Beca's chin was resting in her hand, her fingers drumming lightly against her cheek as she listened to the same 5 second snippet of music for what felt like the millionth time that morning. She frowned and slipped her headphones off, pressing her fingers into her eyes hard to try and shift the gritty tiredness from them.
"I dunno Jerry" she sighed to the man sitting in the mixing booth with her. "It's just not working yet, just that one bit. Something's a little off…but I can't figure it out."
Jerry raised his eyebrows slightly. "What? Beca Mitchell doesn't have an answer?" He grinned as she scowled at him. "I'll just go check outside for flying pigs, hang on." He rose from his seat and she snapped "Smartass!" at him as he went, trying to kick his shins on the way. He laughed, hopping out of her way.
"Coffee?" He asked. She nodded then yawned, as though even the suggestion had brought her tiredness to the forefront of her mind.
"Coffee would be a start." She nodded. Jerry slipped from the booth to find the largest possible latte for her, and Beca turned back to the mixing console and pulled her headphones on once more.
Beca Mitchell had been working hard in the five years since graduating college and had gotten herself placed in a reputable recording company in LA as a result. Not a massive name but not the bottom of the pile either, and she'd already worked her way up enough that she was being given production responsibilities for some of their bigger clients. She put in a lot of hours each day, earned her stripes and she was starting to feel like she might be getting somewhere. She didn't feel like she'd 'made it' yet, there was a long way to go and she was notoriously hard on herself, but she was independent, had her own place to live, could be classed as 'financially comfortable' and was generally living like the adult she had aspired to be.
But some days…some days she felt like she was searching for something she'd never be able to find. Just one more thing she couldn't identify, which irked her. She was so used to knowing herself and knowing her way that the fact she may be at a loss for…something, it niggled away at her brain and popped up at inconvenient times to distract her.
Today was a 'distracted' day. She grumpily jabbed a button to replay the music track from the beginning, figuring that perhaps the context of the entire track might make a difference. It didn't help that it was a very intense album they were working on, and this particular track was very soulful, something about it was making her feel uncomfortable. She listened as the music built and reached a swell, the female voice deep and full of emotion. She focussed on the chord progression rather than the lyrics, and she began to frown again.
Jerry returned with the coffees just as Beca moved her cursor to isolate the music clip again. He tugged one side of her earphones down so she could hear him and said "I know that look. You've solved it haven't you?"
"Maybe…" she muttered, her eyes unfocused as she continued to listen. Jerry pretended to sulk at her and pouted.
"I think you sent me away for coffee to get me out of the way, then take all of the credit for this yourself. That's the whole reason you send me for drinks and snacks isn't it?" He managed to put on a mock hurt expression. Beca rolled her eyes at him and shushed the whining. After another few playbacks she slapped him on the shoulder and announced triumphantly "Yep I've got it now!" She looked so smug with herself that Jerry had to smirk a little.
"Yes?" He questioned.
"It's the chord progression in these bars here, listen." She changed the output to the speaker system and cranked the volume up. Jerry cocked his head slightly, but shrugged at her when she raised her eyebrows meaningfully.
"I don't-" he started, making her sigh in exasperation. She scrubbed back over the track again and told him forcefully "LISTEN." He did again…and looked blankly at her. Beca looked as though she might slap him in the face. "Sorry Bec! You're going to have to spell it out for me I'm afraid."
Beca shook her head crossly and played the small section again, saying to Jerry this time "right…here. Listen to the chords. And again here. They don't work. It just sounds like the wrong time for that change, or maybe to a different key would work."
Jerry's eyes widened in surprise. "Oh! Yes I hear it now…"
"He hears it NOW." Mocked Beca, raising her eyes to the ceiling. He stuck his tongue out at her and playfully kicked the underside of her chair, then turned back to listen to the musical phrase yet again. He shook his head and sighed.
"What do we do about it?" He asked Beca.
"Well there's nothing WE can do about it ourselves – we need to get the artist back to talk over reworking that section of the song. She knows her own song best, it would be quicker to do it that way." Jerry nodded slowly, then cringed.
"Oh man, Chad's gonna love that. Travel costs, studio costs, re-recording, re-editing…"
Beca just shrugged. "Then he should've let us work on this from the start and get it right, instead of letting his stupid Wonderchild work on it."
Jerry smirked into his coffee at Beca's reference to the boss's son, who was notoriously bad at just about anything in the business, but his dad kept pushing to 'find his niche'. "Nepotism at its finest." He grimaced. "So…" he said after a pause, "who gets to speak to him about it?" Beca paused in the middle of taking notes on the track, in preparation for re-recording. Her shoulders tensed and then she raised her head and gave Jerry a big, too-bright grin. There was a moment's silence while he processed her expression.
