---

Editor Note: The images used for this story were purchased and used under royalty-free license* from iStockphoto.com . ~Sephrena
Author Note: Please email me at AngelJediGirl (at) gmail (dot) com before posting this story to any other site. Posting to a pay site is prohibited.

Comments and suggestions are also welcome at the above email address.

*  *  *

Sarah Carerra Book 2: Summer Medley

Chapter 2.33 - The Songs We Sing

Dad awakened me a few hours later to allow me enough time to get ready and eat lunch before we had to go. I was a little tired from the wacky schedule, and wondered if going back to bed had been the best idea. But by the time we pulled up to the building where the magazine interview was going to take place, I felt awake again.

It wasn't until we walked into the lobby that I really understood what this magazine interview meant. Dad hadn't mentioned what magazine it was, so I was very surprised to see that I would be featured in Dazzle!

I was giddy with excitement as we were led back to a small conference room by the receptionist. Emily and I had read many issues of this magazine over the years. Being featured inside was going to be a cool experience! It focused mostly on teen girl issues from fashion to dating and beyond.

Inside the conference room was an older woman with a friendly smile on her face. She introduced herself as one of the staff writers, and wasted no time in starting the interview. I answered even more questions like the ones that I had been asked earlier in the morning, and it wasn't long before we were done. I couldn't wait to read the entire thing.

I was surprised to be escorted down to a photo shoot afterward, because they told me that I was going to be on the cover! Dad swore he had told me that news, but I was pretty sure that was something that I would have remembered. Julia and Stephanie were both there to get me ready, and they took pictures of me in four different outfits before we were done for the day.

When I climbed into bed that night, I had a very pleasant feeling coursing through my veins. There had been a few questions I would have preferred not to answer throughout the day. But in the end, everything had turned out okay. I just didn't want to wait the month it would take for the magazine to be on the newsstands.

*  *  *

Thursday was going to be an exciting day. I was really giddy as I got ready to head to the studio. This morning we were going to have our first meeting about the concert tour, where we would decide what songs were going to be sung. Tomorrow I was going to appear on the 'Tonight Show' again, and then I'd have the weekend to prepare for being Sarah nearly full-time for the rest of the summer vacation that I had left.

It was going to be busy, but it was also going to be fun. I was both excited and sad that I wouldn't have a lot of time to myself. Plus, I wouldn't see Emily or Ethan for two whole weeks once we were on the road for the cross-country portion of the tour.

When we arrived at the studio, we were led down a hall to a large room I had never been in before. It appeared to be a small events hall. The band had their equipment set up in one area, and there was a round table nearby where a number of people were already sitting. The band and the girls were already at the table. Scott was talking to another lady whom I had never met. There were also two other guys in their late 20's sitting at the table.

"Hi, everyone," I greeted them as Dad and I approached. They all looked up and greeted me in return. Scott, the woman, and the two guys all stood up so I approached where they were standing. Scott made the introductions.

"Sarah," Scott said while gesturing to the woman he had been talking to. "This is Rosemary Hobbes. She will be the event coordinator for each of your concerts. She's in charge of everyone and everything. If you have any needs or concerns at the different venues, you should seek her out."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Sarah," Rosemary said with a friendly smile before extending her hand.

I took it and gave it a shake while replying. "I'm glad to have you on board."

Scott then gestured toward the two guys. "These two will be the directors of your sound team," he said. "This is Stewart King and this is Jared Klauson. They have a number of years experience in putting on concerts and we are lucky to have them on our team. Anything related to the sound and music will be under their jurisdiction at the concerts."

"I'm honored," I said while shaking Stewart's hand before doing the same for Jared.

"The honor is ours," Stewart said while giving me a look that unsettled me a bit. They were much older than me, but they were looking at me in the same way that the boys my own age did. I knew that it happened, but I wished they had disguised it better. They seemed to realize that they were making me uncomfortable, however, and tried not to leer. I mentally thanked them for that, even if I was unhappy at their attention.

"Have a seat," Scott told me. "We're only waiting on one more."

I nodded and sat next to Sophie. Dad sat on my other side. I talked with the band for a bit before the last person arrived. I smiled immediately when I saw Kate Abernathy walk into the room. Kate was my choreographer, but I hadn't seen her since before my first concert.

"Hi, Kate," I said when she took a seat next to Dad.

She smiled back at me before speaking. "It's nice to see you again, Sarah. You never signed up for those dance classes."

"I..." I didn't have a response to that. But the grin that broke out across her face let me know that she was joking with me. I started laughing and she joined in.

