"Are you nervous?"

"A little," I respod.

"Just remember what I told you. Just act like you're doing this in front of your mirror at home. Lord knows I caught you enough times practicing your "interviews" in your room."

I laugh. "Mama. I wasn't that bad."

"No honey, you weren't that bad. Your dad is in the next room, do you want to talk to him?"

Someone knocks on the door to the Green Room. They poke their head around the corner.

"Five minutes miss."

"Thank you," I reply. "I don't know if I'll have time. I have five minutes."

"Okay. If you have a chance, call me after you're done, okay?"

"I will. I don't know where we're going after this though. Tony has my schedule," I say, scratching my head.

"That's okay. Call if you can. If not, I'll talk to you tonight. I love you baby."

"I love you too mama. Tell daddy I love him too. Oh and Cody and Ashleigh."

She laughs. "I will. We love you too. Now go shock the hell out of MTV, okay?"

I smile. "I will."

We hang up the phone. I hold it to my chest for a second before I take a deep breath, set the phone down and walk out of the room.

"Ana, I'm Troy…one of the producers. Just follow me and we'll get you all set-up for the segment, okay?"

I nod.

"Do you know where my manager is?"

Troy looks around at a couple of people milling about the hallway as we walk through it.

"No, I don't. He's got to be around somewhere. Do you need him? Once the commercial break hits we can page him."

"Um, no I guess I'm okay."

He leads me to the set where the live audience is. They were still on live right now.

"We'll be back with someone new to the scene…her name is Ana and we'll debut her new video as well," Rick, the VJ says.

The audience claps and as soon as the "Live On The Air" sign goes off, people start to mill about.

Rick walks over to Troy and me.

"Hi, I'm Rick," he says, holding out his hand.

"Nice to meet you, I'm Ana."

Wow, that wasn't so hard.

He smiles. "Pleased to meet you. I've seen the video. It's great."

"Thanks. I'm very proud of it."

"I'll leave the two of you. Ana, if there's anything you need, just ask."

"Thanks, Troy."

Suddenly people are fixing my makeup and hair and I am being wired for a mic, complete with an earplug.

"Is there anything you're not comfortable talking about?" Rick asked me as he looked through his index cards.

"Um, I don't think so." I lean into him. "This is my first interview," I say shyly.

He smiles that charming smile again. "Don't worry, I won't bite," he whispers.

I blush. I actually blush.

"Okay, so basically we're going to ask you a few questions to introduce you to the MTV world and then we'll lead into break. When we get back from that then we'll talk a little bit about your video and then show it. How does that sound?"

"It sounds great."

"Are you up for singing a little bit of something if I ask?"

"Of course," I say. What the hell does he think I am? A lipsyncer?

"Good."

Within a few seconds the countdown begins.

Three fingers.

Two fingers.

And the point.

"Welcome back to "Uncovered Live". Today is Tuesday, March 7^th. With me right now, I have someone you may or may not heard of yet. Please welcome Ana to the show."

The audience applauds as I walk toward Rick. He puts one arm around my back and shakes my hand with the other.

"How are you?" he asks.

"I'm great. I'm in New York, you know?" I laugh.

He smiles as the audience cheers.

"Is this your first time to New York?"

I shake my head. "No, actually I've been here quite a few times with my family."

"Cool, for vacations or do you have family here?"

"Mostly for their work. We do know a lot of people here though."

"So it's not so intimidating to you."

I shake my head.

"I was looking at your bio…you're from Orlando…where's your southern accent?"

I laugh. "I never had one. My parent's don’t really have one so I guess I just talk like them. Every once in awhile a little bit of Southern twang will pop out."

"Oh, can't wait to hear that. Okay so you're in Orlando…how did you know you wanted to be a singer or a performer? Did you always know?"

I start nodding. "Actually yeah. I don't ever know of a time where I didn't want to do this. I've always just sung and danced around the house. Around other people, you know? If my parents had guests over, I'd put on a show."

"I like hearing stories like that. Those are the kinds that last a long time. You have a new album coming out in a few weeks. It's called "It's Me". I've only gotten to hear little snippets from the album but I like the groove to it. Why did you pick out that song as the title of the album?"

"Well, thanks for the compliment first," I smile. "We really went with that name because that's the way I really feel about the album. Every song on there fits me and where I'm at right now."

"You're sixteen, is that right?"

"Yes," I nod.

"Wow. They don't make sixteen-year-olds like they used to. I don't mean that because you look older but you're so well poised."

"Well thank you. I learned from the best."

"Now, before we came on, Ana told me a little secret. This is your first interview, right?"

I nod. "Yeah. I just did one with Teen People last week but this is totally different. It's my first live interview, so I'm a little nervous," I chuckle.

"You're doing great. That leads me into my next question though because I was going to ask about how long you've been doing this…professionally I mean."

"Oh, well I've been working on the album for about a year now. I got to work with different people so it took awhile to get together with them all. So now I'm going to be promoting it for I don't know how long," I laugh nervously.

"Did you go to school while you were doing this?"

"Yeah, I was going to high school. I'm a sophomore. Now I'll have a tutor with me."

"Do you think you'll miss being in school with everyone?"

"Umm, actually I might miss it a little bit but this is really what I want to do. I still have my friends from school who will stay my friends, you know?"

Rick nods. "What about the kids there. Did they know what you were doing after hours?"

"My friends knew. I didn't really talk about it to anyone else, though."

"Before we go to the break, can you sing me a little piece of a song?"

"I'd love to."

As I sing, I think about everything my daddy taught me about singing live. I only sing one verse from "It's Me" but I can tell, people are impressed.

"Awesome…thanks for doing that. We've got to go to a break and when we come back, we'll world premiere Ana's new video "Wanted". Don't miss it."

As soon as we went to commercial break Rick turns to me.

