Roses

Why did I thought that this was a good idea? I mumble softly to myself as I stare up to this huge, at least 60 store level of a concrete building in the middle of New York City.

I am not going to lie, everything in New York City is really overwhelming. I feel like I have lived in a bubble this past two weeks since I moved here. Moving to NYC was always a childhood dream of mine but now that I am actually standing here, It feels like this city is going to eat me up alive. Especially for a small city girl like me.

I should probably introduce myself.

I am Rose Sophie Williams. I am 20 years old and no, I am not as neurotic as you may think I am. It is just that, I am not used to this type of buzz going on around me. I am from a little town, just outside the city of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. My childhood basically included hanging out with my friends and play in the dirt. O and horse riding. I spend a lot of time in the stables and between horse shit. A real secure and protected environment to grow up in. Never anything 'exciting' happened in my life. I am from a picture perfect family. You know, one of those they describe in movies.

My parents are still together (which is rare nowadays, I know). Not that they do not have their bumps in the road every now and then but, then again who's relationship is perfect?

My dad, Peter is a perfect example of how a man should be, in the eyes of society. He works for the government. A typical 9 until 5 job. My dad is my best friend though. I always have been close to him. I am a real daddy's girl. He has really layback and sincere personality.

I think that, that is what I like the most about him. He is the complete opposite from my mother, Susan. I never really understood how those two people ended up together. My mom is always in everyone's business and God, she sure loves a good juicy story. I know she means no harm but, it can be really annoying sometimes. You can describe my mom's and I relationship as difficult. Do not get me wrong, I love the woman with my whole heart but, I guess our personalities just do not really match. I am not a typical type of girl. I do not really care about gossiping (In fact, I hate it) or what my makeup looks like at every moment off the day. There are days that I do not even wear makeup at all. That is the complete opposite from my mom and my sister. O shit, yeah I have a sister. Her name is Lily. You probably noticed by now that our parents are quite keen on 'naming-your-kid-after-a-flower'. Sad. I know.

Let me think about how I can best describe my sister personality.. Well, let me state it like this: it would not surprise me if they would ask her as the leading person for the next upcoming movie of the 'Mean Girls'. She is 5 ft. 5, 16 years old and pure evil. I do not know how she and I can share the exact same DNA.

Well, back to me. After all this is a story about me. Where was I? O yea.. like I said, my childhood was pretty easy. Never had anything major happening to me. I always had the dream to move abroad for a longer period of time. I wanted to know what it's like to really live and escape the little town I grew up in. So, when the opportunity came along to spend a year abroad for my internship, I took it with both of my hands. For some reason, New York City always had some type of magnetic pull on me. So, I didn't really had any doubt about where I was going to go but still, there are a lot of this you can do in this city. I never really had a clear picture of what I wanted to become when I grew up as a kid. I always envied those people back in the days who knew exactly what they wanted to do in life. Even in senior year of university, I still didn't really knew what I wanted to do in my life. I had absolutely no clue. It all changed when I saw the documentary of the live of Avicii. I remember this like it was yesterday. It was on a rainy 'Summer' night in Holland. I was scanning through Netflix, when that specific documentary caught my eye. Upon this day, I still do not know what it was, what made me decide to watch it but, I am so grateful that I did it because, that documentary made such an impact on me. I just could not understand why his manager didn't protected him more. Especially the part, where he is in the hospital and the doctors say that he need a surgery but because of his insane schedule, he couldn't do it. All I could think about in the moment was that I would have done it totally different if I was in that situation. I study business so, I know that it was probably a multimillion deal they had with all those festivals and party organizations but still, he was still a human. Money isn't as important when someone's life is in stack. If Avicii would have had a better team around him, his story could have been totally different. It is so important what type of people you surround yourself with. In your normal life but especially in a life of someone who is in the spotlights. It's really easy to lose your way in that lifestyle.

So, moral of this intense long story(Sorry about that btw) is that, from that day forward I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to become the best artist manager there is on this planet.

A couple of months ago, I was talking to a teacher of mine about what my goals were. I had written countless emails to different artists management companies but nobody really responded back to me. And why would they? They probably receive thousands of emails like that every week. I was about to give up and look for an other field to find my internship in, when Mr. Daniels said that he maybe knew somebody. That somebody was Andrew Gertler. Do you believe me when I tell you, that upon that moment I never heard of him? Well, it is true. You see, Mr. Daniels has lived in New York City for a couple of years before he moved to the Netherlands for love. In those years he built up this huge network of people.

Mr. Daniels said that he could send Andrew Gertler an email, to do a good word for me. Never in a million years I had thought that Mr. Gertler would really respond back. I remember this moment so well. It was about a week after my conversation with Mr. Daniels. I was at home, it was around 8.30 in the evening and I was hanging out with my long time best friend from home, Anna (I will tell you more about her later. Believe me, she needs some more explanation) when I got a call from Mr. Daniels. He basically told me, that Andrew Gertler was willing to give me one chance to convince him, why he should give me the opportunity to be his intern and that he would call in 30 minutes. Now imagine, that I was at home. No makeup on, in my Harry Potter pj's (big Harry Potter fan and I am proud of it) and I didn't had anything prepared. I was freaking out. My heart pulls was around the 130. A normal heart rate is around the 100. So, yeah.. I was really freaking out. I was on the verge of putting makeup on, when the sound of an incoming Skype call echoed through my bedroom. I think I stared at my laptop for a good 15 seconds before I snapped out of my trance and answered the call. Normally I would have done a complete FBI level research on the man (yea.. I am that type of girl) but, because I didn't expected him to actually give me a change, I didn't really knew much about him. Normally, I am good at bullshitting me through a situation but, when I saw Mr. Gertler appear on my laptop screen, that went outside the window faster than I can say my own name.

