Chapter 9: Taken on Different Paths

One week after moving to LA

A few days after Summer had gotten to LA, her Garage Band tracks had been polished and tidied up at the Alliance Records studio so that they now sounded less like Garage Band beats and more like professional pop music.

At the moment, Summer was in one of the recording booths at Alliance Records wearing a pair of headphones and standing at the microphone. Jerrica and Devon were sitting with the techies who were working the sound, watching her through the plate-glass window. "I'm sorry – I'm so sorry…" Summer was saying to the recording engineer.

"No, it's fine; you're okay," he assured her. "You sound fine, alright?"

"You're doing great," Jerrica added from her seat near the back of the studio.

"We'll try it again and I'll cue you in, okay?" the recording engineer told Summer. She took a deep breath and nodded. "Got it."

He started the backing track from the top again. "One, two…" he cued, and Summer started to sing again.

"Wait, hold on a sec," he interrupted, pausing the music again. "Just listen for my cue, and we'll come right in, okay?"

"So, should…well, uh…I-I'm sorry, but, um, do I sing in the beginning?" she stammered.

"So, you're gonna hear the intro," the recording engineer answered, "and then I'm gonna start recording you." While he continued giving instructions to Summer, Jerrica got up from her seat and walked over to Devon. "Hey, I think I know something that might help her – can I go in and talk to her?" she asked him.

"Sure, go for it," Devon answered.

"That was really good up to that point," the recording engineer was saying to Summer when Jerrica tapped him on the shoulder. "I just gotta go in there for a sec, alright?" she told him.

"No problem," he answered. When Jerrica went into the recording booth, Summer told her, "I've never sung with a track quite like this before – like, this is actually harder than karaoke, even!"

"That's probably just your nerves talking, but I think you just need an instrument to play," Jerrica told her. "If you were playing something while you were singing, I think you'd feel better."

"Yeah, I almost always play an instrument when I sing," Summer answered. "I'd be alright if I had one."

"Well, how about you ask the techies for one?"

"Do you think they'd let me do it?"

"Sure. I mean, you know these new tracks pretty well, I think you just need something to do with your hands to get your confidence fully boosted. Yeah, I don't see why they wouldn't let you do that."

"Okay. Thank you."

"It's alright, I gotcha – you're doing great," Jerrica told Summer, pulling her into a side-hug. "You okay now?"

"No; I'm still so nervous," Summer admitted.

"Well, you're gonna be fine, alright, kid?"

Summer flicked her tongue out at Jerrica. "And stop calling me 'kid' – I have a record contract now, remember?" she teased.

A few minutes later, a guitar had been brought in for Summer to play while she sang. It wasn't plugged into anything, so that way, it wouldn't be loud enough for the microphone to pick up. With that, the recording engineer started the backing track again, and Summer started to play along with the intro. She started singing right at the cue, and the rest of the recording went off without a hitch. Devon and Jerrica continued watching Summer enthusiastically from the studio.

A couple days later, Devon called Summer to tell her that he'd gotten a gig for her: an opening gig for the indie-pop band Foolish Six, who was playing a show over in Riverside. She would only be performing one song, but the gig was in about a month, so she'd be having dance rehearsals every day at one of the studios in Alliance Records, starting that afternoon.

Summer headed to Alliance Records sometime after lunch and met Devon; she then followed him to one of the dance studios, where she met the two girls who would be her back-up dancers and started doing some warm-up exercises with them.

"Oh, so you've already met the new girl, have you?" the instructor said to the dancers as he came in, referring to Summer. "Hey, Devon, what's up?"

"How's it going?" Devon answered. "Thanks for doing this on such short notice, I appreciate it."

"Yeah, sure, no problem, man." Turning back to Summer and the two dancers, the instructor added, "Alright, troops, let's get to work! This is pop music we're talking about, and pop music is a battle – so when I call you troops, it's battle-time, okay?"

