Author's Notes:  Umm... Some details may be inaccurate due to my inability to do research.  
Sorry. =)  Also, Raymond Bell is my own creation so yeah...  Artistic liscense I guess.  Right?


**************************** Fairy Tale: Chapter One *********************************  


I never understood people who were so absolutely devoted and passionate about something that 
they would do anything, everything to achieve their goals.  I've seen people sacrifice dignity, 
honor, self respect...  I've seen people crawl for crumbs and it baffles me.  

Don't get me wrong.  I'm a passionate person.  I have dreams and goals and so many hopes for 
the future it makes me dizzy sometimes.  But there's never been something so all consuming that 
I'd be willing to sell my soul.  

One of my dreams doesn't come true?  That's okay; I have dozens more.  There's bound to be 
disappointment in life because that's one of the fundamental lessons of life- you have to take 
the good with the bad.  

Besides, isn't it sort of self defeating, debasing yourself to achieve your dreams?  I mean, if 
you destroy your morals and integrity and, and self, what's left?  When you finally get your 
fifteen minutes will there still be enough of YOU left to enjoy it?  

Its frightening to eat at a trendy restaurant in New York and to watch the waiters and 
waitresses, trembling, waiting, eager and certain that all they have to do is catch SOMEONE'S 
eye and then BAM, they're famous.  They're in the club of rock and roll and easy street.  

Or the painters who sit, starving, at curbsides and sidewalks... their precious paintings, 
expressions, extensions, of the beauty they have inside of them, bared to the world and priced 
at ten dollars a pop.  What kind of life is that?  

How long can you exist on dreams until there's nothing left?

Its not that I don't believe in working to make things happen in your life.  I know you can't 
just sit back and expect miracles to happen.  But not every miracle can be granted.  

Not every prayer is heard.  

I learned that the hard way, long ago.  I pick my battles and I fight until the end, victorious 
or not.  It's just the way I am.  It's just who I am.

So I guess the real question is why me?  Why out of all the thousands, millions, of people who 
would bleed and die to achieve their outlandish dreams, why am I the lucky one?  Why am I the 
newest sensation?  Why am I part of that elusive club of celebrities and stars?  

I don't really know and sometimes I don't think I ever will.  

It all started, of course, with a boy.  But then, I'm getting ahead of myself.  How do these 
ridiculous things always go?  Oh yes...

Once upon a time...        

****************************************************************************

I was a Toys 'R' Us kid from the start.  And after that I was a Walmart baby and a Target girl.  
Sometimes I grew daring and ventured into the unknown world of Abercrombie and Finch.  Or Hot 
Topic.  I braved the wilds of outlandish conformity and the jungles of 'cool' once and awhile 
for Hot Topic.  They had neat temporary tattoos.  Butterflies, with sparkles...  I could never 
resist those damn sparkles...

In other words, I was an average, lower income suburbanite.  I was happy enough.  I had been 
teased the required amount in elementary school, gone through my awkward years, though they 
lasted an exceptionally long period, and, like all cute, somewhat chubby children, grew up.  

Learned how to primp and curl and powder and tweeze what nature so unkindly gave me into an 
approximate version of modern day beauty.  I wasn't perfect, far from it, and I wasn't "in", 
thank God, but I was, over all, pleased with myself.  Pleased with what I looked like and who 
I had managed to become.  I was a smart ass, slightly pessimistic, teenager with a variety of 
mediocre talents and a lot of crazy friends.  

Life was good.  

Life was simple.  

And then, of course, it had to get complicated.

C-O-M-P-L-I-C-A-T-E-D.

Which sucked, a lot.

I didn't grow up in 'money, power, and prestige'.  I sneered at the Gap for goodness's sake.  
I mean I understand strategy, I'm not an idiot, and I seriously can rule the world if there's 
a Risk board within a ten mile radius, but flashy and gaudy was never, ever, my thing.  I never 
even used to dye my hair.  The bravest I ever managed to do was a subtle highlight job.  

People didn't notice until it started to grow out.  

So I totally wasn't ready for fame, or fortune, or, ahem, Justin.  Ah, I see all the teenies 
perking up already.  Wait, wait, wait... watch them...

Justin.

And you can hear a million super hyper hearts stop for one spastic moment.  Okay, okay, that was 
mean.  But he's only a man.  A super fine man, but a mere mortal... flawed, imperfect, with 
hair that would make a bush proud, and not the presidential kind...

Chi, chi, chi- chia!

We have a love, hate relationship.  Okay, at first it was mostly hate but isn't that how all 
the great love stories go?  But I'm really getting ahead of myself here.

