Until the phone call that changed my life made me slow down.

I was doing Calculas homework one night, and I wasn't even aware that the phone was stuck in my face. I thanked my dad and answered, "Hello?"

"Katherine, so glad I was finally able to get through to you," Tim's voice answered me back. I had kind of disconnected the phone line so I could get my biology project done without interruption. "How's my favorite pop princess doing anyways?" (Um...that's nickname is a very obvious one, and yet it has such a complicated story behind it...a late night in the recording studio and green tea...trust me, that's all you need to know.)

"Your only pop princess is piled up with homework and is thanking God there is such thing as Study Hall," I said. "Yourself?"

"Not too bad. I'm drowning in phone calls about your demo tape though," he commented nonchalantly.

"Good or bad?" I asked. "Believe me, every single thing I have heard is good."

"No sugar?"

"No sugar. A few of them want you to audition for them."

"Liiiiiike which ones?" I queried. I could not believe this. This was amazing! This is what I had been waiting my entire exsistence for.

"Nothing big...Sony, Virgin, Arista, Jive..." he trailed off.

"Nope. Nothing big. Anything worth my time?" I asked sarcastically.

"Hehe. Not really," he said. This is what I loved about this guy. He was all business, but with him business was fun. I don't think I could have found a better manager if I had tried. "But seriously, Jive seems the most interested."

"Why?" I asked. "Jive has been right in the middle of this entire rap rock thing. Why? Are they getting sick of it?"

"In a nutshell. And since they've been one of the hottest labels since your dad was signed there, I say go for it."

I struggled with my inner self. I hate those kinds of fights. My smart side said, "Do it! Go for it!" And I was going to, except the words EXTRA PRESSURE kept running across my brain, like a website marquee.

But since I'm a smart person, I said, "Gimme a date, time, and place."

He gave me those. Saturday, April 16th, at four P.M., at their headquarters in Orlando. That was a week and a half away.

Not to disappoint you or anything, but I'm not going into the audition process too horribly much. This is how nervous I was: I puked when I woke up that morning, puked before I left, and puked when I got there. I was that nervous.

"Are you sure you're okay?" my dad asked.

"Never better," I lied.

I went in there shaking like a leaf. When I came out I was still shaking like a leaf. I had a dance for it with the help of my dear friend Jessica.But I got it! I kicked theri cake eating asses and I got it. They said, and quote, "The passage of time brings new trends in the Unites States, and the time for something new is now." Right after that, they called in Tim and my dad to sign, sign, initial, and sign.

In other words, they thought I was good good enough and they want to be in on this before anyone else. Why they didn't just say that beats the heck out of me.

Anyways, after the contract was all signed, I felt so much better I can't even express it to you. They told me they wanted to start recording an album as soon as possible. Also known as Tuesday. I guess that's the price you pay...a little loss of freedom.

Sunday night, I sat at our kitchen table with my dad and Tim, deciding what songs to record and put on my album. I didn't really care what went on there as long as one, I could sing it, and two, there were a lot of songs on it. And I really wanted to do a duet with my dad. (This is everyone's cue to go awww.) He hasn't been recorded singing in a long time. I can remember when I was really little going to a recording session for *N Sync's last album when I was about four. Plus he's getting involved with this with me as much as a person possibly could, so we may as well go the whole nine yards, right?

And to make the matters even better, I found the perfect song. "You'll Always Be A Part of Me." Perfect, no? Because face it, I'm never going to get away from my dad when it comes to this business. Tim gave me permission to dig around in his files, and I found it! I found it! He he. Don't I sound so conspiratorial?

I was sitting looking over music I had written, he had written, A piece that Tim had written, A couple pieces me and my dad had co-written, and a few we pulled out of the files at THAE HQ. It was a lot of paper, a lot of choices, and a lot of executive decisions can to be made. All three of us were looking at music, a pile of definite yeses in a neat pile of their own. We knew what was what because it was the only neat pile on the table.

"What about this one?" Tim held up a piece of music for me to see. I looked it over and I really liked it. "Can you belt the E above middle C?"

