I didn't need to choose a song on my own for the recall: it was a group recall, so I was picked in a group with three others: Julia, Martin and Oksana -who turned out to be the lady with the tall legs and the pink top from the casting.

"It's so great to be here." she said at the hotel room. "Dieter and Bill together, it rocks!"

"Oksana, come on, you're married!" Julia replied and laughed.

Oksana shrugged.

"So? If it's only in my head, I can think whatever the hell I want."

I just smiled at them both and kept unpacking my stuff for the night. Our last member, Martin, was quiet too. But I couldn't tell if it was from nervousness or just because he was as shy as me.

"Besides, Bill doesn't like me." Oksana replied.

"What makes you say that?" Julia asked.

"He said it off-screen. He said I was tasteless and had no style, and that I lack the thing that blasts away everything and touches people's heart and blah blah blah..."

"And what did other judges say?"

"About the same. Dieter even said I sounded like a robot when I sang. I don't give a crap, I have a nice voice and I'm self-confident enough. Besides, they still gave me their four Yes, so who cares about what they thought underneath?"

They both smiled, and Martin and I looked at each other: though we said nothing yet, we already knew there would two teams within the team.

When everything was set, we all sat on and around two of the four beds.

"So… Anybody had an idea about the choice for a song?" Oksana asked.

"I do! I thought about "Price Tag" from Jessie J." Julia proudly replied.

"Oh my god, I love this song! It's so cool!"

"And I even printed four copies of the song!" She added and took sheets out of her bag before handing them to us.

"You did it in advance? That's so sweet, you're amazing!"

"I know." Julia said and stuck out the tip of her tongue like a kitten.

"So guys," Oksana said and turned at us. "What do you think? I think Price Tag's the best we have!"

"Hum…" Martin hesitated. "Sure, why not? If everybody's okay with it, then it's fine by me. I can do it."

The beautiful blonde then turned to me, though she was barely hiding her joy of winning the discussion already.

"I… don't know." I admitted after a longue pause, which then made the two women freeze and made me twirl a strand of hair around my finger.

"Why not?" Julia bluntly asked.

"I'm not sure the song's good enough for me. I have a bad memory and she sings really fast. I don't think I can remember all the lyrics and sing it without mashing every word."

"Well… if you don't want that song, then give us your title. The audition is tomorrow in the afternoon, so we don't have much time to decide."

She was obviously trying to sound patient, but failed at it. Probably from the lack of practice.

"How about… "Apologize" from One Republic?"

The two girls looked at each other, which gave me the impression of a reversed mirror: they both had the same kind of taken-from-a-page-magazine perfection -clear skin, white teeth, doe eyes and thin long thighs- except one was blonde and the other one was chestnut-haired.

"I don't know… sounds a bit cliché, doesn't it?" Oksana said, looking embarrassed.

"Yeah, and the chorus… I'm afraid it's too high for me, honey, no matter how much you could low it. Did you take the lyrics with you?"

"…No, I didn't." I confessed. "Maybe we can try to find them on the internet? They have wifi and I have my computer in my suitcase."

"Wait, then we need to go ask the reception for the password. It's gonna take us some time and it's late… Martin, what do you think?"

We all looked at Martin, which suddenly seemed to wish he could turn invisible. He paused and looked at me with a sad face.

"I'm afraid it's too high for me too, I'm sorry..."

"Besides," Julia added, ""Price Tag" is a joyful song that gives you energy. "Apologize" sounds way too slow and watery for my taste."

"Agree. If we want them to remember us, we'd better have fun on stage."

I had no choice. They were three Yes against my No. I couldn't fight back. I bowed my face in defeat:

"Fine… I'll try my best, then."

"There you go, that's the spirit girl!" Julia said and kissed me on the cheek.

The next day, we had a meeting with our vocal-coach.

"Good morning, ladies!" She said with a bright smile in front of the cameras.

Martin coughed politely and the two others giggled.

"I'm a boy." He calmly replied; though he was obese, poor guy sure had delicate features and a strange style of clothes for a boy, with his long-sleeved wool vest and his pearl necklace. Even his voice sounded too high for his age, which was around 17, I guess.

"Oh, sorry! …You're Martin, right?" The coach said and put her hands in front of her mouth. "I don't know what I was thinking. Anyway, let's start, shall we?"

Martin smiled, willing to forget it, though it was easy to tell that it was not the first time he heard someone make that mistake.

We worked on the song for hours, with our sheet in hand. Then we tried without the sheet, which was 10 times harder for me. English definitely wasn't my favorite language:

"Seems like everybody's got a price

I wonder how they sleep at night.

When the tale comes second

And the truth comes first and...

No! God dammit!"

The three others rolled their eyes and sighed. They shouldn't have had me start the song.

"Come on, Lola!" Oksana said, exasperated after four attempts where we didn't even go far enough to her part, so she hadn't sung once yet. "It's "when the tale comes first and the truth comes second"! It's logical!"

"I know, I'm sorry."

"Well, stop being sorry, just focus!" She shouted.

Julia was glaring at me too. She obviously wanted to shout at me as well but couldn't because of the cameras.

"Everybody, calm down." The coach-vocal said and raised her arms to silence us. "Lola, it's okay. You have a beautiful singing voice and you seem to have learned to master its potential fast. Just try to open your mouth a bit more to articulate, that'll help you to catch up with the words."

I nodded and focused again.

"Remember," she added "the stress is all in your head. Just focus on a fixed point on an imaginary horizon in front of you, take a deep breath, and sing just for that point."

I nodded again and obeyed. I stared at a random spot in the air and the lyrics flawed more easily this time. When I finished my part, I saw the coach smile at me and I smiled at her back proudly. Martin almost had the same problem, but he quickly recovered. I was surprised to hear and see that Julia and Oksana did have problems with the English language too. But all their voices were more powerful than mine and they had fun with it. I just couldn't believe we used to be rivals and were now supposed to sing together as a friendly, happy group in a few hours.

Back to the "sluice" for the four of us again. We all chose to dress in black, which was a pretty neutral color and chic enough at the same time. Martin had a black suit opened on a white shirt and had put gel in his hair, which made him look much more masculine. As for me, I had a simple black dress that stopped to the knees and black small-heeled opened shoes. Julia and Oksana were at their best: they put blood red lipstick, heavy make-up on their eyes and cheeks, big golden earrings (Julia's were star-shaped), strapless dresses that were shorter than mine and black stilettos. Julia even had a small hat with a thin that elegantly shadowed half of the face.

If one came into the sluice by mistake, he could have easily said that we weren't a team: I was backed on a corner of the small cabin, singing for myself, the two women were checking on their outfit and jokingly fighting for the mirror, while Martin was circling on the remaining space, staring at the floor with a sad face. Maybe he wasn't so at ease with the song as I thought he was either.

Finally the technician we were all waiting for -or rather fearing- came and opened the curtain so we could follow him to the second set. We all went out of the cabin and, when she was sure no camera would see us, Julia grabbed me by the arm and hissed at me:

"Don't fucking screw up!"

Seemed that I was wrong again; not only did Julia not forget about my failure, but she was also as nervous –if not more- than I was. I thought I also heard her tell Oksana that we may all have overestimated ourselves for the performance. Though I didn't like her at all, if a girl like her was starting to cringe, then we were all dead for sure.