Chapter 40: Elegance Ten Days Later The girls walked into Sony Music Studios bright and early that morning, eagerly anticipating their first session in a recording studio.  They had to delay it a few days, waiting for Lauralee to be released from the hospital.  Elizabeth called Tommy Mottola from Stockholm and explained the situation to him.  He fully understood, and said whenever Lauralee felt ready to go in, he would be ready too.  Although she was slightly still weak, which the doctor said would take time to get her strength back, one thing she was ready for was to sing. Tommy was already in the studio when they walked inside.  Tommy greeted each of them. “So how are you feeling Lauralee?” Lauralee took a seat on the couch.  “OK.  A little tired, taking like 10 different medications, but I’ve been waiting for this the whole week I was in the hospital.” “Good,” Tommy motioned over to a man setting up some microphones in the booth.  The man nodded and went outside.  Tommy put his arm around the man.  “This is Timmy Allen, one of our staffed producers at Sony.  Timmy, this is Lauralee, Laura, Bianca, Elizabeth and Veronica.” The man shook their hands.  “A pleasure.  I look forward to today.” “So have I,” Bianca was wringing her hands.  “I couldn’t sleep a wink last night.” “Neither have any of us,” agreed Veronica. “I’m gonna sit in on this session for today, but please just ignore me,” Tommy took a seat on one of the couches in the back. “OK,” Timmy clapped his hands together.  “Tommy told me that you have been singing ‘Weak’ from SWV?”  The girls nodded.  “I know the writer and I got the original arrangement from him.  But I took out a lot of the melody and added a little extra bass to it so the a cappella could be accentuated.”  He pushed a button on the console.  “Let me know what you think.” The girls listened intently to the remix of the song.  Lauralee closed her eyes and nodded to the beat of the song.  When the song was over, Timmy stopped the tape and looked at the girls. “So, what’d you think?” “I like it,” Laura smiled. “Really updated, fresh,” Veronica nodded. “I love it,” Elizabeth agreed. “Cool,” Bianca said. “I think it’s wonderful.  I love the bass part,” Lauralee leaned on the board.  “Was that a 16-step?” “Someone knows her way around a board,” Timmy leaned next to her and smiled. “Pays when you spend hours in a recording studio with your boyfriend.  You tend to pick things up.” “I see,” Timmy looked back at the others.  “You guys ready?”  He opened the door for the girls and led them inside.  They walked inside the studio to find 5 sets of microphones and headphones.  “You need to put these things on and stand at your microphone.  I labeled them according to your parts of the song.” They found their stands with a lyric sheet and put their headphones on.  Timmy went outside and flipped a switch.  “I’ll play the song a couple of times so you get used to it then we’ll do a dry run, and then start recording OK?” The girls heard the instrumental a few times and did a dry run, the original a cappella they sang when Riley walked in that day.  Timmy flipped the switch again.  “Sounds good ladies, let’s start recording shall we?” “God I’m nervous,” Bianca stood next to Lauralee.  Lauralee smiled at her and squeezed her hand. “OK, here we go,” Timmy played the song and they started to sing. The girls after a few takes, forgot they were in a studio, and pretended like they were in Lauralee’s living room.  Only about 2 hours later, Timmy flipped the switch.  “That’s it, you’ve got it ladies.” The girls let out a cheer and went outside where Tommy and Riley, who had come inside about half an hour before, were waiting.  “What’d you think?” asked Lauralee. “One word: elegant,” Tommy smiled.  “You handled it like real pros,” Riley gave Lauralee a hug. “You guys remember, when we were at that karoake bar, that waitress said the same thing as Tommy,” Elizabeth scratched her head. “What?” Bianca had a questioning look. “Elegant, remember?” Lauralee snapped her fingers.  “That’s it!” “Huh?  Did I miss something?” “Our name!  We’ve been singing and during this whole recording thing’s been happening, we didn’t have a name for us.  Now we do: Elegance.” “You know,” Laura walked over to Lauralee.  “That’s not a bad idea.” “I like it,” agreed Elizabeth. “It shows class,” Veronica smiled. “I think it’s a great name,” Bianca said. “So, is that our name?” Elizabeth asked the others.  The girls nodded. “Elegance it is!” Lauralee smiled.  Timmy handed Lauralee a CD case.  “And with this, looks like Elegance will be signed in no time.” Lauralee handed Tommy the case.  “Maybe.” “Well, I’ll play this for some of my executives and I’ll get back to you as soon as I have an answer.”  He got up from the couch.  “I’ll see you all later.” “I should get going too,” Timmy shook the girls hands.  “An elegant pleasure ladies.” The girls said goodbye to them as they left the studio. “Now what do we do?” Bianca asked Riley. “We just wait for an answer,” Riley responded. “Oh boy, looks like it’ll be a couple of long weeks ahead of us girls,” Veronica sighed. 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