Isaac sighed as he plopped down on the Queen-sized bed in he and his brother's hotel room.
The plane ride had been a long one---his legs had cramped up, Mackie had whined the WHOLE way, and Zac had forgotten his Draim-a-Mine if you know what that means.
Right now, Isaac's brothers were in the room across from Ike helping his parents with their younger siblings' luggage, so he had the room to himself...temporarily, anyhow.
Isaac flipped on the television and leaned back to enjoy a nice episode of F*R*I*E*N*D*S.
He had just started to doze off when he heard his mother's voice call, "Isaaaac, have you unpacked your stuff yet?"
"Ugh," Ike grumbled, stepping off the bed and stretching his arms out towards the ceiling, "Why is it that I have to unpack when we'll only be here for a few days?"
He wasn't up for an argument with his parents, though, so Ike decided to obey his mother.
:::bOuNcEcLiCkSqUeAk:::
Isaac set his suitcase up on the bed and clicked it open. He took a few teeshirts and several pairs of boxers over to the drawers underneath the television and put them inside.
When he picked up the next load from his suitcase, he heard a crunch.
It was a small, violet-colored sheet of stationary.
Curious, Isaac unfolded it and began to read:
3/15/98
Isaac-
Love,
Give me my Romeo and when I shall die, take him and cut him out in little stars, and he will make the face of Heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun.
Once you are reading this, I'm sure you will be thousands of miles away. But I just wanted to let you know that no matter how far apart we are, I'll be thinking of you every second. I'll never forget how special last night was under the "Crescent Moon". Have a great time in LA, and, if it's not too embarassing, well...my mom wanted to know if maybe you could get Jay's autograph for her. =O) She's a big fan. I miss you already and I can't wait until Friday!
Sierra
:::BIIINNG:::
Paige was late for Biology class once again.
"Ugh, I hate Mondays," she mumbled and pushed open the door to her classroom.
"Ahhh, Paige, just in time," Mr. Barry commented to Paige as she slipped into her seat.
Oh, great. Is he going to give me detention for being late again?
But Paige didn't have to wait long to find out the answer was negative.
Mr. Barry motioned for Paige to come to his desk, where he spoke to her quietly, "Paige, I have noticed how friendly you act towards the other students here in my classroom, so I was just wondering if perhaps you would be willing to show a new student around the school during the class period today...? You won't have to make up any work-I was just planning on having the class dissect a cow's tongue today."
"Oh, Mr. Barry, I'd love to!" she quickly interrupted. Sure, she wasn't in a very "friendly" mood early on a Monday morning, but getting out of a dissection lab sure sounded good to her!
"Daydreaming of your wanna-be sweetheart, Paaaige?" Jessica asked Zac in a mock tone dripping with honey.
Zac jumped in alarm and his eyes widened as he tore his eyes away from the framed picture of Paige Tay had placed on their bedstand in their hotel room, making sure his older brothers weren't in the room.
"Jessie, save it. I already told Paige how I feel and I don't need you bothering me about it any more."
Jessica was surprised. As much as she loved to tease Zac, she did feel sort of sorry for him---Paige was obviously still with Taylor and had to decline responding to Zac's feelings. Besides, Taylor had been getting on Jessica's nerves lately.
She felt her heart soften as she propped herself up on the bed beside Zac.
"Hey, I'm sorry I've been such a brat lately. If you need to talk about Paige or anything else, I'm here."
"Thanks, Jess, but you don't need to apologize. I've said some pretty harsh things to you, too-and I think I'll take you up on that offer-to talk. Y'know...you are the only person who knows about me liking Paige besides her and I...and I can't exactly talk to her about it, so...well, how about we go down the street to that little cafe we passed on the way here? I'll treat ya to some icecream and we'll talk over a little mint chocolate chip."
Jessica jumped up. "Really? Thanks, Zac!"
As the door to Mr. Barry's class room closed, the "new girl" started, "Sorry you have to show me around, but...atleast I got you out of having to cut open a cow's tongue!"
The two girls looked at each other and laughed.
"No, I'm happy to give you a tour of the school, uhh...sorry, I didn't catch your name."
"Diana! My name's Diana, and you are..."
"Paige! Hey, that's cool your name is Diana...my friends' mother's name is Diana!"
Paige heard Diana suck in her breath quickly. "Uhh...are you okay?"
"Yeah, umm, did I just hear you say your friendS' mom's name is DIANA?"
"Uh, yeah-why are you..."
"Well, your friendS...are there THREE of them?"