Summer had done a few dance classes for fun when she was a kid, but she was no professional. Still, she could move pretty gracefully and do a few gymnastic moves (her days of pole-dancing on Strip Saturdays at the Metropolis had helped with that), and the dance routine wasn't too hard – she wasn't the one doing any overly complicated moves in the routine, only her two partners were.

The rehearsal lasted for a couple hours, and then Devon spoke to Summer for a few minutes afterwards. "This is all just part of, like, fine-tuning and creating your image, if that makes sense," he explained.

"Yeah, yeah, I get that," Summer replied, "but, like, what if I already had kind of an image for myself in mind?"

"And you'll get more of a chance to do that once you get really big," Devon told her. "But this is just to help you get more popular, y'know, 'cause when you're trying to get famous like this, you need to do pretty much whatever the crowd wants to see; once you've gotten their attention, then yeah, you get more say in your image."

"Okay, sure, that makes sense – but I still don't wanna lose the part of me that's talented."

"No, of course not; I don't want you to lose that, either, I'm not gonna let you lose it!"

"Okay."

Whenever Summer wasn't doing rehearsals, she was usually either doing homework or attending her online college classes, or hanging out at Starlight Mansion with Jerrica; her room had been set up in one of the former Starlight girls' rooms, and it was the best one in the mansion. While Summer was living in Starlight Mansion, she also got acquainted with Ollie, Jerrica's pet tabby; he was pretty affectionate for a cat and took a nearly instant liking to Summer. She also got to see Rio and Kristi's home one time when she went with Jerrica for a visit, as well as Brett's place when he helped her create a Synergy file for her outfit for the upcoming Foolish Six gig (part of Summer's contract with Alliance Records allowed her to create and wear whatever Synergy outfits she pleased, so there were no worries about using the technology there).

One morning, about a week before Summer's gig, Jerrica asked her, "So…are you coming with us to MusicCon, kid?"

"What? What're you talking about?"

"With the Holograms. We've got this thing, uh…you've heard of MusicCon, right?"

"Yeah, I've heard of it," Summer answered. MusicCon was similar to ComicCon, only it was held in Santa Barbara rather than San Diego, and it focused more on music than on comics and video games. People would sometimes cosplay as their favourite musicians or bandmembers, and a lot of different bands and solo artists would play there every year and sell albums and merchandise.

"The Holograms agreed to do it this year a few months back, 'cause we knew our tour would be over by then," Jerrica explained. "It's just a simple little paid thing, kinda soul-crushing work, y'know?" She laughed without much humour. "It's not the kind of thing I'd have ever imagined the Holograms doing, but…I mean, it's fine, whatever. So yeah, if you wanna come, I thought we'd have a good laugh about it, at the very least."

"Actually, Devon needs me here because I'm doing the opening gig for Foolish Six in about a week now. Besides," Summer went on, "they were really happy with all those songs I recorded last week that they want me to record some others so they can put them all out as my debut album, so…"

"Hey, kid, listen to what you're saying," Jerrica told her. "Listen to what you just said. People wanna hear what you have to say, that's the stuff right there, okay?"

"I know, I just…"

"Listen, don't worry about it; it's fine."

Summer didn't know what else to say, so she just kept idly petting Ollie, who sat curled up in her lap. "Alright, then," she finally answered.

The day of MusicCon for the Holograms and the concert for Summer finally arrived. Jerrica and the Holograms headed to Santa Barbara, and Summer rode down to Riverside. They all had their outfits lined up on the Synergy program back at Starlight Mansion, and the holograms could be projected worldwide just from the computer with the program.

Alone in her dressing room at Hall 3, the MusicCon building the Holograms would be playing in, Jerrica ground some pills on the table into dust under the heel of a spare shoe and sniffed up as much of it as she could. When she'd done that, she swept the remains into a nearby glass of liquor and drank it. Pressing on her left earring-stud, she said groggily, "It's showtime, Synergy."

