“It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas”

Wynne

“Wynne, darling—”

“I know, I missed my cue. Sorry. Can we please start again?” I was starting to get frustrated.

“Why don’t we take five?” Fenton was working with Ferris today which left me with Saul. Fenton understood my need to make the song mine. Saul, however, did not. He kept arguing about the song’s integrity, but the goal was to stand out, and in order to achieve this I needed to put my own personal stamp on it. Sander understood this. In fact, he encouraged it. I glanced across the stage to the audience doors. Speaking of Sander, where was he?

Returning my eyes to the grumpy man in front of me, I said, “I don’t need five. I need you to hold the introduction a few extra beats and to slow down the tempo just a bit.” I followed it with a “Please.” If I was playing my guitar, this wouldn’t be an issue.

At Sander’s suggestion I was singing without my guitar tonight. He wanted me to break out of my shell and show the world a different side of Wynne Benfield. He wanted me to show them what sassy Wynne looked like. I could be soulful. I could even do vulnerable, but sass? So far, on a scale of 1-10, I was batting zero in the sass department. I tried to tell Sander that it wasn’t really my thing, but he was adamant. He was also really hard to say no to. So here I was, missing my cues and singing off tune. Why? Because I was trying to be someone I wasn’t. It didn’t help that I was both mentally and physically exhausted and had no clue what to do with my hands. All of this was compounded by the fact that next week was Christmas and I was spending it in freezing cold Colorado with a bunch of people I didn’t much care for, instead of at home with my mom in Florida. Then there was tonight, the biggest performance of my life, and all I could think about was a warm cup of coffee, a hot bath, and fifty hours of uninterrupted sleep.

“Christina comes right out of the gate full throttle,” Saul argued.

“Yes, but I’m not Christina,” I explained for the thousandth time.

“Is there a problem?” a voice called out. Not just any voice, but the voice I’d been waiting to hear for the past hour. Thank you, Jesus, I thought as my eyes jumped from Saul to the man sauntering down the aisle in our direction.

It was hard to describe Sander James. Coach and collaborator were words I used when talking with the other contestants. Alone with my thoughts, he was something else entirely. He was an extremely opinionated, beyond talented, sinfully sexy rock god. Sadly, he was nine years older and completely off-limits, but that didn’t stop me from fantasizing. I wasn’t the only one, either. All the female contestants were obsessed with Sander James. I’m pretty sure a few of the guys were, too, and with good right. My fellow contestants considered him an enigma. I found him to be a beautifully charismatic force of nature.

While pretending to listen to Saul whine about how I wanted to change the song, I studied Sander. His dark hair held traces of auburn with a few strands of gray peeking out at the temples. His beard, not quite full, but more like the shadow of one in the making, helped to soften his jawline. Today he was wearing black pants and a charcoal gray sweater. My fingers itched to see if it was cashmere. I bet it was.

The sound of my name caught my attention. An embarrassed flush spread across my cheeks as my gaze lifted from his sweater to his face. Big, brown eyes, somewhere between bronze and russet in color, stared back at me.

A dark eyebrow shot up in question as a melodically rich voice, a voice that I looked forward to hearing each day and dreamed about in my sleep, asked, “You okay?” Talk about a loaded question. Over the past three months, I’d watched more than one contestant go home, not because they performed poorly, but because they weren’t considered team players. In other words, being shitty to the band members was equivalent to telling one of the coaches to go fuck themselves. I needed to tread carefully.

“I’m not sure this arrangement works with my voice. The beginning is kind of fast. I would like to try slowing down the tempo and then build up from there,” I calmly explained.

“As in more of a chant?” he asked.

“Exactly!” I knew he would get it. Sander turned to Saul and snapped his fingers. Without so much as a blink, Saul handed over his guitar. My pulse shot from zero to a thousand as Sander pulled the strap over his head. Black ink appeared on his forearms as he pushed up the sleeves of his sweater. Ink that had been discussed throughout the contestant house time and again. Just because I chose not to join in the discussions didn’t mean I didn’t hear them. The house was like living in a college dorm. It was rife with rumors and innuendos.