E above middle C. Ha. Hell maybe. "Maybe. I can try, if not, we can always throw it out," I said.

"Okay," Tim agreed and into the pile it went. A person that agrees with me. There is a God.

While we were talking I decided to bring 'it' up. "Dad, will you do a duet with me?" I asked him.

He looked at me. He wanted to get into the other side of the recording again, I know he did. I could see it on his face, read it like a bold print book. "I don't know..." he said. Ah, so he was going to do that trick. Two could play at that.

"Pleeeeeease?" I asked. "I have the song. All you have to do is learn it and sing it. Please?" I asked. I knew that would do it.

"Okay," he gave in. Just goes to prove my own point again, parents are predictable. "What song is it?"

I started digging in the mess on the table and finally found it. We had probably all looked at it one time or another that evening, for all the mess who would know? "This is one," I said, handing it to him, looking it over.

"I think I can handle that," he said after looking it over. Into the pile it went.

By the time I was ready to go to bed, I had sixteen songs ready. Some were covers, some weren't. But all I could think about was that World History homework that I didn't have done.

The list looked a little something like this:

1. One Kiss From You (which was also going to be my first single)
2. More Than That
3. Nothing You Could Say
4. Like That
5. No Way
6. Sailing (carry on family tradition or whatever, cover)
7. Make it Known
8. Someone Told
9. The Little Girl (Cover)
10. Reflections
11. I Was the Last to Know
12. From the Bottom of my Broken Heart (cover)
13. It Was You (this was my special 'surprise song')
14. Californiacation (cover)
15. 8, 3, 1
16. You'll Always Be A Part of Me (the duet)

Maybe not in that order, but that was what it was going to be. I managed to convince them to let me do Californiacation by The Red Hot Chili Peppers. I love that song and I don't know how anyone ever lived without it.

I really wanted to do this one song, called Ready Here I Come, but Tim and my dad looked at it...and my dad just about passed out and Tim looked like he was going to have a heart attack.

It was like this: imagine Digital Getdown, Giddy Up, It Wasn't Me, Nookie, Let's Make Love, and roll it all into one. Make it ten times worse, and a little more subtle. That was Ready Here I Come.

"Maybe that should be spelled c-u-m," Tim murmured under his breath.

"Maybe on your next album," my dad said, rubbing his forehead. "All I see is Britney...VMA 2000."

"Let's get this one out of the way first," I said, since I wasn't too sure what that meant.

And so Tuesday night I started recording the album. I had a lot of fun that night. Except my days seemed to get shorter and shorter even though they were getting longer and longer. I think we've all had that feeling. It's the I-have-too-much-to-do-but-I'm-not-giving-any-of-it-up Syndrome. I think I have the worse undocumented case on the face of the earth.

My day would start at six, like it usually did, when I got up to get ready for school and finish any homework that didn't get done the night before. Some of it didn't even get all done. My teacher asked what was wrong. I told them I forgot it. What was I supposed to say? "Sorry, I'm moonlighting as a pop singer for Jive records and we're recording my solo album at night"? No way. They'd lock me up in the looney bin for sure.

And after school, I'd go home and get what homework I could done. And I'd eat dinner, sometimes while doing homework. Once done with that, I would go down to Jive and record. By this time it was usually about six or seven in the evening. Sometimes my dad would come with me, sometimes he's stay home. I'd say it was about a fifty-fifty split. But I'll tell you, it's no wonder my dad is one of the best producers in the business. He's damn well enough a perfectionist, but he makes it sound exactly the way you imagined it long before he even touched the dial. If he didn't come, Tim either fiddled with the controls or got someone to do it.

By the time I got done in the studio, it was usually about ten-thirty or eleven. By then all I wanted to do was go to bed. And so I did. Only to get up and do it again.

But I loved it! I had so much fun I decided that I could do this all day.

