Page 14 of The Voice We Find

“Listen, August, I know you don’t prefer to make decisions quickly, but if Allie likes Sophie’s voice as much as I think she will, the turnaround on this project is gonna be tight.”

Thisgarners my full and undivided attention.

“Meaning?”

“Sophie needs a studio to record in.” He holds up both hands. “Don’t say no yet. I know you need time to overthink it, but it would just be temporary. A few weeks tops until we can secure a better option for her somewhere else. It sounds like Sophie’s only in the area short-term anyway.”

While I’m imagining what life will look like when Gabby returnsfrom camp and I’ve once again assumed the role of a single parent—rides, appointments, meal-planning, etc.—he continues. “We’d compensate you for your booth time and the production time if you agree.” He lowers his voice, even though Sophie’s in a soundproof room with headphones on. “And from the little information I’ve gathered from Sophie, it sounds like she could use a good break.”

I don’t want to feel anything at his words, especially since her cat is staring at me through predatory eyes. “This isn’t a rent-by-the-hour studio, Chip. It’s one thing for me to produce audiobooks in the evenings at my soundboard, but my priority is Gabby. I need to be available for her.”

“Of course.” Chip’s quiet for all of five seconds before he flicks his eyes from the booth to me. “You can’t tell me Sophie isn’t talented.”

“I never said she wasn’t.”

Chip smiles as if he’s won. “Think on it.”

When we slip on our headphones again, I picture the other studios I’ve researched in a sixty-mile radius, knowing full well that none are closer to Santa Rosa than mine. And even if she were lucky enough to find an opening in San Francisco, her commute would be arduous.

In my right headphone, I hear a distinct shift in Sophie’s cadence that draws me back in. She slips into an accent I can’t place, likely because she’s just invented it on the spot. Her voice registers in the tenor range on my levels and holds a gravelly quality I never would have guessed could come out of someone who looks like her.

It’s captivating. Correction:She’scaptivating.

In just over eight years of producing music, I’ve only experienced this ravenous sensation in my gut a handful of times. And with each one, the unknown artist went on to break record after record with the EPs I produced for them.

It’s the same sensation I feel now.

Sophie masters the tight dialogue flawlessly, slipping in and out of multiple dialects with ease. Every character she creates for these magical woodland creatures is distinct and memorable, stirring my imagination in ways I didn’t know possible. Soon, every cell in mybody is attuned to her voice, so much so that I feel the exact millisecond when something inside me yawns awake after years of hibernation.

It terrifies me.

Chip taps me on the shoulder again, but this time I can’t bring myself to remove my headphones, not even after she’s finished reading. I may not understand much about this medium of entertainment, but Idounderstand that the caliber of talent Sophie Wilder possesses is rare. The kind of rare my home studio has been lacking for the past two years.

The same kind of rare I’d almost convinced myself I’d never find again ... before she spoke word one in my sound booth.

5

Sophie

As soon as I finish reading the final words of the sample chapter in the recording booth, elation fills my chest like an overinflated balloon. It’s been so long since I’ve felt anything close to awinwhen it comes to acting that I’m almost afraid to remove my headphones for fear the feeling will float away. After months of trying to reclaim the confidence of the woman I left behind in New York, I found it in the most unlikely of places. A place where there are no stage lights, costumes, cast, or crew members to contend with. Instead, the only things in view are a microphone, a deliciously intriguing fantasy novel on my iPhone, and the painfully attractive producer who isn’t a fan of my cat. And by the flat expression he wears now, he doesn’t seem to be much of a fan of me, either.

Despite Chip’s arrangement of today’s demo, it’s clear from the accolades on August’s wall and the variety of instruments stationed at the far end of his studio—not to mention the way I saw Chip deferto him through the viewing window—that his opinion is highly esteemed. Chip’s reaction to my reading may have been an enthusiastic thumbs-up whenever I raised my gaze to the glass, but August’s brows have remained permanently pinched.

Obviously, whatever favor I lost by surprising him with Phantom hasn’t been recovered in the last twelve minutes. I tell myself that this is fine, that his opinion of me doesn’t lessen the breakthrough I experienced while performing today. I tell myself that even if he rejects the idea of me recording in his studio in the future, I can still pursue this in-between dream with the time I have left in California. I tell myself that I am not as lost as I thought I was when I first arrived back in my home state.

And it’s for this reason, more than any other, that I vow to leave this studio with my head held high.

I slip off my headphones, square my shoulders, and then crack the booth’s door open.

One step out into the short hallway, I hear a phone ring.

“Dang. I have to get this. It’s the office.” The voice belongs to Chip. “A deal is going south. Here, take Phantom.”

“What?No,” August hisses. “I’m not about to—”

“Talk to Sophie until I’m off,” Chip says, his voice growing closer. “This shouldn’t take too long.”

“Chip,” August growls. “Don’t you dare leave me with—”

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