Three months ago, I barely knew who Sander James was. If I listened to the rumors, he was a still-in-the-closet drug addict who couldn’t carry a tune to save his life. Also, according to rumor, this show was a last-ditch effort to save his career. The fact that no one had seen him pick up a guitar or sing a note since we’d arrived only fueled the already flaming-hot rumor mill.

“How do you want to do this?” he asked. “Are you thinking slow like this?” He played the first few chords of the song before nodding to Marc, the drummer. Marc joined in, but it was still faster than I wanted.

“Slower,” I called out. Sander slowed the tempo and Marc followed suit. He then nodded to Saul, who was now positioned at the piano, and in perfect tandem, they played the introduction to Christina Aguilera’s “Fighter.”

I waited for them to come around to the opening note before joining in. As if tethered together, the four of us soared through the song—each knowing when to speed up or slow down the tempo. Sander was an amazing guitarist. I’d been playing for over fifteen years. I knew I was good, but he made me look like a rank amateur. He played seamlessly, with effortless perfection. The song ended, and no one said a word. We just stood there with looks of excited shock on our faces, wondering if that had really just happened or not.

At the same time as Sander uttered a surprised sounding, “Damn,” I launched myself across the stage and into his arms. With a whoop of excitement, he snatched me out of the air and pulled me in for a bone crushing hug.

“That was fucking amazing, Baby Girl,” he whispered in my ear, and that’s when it happened—the exact moment when the secret obsession I’d been harboring deepened into something else.

“Thanks, Sander. I think we’ve got it. Eric, you take the guitar. I’ll stick with the piano,” Saul called out.

Gently placing me on my feet, Sander took a step back. He was right to do so. I shouldn’t have jumped him. Before I could apologize, he leaned forward, and quietly said, “You’ve got this. We’ll talk after you win tonight.” As he walked away, I fought the urge to call him back, to beg him to play instead of Eric tonight...to prove everyone wrong, but something stopped me. What I’d just experienced was beyond my wildest dreams. The fact that Sander had played for me and no one else made it all the more special. It also made it mine. No, I didn’t want to share it. I wanted to savor it.

Later that night, as I listened to my competition battle it out on the stage, I paced back and forth across one of the dressing room floors, praying that I’d made the right song choice and wishing my parents were here to see me perform.

Like many of my fellow contestants, my story wasn’t a sad one. I was a twenty-eight-year old music teacher from a small town in Florida. My parents divorced when I was in my early teens. Both had since remarried but were still friends. I lived in an apartment with my cat, Sid, and my dog, Apollo. At least, I did before coming to Denver. Sid and Apollo were currently residing with my mom. I had a good life. I was just bored with it. When a scout for Million Dollar Musician approached me at one of my weekend gigs and urged me to try out for the show, I laughed, but after thinking about it, I thought, what do I have to lose? I thought I would get fired, for sure, but surprisingly, my boss was cool about it. It was probably because he wanted to put our little town on the map. If I made it to the end, he would get his wish. The door swung open and Jayne appeared. Her eyes swept over me and she smiled.

“You look amazing. Ferris is on his way to the stage as we speak. First, I’m taking you to the promo lounge to get shots of you hanging out with Travis and Michelle. Then it’s showtime. Are you ready?” Travis and Michelle were the two remaining contestants from the other teams. I didn’t know them very well. They were much younger and liked to hang out together.

One thing I could say about production is that they didn’t skimp when it came to clothing. Tonight, they had me wearing a pair of skin tight, stretch leather leggings and a white, fuzzy sweater. They tried to talk me into wearing stilettos, but I refused. We finally settled on black ankle boots with a chunky, square heel. I’d seen way too many embarrassing accidents caused by stilettos. I wasn’t interested in becoming a casualty, especially not here.