No sooner had the words left her mouth and her costume appeared than the ringing in her ears came back – and persisted as she walked out onstage. It muffled every other sound, even the cheers of the crowds. "Oh, fuck," she muttered. She vaguely heard one of her bandmates (she couldn't really tell which one) asking if she was okay, but she didn't answer. The voice repeated her name, but it still didn't register in her brain.

Meanwhile, over in Riverside, Summer was backstage, listening to the crowds cheering. Pressing her left earring stud, she, too, said quietly, "It's showtime, Synergy." Instantly, her suit changed into a cropped leather jacket coated in black sequins and a sparkly pink zebra mini-sized bubble skirt with black ankle boots, smoky makeup, and full, wavy hair. Just then, the music started, and following her cue, Summer walked out onstage and began singing a moment later.

I've suffered through

Trainwreck after trainwreck,

And I'm wondering if I

Can do it anymore;

Plunging headfirst into

Young love feels exciting,

But backstabbing leaves a

Girl hurt to the core…

Her dance partners were nowhere to be seen, so Summer was alone onstage. Honestly, she liked this a lot better – she found that trying to remember a dance routine and sing well at the same time was tricky. This way, she could get properly into the groove; she did dance to the music a little bit, incorporating a few moves from the dance routine she'd rehearsed, but her dancing was mostly freestyle.

I wanna search everywhere,

'Cause you're my destination –

Or are you a figment of

A girl's imagination?

I know I've suffered so much in love –

I've been left hurting and screaming,

But every girl just wants to find "The One" –

Are you really out there? Or am I just daydreaming?

The crowd was loving it. Backstage, however, Devon happened to discover Summer's dance partners watching her performance from the sidelines. "Any reason why you're not out there?" he asked them, pointing towards the stage. They just shrugged.

Is it too much just to

Ask for someone who

Respects me and knows how

To make me feel so good?

Night after night, I've laid

Awake imagining

Life with you – I know you'll

Treat me like you should…

It's a big old world we live on –

You've gotta be found somewhere;

I don't wanna lose hope that

You might actually be out there…

Summer could tell the audience was really getting into the show – as she started waving her free hand over her head, the audience followed suit and kept going, even when she herself had stopped.

I know I've suffered so much in love –

I've been left hurting and screaming,

But every girl just wants to find "The One" –

Are you really out there? Or am I just daydreaming?

Roses are red,

Violets are blue,

I've fantasized

About kissing you;

My daydreams all

Run wild and free –

Like having you

On top of me…!

Summer gave a flirty wink on that line before continuing on to the final chorus.

I know I've suffered so much in love –

I've been left hurting and screaming,

But every girl just wants to find "The One" –

Are you really out there? Or am I just daydreaming?

The crowd cheered as the song ended, and as Summer headed offstage as Foolish Six took her place, she saw Devon out of the corner of her eye. "Oh my God, that was amazing!" she cried as she ran over to him. "Oh, my…oh – hey…"

"Fantastic work out there," he told her, holding up his hand for a high-five. As Summer returned the gesture, she asked, "Hey, was there any word from Jerrica?"

"Not that I know of," Devon replied.

Summer's face fell. "What do you mean, there's no word from her?"

"There's no word from her."

"I haven't heard from her all night; I texted her five times, I even tried calling once –"

"By the way," Devon interrupted, "what happened with the dancers back there?"

"Oh…well, I thought maybe I should do the dance alone, 'cause honestly, it was really overwhelming to do it with the dancers – and also because you said I'm trying to build my image, so I thought maybe it'd be better if there was more focus on me…"

"Okay, but you can't just spring stuff on me like that," Devon chided her. "You've gotta get it through your head that this is what I do, and you need to trust me, understand? So, if I give you dancers to work with, don't not use them and miss a couple steps, okay?"

Summer looked troubled. "I'm sorry," she said, still a bit nervous of the stern way he'd spoken to her. "I didn't think it would be an issue."

