The Pianist - One Direction

Chapter 3

"I'm Isabelle, but you can call me Issy, or Belle. Whether you prefer."

I walked in and closed the door behind me, then I introduced myself to the other two.

"Are you any good?" The bassist, Sandy, said. They all seemed to accept me in their band, but he still seemed a bit unsure, which was completely understandable.

"If I'm any good? I'm amazing." I said half joking, half serious.

They laughed at me.

"They should be here any minute now." Dan said. 

"They? Who are they?" I asked them.

"The lads? It's kind of the singers it's all about," Josh said. "We're only crew in the background."

"Yeah, I know that. But who are the singers? I never got that information."

The three of them stopped doing what they were doing. Josh stopped himself from fixing a part of his drums that had fallen down when he and Dan were wrestling earlier, Dan stopped himself from tuning his guitar and Sandy stopped himself from changing something at his speaker for his bass.

"You're kidding me, right?" Sandy said. 

"No. What? Should I know who they are? I mean, I know it's a world tour but really, how famous could they be? I thought it was a single singer until now."

"They offers the job to a girl, and she doesn't even know who's going to sing. This will be fun." Sandy mumbled.

"At least she's not a fan. If she were, she would recognise us. So I don't think she'll scream." Josh answered him. What were they talking about?

They looked at me like I was a little girl who didn't have a clue about what was going on, and I didn't. Dan went to a table full of papers with notes and chords. I wanted them to tell me who or whom that would enter the room soon, but they wouldn't say anything or give me any clue. Dan took a pen and covered the name of the song on the paper before he gave it to me.

"Play this, and see if you can find out." 

I went to the keyboard and placed the sheets in front of me. I didn't care about reading the notes and hear the song in my head. Instead, I played the chords in my left hand and the notes of the melody - the singing - in my right. It would be the easiest to hear the song that way. I played the intro and started on the first verse. I had already heard which song it was in the first five notes, but I kept playing. This had to be some kind of joke, but I knew it wasn't. I burst into laughter and turned to the guys behind me, still playing. I didn't know what to think or how to take it, so laughing felt like the best opinion.

"Are you serious?" I said and slowly let the music fade out. "I'm going to be keyboardist for One Direction?" I mentally screamed. Was I dreaming? I wasn't a fan of them, but I still admired their singing and yes, I agreed that they were very good-looking. 

They laughed at my reaction. I couldn't believe it. This was far beyond my expectations, and it was hard to believe. How would I be able to do this? These guys were beyond famous, beyond great singers. They were counted as the greatest band in the world, people called them legends. 

I turned to the piano again and played the song again - What Makes You Beautiful by One Direction - this time with only the chords, the part I would be playing. Without any warning, I heard Dan's guitar coming in at the bridge, and in the refrain, both Sandy and Josh joined in. We played together, as a band, and it sounded great. I had always only played with myself. Never with other instruments, but I could both hear and feel the differences. We were so focused on the song, so neither of us heard the door opening or the five lads who walked in, until one of them spoke up.

"It sounds great guys!" 

I stopped playing and turned around. Apparently, none of the lads had seen me until now, since I was half hidden behind a few speakers. The guy who came in first stopped walking, which made the guy behind him hit his nose in his shoulder.

"Ouch! Liam, what was that for?" He said and held his nose with his hand. 

Liam looked at me, surprised.

"Uhm, hi...?" 

Dan, Sandy and Josh weren't joking. I was going to play with One Direction. I went up from my piano to introduce myself to the five boys. I needed to be professional. By now, the rest of them had noticed me, as well. One looked more confused than the other. I knew their names already, but not much more. The curly haired, I was sure his name was Harry, looked at Josh confused, and Josh only shrugged and chuckled, along with Dan and Sandy, to the lads confused faces.

"Hi! I'm Isabelle, but you can call me Issy, or Belle." I said and greeted them all. Liam took a step forward and took my hand to shake it. 

"I'm Liam." He said and smiled. The rest of the boys went up after him and did the same thing. 

They all lined up to shake my hand, and I smiled politely at them, introducing myself with the same phrase like always "I'm Isabelle, but call me Issy or Belle". Sometimes, I could introduce myself as only "Issy" or "Belle", just to make things easier.

"Why are you here, Issy? Are you a fan?" Liam asked me.

"Actually, no. I'm your new keyboardist." I told him and crossed my fingers behind my back. I hoped their reactions would be good.

Almost all of them smiled big at me, even though they looked extremely shocked, and without any warning, Niall came up to me and gave me a big hug.

"Welcome to the One Direction family" he said with a strong Irish accent, and I almost felt like a part of it already.