Not only was my outfit perfect, but thanks to Rachel, my hair and makeup were also on point tonight. She used a flat iron to straighten it before pulling it up with a thick, braided hairband. Streaks of wash-out color were painted throughout the ponytail, giving my normally light-blonde hair an edgy look. My cheekbones were defined with contouring and my skin practically glowed from the highlighter. With my eyes done in sultry, dark shades, they looked even bluer than normal. She finished it off with a crimson lip stain, a color I would never in a million years wear, yet made me look like a completely different person. Staring at my reflection in the mirror, I thought, who is this woman?

As I followed Jayne down the hallway, the answer came to me. I was the woman who could win it all.

Ferris hit his performance out of the park. I knew this because of the deafening cheers from the audience—cheers that were much louder and longer than they were for the other two contestants and resonated all the way down the long hallway, through two separate doors before reaching me. I was surprised he’d chosen a country song, but I wasn’t surprised he’d nailed it. Ferris was a fighter. Well, so was I. In a flourish of noisy chatter and camera flashes, he breezed into the lounge with a winning smile on his face.

“You’re up, Wynne!” Someone called from the doorway. Ferris winked as I passed him by.

“Good job,” I said.

“Good luck,” he responded, and then added, “You look great, by the way.”

“Thanks,” I threw over my shoulder before escaping into the press-riddled, camera-clicking hallway. A million questions were thrown at me—some about my parents, some about my song choices, but most about my love life. At first, this bothered me. The press didn’t care about how well you sang or whether or not you could play an instrument or write your own songs. They only cared about who you were nailing. My first time in front of the cameras was a disaster. I’d acted like an insecure girl. Like vultures, they had picked apart those insecurities. They’d made me look both vapid and stupid. Sander saved me. He also let me cry on his shoulder. Then he told me to buck up, decide how I wanted to handle them, and stick to it. I’d chosen silence. After that, I’d given them nothing unless it pertained directly to my music.

“Ignore them,” Jayne instructed as we waited for security to clear the crowded hallway. No worries there, I thought as we began to move.

Three minutes later, I was standing on stage left, waiting for my name to be announced.

“And now, for our final act of the evening, please give a warm welcome to our favorite Floridian, Wynne Benfield!”

First came the guitar, then the piano, and last the drums. Focusing on getting to the mic stand, I strutted onto the stage. As cheers erupted from all four sides of the theater, the unthinkable happened. I forgot the words to the song. My eyes sprang to the judges table and there sat Sander, with his elbows on the table, his normally tousled hair slicked back off his face, and his eyes on me. The image of him with the guitar slung across his chest as he played for me this afternoon crashed through my head, and suddenly, the words were back. I can’t say I remember most of the performance after that. What I do remember and will never forget, was the standing ovation at the end. All four judges, along with an entire theater of people, were on their feet...for me.

While waiting for voting to close and get tallied, the four of us hung out in the lounge. I made small talk but can’t remember anything that was said. My focus was on whether or not this was my last performance. For so many reasons, I didn’t want to go home. At the moment, however, only one stood out—Sander.

In a mad rush, we were herded onto the stage where the two finalists were announced. It was official, Ferris and I were facing off for the final challenge.

Once the show was over, Ferris and I were escorted back to the lounge to discover the judges waiting for us with glasses of champagne in their hands. I immediately noticed Sander’s bottle of water and wondered if the rumors were true. While March filled our glasses, the rest of the judges congratulated us. Then, Sander gave the toast.

“Two weeks from now, we will have our very first Million Dollar Musician. I can’t think of two more deserving people. As a reward, the network has agreed to let me take the two of you to Aspen for Christmas. No cameras. No network. Just the three of us taking a nice week off. The plane takes off at nine in the morning, so you better get packed.” My eyes shot to Ferris.

“We’re going to Aspen,” I whispered. With Sander James, I thought but didn’t dare say out loud.

“Fuck yeah!” he cheered as we busted into laughter. Then, we drank.