Once upon a time there was, well, me.  Me in all my aforementioned regularity.  A pretty pebble 
among a beach of other equally pretty pebbles, basking in anonymity as all the other pebbles 
were screaming "Pick me!  Pick me!  Take me home with you!"  No diamond in the rogue, not this 
girl.  Cubic zirconium all the way, yeah baby!

Happy as a clam...  And then someone had to go find the damn pearl.  

I didn't want to go to the freaking karaoke bar.  Really, I didn't.  I mean, how cliché is 
that?!  AJ, yes THAT AJ, Backstreet "Devil" AJ, met his own fiancé at a karoke bar.  Wailing 
away like some white Aretha Franklin.  Seriously, I saw it on VH1.  

I'm happy to say that I wasn't spotted by a stray boy band member though.  That would have been 
too painfully embarrassing, even for me, and I'm used to public humiliation, trust me.  Nope, my 
big break took its form in the shape of a balding forty year old voice instructor whose formal 
pupils happened to include one Justin Timberlake and one Lance Bass.  

But I didn't know any of that at the time...  I'm always behind the curve, lucky me.  Anyway I 
never would have gotten on stage unless I was, well, quite honestly, slightly tipsy.  Drunk if 
you must be crude.  Normally I'm not a drinker, well, you know what I mean, but a nasty break 
up with a boyfriend can lower a girl's inhibitions.  

So I went out with some of my pals and got fall down drunk.  And then I got, crawled, up onto 
the stage and, well, this whole crazy thing started.  I guess I should just be happy they didn't 
take me to a strip club.  Pop star I can handle.  If I'd caught the eye of a porn producer and 
was the next Pamela Anderson then, well, I might have blamed my friends a little more when I got 
sober.

*******************************************************************************

Rhianna Gray managed to gather her drunken wits about her long enough to have second thoughts.  
She really didn't like to sing, even in public, especially in public.  It was just asking for 
trouble.  She knew it, but that didn't change the fact that she was still standing, somewhat 
unsteadily, onstage at the small, smoky karaoke bar.  

Of course being on stage was better than staring at the bottom of yet another empty beer mug 
which was, in turn, better than sitting at home crying which was, believe it or not, better in 
some ways than still being happy and ignorant and in HIS arms.  Because HE had been cheating on 
her, with everyone, everything.  Hell, HE'd probably even been hitting on real dogs.  Rhianna 
wouldn't doubt it after she saw some of the human 'dogs' he had been screwing behind her back.  

Screwing because Rhianna hadn't given into him.  Because she was eighteen, fresh out of high 
school, and wasn't about to be saddled with the responsibility and commitments that came with 
a more intimate relationship with anyone, not even her boyfriend of five months.

So sad, pathetic Rhianna was preferable to gullible, FOOLISH Rhianna.  And sad, pathetic people 
stood in front of Friday night's crowd at the local karaoke bar and sang their troubles to the 
world.

Decision made somewhat more firm Rhianna waved to the tech booth and grinned when the opening 
strands of music started.  And, with a deep breath, Rhianna sang.  

Sang angry Kid Rock, unique Pink, mellow Dave Matthews, exotic Shakira, rocking Lenny Kravitz, 
and finished, as she held the audience spell bound, silent, and awed, with a tearful rendition 
of the Eagle's classic, Hotel California.

The spell lasted a full five seconds before every person in the joint was up on their feet, 
screaming, clapping, hooting.  She blushed, startled by the response and managed an ungraceful 
weave back to her seat where her friends, drunk and estatic from their recent graduation, with 
the help of skillfully made fake ids and a lot of hefty tips, slapped her on the back and 
ruffled her auburn hair.

She looked up when a man tapped her on the shoulder.  Rhianna stared at the outstretched hand 
of the forty something year old balding, well, geek before her.  "Can, can I help you?" she 
asked, blue eyes trying desperately to focus.  

The man coughed and ran a hand through thinning sandy colored hair.  He peered at her through 
glasses she knew were bifocals and whistled.  "Jesus, you're drunk aren't you?"  

She snorted and pointed to a spot several feet to the right of him.  "Do you have a problem 
with that?"  

And then the man had the audacity to laugh, loudly.  "No but if you sing that well drunk you 
must be a flesh and blood angel sober."  

Rhianna crossed her arms across her breast and glared blearily in his general direction.  
"That," she replied flatly, "was the worst pick up line I've EVER heard."  

He coughed with what sounded like even more laughter before producing a business card with a 
decidedly dorky flourish.  "That's probably because it wasn't a pick up line, at least not for 
what you so obviously thought it was.  My name is Raymond Bell and I'm a voice coach, an 
instructor.  You have one of the best untrained voices I've ever heard.  With a few lessons you 
could move mountains."