"You doing okay?"

I nod as I take a bottled water someone hands me. "I think so. It felt pretty comfortable."

"Good. I think you're doing great, I just wanted to make sure."

I smile and nod. Someone comes up to me and touches up my hair and makeup again and then we get moved over to a couple of stools by a video screen.

"Sit here and we're back in sixty."

"Okay," I say as I take a seat on a stool.

I begin to look around at the crowd. They're all over 18. They have to be to get in here. I catch some guy's eye. He smiles at me. I smile back.

"Good luck," he mouths.

"Thanks," I mouth back.

Rick sits down next to me.

There's the finger countdown again.

"Welcome back…it's me, Rick, your host for "Uncovered Live" and this sitting next to me," he says, sweeping his hands my way, "is the next person who we'll uncover."

He winks at the camera.

A couple of people laugh.

"This is Ana."

"Hey guys," I wave.

The audience waves back and I hear murmuring going on.

"Let's just get right to the video shall we? I guess before we go on, I should say that your management company is Freelance Entertainment, which is of course run by Lance Bass from *Nsync."

I nod. "Yes."

"So I have to say, I definitely see a lot of influence there. Was he a big influence?"

"Well people like *Nsync have definitely influenced me. I worked with a couple of them on this album too. Plus I worked with people they've worked with so yeah, there's a definite influence."

"Great. Yeah, I noticed that JC co-wrote a couple of songs and Justin too, I think."

"Yeah, he wrote "It's Me"."

"Cool. Did I hear somewhere that you worked with Britney Spears too?"

I smile and nod. "Yeah. She worked on a song called "It's Okay to Cry" with me. It's a beautiful song."

"What's she like to work with?" Rick asked as he shifts in his chair.

"She was great. Very professional but she also made me feel very comfortable."

"It's been awhile since we've seen her so I'm sure people will be excited to get a little taste of something she had a hand in doing."

"I hope so," I giggle.

"Do you guys want to see the video?" Rick asks the group.

They cheer.

"You ready?"

I nod. "Yep, I'm ready."

"Let's do it," he says pointing to the video screen.

And there it was.

The video I had worked three very long days on.

I sacrificed blood, sweat and tears to make.

And…

They loved it.

Rick was smiling when they came back live to him. That surprised me, I know he's usually a hard rock kind of guy.

"Well, there it is. That's so different than what's out right now. I love it. Do you guys like that?"

The audience cheers louder.

I laugh.

"When we get back we'll let the audience ask the questions."

Yet another break.

"I liked that video even better the second time," Rick says to me.

"Thanks."

I really want to call my mama and daddy right now. I know they're beaming. I look over and see Tony standing off to the side. His arms are folded over his chest and he has a huge ass grin on his face. When he sees me looking at him he gives me the two thumbs up. I do the same thing to him and smile back. Silly me, I feel like I could cry.

Finally, we're back again.

Rick walks around the crowd with a hand held mic.

"First what did you think of the video and then, what's your question?" he asks a guy sitting in the front row.

"I thought the video was hot."

"Thank you," I say.

"What's your question?"

"I think all of the guys here want to know if you have a boyfriend."

Rick's mouth forms and "O" and then he starts laughing.

"I saved that one for them," he says as he moves to the next person.

"No, I haven't had time for a boyfriend," I laugh.

And that's true. I have a couple of really good guy friends from school but all of my waking hours were spent either at school or in the studio over the past year.

All the guys in the crowd cheer and clap, which makes me laugh and blush.

"Who would you say your major influence was and does it reflect in your music style on this album?"

"Oh, good question," Rick says, moving to the next person.

"That is a good question. I don't know if I really had one major influence. I feel like I was brought up with a lot of them. My parent's listen to all different kinds of music while I was growing up so that's what influenced me the most and you can definitely hear that in the album."

"Do you get star struck?" the next person asks.

"Um, no, I don't think so."

"Who's the most famous person you've met," Rick asks.

"I actually met Michael Jackson the other day…about a week and a half ago. I guess he's the most famous."

"Wow, there's really a name from the past."

Everyone laughs.

"We have time for one more question. Go ahead."

"Where do you see yourself in five years."

"I just hope that I can be successful. I'll be wherever God takes me," I shrug.

The audience claps and cheers as Rick walks back over to me. He holds out his hand and I shake it.

"Thank you so much for stopping by. Everyone, this is Ana, get used to her 'cuz I think she'll be around for a long time. Check out her video on MTV and her album will be in stores in two weeks…go get it."

I wave as we go to commercial.

I get down off of the stool and Tony walks over to me. He pulls me into his arms.

"You were great," he says.

"Thanks."

Rick is patiently waiting to shake my hand again but he changes his mind and gives me a small hug.

"It was great meeting you. I'm sure our paths will cross again."

"Thanks, you made me feel very comfortable. Everyone here was great."

After someone takes the mic pack from me, Tony leads me down the hallway.

"How do you feel?"

"I feel good. I need to call mama and daddy."

He laughs as he leads me into a dressing room.

"I thought you might say that," he says as he pulls out his cell phone.

He dials the familiar number and hands me the phone. He walks behind me, leaves the room and shuts the door behind him.

"Hello?"

"Mama…"

I'm desperately trying to hold back the tears.

"Oh honey…you were so great. We're so proud of you."

"Brit, is that Adriana?" I hear my daddy say in the background.

"Of course it is Justin, who else would I be saying that to?" she laughs.

"Tell daddy to get the other phone."

"He's already on his way."

"Hey honey."

"Hi daddy."

"How are you feeling right now?" he asks.

He always knows exactly what emotions I am going through.

"I feel really good. I feel hyper right now."

My mama laughs. "That's a good thing. That means you love what you're doing."

"I do love what I'm doing…I do."