1. New Faces and Falls
"I can't believe that we're going to L.A., Er." I said to my best friend, Erin Laucke. She was twisting her curly blonde hair with her finger, chewing on her bottom lip.
"Me either, Maxx." Erin said to me. "And I'm so nervous that Gustavo won't like my voice anymore once we get there." She had a pleading look on her eyes, a look I knew well that was practically screaming, 'I am so scared right now, help me.' Her green eyes were clouded with worry.
"Erin Ryann Laucke. Are you doubting your amazing singing?" I asked accusingly.
"Oh, my God. Dudes, I can see the Hollywood sign. We're almost there." Our friend, Layla Frampsham, said from the seat behind us. Layla was an aspiring actress. I could tell she just woke up because her reddish-brown pixie cut was in a mess. She was giggling while our other friend, Aelia Bennet was jumping up and down smiling like crazy. I rolled my eyes as Erin fell into the trance.
I dug into my carry-on bag and pulled out my yellow baseball cap with a big 'M' on it. I was putting it on as soon as we got out of LAX. We were landing just now and I had to slap Erin, Aelia, and Layla to wake them up from their reverie. "Maxx! Ow! What was that for?" Aelia asked, rubbing her cheek. I couldn't help but laugh. Aelia was a total girly-girl and was so sensitive. "We just landed." I said still smiling.
"Oh, but still, ow." "Come on, guys. Lay and I got our bags. Get yours, 'cause Ael, only you can carry that bulk." Erin said. "'Kay." I hadn't noticed we got off of the plane yet. LAX was beautiful. It was nothing like Wisconsin-where we were all from. Anyway, I'm Shelby Caroline Grenowld. I don't like my name, though. So, I go by Maxx Lynn Grenowld. It fits me and I like it. I'm not here in Hollywood 'cause I wanna be a singer,
dancer, or actress. I'm here to support my girls. I'm just along for the ride. My hair is black and frizzy which is why I always wear baseball caps. People say my blue eyes are intense, even behind my glasses, which I only wear while driving and reading. I love and play almost any sport, especially hockey.
We just got our luggage and were trying to hail a taxi. So far, none would stop for us. Layla groaned, "Why won't anyone stop for us?" The rest of us shrugged. Erin suggested we show some leg, but Aelia said that we should sing on the side of the street and raise money for a rental car for me to drive since I'm the only one with my driver's license. I could sing, but, I prefer not to.
Although, I do write songs for Erin and Aelia. Which got them both discovered by the producer of Rocque Records, Gustavo Rocque. But Layla wasn't the best singer. She did agree to sing backup.
I opened my guitar case, took out my guitar, and started strumming the tune of Secret Valentine by We The Kings. Then we all started singing.
"Soft kiss and wine. What a pretty friend of mine. We are finally intertwined. Nervous and shy. For the moment we will come alive tonight. Secret valentine. We'll write a song. That turns out the lights. When both boy and girl. Start suddenly shaking inside. Don't waste your time. Speed up your breathing just close your eyes. We'll hope it's not for nothing at all."
I couldn't help but smiling people were smiling and putting money in like crazy and by the time we finished the song, we had enough for a nice rental car. Turns out, the closest Enterprise was a mile down and I was the only one wearing tennis shoes; Erin had black kitten heels on, Layla had on red flip-flops, and Aelia-the shortest of us all-had on white cork wedges. Erin and Aelia decided to just take off their shoes and walk while carrying them. Layla,
however; said she would just walk in her flip-flops.
During the walk, Layla stayed quiet, doing hand signals dramatically. She recently got a role for a part in a new TV drama series called Chessa Drake: Life, Lies, and Boys. She was playing Chessa's best friend, Lucky Biansh. Erin and Aelia asked me if I had any new material for them, I said I had a new song for each of them but neither was done yet. "Can I hear some of mine Maxx?" Erin asked eagerly. "Sure. Ael, do you want to hear some of yours?" I asked her.
"No, I want mine to be a suprise." She smiled.
"'Kay. Here's yours, Er." I imagined the tune in my head and started singing. "Today was a fairytale. You were the prince. I used to be a damsal in distress. You took me by the hand when you picked me up at six. Today was a fairytale." I smiled to hear applause from my three best friends. "It's called Today Was A Fairytale." I smirked.
Before we knew it, we were at Enterprise. We went in and a guy who looked kind of like Hitler greeted us with a smile. "Hello, my name is Randy.
How can I help you today?"
Layla spoke up, "We're looking for a decent rental."
"For how long?" Randy asked.