She stared at the slightly worn card in her hand for a moment and then at the man before her.  
Maybe it was his sincerity...  Maybe it was the looming emptiness of the summer ahead...  Maybe 
it was the incredible amounts of alcohol she had consumed but, against her better judgment, 
Rhianna stood and shook Raymond Bell's hand.  

"Where do I sign up?" she asked.

And then promptly threw up on his shoes. 

***************************************************************************************

And with that auspicious beginning, my fate was sealed.  

At first the lessons were just something to do during the summer.  Then they became an escape 
from college and studies when my first semester started.  And eventually my days at Raymond's 
airy, roomy studio just became a part of my life, like my art or writing.  

I had always loved listening to music- I won't deny that.  One of my favorite hobbies was to 
turn up the bass and blast my speakers full volume, so I could feel the floor shiver with the 
notes and the lyrics could be seared into my soul.  

I just never imagined, or dreamed, that my voice could be one of those voices.  That I was good 
enough to compare to the rock stars and pop stars and divas.  But "Coach Ray" taught me 
confidence first and my voice became this intricate part of my life.  I never imagined that I 
would make a career out of it but I was content with the knowledge that it was there and that 
it would always be there as something I loved and cherished.  

After awhile I started writing lyrics... nothing amazing or earth shattering, just simple 
things.  I'd been writing poetry as long as I COULD write so it was just like this natural 
extension of creativity.  

And then Ray started bugging me to make a demo tape.  To go to an audition.  To try to make a 
name for myself.  

I, predictably, wanted nothing to do with it.  

Why would I want to be a singer?  I was happy.  Life was good.  If its not broke don't fix it.  

For a fortyish, balding, old man Raymond Bell can be amazingly obnoxious.  And I'm a sucker.  I 
have issues with the 'no' word.  So I finally gave in, as gracelessly as possible of course, 
but still, I gave in.  

And the downward spiral started....

***************************************************************************************

"No way in the fiery pits of hell Coach."  

Raymond Bell glared, exasperated, at his star pupil.  She ignored him and went back to fiddling 
with the piano.  "Rhianna..."  

"No.  No.  No to the thousandth time!"  

Raymond sighed and threw himself melodramatically on a folding chair next to the piano bench.  
Rhianna Gray ignored him and added a few notes to the composition she was trying to put 
together.  It was rough but then, writing music was hardly her forte.  

"Rhi Rhi, plllleeeeaaaasseeee..."  

She paused in her work long enough to send him a questioning glance and to raise her dark brows 
in incredulity.  "How old are we again?"  He pouted.

"Just put together a sketchy demo tape, maybe do a photo shoot or two.  You could really be 
something Rhi Rhi.  You could really be someone."  

Sapphire eyes narrowed dangerously.  "Ahh, does Coach Raymond miss his stars?"  Raymond 
flushed.  "I'm not Justin Timberlake or Lance Bass Ray.  You're an amazing teacher but I'm not 
exactly boy band material."  

He rocked back on his chair and studied her as she continued to write, trying studiously, of 
course, to ignore him.  "You're better than them Rhianna," he said, voice soft and completely 
serious.  "Justin is amazing and Lance has one of the best bass voices I've ever heard but you 
wouldn't have to be in a band with four others to make yourself heard.  To make yourself a 
star.  You shouldn't be stuck here, writing and singing in my dingy studio day in and day out.  
You should be in front of thousands of screaming fans.  You should be a star."  

Rhianna sighed and the sound was heartbreakingly bitter.  Nervous fingers tucked a strand of 
errant auburn hair behind one ear.  "What you mean to say is that I COULD be a star.  Could is 
a lot different than should Ray.  I'm not star material.  I don't...  I don't want anything 
badly enough to work and sacrifice so much of myself.  I've seen your boys Ray.  I've seen what 
they go through and you're right, their lives are amazing but that's not my kind of life."  

"Rhianna... Please.  Let me send a tape to one of my connections.  To one studio.  To one 
person... I don't care.  Just let me try.  You owe me that much Rhianna Gray.  Do a demo tape 
and let me waste a little of my time and effort.  If things don't pan out fine.  I'll leave you 
alone to sing in the obscurity of your shower.  Okay?"  

She stood, stretched, and relieved his tension by laughing ruefully.  "You're doing bad things 
to my ego... giving me a sense of self worth and all.  I'm supposed to be an angst ridden, 
depression trodden teenager remember?"  

Ray laughed as he hugged her.  "You always have to have the last word don't you?" he demanded 
gleefully.  

Rhianna chuckled.  "Every girl has to have a hobby..."  

