by Emma Rose
Will's response eased my nerves slightly, but I still wasn't completely comfortable with the idea. "Alright. I'll do it if you help me along," I said despite my hesitations.
"Deal," Will said, extending his hand for me to shake.
I returned the handshake, but I didn't have any idea what a massive thing I was getting myself into. In all actuality, Will didn't either.
CHAPTER TEN: JEMMA
The next morning, I had to get up early for my consultation with Universal Music Group. Skylar helped me pick out an outfit the night before. We chose a short, strapless, satin, A-line dress in light blue and a pair of white lace-up platform heels. Will wore a black suit and tie.
After a quick breakfast at Dunkin' Donuts, Will and I took a taxi to the headquarters of one of the biggest record label companies in the world. I was nervous, of course. It had become an almost perpetual feeling the past two days.
As we were waiting in the city traffic, Will tried to calm my nerves by telling me reassuring things like that I was one of the best singers he had ever heard and that his charm and my natural beauty would win them over easily. I was flattered by his compliments, but they didn't remove the butterflies in my stomach.
When we arrived at the headquarters, Will helped me out of the taxi and the two of us entered the building. Will stood tall with his head high. He had all the confidence in the world while I followed him around shyly.
After the receptionist took our names and confirmed our appointment with the director of Republic Records, we sat and waited in the lobby. As we watched men in suits with briefcases and women wearing pencil skirts and high heels walk in and out of the headquarters, I kept telling myself over and over not to screw things up. If I fucked up this chance to get a record deal, I'd be letting Will and Skylar down, both of whom had been so kind to me and I thought if I also I might find myself on the streets again. I didn't want to do either of those two things.
Finally, a woman with bleach blonde hair, a red dress, and black heels came out and greeted us. Will seemed to know her, but it wasn't clear how they knew each other. She shook my hand and I introduced myself politely. Turns out she was the administrative assistant for the director of the record label. She led us past numerous other offices until we reached the large spacious office of her boss, Edmund Buchanan. The name sounded old to me. As his secretary twisted the handle on the doorknob of the office door, I pictured a wrinkly, sour face sitting behind the desk, but instead there sat a man only about ten years older than Will.
"Mr. Buchanan, your ten o'clock is here," the woman said from the doorway.
The man looked up from his enormous desktop computer, "Thanks, Rebekah," he smiled. "Come on in," he said standing up and waving Will and I toward him.
"Hey, Ed," Will exclaimed. Apparently, they were old pals.
"Will, it's so good to see you again. How have you been?" Mr. Buchanan asked Will, giving him a fist-pump while I stood to the side awkwardly.
"Good, man, and you?" Will asked.
Mr. Buchanan spread his arms out gesturing to the penthouse office complete with a solid oak desk, leather chairs, and floor-to-ceiling windows that gave a perfect view of the New York City skyline.
"Pretty good, can't complain," he said. I could tell this man was a little cocky. "You left the frat in good hands?" he asked with a smirk.
"Aww, yeah. They'll be good. If not, you can always hook them up. Show 'em a good time right?" Will laughed. I felt like I was listening in on an inside joke.
Mr. Buchanan waved his hand as if he were dismissing Will's idea. "Nah, I party exclusively with the big boys now. Can't be caught giving shit to college kids anymore."
Will chuckled, "I see you."
Mr. Buchanan glanced down at his watch. "So, before we run out of time, let's talk business. I heard you had someone you wanted me to meet?" he said, turning his eyes to me before flashing a charismatic smile.
"Yes. I know it would be absolutely insane for you to sign someone without a following or without practical experience in the industry, but I thought that you just needed to meet Jemma. She has the most amazing voice and a great story."
"Is that right?" Mr. Buchanan asked while shaking my hand. "Come on, let's sit down and chat," he said motioning to the seats in front of his desk.
"You know Will is right. Never in my career have I ever heard of a label signing someone with as little experience or without a very impressive demo and social media presence before, but because Will is like a brother to me and because he called me six times yesterday telling me how great you were I thought I could at least see you," Mr. Buchanan explained.
"Well, thank you. I really appreciate you seeing me, sir" I blushed.
"It's my pleasure and please call me, Ed. Now tell me what kinds of things do you sing?" Ed asked.
"Well, anything really. Country, rock, pop... I was a street performer before Will found me, so I pretty much sang whatever people wanted to hear."
Ed nodded. "Can I hear you?"
"Of course, what would you like to hear?"
"Sing me your favorite song."
My favorite song was an easy one. I knew I had to sing My Favorite Things. I nodded and began to sing the song that had gotten me through so many cold, lonely nights during my childhood.
Ed began to take down notes during the first verse, but then he looked up from his pen and paper and watched me with awe. He was completely captivated by my on the spot acapella performance. I was impressed with myself.