After a pause, Devon added, "I also think we should change your hair – specifically, change the colour of your hair."

"What's wrong with my hair?" Sure, Summer had thought of changing her hair colour before, but right now, she was more concerned about Jerrica's whereabouts.

"I'm thinking a natural-looking red might look good, especially with your eyes –"

"No! I don't wanna be a fucking redhead," Summer told him irritably. "I wanna look however I wanna look, and right now, I'm much more worried about Jerrica, okay?!"

"I'll find her, okay?" Devon reassured her. "I'll find Jerrica." With that, he walked away, and Summer turned and pressed on her right earring-stud. "Show's over, Synergy," she mumbled; instantly, her costume, hairstyle, and makeup vanished, and she headed back towards her dressing room to change into her regular clothes.

Over in Santa Barbara the next morning, former Hologram bandmember Aja was bent over the figure sleeping on her lawn. The figure was Jerrica.

"Jerrica?" Aja said softly. Jerrica stirred slightly as she opened her eyes and noticed Aja staring at her. "Why have I got a weird feeling of Deja vu?" Aja asked her. "C'mon, I'll help you up."

With that, Aja stood up, and grabbing Jerrica's hand, she pulled her former bandmate to her feet. "Alright, there we go."

"In my mind's eye, I thought I'd at least made it through the door," Jerrica mumbled as she cracked up laughing.

"I almost didn't want to wake you up, you looked so comfortable," chuckled Aja.

A man stood out on the porch of the house; looking up, Jerrica recognized him as Craig Philips, Aja's husband. "Long time, no see; how are you?" he called to Jerrica.

"I'm, well, y'know…I've seen better days, I guess," Jerrica answered. "I apologize for, uh, disrespecting your property or whatever you call it…"

"It's fine, no apologies needed," Craig assured her. "You want any coffee?"

"Babe, would you mind putting it on?" Aja asked him. "We'll be there in a minute."

"Alright." With that, Craig headed inside, and Jerrica and Aja headed over to the porch steps together to sit down.

As Jerrica sat down, she happened to turn and see a boy's face peeking curiously back at her through the window. "That's one of yours, right?" she asked.

Turning and seeing the boy in the window, Aja nodded. "Yessir, that's Greyson. Jerrica, would you believe that he's as old now as you and I were when I came to live with you and Kimber?"

"That's crazy," Jerrica marveled.

Aja paused for a minute before she asked, "Speaking of which, how's she doing?"

"Kimber's doing alright."

"That's good. I saw the video everyone's talking about on YouTube – the one with the girl."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, and it made me really happy. You looked the way I remember you looking when we'd play way back in the 80s, and I honestly haven't seen you look like that in a long time."

Jerrica was quiet for a moment, thinking over what Aja had just said. "Her name is Summer Bowen," she told Aja. "She's a college freshman, and she writes music, too."

"Did she write that song you guys performed?"

"Yep. A ton of others, too; then she got hooked up with some record guy who wants to produce her music, and…yeah."

"She's awfully talented for someone so young."

"I know. I met her one night a few months ago when she was performing at a nightclub, and just…to cut a long story short, I've been trying to help her achieve her dreams of fame ever since. You should've heard her backstory, it was just…" Jerrica shook her head at the memory of sitting in the convenience store parking lot, listening to Summer tell her story as the two of them shared snacks.

"You seem happier now than you were, say, when I left the Holograms. Seems like helping her has been good for you, too," Aja went on.

"In some ways, yeah, in some ways, no," Jerrica replied. "Kimber quit the band a while back, which I'm sure you heard about, and she's not living at Starlight Mansion anymore, she's got her own place now. But yeah, on the whole, I've been really glad to help Summer out – I'm sure the girls would tell you it's taken my main focus off of myself!" She laughed.

Aja thought for a moment. "Well…sounds like she might be a way out for you," she said.

"What do you mean?"