Ray snorted.  "You just happen to have two or three."  

She pulled away long enough to punch her friend and mentor in the arm.  "Shut up Coach, just 
shut up."

*****************************************************************************************

So I recorded a stupid, stupid demo tape in the stupid, stupid studio.  I wore the stupid head 
phones and sang my stupid, elementary songs.  

I refused to go to anything that resembled a photo shoot.  I was selling my music, not by 
body.  

I didn't even listen to the tape before Ray whisked it away.  But he didn't mention anything 
about it for awhile so I thought he forgot about it.  I certainly did.  

My mistake. 

*************************************************************************************

"Hello, may I speak to Justin Timberlake please?"  

Justin frowned as he shifted the cell phone to his shoulder and put both hands back on the 
wheel of his beloved car.  "This is he.  Who is this?" the young pop star demanded of the 
vaguely familiar but still strange voice on the other end.  He guarded his numbers with his 
life and not even fans had cracked the code of his newest cell phone number.  

"How are you?!  This is an old friend... one Raymond Bell at your service."  

Raymond Bell.  Justin was thrown back to long summer days spent in the older man's studio.  
Back to practices and laughter and a teacher who acted more childishly than Chris half of the 
time.  

"Ray?  Is that you?  Man, its been forever!"  

Justin wove expertly in and out of the Orlando traffic as they chatted aimlessly, catching up.  
Despite the whole Lou affair Justin was still on good terms with his former voice instructor.  
He, or more exactly Lynn, always sent Ray a Christmas card and he knew Lance still called to 
talk shop sometimes.

There was a temporary lull in the conversation as Justin pulled up to the gate of his Orlando 
home.  "Justin..."

"Yes?" he asked with a small smile.  He knew, or could guess what was coming.  The small smile 
grew as Ray continued and Justin punched in the security codes to his home.  

"I...  Would you do me a favor Justin?"  Ray fought to fill the ensuing silence.  "I mean you 
know we're friends Just and this isn't really for me.  There's this girl..."  Justin's grin 
stretched even farther.  "And she has the most amazing voice.  I mean as good as you and Lance 
and dammit Just she wants to give up.  It makes me cry to think about her wasting her talent in 
the back of a church choir somewhere.  She could be a superstar, truly she could.  And her 
songs, she doesn't think they're anything special but they're amazing.  Sort of like an edgier 
Christina."

Justin laughed.  "Another blonde pop star?" he demanded good naturedly as he opened his front 
door and entered his house for the first time in months.  God it was good to be home.  He 
laughed again as Ray snorted incredulously.  

"Hell no.  Rhianna is...  Well for one she's a red head, auburn officially.  And two... she's 
not exactly like anything or anyone who's out there right now."  

"Isn't that what they all say?" Justin asked, white teeth flashing.  

Raymond's voice was quiet and way too serious when he continued.  "She's not a copy cat Justin.  
She... dammit I've never EVER asked for any favors even though we're friends.  I've never 
shoved new talent at you or used you as a connection.  Just promise me you'll at least listen 
to her demo.  Pass is on to someone who might do something with it if it catches your fancy or 
just let it collect dust if it doesn't.  PLEASE."  

Justin sighed softly as his keys clanked on the marble counter top of his spacious kitchen.  He 
felt lonely suddenly, and Ray's voice was so distant and mechanical.  He missed his childhood.  
He missed his parents and brothers and even the damn Mickey Mouse Club.  

"What's her name?" he finally asked softly.  

He could feel Ray's high wattage grin from over the line.  "Rhianna.  Rhianna Gray."

Justin rolled the name around on his tongue.  "Rhianna Gray- that's pretty.  Is it real?"  

Raymond Bell chuckled expectantly.  "Oh yes.  Everything about Rhianna is real.  Not always 
likeable, but real."  

**********************************************************************************

That should have been his first clue that I wouldn't be as easy to wrap around his finger as 
his hoochie groupies and panic ridden teeny fans.  But Justin's a man and you know how they 
are...  

So Justin listened to my stupid demo.  And him, stupid man that he is, liked it.  But, lazy man 
that he is, panned it off on Chris who was, God help him and me, looking into producing and 
sponsoring new talent.  And Chris, stupider man that he is, was astounded by the beauty of my 
stupid voice and went to JC and Jive and together decided that they wanted to sign me for an 
album.  

Fairy tale come true huh?  Puleeaasseee! 

So I got a call from Chris Kirkpatrick several weeks later with a deal on the table.  He'd be 
my producer, JC wanted to help with my musical arrangements because, frankly, I suck at them, 
and Jive had a contract all nice and drawn up.  I was even, gasp, going to get to keep some of 
the money they made off of me.  