When I had finished, I sat down without saying a word. Ed looked over at Will, grinned, and said, "Looks like you've found your superstar, pal."
Will smiled and he looked relieved like a big weight had been lifted off his shoulders. Will patted my back in approval. "What did I tell you?" he asked. "This girl was born to perform."
Ed smiled over at me. "You really are gifted, Jemma. And you should know I don't say that to just anyone."
"Thank you," I replied simply.
Ed spun his chair around and looked out the window for a second deep in thought. Then he turned around, placed his hands on the desk, leaned forward, and said "You know, this is crazy. The most unconventional decision of my career, but I think I'm going to do it. I think I'm going to sign you. You just have this thing about you I can't describe. I know you're going to be a star."
Before I could respond Will started spurting out his gratitude, "Oh my God, Ed. Thank you so much. I promise that I, I mean, we promise that we won't disappoint you."
"Yes," I added, "You have no idea how much I appreciate this. I've never had someone take a chance like this on me before. I guarantee I'll work harder than any artist you've seen before. I won't let you down."
Ed sat back down in his high-backed spinny chair. "I'm glad to hear both you say that, but I hope you know every manager, agent, and artist I've seen has told me those same things. I need you guys to pull through. I know you can do it, but you're going to have to put more into it than everybody else. You're going to have to be creative and unique. You're going to have to brand yourself and Jemma, you're going to have to look beautiful whenever there's a camera around."
Both Will and I nodded in agreement.
"I can connect you with songwriters and everything you're going to need to put out your first album. It's the first week of May now. Debut albums do best when they're released over the summer. So, I'm going to push you guys to have the album recorded and the music videos shot by mid-July. Then we can drop the album by the last Friday in August. I know that's not a lot of time, but you said you were hard-workers. I'm going to hold you to that," Ed explained.
I couldn't believe his words. I was going to write and record an entire album in a little over two months? The task sounded daunting, but I was also very excited. I was really going to do this music thing like for real. I wished my mother could have been there with me to hear Ed say he thinks I'm talented and to watch me sign my very first record deal.
Ed continued, "Will, this is y
our first big client. Manage her like she's your own little sister, alright? Don't do anything I wouldn't do."
Will agreed, "Absolutely. I've considered her a little sister since I met her fifteen years ago. We're going to be a team that works together and I'm going to look after her."
Will's kind words made me feel loved, something I didn't think I was very deserving of before.
"And Jemma. Your whole world is going to change. Are you ready for that?" Ed asked.
In all honesty, I wasn't sure if I was ready or not but I knew that wouldn't be an acceptable answer. So instead I said, "I've never been more ready for anything in my life," with a false confidence I hoped Ed and Will wouldn't see through.
Ed smiled, "Alright, then. Let's sign some papers."
And that's how I got my first record deal.
CHAPTER ELEVEN: JEMMA
The next two months of my life were a whirlwind of new experiences.
Will and Skylar invited me to move in with them indefinitely. We became a little family almost. Skylar made sure I was well-dressed, helped me learn how to eat a balanced diet, and essentially taught me everything I didn't know about being a girl while Will managed my career to a tee. He took me where I needed to wherever I needed to go, set up my appointments, and took care of all the legal and financial stuff I knew nothing about.
I got to do things I could only ever dream about doing as a little girl like take voice lessons and dance lessons, but my favorite thing to do was the songwriting.
I didn't know much about chord progressions or key signatures when I first started out in the studio, but with the help of some amazing teachers and co-writers, I picked the theory stuff up before too long. As far as writing lyrics and creating the melody for a song, that always came naturally to me.
I'm an emotional person and an existential thinker who's been through some shit, so there was a lot of material for me to write about.
I was heavily grieving the loss of my mother when we were working on the album, so obviously, a few of the songs ended up being tributes to her tragic life.
I wrote a song for my dad, even though I had never met him and he didn't know I existed. I wrote about how much I loved him and how I wanted to meet him someday.
I wrote some angry songs because it sucked being a homeless kid and no child should slip through the cracks as I did. I wrote a song about how unfair and uncompassionate my grandparents were to my mother.
For some reason, I found my mind drifting to think about Oliver many times during the writing sessions. I hadn't planned on writing about him because I just didn't know how I felt about him anymore and it seemed odd for me to sing about my manager's brother. My plans didn't hold up though because before I even realized what I had done we had finished recording a song about two little children who took on the world together, a girl who's heart was broken by a boy she loved, and a lost friend with blonde hair and blue eyes.
After my new team and I had finished writing and recording the first album, I was happy with it. Will was happy with it, the writing team was happy with it, and Ed was over the moon. It was a great feeling to have accomplished something like that, but something felt like it was missing in my life.