"By the time I left the band, you'd focus all the attention from fans on yourself and inflate your ego and shove us back in the corner; on top of that, you were also on so many drugs and so fucked up, and it was getting worse and worse – like, to the point that I'd often end up crying in my dressing room after shows. It just got to be too much, so I finally left." She sighed, recalling various memories. "But if mentoring this girl, or whatever it is you're doing exactly, is helping you clean up your act, then yeah; I think she might be a way out for you."

"Maybe…" Jerrica stared thoughtfully out towards the street.

"Then again," Aja added, "I did find your ass sleeping in the grass this morning." She and Jerrica both burst out laughing. As Aja stood up, she added, "C'mon, let's head inside. Craig's gonna get the coffee brewed, and then you can rest in Samantha and Kara's room."

Some time later (Jerrica wasn't really sure how much later), she found herself waking up in Aja's oldest daughters' room with Summer standing in the doorway, looking right back at her.

"Summer? What're you doing here? How'd you find me?" Jerrica asked, sitting up on the bed.

"Devon somehow managed to find out where you were – don't ask me how, I have no fucking clue," Summer answered. She took a deep breath before going on, "I thought of so many things to say to you in the taxi that now I can't even remember."

"Glad you're here; looks like you did make it to Santa Barbara after all," Jerrica muttered as Summer came into the room. "Fuck…"

"I'm only doing this once," Summer told Jerrica as she sat down on a bean-bag chair a few feet from the bed. "I'm not gonna try and find you if you wander off again, 'cause it's really not my job or anyone else's; instead, I'm gonna let you clean up your own mess. Got it?"

Jerrica nodded. "By the way, how was the show?" she asked Summer.

Summer's whole mood changed as she broke into a smile. "It was fucking amazing," she laughed. "I cut the dancers I'd been doing all those rehearsals with."

"Really?"

"Yep. Straight-up told them they didn't need to perform onstage with me."

"Good," Jerrica grinned, laughing a little. "Fucking dancers – who needs that shit? All you do is go out there and jam out with your band and sing!"

Sobering down a little, Summer told her, "You really had me worried, though."

"Sorry about that."

A little while later, Summer was having lunch with Aja, Craig, and their family – two kids by birth, two adopted kids, and four they were fostering. Meanwhile, Jerrica was hanging around in the kitchen.

"I saw that video of you on YouTube," Aja told Summer.

"Oh, really?"

"Yeah, it was amazing."

"Aww, thank you so much!"

Just then, Jerrica motioned to Aja from the kitchen. "Would you excuse me a sec?" she told Summer as she got up from the table. Coming into the kitchen, she asked Jerrica quietly, "What's going on?"

"Your address is 839 Holburn Lane, right?" Jerrica murmured to her friend. "I wasn't really paying attention to address names when I showed up, but I remembered you at least lived near the address, so…"

"Yeah, that's our address, why?"

"So, 837 Holburn Lane would be, like, right next door to you, yeah?"

"Yeah…Jerrica, what the hell is going on?"

"Okay, here's the deal: so, Summer's parents put her up for adoption, cuz they were only in high school when she was born, and she's been trying to find them ever since; as a surprise for her, I decided to try and see if I could find them for her, and I think I found an address for one of them – and it's 837 Holburn Lane."

"Wait, do you happen to know what their names are?"

"Sean Bowen and Amber French, why?"

Suddenly, Aja's face lit up. "Dear God – you mean the guy next door is Summer's dad?!"

"Wait, you know him?!"

"Yeah, Craig and I are good friends with him! God, I knew the girl's last name sounded familiar!"

Back in the dining room, Summer was telling some of her story to Craig and the kids. "I always sort of felt this connection to the Holograms because they were known for raising foster girls and I was a foster kid growing up, too," she was saying.

"That's one of the reasons why our family is so big," Craig told her. "For years, Aja and I thought we couldn't have kids, so we adopted Lincoln and Samantha. Then we ended up having Kara and Greyson, and right now, we're fostering Bradley, Hannah, Zack and Alicia."

