You and Me (Plus Everyone In Between Us)

Finding Something

"Don't worry," I sighed in relief. "See you guys soon!"

"Bye!" they both said collectively as we split off.

How come Ray was telling everybody I was going there early? We'd barely even talked outside of her snappy exchanges. Why did she make sure no one was looking for me? What had I done to Ray to royally piss her off except talk to her? Did I do something messed up and then get a bad case of amnesia?

She seemed nice enough at the party last night to give me water. How come she was acting so mean?

I thought about it the entire walk to a separate practice room for the girls. The messenger herself, Ray, already sat cross-legged away from Lina, Kristen, and two other girls I recognized from the audition, Carrie and Winona.

"Do you know what we're waiting for?" I asked Lina.

"No," she replied in her Brazilian accent. "I think we're supposed to wait for the mentors."

"Ah," I said. "By the way, the opera rendition you did at the auditions was genius."

She dropped her head in shyness. "Thank you! It was my husband's idea. He wanted me to try something new."

"I want you to forget everything you've ever known about performing!" A shrill voice called from the door-area.

I turned around to see a woman wearing a coat that looked too warm for the LA weather, holding a Starbucks cup and wearing shades. Despite her weather-inappropriateness, her outfit worked. The coat was paired with leather leggings and maroon snakeskin ankle boots.

She stopped in front of us, eyeing us down. I raised an eyebrow.

"Who are you?" Lina asked.

"I'm Lennon and I am going to be your mentor," she announced.

"I thought Brian was our mentor," Lina wondered.

"He is when the cameras roll," the mentor explained. "The mentorship thing is for the performative pissing contest the judges are supposed to have on TV to give generic feedback. When it comes to your performance, I will be responsible for you when the cameras don't roll."

"Oh," I quietly said.

She stopped talking and walked around the room analyzing us. I stiffened.

I took a glimpse of her, though. She looked very much like Los Angeles. No, she didn't look like a literal city, but the person you'd think of when hearing Los Angeles. She had platinum blonde hair too platinum to ever pass as natural but still luminous, soft baby blue eyes, high cheekbones, and perfectly round lips.

If this yelling and mentoring thing flopped, she could easily be a model or influencer.

"Raise your hand if you want to sing," Lennon asked.

Nobody responded.

"I'm not being rhetorical," she replied. "How many of you like to sing?"

We all slowly raised our hands up.

"Good. I would like you to know that you're not special," Lennon said brashly. "Everyone here can sing. Not only the girls but the boys and the groups too. So let me tell you that you are not special for singing."

I felt a stinging sensation hit my chest. Singing has always been my thing. I guess it was everyone's thing here too.

"You know what will make you special?" Lennon asked. "You're spark. The one thing that sets you apart from other contestants and solidifies you as an artist. It's my job and yours, to find out what that spark is."