same group,” Cole said, shaking his head. “I mean, no offense, but I was really hoping I wouldn’t have to go up against you tomorrow.”

I knew what he meant, and we both knew that I was better than he was. He’d done well after the last performance, but a lot of that was because of Marissa. It wasn’t that he was bad. He was a great singer. He just hadn’t found his confidence on stage yet, and it showed. Every performance he was just a little bit shaky, and that could really throw the whole thing, especially when compared against other people who weren’t.

Not that I was going to ever say something like that to him.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to feel bad when you send me home.”

“Man, don’t do that. We both know how good you are, and how good Marissa is. I’d kind of hoped I’d get in a group that didn’t have two of the best people in the competition in it. My only real hope now is Dillon chokes and gives me a shot.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I wasn’t trying to be patronizing or anything.”

Dillon wasn’t a bad singer. His biggest problem was he was kind of forgettable as a performer. He’d done good enough to keep out of the bottom, but staying in the middle was never going to be a winning strategy.

“I know, and it’s okay. I just think we should call it like it is. It’s just … damn, my song was coming along pretty well, but even if I nail it, it’s not going to be ‘beat Charlie’ good. Kinda feels like I just got sentenced to execution, you know?”

“Don’t count yourself out just yet. I was serious when I said we were really struggling to find a sound that works for the eighties monstrosity they saddled me with. If I don’t figure out something today, I’m going to end up going home. ’Cause we sound like crap right now.”

“Yeah, you said the same when Amanda got taken to the hospital, and look how that ended. Just face it, man, your luck is too good to go out like that. I guarantee you’ll figure something out.”

‘If only he knew,’ I thought. I’d talked to the producers about my parents’ deaths, but I think they were saving that interview for when the show aired, so they could stretch the footage out over three weeks. Cole and I had talked a bunch, but that kind of thing wasn’t something you just brought up in conversation.

“We’ll see,” I said instead.

“All right, well they’re calling my van,” Cole said, glancing over his shoulder. “Better luck at today’s practice.”

“Thanks. You too, man.”