Chart Topper Page 3

  “I think it’s great. But I also thought it was great the first time I heard it three years ago, when Beyoncé sang it.”

  “It’s not the same song.”

  “It’s the same basic melody. But the words are different.” And Beyoncé’s were better, I thought, but I didn’t want to add any more fuel to Pippa’s fire.

  She pushed play again. She clamped her hand over her mouth and then stopped it.

  “Oh no, it is pretty close, isn’t it? Why didn’t anyone tell me? How could J. T. bring this to me?”

  This wasn’t good. She was going to complain to J. T. He was totally going to fire me.

  “I need something new. Something that’s all mine.”

  “Then why don’t you write something? About you—the real you.”

  I got up and left her to think about it.

  “Maybe I will,” she said when I got to the door.

  I don’t know why I did it. I couldn’t lie to her. It wasn’t like I owed her anything. But there was something about the way she looked at me. Like she had all these people around her and a million fans. But she didn’t have one person to tell her the truth. So I did.

  When I got back upstairs, I was planning on blurting out the whole encounter to Malik. But he caught me completely off guard with his first question.

  “What are you doing after work?” he asked. Was Malik asking me out? He was too old for me. And he was kind of my boss. “Not like that. It’s work-related.”

  “Oh, sure, right. I’d love to. I mean … nothing. I’m not doing anything.”

  FOURTEEN

  “You trust me, right?” Malik asked an hour later as I looked at my cell phone again. I had texted my mom to tell her that I was doing something for work.

  We were standing in a little lounge in SoHo called the Living Room. It had a little stage and tons of little couches and tables. It was dimly lit, with candles on each table providing the only light.

  Malik seemed to know the hostess and the waitresses. And he had a table reserved right up front near the little stage.

  “Are we scouting a new band or something?” I assumed.

  “It’s open mic night,” he explained.

  “Do you just come and look for new singers every night?” I knew that part of what Bonified did was discover new artists. It was so cool that part of Malik’s job included listening to new music every night.

  “No, I want you to get up there and sing.”

  “You what?”

  My stomach dropped.

  “That’s not going to happen.”

  “It would be good for you. Every artist needs to hear what his or her work sounds like in the real world. Otherwise you might as well be singing by yourself in your room.”

  “You don’t get it. I’d rather be singing by myself in my room. I have total stage fright. I get dizzy, and I can’t speak, let alone sing. I can’t.”

  “What if I do it with you?” he offered.

  “You sing, too?”

  “No, I’m terrible, but it will make you see how good you are,” he said lightly.

  “I’ll forget all the words. I just can’t.”

  “Okay, okay. I had no idea. You just seem like you’d love this kind of thing.”

  “Have you met me?”

  “Yeah, you stood up to Pippa. I figured this would be a piece of cake.”

  I laughed. And finally felt my body relax. I turned for the door.

  “We’re here anyway. Why don’t we just listen this time, and next time we can see what you can do.”

  Next time? I looked around. The place was filling up with kids around my age. It looked cool.

  “Okay.”

  I sat back down on one of the tufted chairs. Malik sat across from me, smiling again. The girl on stage was singing her heart out, doing a full-on rendition of an old Rihanna song. She wasn’t doing it justice.

  Malik ordered food for us, and we chowed down on appetizers while we scored the singers. Malik had a great ear for who was pitchy and who was on key. He also slipped in a few thoughts of his own about the song he’d heard me singing that day. I’d never gotten any feedback on my songs unless I counted the stream of comments on the videos, and all of those came from people who knew me at school.

  “I did something stupid today.”

  Malik raised his eyebrows.

  “You know how you said I stood up to Pippa? Well, I did it again. Only this time I think I did something much worse. ”

  I blushed and then explained what had happened. He listened, and I waited for him to tell me exactly how much trouble I was in.

  “There’s no way she’s actually going to listen to you. She’s Pippa. She probably threw about ten tantrums and changed the color of her hair since then. I bet she’s forgotten all about it.”

  He started laughing. I joined in. He was right. There was no way Pippa would throw out a song for me.

  FIFTEEN

  When I got there in the morning, a cell phone whizzed by my ear as I walked into the recording studio, balancing four coffees on a tray. Malik was wrong. Pippa hadn’t forgotten. She must have told J. T. what I’d said about the song.

  “I know what I want now, J. T. And it’s your job to give it to me. I’m the artist and the artist is always right,” Pippa said, confusing herself with that motto of the customer always being right. But now was not the time to correct her. She was on a roll. She knocked over the music stand with one of her six-inch heels and looked around for something else to hurl in J. T.’s direction. Pippa looked down at her shoes, but they had way too many straps. Still, she bent over to try to pull one of them off. I gulped down a laugh. And wondered if I should call Malik.

  “No!” J. T. said as he stood up from a crouched position. He must have ducked to miss the phone.

  This time Pippa was using her tantrum to get something hat she actually wanted.

  I smiled and picked up the phone off the floor.

  I stopped smiling when I came face-to-face with J. T.

  “I want to see you in my office,” J. T. said, looking at me as he slammed out of the studio.