"That's really cool – and nice that you guys decided to keep fostering kids even after Aja quit the band."

"Yeah, she's always had a heart for that kind of thing."

"I think you're really pretty," cut in Alicia.

"Really?" Summer smiled at her. "You think I'm pretty?"

Alicia nodded. "Uh-huh."

"Thank you," Summer told her, genuinely touched. "I think you're really pretty, too." The little girl beamed at the compliment.

Coming back into the kitchen, Aja continued from where she'd left off, "So Jerrica was telling me that you wrote the song in that video?"

"Yeah," Summer answered, "and she encouraged me to start singing my own songs more often, too."

"Trust me, she can be very persuasive when she wants to be," Aja grinned.

"She sure can be." Picking up the bowl of macaroni and cheese, Summer added, "Does anyone want any more mac 'n' cheese? You guys want more? Here" – and she started dishing some onto the plates that Hannah, Zack, Bradley, and Lincoln held out for her. Just then, Jerrica came back into the room.

"There she is," Aja grinned. As Jerrica took her seat beside Summer, the girl asked, "Jerrica, what's going on?"

Jerrica hesitated for a moment. "I have a surprise for you," she said quietly. "You want me to tell you here or out in the kitchen?"

"Here's fine," Summer answered.

"Okay. So, remember when we were talking in the convenience store parking lot and you told me you'd been trying to find your parents?"

"Yeah…" A look of realization crossed Summer's face. "Oh my God, you didn't find them, did you?"

"I've found your dad, anyway; he lives right next door to this house, in 837."

Summer stared at Jerrica, dumbfounded. When she finally found her voice, she asked, "Are you kidding me?"

"Was that stupid of me? That wasn't a stupid thing I just did?"

"No, it's not stupid at all, it's…Jesus, that's amazing!"

Turning to Aja, Summer asked, grinning, "Is that what you and Jerrica were talking about after you left the table?" Aja just shrugged, making Summer burst out laughing. "I didn't know what she was gonna do!" Aja protested.

"Could she go next door and meet him?" Jerrica asked.

"Yeah, I think he oughta be home, he almost never goes out on the weekends," Aja replied.

"No, for real, that's a great idea!" Craig chimed in. "She can go over and introduce herself, and they could hang out together for a little while; it'd be great!"

"There you go," Jerrica told Summer. Covering her face, Summer mumbled, "I don't believe this – what am I doing? – Yeah, okay, sure!"

So, some of you may be sort of wondering, what's up with this scene? Well, here's how I saw it: in the movie A Star Is Born, the scene at Noodles' house is where something big happens (e.g., Jack proposes to Ally and they get married). I didn't want to axe the entire scene (besides, it gave me a chance to use one of the original Holograms!), but I obviously had to change it around a little, since there's no romantic relationship between the main characters in this story – so I thought, what better big thing to happen than for Summer to reconnect with some of her birth family?

Speaking of the original Holograms, if you've been wondering why I didn't keep the original bandmembers (Aja, Shana, and Raya) in the band, here's why: you never really see any interaction with or between Jack's bandmates in A Star is Born, and if I included the original Hologram bandmembers in this story, some people would probably want to see them get included more in the story when there isn't really any opportunity for me to include them. Plus, bands often break up and have members quit, so that's not very unusual; the ways that Jerrica changed over the years as fame went to her head would've undoubtedly been stressful for her former bandmates and led to them eventually quitting. And btw, I just randomly selected Aja to be the friend Jerrica reunites with – I don't particularly have a favourite Hologram bandmember, lol!

And lastly, as always, here's the link to Summer's song: drive dot google dot com/file/d/1Mu9m3XUURxR8vYNKo1OcvYNikh-0yrd-/view?usp=share_link Anyways, hope you're enjoying the story – it's over halfway through now! :)