Beyond Flames

With ten minutes to spare, they all arrived at the restaurant they were supposed to meet. Seden came over to both boys, straightening their clothes a bit, then pulled out a pocket mirror to check her make up. Next to her, Sarah stood with her freshly dyed pink hair, brighter than ever. She had pulled it up in a ponytail to keep the long locks from her face, exposing her pretty face and bright red lipstick. With anybody else, the pink hair would have clashed horribly with her lipstick, but with her it somehow worked. Daniel stared at them a bit, wondering how it was possible to be that beautiful yet confusing. As soon as he noticed what he was doing, he shook himself out of it and captured Seden’s mirror to check out his own hair. He ruffled it up a bit, then mockingly passed it to Emeka. He was rewarded with a roll of his dark eyes, and then all three of them watched as Emeka pretended to fix up his non existing hair, complete with pouty lips. “Do I look prettaay?” he said in a high voice, whilst blinking his eyes rapidly. We all laughed at him, and then he clapped the mirror shut and handed it over to Seden.

Daniel checked his phone for the time, and saw it was exactly four, the time of the meeting. He informed his friends, and they shared a quick group hug before taking a deep breath and opening the door.

When they strolled in, they were quickly referred to the woman behind the counter by a stiff-looking man in way too tight, fancy clothing. They were aware that they were a bit too punk, with Sarah’s hair and all, for the restaurant, but it was all about image and the producers knew perfectly well that they had invited a rock band.

They asked the slightly startled woman behind the counter about their table, and she was quick to search for the reservation of the group. Eventually, she found them, quickly redirecting them for a table in the back, where the producer would be seated already. A young waitress in an equally as fancy suit as the other people working here wove through the many beautiful tables, the band following suit. Eventually, she stopped at a table, two strangers sitting down already. One was an eccentric looking woman with bleached white, fuzzy hair, and the other was a sharp dressed man with a pair of glasses on. They looked up upon their arrival, taking the four people in. After a few seconds, the woman send them a nice smile and told them to sit down as well. Once they were all seated, they started introducing themselves.

“Hello, my name is Nina and I am part of the Rechording record label, as is my partner Nicolas next to me. I believe you-” she said, pointing to Emeka with her face scrunched up in thought, “are Emeka, am I right?” When he nodded, she let out a smile and went on to the person next to him. “That means you’re- hmm… Seden?” Again, she had it right, and Seden send her a well meant smile. “Well, you’re obviously Sarah, hard to miss,” she chuckled when her gaze fell upon the pink haired girl, “and that makes you Daniel.” Her grey eyes were fixed on me, and she let them linger there for a bit before turning her attention back to the entire group. “I took the liberty of checking out your faces and names before coming here, I hate to be taken by surprise. You seem like a nice group, actually. I’ve seen worse.” She let out a light laugh, and then waved a waitress to our table.

“Can we have the menu please? Also, can we order our drinks already?” She asked the girl in a polite voice. She told us to wait a minute while she went and got them, and when she came back she laid down six beautiful, golden menu cards on each plate. She then grabbed the slick black device hooked to her skirt, and asked in a posh British voice what kind of drinks we would like to order.

Whilst Nina and Nicolas ordered some sort of fancy coffee, we all settled for an orange juice, with the exception of Seden who also ordered an unpronounceable kind of coffee none of us had ever heard of. Sometimes it was easy to forget that these kinds of restaurants are what Seden grew up with, but the way she rattled off the fancy name of the coffee she ordered without even glancing at the menu card quickly ripped us out of the dream that she was just an average human being.

I was getting pretty nervous at that point, as there fell a silence while they waited on their drinks and decided on the food they were going to pick. This doesn’t really seem like the place to have a lunch, Daniel thought to himself, but figured the record company must’ve liked it. His eyes flew over the tons of different salads and sandwiches displayed on the menu card, not quite sure what to pick yet. Two places next to him, Seden placed hers neatly in front of her, oozing confidence. Soon, Nina and Nicolas followed her lead, leaving Sarah, Emeka and him. Eventually, he was last to pick, as he was torn between a delicious looking salad and a yummy sandwich. In the end, he picked the sandwich, in hopes he wouldn’t spill as much as he would if he had picked the salad. His hands were shaking a bit, he was that nervous. This could make or break them.

When the waitress returned with the drinks and asked whether they were ready to order, they all passed their orders to her as well as their menus. Seden had picked a French sounding salad, whilst Emeka, Sarah and I went for the “safe” sandwich, as did Nicolas. Nina followed Seden’s lead and picked the exact same order. As they sipped on their juices, Nina started talking, her voice now more business-like. “We are here for a purpose, of course,” she said nonchalantly, “and that is a possible record deal. I, along with my team, have studied your songs, and while I must say I am very impressed and a little bit fan, we have a problem; you are not the only ones. Meaning that there’s one record deal to give away, and three other bands begging for it. We brought the ones that weren’t already to New York for one and one thing only: a battle. If you still want to, you will battle on TV with the other bands, with the eventual price a record deal. This way, you will still gain fame if you don’t win, so technically you always have a prize. The question is; are you in?” She cocked her head towards us, a curious look in her eyes as she took in our thinking expressions. This was certainly not what we’d hoped for. But it was at least something, and you should grab every opportunity you can, shouldn’t you? So, without awaiting the other’s opinions on the matter, Daniel’s eyes took over a determined look as he said; “Yeah, we are. Definitely.” confidently. A smile broke Nina’s lips apart just as the food arrived.

“Great.”

Im back babes! The plot is picking up from here (finally) and I plan to upload more, even though my new years resolution is to make more homework ( I don’t do shit about school bc lazy af but it needs to stop) also follow me on tumblr: www.samwichester.tumblr.com