When Rachel walked into PF Productions she was greeted by Quinn who was there at the front desk waiting for her. Rachel smiled in greeting as she approached.
"Good morning." Quinn said as she stapled papers together and placed them into a folder.
Rachel responded in kind as she placed her bag on the large oak wood counter. She pushed herself up onto her tip toes in order to try and see what Quinn was doing. "What's all that?" She asked as she nodded to the papers in Quinn's hands.
"These are the files of the interns that you will meeting this morning." Quinn waved the folders around like they were some kind of trophy.
"Can I see?" Rachel asked excited as she made a grab for one of the folders.
"Nope. Puck wants you all to meet face to face first. No sneaking about trying see any of their work before hand."
"But, I know they all know who I am and they know my work, why can't I know theirs?" Rachel gave Quinn her best pout and puppy dog eyes.
"That look only works on Satan...not me." Quinn shrugged her shoulders as she stepped out from behind the counter and made her way down the hall. Rachel followed closely behind, mumbling to herself about if Quinn would just give in a little the pout would work on her too. Maybe she should get some pointers from Beth, that girl always had a way to somehow get something she really wanted.
When Rachel entered the conference room, Puck was already sitting at the round table with three other very young looking men. Were these kids fresh out of high school or something? To be fair it was just an internship, so they very well could be fresh out of high school, but as long as they could write, what did it matter their age? Rachel trusted Puck and if he said they were good then they were good. Now she just had to help pick the best one.
Puck looked up from the conversation he was having with the interns when he noticed Rachel and Quinn sit down. "Good morning ladies. Are we ready to jump right in?"
Rachel looked to Quinn who nodded. "How is this all going to work?" Rachel asked as she raised her eye-brow at Puck.
"Well, you already know that you will be helping to pick the best guy that can write and compose to best fit your voice." Rachel nodded her head. "Who ever doesn't make the cut with you, will be paired with another artist here. Now lets get introductions out of the way. You all know who I am. That's Quinn, my business partner, wife and genuine better half. Don't piss her off her wrath is worse than mine. You all know Rachel obviously one of you will be working with her and last..well guys why don't you just introduce yourselves."
Rachel watched as the first guy stood up. He had long dread locks and looked a little out of his element wearing a casual dress shirt and jeans. "I'm Joe Hart. I am twenty-six years old and I go to McNally Smith College of Music. I will be graduating soon with a Master's in Music Composition with a Minor in Production. I can write for all genre's in my opinion at least." He leaned across the table to shake Rachel's hand. Puck just sat there beaming, Rachel could tell that of right now, this guy was his favorite.
"It's very nice to meet you." Rachel liked this guy, he was very soft spoken and the fact that he was flexible with genre's was a plus. He could go from writing a sharp ballad to something more modern and pop if he wanted.
The next guy to stand up looked very...polished, as if this meeting was some super high up business meeting. You never saw anyone dressed to the nines in a suit like that around here. "My name is Brock Ramon and it is my pleasure to meet you Ms. Berry." When Rachel stuck her hand out to shake his, she was surprised when he grabbed it and kissed the back of her hand instead. So this one was going for the charm his way in act. "I am twenty-one years young." He spoke while adding a wink. "And, I attend Tisch where I am working on my Bachelor's in Music Composition. My specialty is typically classical but Mr. Puckerman has already helped transform some of my demo's into more modern stuff that will fit your voice wonderfully." Puck rolled his eyes, this guy could write that was for sure but he needed to tone it down a bit.
Before Brock or Rachel could say anything else, the last guy sitting at the table began to yawn. Rachel quirked an eye-brow at him. "Are you bored Mr...?"
The guy jumped at being called out and scrambled to collect himself. "McNeal. Jasper McNeal and no, I am not bored just jet lagged. I apologize, I was visiting my uncle in California and I didn't get in until about 9:30 this morning. I drove straight here. I had to delay my flight because some loon had the security all up in arms."
"Okay." Puck interrupted. "We don't want to hear about your troubles, just introduce yourself." Rachel looked back and forth between Quinn and Puck. Something just seemed off with this guy. Rachel wouldn't write him off just yet, but she would definitely be wary of him. Quinn looked as if she was thinking the same thing. She had been one of the people to look over his file, if something had been wrong she would have caught it. Maybe just to give herself peace of mind, she wouldn't leave this guy alone with Rachel. She was definitely going to have to talk to Puck after this meeting while Rachel was with Kurt for her fitting.
