Going to New York

"Perfect, absolutely perfect!" As they walked out of the luxury hotel housing the nightclub, Joel was still savoring Taylor's impromptu creation.

Then he turned, looking at the country music beauty who stood half a head taller than him: "You belong on that stage more than we do."

"Forget it..." Taylor quickly shook her head. Setting aside the performance fee issue, her PR manager and agent would never let her perform at a nightclub.

Joel left first, while Ryan, Abigail, and Taylor said their goodbyes at the entrance.

"I have a writing session with Liz Rose tomorrow to work on the lyrics for this new song." Taylor said, beaming.

This was one of her typical creative methods—finding inspiration through an event, a person, even a scene or a phrase, then quickly grasping the core theme, partial lyrics, and chorus melody. That gave the song its soul. The rest was extending and filling in those ideas, revising repeatedly, polishing until the full lyrics and tune were complete, then finishing production with Nathan Chapman.

A song's production might take a long time, but capturing its "soul" often happened in an instant.

"What's the song called?" Abigail asked, arm linked with Ryan's.

"You Belong With Me" Taylor said, but her eyes were on Ryan.

·

"Her songs are like little stories. She once wrote a 300-page novel called A Girl Named Girl..." Abigail explained in the car.

Whether that experience honed her narrative skills or not, Taylor's lyric-writing followed a "storytelling flow," quite different from most songwriters' "emotional flow."

In other words, calling her albums a "girl's diary" was the most fitting description.

Now Ryan finally understood what "that" was—inspiration.

Good news: a new song had arrived.

Bad news: it belonged to someone else.

The lyrics surfaced in Ryan's mind, like a girl secretly in love with a guy who already had a girlfriend...

And the relaxed smile on her face at their parting moment—compared to Ryan's recent creative struggles—the contrast spoke for itself.

To put it bluntly, without the help of "déjà vu," Ryan couldn't hold a candle to Taylor.

"My parents aren't home tonight, just my little brother, Ryan..." Abigail suddenly mentioned.

But Ryan directly refused: "I need to go back and work on music."

Abigail nodded, saying nothing more.

·

Back home, Trey was still awake tonight, but unlike last time's "interrogation" stance, her face was full of smiles, almost ingratiating.

"Haven't eaten yet, right? I made you dinner, come on." She pushed Ryan into a chair at the table and pulled out food kept warm in the oven.

Ryan looked at the culinary disaster before him and forced a smile: "I'm not hungry."

"Just try it." Trey said, still smiling.

"Great job. Don't do it again." Ryan swallowed—it was so salty it scratched his throat.

"Hehe, cooking isn't that hard." Trey laughed.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah."

"What do you want to eat tomorrow?"

"I... by the way, the wind's really strong tonight."

"Don't change the subject."

"Did I do something to offend you?"

"Gratitude, it's gratitude." Trey finally smiled and explained: "Today, the people at Big Machine called me again. They withdrew the request to change directors. I'm still directing Taylor's next MV. How did you pull that off?"

"Strictly speaking, I gave Taylor a song." Ryan said. He hadn't contacted Taylor since leaving her house last time, until tonight.

If even Trey got her director position back, shouldn't the social media operator Taylor recommended be contacting him soon?

Looking at it that way, they were even.

"I see. Are your name in the lyrics? Or some hidden message?" Trey suddenly asked.

Like Should've Said No—though the lyrics didn't mention anyone's name, the album booklet had the letters S, A, M capitalized in that song's lyrics, spelling Sam. Most of Taylor's songs had a "code"—maybe a word, maybe a name—a little interactive game with her fans.

"That I wouldn't know." Ryan shook his head.

"You need to confirm that with her. This is your chance." Trey's words jolted him awake.

"Besides that, is there any physical evidence linking you two? Like intimate photos? Or even a little video!" Trey raised an eyebrow.

"Stop joking." Ryan laughed.

"This isn't a joke, kid. That's how celebrities work—they give the bored public gossip and drama, and in return, they get attention. A celebrity with no talking points is as good as slowly dying."

"Taylor does this brilliantly. You know what her breakout song is called? Tim McGraw. Yeah, that famous country singer—his dad was a pro baseball player, his wife is Faith Hill (another star, sang the theme for Pearl Harbor). She didn't even know Tim McGraw back then. She said her ex-boyfriend liked Tim McGraw's music. Do I need to spell out the real reason?" Trey hinted.

Ryan thought about the song Taylor had once written for him. If he just "accidentally" leaked it, by the next day, news about the two of them might flood the feeds...

Then he thought of his brother's indignant expression, and the rumors he'd heard about Taylor lately—that she dated just to capture inspiration, that she had something going with Scott, that her songs were written by someone else.

"So, is there or isn't there?" Trey pressed on.

"No." Ryan shook his head.

From this angle, Tremor truly lacks "talking points" and can only rely on word-of-mouth to spread, which takes time.

After finishing his meal, Ryan sat in front of the computer as usual and started trying to make a new song.

Half an hour later, Ryan gave up. But instead of shutting down the computer like he normally would, he played the Hot Afternoon that Taylor had given him.

After thinking it over for a long time, Ryan did some things to the song...

·

"5000? Did I hear that right?!" The next day, Ryan received a call on campus from the social media operations person Taylor had introduced, who was actually an employee of Big Machine Records.

"To be precise, the first month is 5000 dollars, which includes a full-page front-end design for your website, decorated to match your music style, with an effect similar to Taylor's personal page. After that, it's 2500 per month, including layout, personal updates, and message aggregation. If you want blog ghostwriting, that's charged separately by word count. This only covers Myspace operations. If other sites are involved, like YouTube, that costs extra. Applying for a Facebook blue checkmark also requires an additional fee."

"What if I'm not satisfied with your design?"

"You can give feedback, and we'll revise it until you're satisfied."

"What if I'm never satisfied?"

"We'll keep revising until you are."

"What if I don't need design, just daily operations?"

"That's also possible."

Ryan said he needed to think it over and hung up. This was a bit beyond his expectations—the effect was obvious, but it was just a little expensive.

Ryan eventually made the call anyway. The income from paid music channels combined hadn't even warmed his hands before most of it slipped away again.

He needed to find a way to make more money. That nightclub in Nashville was hopeless, Ryan thought.

He remembered what Deadmau5 had promised him before and immediately dialed his number.

"Of course, I still mean what I said. Don't forget, I've got singles and albums out too. More people noticing you at least doesn't hurt me."

From a business logic standpoint, Deadmau5 would normally reserve such exposure opportunities for someone more aligned with his own interests. But in reality, Deadmau5 couldn't compare to those famous European DJs—his "reputation" might not even be enough to cash in on yet, so he wouldn't make things difficult for Ryan on this point.

"The first stop of the North American tour is at a well-known nightclub in New York, this weekend. We'll meet in New York," Deadmau5 continued.

Ryan then contacted Joel.

"Sorry, Ryan. I asked them to give us another chance, but they weren't very easy to talk to," Joel said right off the bat.

"But we're not short on other options. I'll keep looking," Joel said, telling Ryan not to lose heart.

"I've already found one. This time, we're going to New York..."