But alas. I had to go to school like every other red blooded American. (But just the red blooded ones. The blue blooded ones had to go somewhere else.) And one day, a week after I started to record my album, Melissa walked over to the lunch table where we usually sat everyday, and she asked me, "So, do you have a date?"

"To what?" I asked. Nothing was coming up...at least I didn't think.

Melissa looked at me. "To Prom," she said simply.

Okay, so something WAS coming up.

"No," I said. "I don't."

"That's good," she said. I glared at her. "No, I mean there's someone who wants to ask you."

"Who?"

"Jim Kaiden," she said.

I gagged on my fetuccine. "My life is complete. I can die a happy woman telling my grandchildren that I went to my senior prom with Jim Kaiden. Because I can tell you he will turn me into a woman if I go to prom with him. Ugh. What a person to lose your virginity to," I said disgusted.

"Yeah," Melissa said. "But he'd good in bed."

It was my turn to look at her. "I'm not even going to ask how or where you found that out, because I know that your father would kill you."

"I heard it," she said. "Please, give me a little credit."

"Your my cousin. You don't deserve any."

"Ha ha."

So I had forgotten my senior prom. But lets see, hm, go to prom with the sordid, eighteen-year old captain of varsity football who's been laid more than the most experienced Los Angeles hooker, or go to Jive and record my solo album that is one of the most important things I've ever done with my twenty-nine year old manager and my fourty-three year old father? Mm. That was a though decision, but I think I'm going to go to Jive. Jim is a jerk anyways. I never liked him, so why he suddenly decided to ask me to senior prom beats the hell out of me.

So at any rate, that Saturday, I went to Jive, and my dad came with this time. The album was about done, ten of the sixteen songs done in a little under two weeks. And Tim called me a professional.

That night we were going record the duet, because Tim got one of the staff producers to be there. His name was Reed, and it even fit him. He was tall and skinny, like a oboe double reed.

"You ready to do this?" I asked. We were going to try and do it acapella. The first couple times we tried it that way, it sounded horrible, but with a little work, we got it to be perfect.

"Oh you bet," he said.

We both had our pitches set in our mind. Reed gave us the go ahead sign for whenever we were ready. I set the beat that we had generally agreed on with my hand, and on the fourth beat we started.

No matter where I go
No matter what road I travel down;
Friends may come and go
But you'll always be a part of me.

Words can hardly say
How I feel today
Years will come and go,
But you'll always be a part of me.

I won't forget the times we shared
And how you stood by me
And all the times when you were there
Just to comfort me.

But now, I must go,
And this is hard you know
But I'll hold you in my heart
And you'll always be a part of me

So won't you take this song
Carry it along
Ev'rytime you need a friend
You'll always be a part of me

Yes I'll hold you in my heart
And you'll always be a part of me.

And then it did a repeat and some crazy stuff like that, but overall it wasn't too bad. Reed wanted us to do it again because we didn't blend too well, but we did better the second time.

"Best father-daughter pair since Nat King Cole and Natalie," he said.

So we did well. We had it wrapped and I had to stay, but dad took his place in the producing side again. Then about midnight we decided that we had had enough for the evening. We all climbed into our respective vehicles and were on our way. Dad drove, but that's okay because it left me free to sleep the ten minutes home. Or so I thought. "You missed your prom tonight," he said.

"Um, yeah. It's not that important," I said. "I think it's important," he said. "You have to get out and have fun sometime."

"I was having fun," I argued. "Jim Kaiden was going to ask me," I said.

"Oh my. Good thing you didn't go then," he said. He too had heard the urban tales of Jim Kaiden's nightly stands. "But you still could have gone alone."

"I know," I said. "I could have gone with Melissa and Candace and all them, but I didn't want to. I want to get this album out and onto shelves," I said.

"If you're sure that's what you want," he said.

"I'm sure," I said. "Really, it's not a big deal," I said, even though there was this heavy weight in my stomach that told me it WAS kind of a big deal. But I wasn't about to let him know that.

"Okay," he said.

"Thanks," I said. "I love you dad," I said, turning around in my seat to look out the window.

"I love you too," he replied.