Jasper stood up and cleared his throat. "I just want to apologize again. My name is Jasper McNeal, I am twenty three years old and I am a law student at Yale." Rachel was confused, how had a Yale law student gotten an internship writing, composing and producing music. "I know it's odd for me to be doing that and this. But I take music courses through Berklee College of Music on the side. I do the law thing to keep my uncle off my back." Puck cleared his throat signaling for Jasper to get on with it. "I'm still learning about composition but what I have done so far falls into I guess techno pop or indie stuff?" Jasper looked to Puck for approval who nodded his head. Jasper sighed like he was relieved to have gotten through all of that and sat back down in his chair.
Puck stood up and walked over to Quinn who had a stack of papers waiting to be passed around. "Now these are the lyrics to some sample work the guys have done. Rachel I want you to read over them and pick one, they're not labeled so you don't know who wrote what. The chosen one gets to collab first and then we will go from there." Puck grinned, he liked some good healthy competition and that was one of the first things these guys were going to learn about when it came to the music business.
Santana waited until she knew for sure that Rachel's meeting would be in full swing before she headed to St. Lawrence. She was giddy with excitement to pick up this dress, it had screamed Rachel as soon as Santana had seen it. After picking up the dress, she really had to go pick up some canvas that she had ordered, there was only enough at the cabin for one more frame and that was a bad thing. Santana normally never let her stock get that low, but with all the planning going on for the proposal it had slipped her mind.
The drive to St. Lawrence was quiet. Santana had thought about bringing the dogs along to stop at the dog park on the way home, but there was no way she was going to leave her dogs in the car or on the street while she was in the dress store. Sugar Motta's was a high end dress boutique. Santana had almost felt guilty for coming here instead of going to Kurt for a dress. However, her guilt subsided when she found out that Sugar carried a line of dresses designed by Kurt. Santana had been lucky that the dress she fell in love with was in Rachel's size, considering Kurt only did various designs. No two dresses would ever have the same pattern.
Pulling up in front of the store, Santana did a brief scan of the parking area like she always did. Thankfully there were no people to alert anyone that she was out and about. She would be fine as long as she avoided larger groups of people. St. Lawrence wasn't a small city by any means, but it was smaller than most and sometimes very easy to hide in. One of the very reasons Conner was able to hide so easily if he even came this way. Santana hoped to stay hidden today, she didn't need a picture of Rachel's dress plastered on some random magazine. That could possibly ruin all of her plans.
Hopping down out of her Jeep, Santana straitened her shirt and prepared to deal with the one and only Sugar Motta. The woman was a little...abrasive for lack of a better word. Sometimes she could really get under Santana's skin but, she provided good business and she always done her best to please every customer.
I hope this is quick, Santana mumbled to herself as she approached the dress shop door.
Rachel breathed a sigh of relief when she exited the meeting room and made her way to PF Productions cafeteria for some lunch. It would seem odd to most people that a production company would have one, but when Noah Puckerman done anything, food would eventually be involved in some way. Rachel was just glad that they had good food instead of bland nothingness that was the equivalent of hospital food.
Stepping off the elevator, Rachel made her way to the cold bar to grab a salad and a water. She was glad for a moment of peace before she stepped into the madhouse that she was sure Kurt had going on at the moment. The meeting with the interns had turned out better than expected, she had chosen Joe's song winning him the right to collaborate first. He had some good stuff and he was very open to any and all suggestions she could make based on what her voice could handle. Yeah, she could hit some of those high notes, a hidden talent that not a lot of people knew about. You have to be careful with things like that, too many high notes in a career and you could seriously damage your vocal chords. Rachel wasn't willing to run that risk.
While Rachel and Joe had worked on their collab with Puck, the other two interns had left to work with Sam on putting their lyrics to music and doing rewrites. She would have plenty of time to collab with them considering the internship was for two months. In the end everyone would get a fair shot at working with Rachel so that everything was done fairly.
Glancing at the clock, Rachel realized that she had about ten minutes before she had to go meet Kurt. This lunch break just wasn't long enough. Hopefully Kurt already had all of her outfits picked out, making this fitting run a lot smoother. Knowing him though...he could change his mind very easily. It was definitely going to be a long afternoon.