Now I think about it, my little 'mistake' is probably one of the reasons why Andrew Gertler gave me a change to become his intern because it gave me the opportunity to actually have a real conversation with him. Normally, I would have mapped out the entire conversation but now, it was a real conversation. One of the first questions he asked was what I read about him online. I backfired the question by saying, that I was really impressed by what he has accomplished at a such relatively young age and that I really have an enormous respect for him but that I was way more interested about his stories, than the ones I can read online. From that moment, something changed and it was one of the best and inspiring conversation I ever had. A hour later, we ended the call as we were laughing like we are old friends. He told me that he would call me in a couple of days, to let me know what he decided because he had to consult it with his client. He probably didn't really understood the meaning of 'a couple of days' or he has a serious problem with counting because, it was about two hours later when I received an email with a little video attached of him and his client congratulating me that I got the internship. Can you guess who the client was? Well, it was Shawn fucking Mendes. I am not going to lie, I was a little star struck at first. Thank god that it wasn't a live video call, otherwise things could have been very awkward. It's not that I have ever been a girl that gets obsessed with a famous person. Not at all, but let's be honest.. Shawn Mendes is one fine looking man.

After that, time really flew by. I had only a couple of months left to find some residence in this insane city. If you thought that finding a house in Amsterdam was hard, try New York City. It is almost impossible. Okay, let me rephrase that sentence. It is almost impossible if you do not have thousands off dollars left to spend on rent every month. I was already smart enough to convince my two best friends from college to go on internship in New York as well so that we could split the rent, but still.. shit is expensive here. Luckily, Liz her father has a large network of people. O sorry, you do not have a clue who Liz is of course. Well, I live together with Liz and Alissa here in New York. We are in the same class together, but I will introduce them later on more properly. Do not worry.

Where was I? O yea.. do not ask me how but Liz her dad managed to get us a place. Do you know what the best part is, is that the owner gave us a huge discount on the monthly rent. Something about a favour or something. I honestly couldn't care less why or how, to be honest. All I care about is that we live in this beautiful, almost dreamy apartment in the middle of SoHo for almost nothing. That is one of those things, you should not question if it comes on your path. It's a once in a lifetime experiences.

"Why the fuck are you standing here? Some people do not have all day to stare at a building. So, MOVE!." Suddenly a guy in his late 40s yells at me.

"I am.. sorry.." I stutter as I feel my cheeks heat up. I lower my glance to the ground and quickly brushes past the man. That is another thing I really need to get used to. Everyone in this city is really rude. I am sorry if I offended someone but it's true. Especially if you are used to the people from my village. It is not that I am extremely out of touch with the other people around me. I am used to the people in big city's, like Amsterdam because that is where my college is located but still, the people here are another level of rude. Everyone seems so caught up in their own life's and phones. Nobody really actually talks to one another. Just look around when you are in NYC, you will notice for sure.

I give a smile to the doorman as he holds the door open for me. I look around the huge reception full wonder. It's beautiful.

Large windows, golden details, a nice little sitting area on the left. It looks like a reception from a movie decor.

"You look lost, sweet cakes. Are you here for the modeling thing?." I turn my head to the left and see a beautiful darker woman, in her mid-twenties smiling at me.

Modeling? She is kidding right?

"Hi."- I return my smile and stand in front of the reception desk.

"No no. Andrew Gertler gave me this address. I am supposed to meet him here at Island Records." For the love of god, please let this be the right address.. I do not want to be late on my first day.

"Wait.. you are the intern? What is your name again.."- the woman says as she scans over a couple of papers that lay in front of her.

"Rose Williams." We say both at the exact same time.

"Yep."- I chuckle awkwardly "that is me."

The woman looks at my face for a couple of seconds. "You are too pretty. Are you sure that you are not a model?." She suddenly says.

"Oo.. umm.. thank you. Yea.. I am pretty sure." Me a model? Please.. do not make me laugh.

"And humble.. they will love you." She adds.

"What is your name?." I say as I desperately want to change the topic.

"My name is Shanice, but you can call me Shan. Everyone does it."

I hold my hand out to her to shake her hand.

"Nice to meet you then, Shan." A sincere smile appears on her face as she grabs my hand to shake it.

"You are clearly not from around here."

"No, I am Dutch."

"That explains a lot. Well, sweetheart you need to take that elevator to the 45 floor. I will call Mr. Gertler to let him know you are on your way up." She points with her fresh manicure nails to the elevator in the left corner.

"Thank you so much. Have a good day, Shan." I give her a smile and turn around into the direction of the elevators.

"You too, Rose.. and it is nice to meet you as well!." She calls after me. I look over my shoulder and give her a smile. Well, that was easy. I hope that everyone else is just as nice as she is. I think as the elevator doors close in front of me. New adventure.. here I come!