"Now that everyone is here," Scott spoke up next. "I'd like to get started. We have a lot to do today so that everyone can get ready for Monday." He looked down at the paper in front of him. "Monday we will go over everything that we need to know about the concert tour. Tuesday we will start choreography, correct?" He was looking at Kate, who nodded. "We've got two weeks to get ready. It isn't much time, but we have good people in this room, and I know we'll be ready for the first concert on the 31st. Okay?"

Everyone around the table was nodding, and Scott looked down at the stack of papers in front of him again.

"I have a list of about 30 songs here," he said. "We need to fill about an hour and a half to two hours worth of time."

He started passing papers around to everyone. Once I got mine I took a look at the songs that he had listed. Most of them were obvious. The entire list of songs from my CD and the six songs that the band and I had worked on Monday night were all listed, and made up the majority of the list. The other 11 were songs that the studio had obtained permission to use as possible cover songs that I could sing. The majority of this meeting would determine which of those songs I would be singing to fill in the gaps, as it was unlikely that we would cut any of my own work from the set list.

There were a number of songs listed that I liked. There were some that I had never heard of. Also...

"We can scratch 22, 24, and 29 off the list," I spoke immediately. There was no sense in debating about those three. "I don't like any of those songs."

"Okay," Scott said and did just that with his pen. "I propose that we include all songs from the 'Intuition' album. This is the 'Intuition' tour, after all."

Everyone agreed, so he moved on to the next point. "We also have six songs that Sarah and the band have written that they would like to include. Those are 14-19 on your list. I tentatively propose that we include them too. Original content will be better than cover songs. I would, however, like to hear each song before we make a final decision on them."

He looked over the remaining songs once again. "That leaves us with eight possible covers. We can go through each of them and see what everyone's opinions are. But before we do that, can we hear the ones you have been working on?"

Scott was looking toward the end of the table where the band and I were sitting. I looked over at them for a second to gauge their reaction before nodding back to him. The band and I stood up and we made our way over to the instruments.

As I sang through each of the songs that the band and I had written, I just had to smile at how crazy this summer had been. I had talked a lot about it yesterday in the interviews, but I was still amazed at how quickly everything had happened! Just three months ago I hadn't even been on stage, but now I was going on a concert tour in two weeks!

When we finished playing each of the songs, we'd have a brief discussion about whether to include it or not. Truthfully, I didn't think anyone was going to say ‘no’ to any of them. It felt slightly like we were just going through the motions when everyone already knew they would be included. They probably just wanted to hear them. By the time we had sung all of them, everyone was smiling. They were all approved.

The band and I took our seats around the table again so that we could go through the list of cover songs.

"Okay," Scott started us off again. "We have eight cover songs left to look at. We have each one available to listen to if we need to. First up, 'Super Trouper' from Mamma Mia!"

"Yes," I voted immediately. I would love to include a song from Mamma Mia! in my concerts, and 'Super Trouper' was an excellent choice. Scott looked around the room, and when nobody argued against me he put a check mark on his paper and moved on to the next one.

"'You Set Me Free' from Michelle Branch," he said. Everyone turned to me immediately to get my reaction.

"I like the song," I supplied.

"It feels a little too recent to me," Rosemary said. "I mean, my daughters still listen to it often enough that it might feel overused."

"I agree," Dad agreed.

"Okay, if there are no objections, then we'll cross it off," Scott said, hovering his pen above his paper. When nobody said anything, he crossed the song out and moved on to the next.

"Don McLean's 'If We Try'," Scott said and looked up at the rest of us again.

"I don't know that one," I told him. Scott turned to his laptop and did something before the song started playing in the room. It sounded like it was made way before I was born, but I liked it. It had this really slow, soft beat that had a kind of melancholy feel at the same time that it made me hope for more. By the time we were done listening to it, everyone agreed that it would be a good one to use.

"Alright," Scott said and made a mark on his paper once again. "Five more. Next is 'Downtown' by Petula Clark."

"I think that one will be perfect for Sarah," Dad piped up immediately. I had to make them play it for me since I'd never heard it, but I agreed with him quickly.

"Jewel's 'You Were Meant For'," Scott said next.

"I really hate that song!" Jason spoke up vehemently. "Can we please not do any Jewel?"

"What's wrong with Jewel? I love Jewel!" Sophie argued. I liked Jewel too, so I was intrigued to hear what Jason would say.

"I just don't, okay?" he said.

"Jewel reminds him of an old girlfriend," Connor supplied. "Bad memories."

"Oh," I said, understanding why he wouldn't want to play any of her songs. "Well, there are plenty of other songs. I guess we can skip Jewel."

"Thank you," Jason said, and the sincerity in his voice and in his eyes when he looked at me made me realize that he really didn't want to perform any Jewel songs. I wondered if I’d be able to get the story out of one of the other band members.