  Pippa stopped fiddling with her shoe and put her foot back down. She lit up like she was glad to see me and like she hadn’t been about to throw the shoes off her feet at J. T.

  “You told him what I said about the song sounding like someone else’s?” I asked.

  “No, I told him I wanted to use your song.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked, alarm bells going off somewhere in my head.

  “The song you sent me last night.”

  “I didn’t send anything.”

  She pulled out her phone, which was blinged out in pink rhinestones—or at least I hoped they were rhinestones. Otherwise that phone probably cost more than Mom made at work for a year at the hospital.

  “How did you get this?” I asked, looking at myself on-screen. I was singing my favorite of my own songs, “Alone with Me.”

  “Someone sent it to me. I just assumed it was you.” She said it like it was no big deal.

  “It wasn’t.” Another thought hit me. “Oh no, if J. T. finds out and thinks I did …”

  She showed me the text. The number looked familiar. I pulled out my own phone. It matched James’s number, except for the last digit. Could it be Harmon Holt’s number?

  “I’ll tell J. T. I found it myself. You’re missing the point. I loved your song, and I want to use it on my album. With a few tweaks, of course. But we can work those out together.”

  My head was spinning. Pippa wanted to sing my song, and she wanted me to help her “tweak it.”

  “The point is that I love it. It’s perfect. It’s new. It says all the stuff I’ve been feeling about being alone in a school full of people. Okay, not school, but you know what I mean. You get what it’s like. I love it. And we are going to make such beautiful music together.” Pippa gave me a crushing hug.

  SIXTEEN

  The surprises kept on coming. Malik was waitin
g for me when I got back from seeing Pippa. He was sitting at his desk, tapping away on his tablet.

  “You won’t believe what just happened,” I said, sitting down at my intern desk opposite him.

  “Me first,” Malik said, seeming a little ­nervous.

  “Am I fired? I’m totally fired, aren’t I?” Maybe it would be a relief to have all this be over. But even though everything was kind of screwed up, I wasn’t ready to leave yet.

  “You’re not fired.”

  But something had to be wrong.

  He paced away from me.

  “J. T. left for the day. He’ll cool off. Once he fired me in the morning because he was sure that I was secretly giving him decaf. And then he called me back two hours later and rehired me because he couldn’t find any of his files.”

  “So I’m not fired? So what is it?”

  “I’ve been thinking about this a lot since I heard you sing…. I want to represent you.” Malik blurted suddenly, running his hand over his close-cropped hair.

  “You what?”

  “I have been working for J. T. for five years, and he thinks he’s ready for me to sign someone of my own. And I pick you.”

  “But me? J. T. hates me.”

  “J. T. doesn’t hate you. He just doesn’t get you. But I do. I think you’re exactly what the label needs.”

  I looked at him to see if he was kidding. But Malik didn’t kid. He was serious about me.

  “Me?” I repeated. “I can’t even stand on a stage for longer than five seconds.”

  “I can help you get over the stage-fright thing. What I can’t do is find someone who sings or writes as well as you do, Beth. I watched all your YouTube clips. I heard you sing in the studio the other day. You’ve got it. You’re the real thing.”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  “We’d start small—you can keep writing songs for other people. Once the world hears the song you wrote for Pippa, I think I can line up a few other artists you can write for. And when you have a few more singles out there, we can pick one of your songs for you to sing yourself. What do you say?”

  “That you’re crazy, and J. T. will never go for it!”

  “Let me worry about J. T. Now is that a yes?”

  “Yes!” I blurted and gave him a hug.

  SEVENTEEN

  The next morning I was supposed to see J. T. first thing.

  Malik patted me on the shoulder on the way in.

  J. T. seemed way calmer than he was yesterday.

  “I discussed it with Pippa. We agree that your song has merit.”

  Had he really changed his mind?

  “But it needs a lot of work. I need it to be more upbeat and commercial. The way it is now, it’s sad and it has no romance. Her fans will never go for that.”

  I went for broke. “I’m one of her fans, and I would totally go for it. That’s what makes it special. It’s about her being like every other girl, feeling a little lonely even when she’s surrounded. Everyone feels that way sometimes, even Pippa.”

  “It’s a downer. And Pippa’s fans might be living small, pathetic lives, but they don’t want to know that Pippa is just like them. They want to think that she’s better than they are. That she doesn’t have a miserable moment in her life. That if they listen to her they might be a little more like her. A little happier, a little more glamorous. That’s her brand. That’s what’s made us millions and millions of dollars, and that’s why we’re not changing that now, do you understand?”

  “Yes, but …” My mind was reeling. But I understood what he wanted. What he was ­asking.

  “No buts. If you make the changes I request, there’s an opportunity here for you.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “If Pippa sings your song, after we make the changes, then I will include it on her new ­album, and you will get a songwriting credit and be paid for your services.”

  I rocked back on my flats. J. T. Lane wanted to buy my song. He wanted to change everything about it. But he still wanted to buy it.

  “Do exactly what I say, and you’ll be in the liner notes. Don’t, and I’ll send you on the first bus back to Nowheresville.”

  When I exited the office, I filled Malik in about everything.