Hello, who the hell would pay money to listen to me anyway?  

So, after I beamed my ecstatic "Coach" over the head repeatedly with a blunt heavy object I 
hesitantly agreed.  The contract was faxed over and signed.  It was all very slick and very 
legal and very quick.  I was tagged, auctioned, and sold before I quite realized what was going 
on.  

Ray got empty nest syndrome.

And, several very confusing weeks later, I found myself walking through the doors of WEG to 
begin some rough work with Chris and JC.  Of course I hadn't met either one of them before that 
day.  I hadn't met any of the myriad of nameless faces that I had spoken to over the last 
several days.  

I wasn't intimidated.  Not at all.  

I wore my big girl shoes that day.  With the clunky heels I managed to top off at five four.  
I'm a throw back to my great grandparents.  They were midgets I swear.  Stupid short genes.

****************************************************************************************

Rhianna stared at the door of the WEG compound and checked her watch.  This was getting 
ridiculous.  She had been standing outside for seven minutes and thirty... four, five, six, 
seven... never mind, seconds.  Realistically she knew she had a meeting to go to inside.  A 
meeting where two world famous pop stars were probably not so patiently waiting for her.  

She knew she had to suck it up, put on a big girl face to match her big girl shoes, stride in 
there and, in Coach Ray's impassioned diction, 'take the world by storm!'.  And yet her big 
girl shoes were, curiously enough, staying stubbornly planted firmly in front of the lobby 
doors.  

She was just a little bit frightened and a whole hell of a lot intimidated and she hated the 
feeling.  She hated feeling insignificant.  She hated having a weakness that she couldn't bury 
beneath a brittle shell of emotions so that it could surface at an inopportune time and 
embarrass her.

"You know, the way a door works is that you usually have to apply pressure in order to enter a 
building..."  

She jumped about a million feet and whirled.  Whirled and looked up, and up, and up, into the 
grinning face of someone with ridiculously large sunglasses and a square sculptured chin.  Oh 
she knew that chin.  That chin belong to one of the men she was so freaked out about meeting.  

Rhianna didn't handle surprises well.  "Eep."  

JC Chasez laughed and pushed his sun glasses back into shaggy hair.  His grin seemed to grow 
even larger as his blue eyes sparkled mercilessly.  No wonder he had thousands of girls panting 
at his feet...

"Umm are you actually going to go into the building or are you a new lawn ornament?"  

Rhianna nodded vigorously.  

JC laughed.  "You are a new lawn ornament?"  

Dammit!  She gulped in a slightly panicked breath and stuck out a trembling hand.  "I... I'm 
Rhianna.  Rhianna Gray."  

JC blinked once, and blinked again.  The woman before him had little or no resemblance to the 
woman he had pictured in his mind.  He stared at her in shock.  She was pretty enough, but 
hardly beautiful.  She had shoulder length, layered auburn hair and dark blue eyes.  Her face 
was round and she was, well, round.  Not fat but all curves.  Definitely not what he would 
expect to go with the full, sultry vixen that had been on the demo.  

She looked innocent.

She looked barely legal.  

She looked...

"You're short."

"I think I remember how to use the door," she said sweetly before spinning on her heel and 
striding through the glass doors.  JC stared after her for a minute, a bemused expression on 
his face, before he realized that her short little legs were leaving him behind.  

With a muffled oath he dashed up the steps and followed the girl into the lobby. He caught up 
with her several large strides later and silently lead the way to the meeting where Chris was 
supposedly waiting.  If his attention span lasted that long.  

He eyed the woman next to him out of the corner of his eye and tried to gauge her mood because 
quite frankly he was baffled.  They walked in extended silence for another thirty seconds before 
Rhianna paused and looked up at him, a smirk cracking through down turned lips.  

"My great grandparents were midgets," she said seriously.  JC looked at her blankly for a moment 
before she giggled and beamed.  "My friends call me Rhi Rhi, or an obscenity depending on what 
I've done.  By the way, I've been wanted to ask for months... when you blend harmony and 
melody..."

They were deep in a musical theory and technique conversation when they pushed through the door 
of the conference room together, talking a mile a minute.  Chris jumped to his feet and stared 
at his friend and future employee as they burst through into the room.  

JC paused long enough to let Chris Kirkpatrick look Rhianna over as she studied him back, head 
cocked, blue eyes inquisitive.  

"You're short," was the only comprehensive thing he managed to utter.  

They all stared at each other before Rhianna smiled sweetly, with an edge, and asked, in a 
voice coated with sugary fakeness, "Were your great grandparents midgets too?"  

JC burst out laughing.