I tried to convince myself that everything was fine and that I was just anxious for the record release, but in fact, it was something bigger than that eating away at my heart. It was Oliver. I missed him and I wanted to share this exciting time in my life with him. I wanted him by my side cheering me on like he did when we were younger. I wanted to tell him how my day went when I came home from the studio. I wanted to hold his hand and walk around Central Park together and maybe cry a little too because the last six years had been a rollercoaster without him.
Will had mentioned Oliver a few times since I moved in with him, but he never said anything about the two of us getting together. From the little bits Will had said about his brother, I knew he had changed significantly, but that didn't matter to me. I just longed to be with him again.
One day on the way to a photoshoot, I brought up the topic.
"So, uh, what's Oliver up to?" I asked casually, playing it off like I was making small talk.
Will shook his head. "Probably going to parties and giving my dad a hard time," he answered nonchalantly without looking up from his phone.
"I had an idea. It might be fun for him and me to get together. Just for old times sake, ya know?"
Will looked up. He seemed surprised that I would want to see Oliver.
"Yeah, I mean if you want to. I can ask him. I think it would be good for him to see you. You could be a good influence on him because, clearly, I am not an effective role model for the kid."
"Okay, but I don't want him to feel like he has to see me if he doesn't want to. Maybe just suggest it casually. Don't tell him that I asked so he doesn't feel obliged."
"Alright, I can do that," Will agreed.
"Cool, thanks," I said looking out the window so Will couldn't see I was smiling and wouldn't suspect anything.
I waited a few days after our conversation before following up with Will about Oliver.
"Oh, I asked him about it and he said he's kind of busy, getting ready for college and stuff right now, but don't feel bad about it. He's kind of a douchebag at the moment," Will explained.
"Oh, okay. No worries," I said like it was no big deal.
But it was a big deal. It hurt that Oliver didn't want to see me after so many years especially because I was living with his brother. I pretended that I didn't care about Oliver, but I was just lying to myself. The rest of that day I made it a point to be over the top chipper because I wanted to prove to myself that I didn't need Oliver in my life to be happy, but when I laid my head on my pillow that night I cried myself to sleep. Oliver was the closest thing I had to family during my childhood and now it seemed that I had officially lost him just like my mother.
Although I never completely forgot about Oliver, good news distracted me from feeling sorry for myself. My first single, Lost Girl, debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 at spot thirteen after two weeks of being released. I started to think maybe Will was right. Maybe I could really do this pop star thing.
More good news kept pouring in as my second single and accompanying music video went viral on YouTube.
Things were going well, but the real test of success was going to be how well that album did. As the days passed and the drop date grew closer and closer, the tension in the house went up.
Will had a lot riding on whether or not the album made it and though he never verbally expressed any doubts in front of me I could tell by the way he couldn't sleep at night and the way he paced around the kitchen, he was nervous. Skylar got agitated because Will was on edge and I just absorbed all their stress like a sponge.
Finally, the countdown ended and after an anxious couple of weeks, we all breathed a little easier because the album was out into the world and it was up to them to decide whether they liked it or not.
As it turned out, the world did like the album and they liked it very much. Within a month the album made it to the Billboard Top 100 and sold millions on iTunes.
Ed was elated at our success with Jemma Jones: Overcomer and he arranged for us to meet with a tour manager to start planning my first national tour. I couldn't have been more satisfied with myself.
CHAPTER TWELVE: OLIVER
It was 2 a.m. on a Saturday morning when I heard Jemma's album for the first time.
I was a freshman in college and the party lifestyle was taking on a whole new meaning for me. By that I mean, I went to at most half of my classes each week and spent the time I should have been doing homework on getting over my hangovers. The bad habits I had developed in high school got worse. Moving out of my dad's place meant I didn't have to hide things as much anymore except from the police, of course. What little accountability my Dad offered was now gone.
I went to Stony Brook University, a mediocre New York state school on Long Island only a couple of hours awa
y from the city. It was a fine place to be when I was aware of my surroundings.
Jemma's album dropped the first week of classes. I wouldn't have even known about it if my brother, Will, hadn't texted me and told me to check it out.
When Will first started working with Jemma, he had called me and told me all about it, how he found Jemma on the streets, how she had gotten a record deal, how pretty she had become, and most importantly how much money Will was going to make as her manager.
I was glad to hear Jemma was doing well. For years, I had laid wide awake at night wondering what had become of her. Now, I finally knew she was alright. It was an answered prayer. No, it was more than an answered prayer. It was a miracle.
Will asked if I wanted to see her. I think he was hoping that she would motivate me to get my life back on track. The truth is, I wanted to see Jemma with all my heart, I wanted to wrap my arms around her to whisper in her ear that I was sorry for being mean to her in middle school, and to never let her go.