  “That’s amazing.”

  Malik was thrilled. This was better than he’d even imagined it. But something nagged at me. I didn’t know how I could do what he wanted me to do—to change the song into something it wasn’t.

  EIGHTEEN

  I showed up at the Plaza Hotel, notebook in hand, feeling really stupid and really excited at the exact same moment. Pippa’s assistant opened the door to her suite. The assistant always looked like she was completely on edge, ready to pounce at Pippa’s next request. Whatever it was.

  Pippa, no makeup, hair still wet, sat cross-legged on the big tufted sofa in the center of the room. Gone were the wig, the heels, and all the things that made her larger than life. She looked smaller, realer. I liked her like this. But I wasn’t 100 percent sure I knew how to talk to this Pippa either.

  “How does this work?” I asked. This was the first time I’d ever written a song with someone, the first time I’d hung out with a rock star.

  She grabbed a pink guitar out of a covered case on the floor next to her. The guitar itself wasn’t the one I’d seen her use on stage. This one was old and beat-up, like the one I had back home. Maybe it was her first guitar, too.

  “I got room service—if this isn’t good for you, then I can have room service send some more up. I’m on a diet. I’m always on a diet, but I can’t write without food. You?”

  “I like food … I mean, I’m not on a diet.” I blurted. “Um I mean, it looks great.”

  “This is not going to work,” she announced suddenly, putting the guitar back down in its case.

  “Okay, I can go …” I said. I could feel the blood rushing to my face.

  “No, I mean, if this is going to work, you have to stop thinking of me as Pippa, recording star. You have to think of me as Pippa, just ­another girl who writes songs like you.”

  I sat back down, relieved. But it was way easier said than done.

  “But you are Pippa. And I’m …”

  “Don’t finish that thought. Anyone who works with me is Pippa-fied.”

  I burst out laughing.

  “What? Gaga has her monsters. Mariah has her lambs. I have the Pips.”

  I laughed harder.

  I eyed the phone next to her guitar, a little concerned that she might throw it in my direction. But instead she deadpanned, “I have to work on my catchphrases.” And then she began laughing, too.

  ‘Yes, you do,” I said. And we were off.

  NINETEEN

  “How do you write a song?” she asked, genuinely curious, a few hours into our session.

  I still couldn’t get over Pippa asking me for advice.

  “I don’t know. It just kind of comes to me,” I said. “I guess, I just draw from the stuff that’s around me. And the stuff that I wish that was.”

  Her life was so big. So glamorous. I’d think that she would have so much more to write about. I was glad that she was doing the strumming. I knew a little piano and guitar. I’d saved up and bought a guitar last Christmas. But I hadn’t had lessons. I was getting better, but I didn’t want to play in front of her. I looked down at my hands holding a croissant. I could see that they were still a little shaky and sweaty,

  “How do you?” I parroted back.

  “I’ve never really done it on my own—someone else just writes it, and then I tell them what I want to change.”

  “But your name is on everything!” I blurted. This wasn’t Coco-water. This was her music. Wasn’t it supposed to be somehow about her?

  “It’s the only way I can get a piece of the royalties—”

  “And you’re okay with that?”

  “Besides, J. T. says I don’t actually make my own perfume, I just tell them what I’d like it to sme
ll like—but it’s my name that sells the song, so …”

  “Right, of course. I have so much to learn about this business,” I said, half-expecting a phone to come flying at my head. I pulled myself together, reminding myself that I had a job to do, and to not be so judgy.

  “So do you just want me to write it for you?” I picked up the notebook, feeling a little like I was lending my homework to someone who hadn’t done any of the work.

  Pippa shook her head. “I’m not okay with it. I want this album to be different. I want a little piece of me to be in this song. Okay, a lot of me. I want the real Pippa to just stand up—like you said.”

  “And you want me to help you? This is crazy. I’m just … an intern.”

  “No, you’re a songwriter.”

  She said it with such certainty that I almost believed her. Or maybe I just really, really ­wanted to.

  TWENTY

  When I left we arranged to meet the next night after I finished at the office.

  “Musicians have a lot in common with vampires. They start late, wear sunglasses at night, and seem to rely on a pretty rare commodity to survive. Not blood. fame,” she joked.

  I hadn’t managed to make any of the changes that J. T. wanted. The song seemed to have a life of its own. Like it knew exactly what it wanted to do and say. And Pippa and I, even though we were from completely different worlds, were on completely the same page.

  The next night we started again.

  When we took a food break, I asked, “So what does it feel like?”

  “What?”

  “Being in front of all those people? I can’t imagine it.”

  She paused like she was thinking about it, then said, “It’s terrifying. It’s like looking out into a sea of people. But it’s a rush—you feel like you want to run for like a second, and then you feel this energy coming back from the crowd. It’s like pure love—or adoration or something. I know it sounds stupid, but there’s nothing like it. It’s like, you write this song in your room and it’s all yours, but when you’re on stage you realize it doesn’t just belong to you anymore. It kind of has become something bigger. It belongs to all of them, too. And it’s kind of amazing. I sound like an idiot, don’t I.”