Scott marked his sheet again. Nobody had any issues with the remaining three songs: 'Breathless' by The Corrs, 'Torn' by Natalie Imbruglia, and Lisa Loeb's 'Stay (I Miss You)'. They were all songs I had heard before and liked, and I was excited to get to sing them on stage.

Once we were finished, Scott looked over the list again, and it was apparent that he was counting the number of songs that we had agreed upon.

"This set list is shorter than I would have hoped for," Scott told us after adding up the time for each song. "We could use one or two more to fill in the time. I could look for other songs that we could try to get performance rights for, or Sarah, do you think you could get us another?"

Everyone looked at me, and I was certain that the surprise was evident on my face. I had never been under a deadline to write a song before. I always wrote when I had something to write about. I didn't know what would happen if he put me on the spot like this.

"Uhm, okay," I said, but I knew I sounded really nervous.

"If you can't come up with anything, than we still have enough," Scott said. "But if anything comes to you over the next week, we'd be happy to use it."

I nodded. I heard his words, but I got the feeling he was really hoping that I came up with another song. I knew I was going to need to spend the weekend searching for something to write about.

"All right," Scott spoke up once again. "Now that the easy part is over, let's talk about what order to sing them in."

*  *  *

When I got home that evening, I was exhausted. I never would have thought that trying to decide what order to sing songs in would be such an issue. It took us nearly two hours to determine the order. Everyone had an opinion, and some of those opinions were very strong to their owners. The only thing that seemed to have preference in the decisions was my choice. It almost turned into a frenzy when people realized that Scott was listening to my final say. But in the end we managed to put together a good set list, and I didn't think anyone was too upset with it. I certainly didn't want to ever do anything like THAT again, however.

After lunch, the band and I were given use of the room to rehearse the songs that we had chosen for the concert tour. We had six cover songs that we had to learn to play together. We would get more rehearsal time during the following two weeks, but we wanted to be able to perform them by then, instead of learning as we went.

Between the two, I felt like we had been working non-stop on the tour for weeks already. I hoped that the rest of the time we had to get ready for the tour wasn't that stressful.

It was with some trepidation, and with a lot of reluctance, that I sat down on Sarah's couch after dinner to figure out what to write another song about. I had absolutely no idea where to start. I knew that I couldn't force the song out. That wasn't the way I wrote. I had to have an inspiration to pull that guitar out of its case. If I didn't, then the only thing I would be able to do effectively was put the guitar away again.

But I could try to find that inspiration. I changed my position so that I was lying on the couch, my head on one of the pillows while staring at the ceiling.

What could I write a song about? I'd written about a lot of things, and they all flashed through my mind. But none of them evoked the feeling that usually came with the beginning of a new song. I thought about the other parts of my life. I had been through a lot this summer, could I write about that?

No. I couldn't find the inspiration there, either.

"Mom! Come quick!" I heard Austin scream from the front of the house, breaking my thought patterns. Curiosity got the better of me, and I stood up and stepped out of Sarah's room to see what was going on.

I found Austin and Mom sitting on the couch watching a home video that had apparently been taken earlier that morning. He had mentioned that he had been taking surfing lessons to me, but I had completely forgotten about them. But the video clearly showed how good he was getting.

I sat down to watch in amazement. I always thought that it would be fun to surf, but he already looked like a pro, and he had only been taking lessons for a few weeks or so.

"Cool, huh?" Austin asked, and I turned to see him looking at me.

"You're really good!" I told him sincerely. The smile on his face grew even wider at my words. I continued watching for a while before I started to get an idea. I could write a song about Austin!

In excitement, I returned to Sarah's room after the video was finished, and picked up my guitar. This was going to be easy.

*  *  *

I screamed in frustration again while ripping another page out of my notebook. I couldn't do this anymore!

"Everything okay, Princess?" Dad asked me from the door to Sarah's room. I hadn't even heard it open.

"No!" I screamed back louder than I should have. Then I sighed in frustration and placed my guitar back into its case. I loved Austin, and I wanted to write a song about him. But now was not the time. I was trying to force it, and it was not working.

Dad came over and sat down next to me. "I'm sorry Scott put you on the spot like that," he said. "Remember, you don't have to come up with another one. I know he wants it, but we really do have enough songs. Don't frustrate yourself over this. If something comes up, great - we'll include it. If not, it isn't a big deal. Okay?"

I sighed. At least he was sincere, unlike Scott had been. I knew that I had to follow his advice, though. I couldn't try to force a song. It just didn't work that way.

"Come get some sleep," he told me. "You've still got a big day tomorrow, and I want you rested for the 'Tonight Show' interview. The song will come when it is ready."

I smiled up at him. He knew exactly what I needed to hear. I kissed him on his cheek. "Thank you, Daddy."

*  *  *