"Oh no!" He exclaimed immediately, waving his hands in front of himself to exaggerate his point. "No! It was me last time, I am not doing it again. No, no way, not me." She batted her eyelashes at him, saying "aww but Jerry he likes you so much…" Jerry closed his eyes and stuck his fingers in his ears.
"No! Absolutely not. Nope!"
"But Jerry-"
"No!"
"Not even for-"
"NO!"
"What if we 'Rock, Paper, Scissors' for it?"
Jerry perked up at this – Beca always lost 'Rock, Paper, Scissors', she was habitually poor at it, to the point she usually refused to play. He started to grin. "OK!" He agreed.
A few moments later, he stormed from the mixing booth in fury, followed by Beca's giggles. "Hard luck Jer!" She called after him.
"You cheated!" He yelled over his shoulder. Beca just snorted in response and started to gather up her notebook and laptop, ready to head out and chase up the artist for what was quickly becoming her album. She smiled to herself as she strode back to her office, hearing a faint whining from down the corridor indicating that Jerry was still less than satisfied with the outcome of the bet.
It was after 9pm when Beca finally arrived back at her apartment after a very long day at work. Meetings, finishing up edits, discussions with a prospective new artist and a very challenging discussion with Chad about the album she'd taken on, had all run on into the evening. She set down a grocery bag that was stashed under one arm – the result of a last-minute run to the supermarket – slung her satchel over the back of a kitchen stool and gave a long sigh of decompression. She tousled her hair with her hands, stretched and called out softly to her cat.
"Bobby…Bobby?" An off-key mewl answered her and a slight thud told her that he had removed himself swiftly from her bed to come and greet her. She smiled as he wound around her ankles, purring surprisingly loudly for such a small feline.
"Ok, ok! I'll getcha some dinner, just wait a minute Mr. B." He meowed at her in response and sat down to watch as she pottered around the kitchen and prepared his evening meal. She set his food bowl on the granite-topped breakfast bar and let him hop up to eat. His gravelly purr sounded again as he nuzzled her, before getting stuck in. She gave him a gentle tickle behind his ear and began to make a cup of tea for herself – her usual ritual of winding down after a tiring day at the studio.
A few minutes later Beca had settled herself at the breakfast bar next to Bobby, with a plain Earl Grey and some toast, which she munched slowly as she reflected on the tricky album from that day. Something was still niggling her about it. She groaned and put down her toast, sucking some crumbs from her fingers before reaching into her satchel for her laptop. She knew she wouldn't be getting any rest tonight until she'd had another go at it. She'd saved the album to it "just in case", she figured something like this would happen.
"Stupid brain" she muttered, as she pulled up files she needed and began to listen again. She sat and, without realising it, made her way through every song, slowly eating her makeshift dinner.
The album was still very rough around the edges (Beca rolled her eyes at the Wonderchild's shoddy work, again) but there was no denying the rawness and beauty in the sound. The melodies were intriguing and skilfully worked, with an intertwining and complex style. Beca repeated the album and listened to the artist's voice this time. It had a rich timbre and covered an amazing range. Her low notes were full and melted Beca right to her core, while the soaring higher notes made the hair on her arms stand on end with their unique sound. As she reached that particularly troubling track again she closed her eyes and just let the music wash over her. It started out as a simple melody, very soft and chiming sweetly. There was a deep sadness that grew as the song built, a yearning in the lyrics that caused Beca to catch her breath. She opened her eyes to find them damp with tears that had caught unbidden in her lashes. Rubbing them away quickly, she sought her tea for comfort and sipped in an attempt to break the musical rabbit hole she was falling into. As she felt herself warm on the inside, the niggling feeling returned and she pursed her lips…a suspicion began to form.
She knew this voice.
It was familiar, somewhere in the depths of her memory, once she thought about it but the harder she listened the more certain she became. Whoever this singer was, Beca had heard her before. She sifted through her memory to try and come to a solution, but it sat just out of reach. She huffed in exasperation and opened her emails, scrolling back to find the one that the demo tracks had been attached to, seeking out the name of the artist.
"Sabine Engel" she murmured to herself thoughtfully. It wasn't a name she thought she'd heard before (she'd remember one that unusual surely?) but it was pretty – it made her think of small white flowers growing in a sunny meadow…
Beca shook herself, embarrassed by the reverie she'd drifted into and tried to order her wandering thoughts. She rubbed her face vigorously and decided to call it a night. She snapped her laptop shut and returned it to her satchel, called Bobby out of the kitchen and headed to her room, turning off the lights as she went.
Curled up in bed, with Bobby purring at her back, she couldn't get those songs out of her head – particularly that voice. She replayed it over and over in her mind, trying again to puzzle out her déjà vu. Answers evaded her, however, and she eventually fell into an exhausted sleep. That night, though she didn't remember in the morning, she dreamed of a white-haired angel and the faint smell of cinnamon.