"Uh," Layla turned to us and whispered, "What do you guys think?"
"Maybe a week I guess." Aelia said.
"A week, a week will be fine." Erin jumped, she just wanted to get to Gustavo.
"Okay, how much do you have?"
I told him how much we had. I think he had a little heart attack because we had a lot. "Oh, wow. Well here is a nice convertable Ferrari."
I gasped and Erin said, "We'll take it!" Layla was gaping at the car. Aelia was just picking at her nails, her family was loaded so she was used to this kind of thing. I lived with Aelia 'cause my parents died when I was twelve. But I was so not used to being offered Ferraris.
We gave him the money we earned. And I drove away with my girls in the car. On the way to our hotel, we heard 'Our Song' by Taylor Swift and started singing along, Layla singing way off key and I couldn't help but laugh. "Our song is the slammin' screen door. Sneakin' out late tappin' on your window. When we're on the phone and you talk real slow. 'Cause it's late and your mama don't know." By the time the song was over, we were at The Palmwoods-home of the future famous. Man, there were a lot of future famous people because it took us a while to find us a parking spot. This place was booked. After we parked, we took our bags out of the car and put the hood up. Everyone, I'll even admit I jumped a little. We went in through the front door and walked up to the front desk where a large man eating what I'm guessing was a turkey sub.
I walked up to the man, his nametag said 'Manager K. Bitters'. "Hi, I'm Maxx. We have a room reserved under the name Bennet." Aelia's parents were paying for our room. Hence 'Bennet'. The man spoke before he swallowed a bite of his sandwich and spit some on me. "I'm busy!" I took a Kleenex and wiped off the sandwich from my face. "Right. I can tell your super busy eating your sub, but, uh, we kinda want in our room!"
I was getting impatient with Bitters. "So, Bennet. What room?"
Apparently he wanted us gone 'cause he finally told me, "Room 2K." He gave us each a room key.
"Thanks." Erin said sarcastically. With that, we left. On the way to the elevator, Erin ran into a medium-height brunette in a shiny, pink, knee-length,
spaghetti strap dress and they both fell to the floor. "Oh, my gosh. I'm so sorry. I didn't see you."
"Oh, no. You're fine I really should watch where I'm walking when I'm rehearsing. I sort of get into my own world." The girl said. "I'm Camille by the way, I'm an actress."
That's where Layla cut in. "Hi. I'm an aspiring actress. My name is Layla." She pointed to all of us. "That's Erin, Aelia, and Maxx." I waved and offered a smile, she smiled back. "Do you know where 2K is?" Aelia asked Camille.
"Yeah, second floor and the door is labeled 2K." Camille replied.
"Thank you so much. My bag is starting to kill me. It's like fifty pounds, or more." Aelia giggled.
"No problem." Camille shrugged, "Bye." She left waving her arms and whispering lines.
Once we were in the elevators, Erin pushed the button labeled 2. Aelia started humming along with the elevator music. Then, we were on floor two.
We were looking for room 2K frantically because our arms were killing us. Once we found it, Layla took out her key card and swiped it. I opened the door and we all raced to a room. I was sharing a room with Erin. We unpacked and got our swimsuits on 'cause we saw a glimpse of the pool and it looked amazing. So, as fast as I could, I took out my yellow tankini and put it on. I came out of my room to see Erin in her white bikini and green flip-flops, Layla in her purple one-piece and the same red flip-flops, and Aelia in her light blue tankini and pink flip-flops. I slipped on my orange flip-flops and my yellow baseball cap. Aelia grabbed the SPF 30 sunscreen and we went out the door.
Down at the pool, there were a whole bunch of people that looked like either an actor/actress or singer or dancer. We found four empty beach chairs and sat down, me by Erin, Erin by Aelia, and Aelia by Layla. Once we sat down, I took my book out of my tote/bag and began to read. Until Erin tapped my shoulder and whispered, "Look."
I put down my book and looked over to where she was pointing and saw four guys who looked about our age, and were extremely cute. One was blonde and had gorgeous green/gray eyes, he was the second tallest. The tallest had longer brown hair, brown eyes, and had a big smile on his face. One had spikey black hair and dark green eyes. And the last one was Latino and had dark hair and brown eyes.
They were passing us and Layla said, "Hi." She was always the most daring.
They said hey back in unison. Layla introduced us again. The blonde boy introduced all the other guys. "I'm Kendall, that's James, Logan, and Carlos. We're Big Time Rush."
I do not own Big Time Rush, We the Kings, or Taylor Swift. Was it good? Bad? Just plain ugly? REVIEW!
