"Can somebody get that?" I yelled impatiently.
They knew I was doing some stuff for my job and I didn't want to be disturbed.
"Rinnnnnnnnngggggggggg!"
"Hello? Are you guys alive?" I yelled again.
"Rinnnnnnnnngggggggggg!"
"Aaaaagh!!!" I yelled, frustrated.
I knew the phone only rang 4 times, so I finally ran to get it myself.
"You'd think I was the only one living here." I said under my breath.
I picked up the phone on the last ring.
"Hello?" I said in an annoyed voice.
"May I please speak to a member of the group 'illusion'?"
"You already are. This is Kristy."
"This is Dave McPherson of Jive Records. One of the people from our company saw your group's performance at a club last night, and we would like to sign you."
I couldn't speak.
"Are you still there?" he asked after a long silence.
"Uh....uh....yeah, I'm still here." That was all I could get out of my mouth.
"Are you interested?"
"Oh yeah, we're interested."
"Well, why don't you guys come down here at 3:00 tomorrow afternoon. We'll give you all the financial and legal aspects of it then."
"Okay, that's great."
I felt like I was going to fall over. After I hung up, I sat there for a few minutes. I kept having to remind myself to breathe, or I would have passed out. When I felt like I could walk again, I went into the family room (walking slowly, of course, because I didn't trust my legs). Korin, Lissa, Karen, and Alta were sitting in there watching TV. Right next to a phone of course. But at that point, I didn't care anymore. That was one phone call I didn't mind taking.
"Who was that?" Korin asked.
"I need to sit down first." I replied.
They all gave me strange looks, but Lissa scooted over to make room for me on the couch.
"Ok, are you guys ready?"
"For what?" Alta asked, confused.
"To hear who was on the phone."
The strange looks continued, but they all nodded. I took a deep breath and spoke.
"That was Dave McPherson of Jive Records.He wants to sign us."
I can't describe the looks on their faces. I'm sure it was the same as mine had been. Some combination of shock and happiness. We screamed and screamed and screamed and screamed, until the people living next door knocked on the door and lectured us about how we weren't the only ones living in the apartment building. So we stopped screaming. But trust me, we didn't stop being excited. Somebody, not just anybody, but a REAL somebody with a record company that is getting really really big, thinks we're talented! This is a good thing. A very good thing. And it kept getting better and better.
The next day we drove to Jive headquarters. Freaking out, of course. Then we calmed ourselves down and walked inside. About 10 minutes later, we were sitting in Dave McPherson's office. He showed us the contract, explained all the legal stuff. He told us all the financial stuff, the percentage the record company would get, you know, all the boring stuff. He also explained we would need to get a manager, and he gave us the number of Albert Sanders, who later became our manager. Then he told us something that almost made us faint again.
"Have you ever heard of the Backstreet Boys?" he asked us.
"Heard of them? Are you kidding?" Karen said in disbelief.
"Yeah, we practically worship them." Korin said.
"They are SO talented!" I added.
He smiled.
"Well in that case, you may like what I'm about to tell you."
We all exchanged looks.
"See," he started, "the Boys are starting a U.S. tour in 3 months. They were going to have this one group as their opening act, but something came up and they just cancelled last evening. So the Boys are without an opening act. That's where you guys come in. If you accept, you can be on a sold-out tour for 8 weeks, going all arounf the country, with one of the hottest groups around."
We must have looked like complete idiots because we were just sitting there with our mouths hanging down to the floor. Finally, I was able to speak (barely).
"We accept." I said shakily.
Guess what happened after that? Paperwork. Lots of it. All the contracts, for the record deal and the tour. But when it was all done, we left the building floating. As soon as we got outside, we started screaming. This whole thing was like a dream. We were getting some seriously strange looks from people, but we didn't care. We were going to be touring with the Backstreet Boys, after all.
We started recording a week later. It was short notice, but they wanted us to have at least six songs recorded before the tour, so we had to work hard. The recording days were long and tiring, but they were worth it. At first it was really wierd to hear our voices recorded on professional equipment. We had made tapes before, but they were only on my 500-year-old boom box. After the recording was done, we started rehearsing for the tour. A professional choreographer was brought in, and we learned all the dances and perfected our songs. Before we knew it, 3 months were up. We were on a plane flying to North Carolina, which was where the tour started. We arrived in NC the day before the first show. When we got in the arena to do a rehearsal, we were taken backstage. The guys had just finished rehearsing before then and were taking a break. They were all hanging out in this one room. Our manager led us into the room.
He said "Hey guys, this is your opening act, 'illusion'."
They all looked up at us.