Uh-oh. Paige had blown it. For so long she had managed to keep it a secret to her school that she knew the band Hanson, but obviously this girl was a really dedicated Hanson fan. She looked up at Diana as if trying to decide whether she should answer the question.
Lately I have been spending a lot of time with the Hansons...and Sierra...Diana seems pretty nice. I've got a lot of friends, but it would be nice to have some one to talk to about Taylor...yeah, I could definitely use someone else to talk to...and she's new, she needs a friend, too... "Yeah...there are three of them," Paige agreed cautiously.
Diana could not believe this. When she heard the news from her mother that she had to move from Pennsylvania to Tulsa, she had been pretty bummed...the only light in the situation had been her hopes of seeing Hanson perform a concert in their hometown...she never expected to actually meet a friend of the Hansons! Of course, she would never use Paige...she wanted to be her friend. This was really, really cool though!
Diana noticed Paige watching her nervously, so Diana assured her, "Oh, don't worry-we don't have to talk about this now. And I won't tell anyone...I'm not interested in becoming your friend to get closer to the Hansons', either. Right now I'm just glad to have someone to show me around Jenks High School!"
Paige let out a sigh of relief and smiled as she led her new friend down the hall to give her a tour of the cafeteria, to show her where her locker was, and even to show her the bathrooms.
"I can't believe it's already Wednesday night! Only two more days until you're home!" Paige said enthusiastically to Taylor as she twirled her phone cord around her finger.
"I know...I can't wait."
"Sooo...what have you been doing in LA so far?" Paige asked Taylor curiously as she eased herself down onto the couch in her living room.
"Weeeeell, yesterday we had an interview for Bop Magazine, yesterday we had a press conference, and in a couple'a hours we have an appearance on Leno...you will be watching, right?"
Paige grinned, "Well actually...yeah. Since Katie didn't go with y'all to help babysit this time, we sort of planned a girl's night at my house...we're gonna paint our nails, eat some junk food, watch some movies, and watch yooooou guys become apprehensive over talking to Leno."
Taylor had not been expecting this, "Uhhh...do BOTH of you guys really have to watch us? THAT's what's gonna make me nervous, NOT Jay...he's sort of like an old friend by now...I mean, really, thinking of two girls we actually know are watching us talk about who knows what on national television.."
Paige felt like giving Taylor a big kiss. "Taylor, you are so cute. But y'know what? It's not really TWO girls that you know...it's actually THREE. Sierra's comin', too."
"Oh, great, now I'm gonna be even MORE nervous and..."
"Taylor? Will you hold on a sec? Someone's beeping me on the other line."
"Sure," he said weakly, fearing what the girls would say when they say the brothers on tv that night.
"Hello?" Paige welcomed in a bubbly voice.
"Hi..."
"Oh, hi, Diana! This is you, right? I'm so glad you called 'cuz I just wanted to ask you if maybe you'd like to come over tonight...I'm having Sierra...oh, you know Sierra, I introduced you at school, and Katie, umm, she babysits Avery and Mackenzie, sometimes Zoe and Jess, too...I'm sure you know who they are if you knew about Diana...well anyway, I'm having them stay over tonight to just hang out and we're going to watch Ike, Taylor, and Zac on Leno..it should be fun...but anyway, do you maybe want to come to?"
Omigosh, Diana was not sure if she could handle this. Watching her favorite band on tv in the same room as three of their best friends? This was too much, but it did sound really fun...
"Sure! I'd love to! What time should I come over?"
"Hmmm...it's about, what, six now? Is 7:30 okay?"
"Sounds great! Thanks, Paige...I really appreciate this!"
"You're very welcome...yeaaa this is so exciting having you over and everything...oh, but Diana, could you hold on for just a sec? Taylor's on the other line...I'll let him go so we can talk!"
"Ohh...Taylor? Not Isaac and Zac, too? Are you guys uhh...?"
Oops. Paige realized that she had probably just given away the fact that Taylor Hanson had a girlfriend. Maybe it was okay, though...Diana was her friend; she couldn't keep it from her. Yesterday Paige had had Taylor lie and say he did not have a girlfriend at the press conference...but this was different. Diana would still be a Hanson fan, anyway, and she was a friend...
"Yeah...I hope you're okay with that...umm, lemme let Taylor go and I'll tell ya everything..how we met, where we are exactly in a relationship, what they're like...umm...I'll be right back. Sorry!"
"Oh, you don't have to get off the phone with him! I can just call you back..."
"No! I wanna talk to you...honest...hold on."
Paige clicked back over and apologized to Tay for the wait. After talking to him for another couple of minutes or so, she smiled and said her goodbyes, switching back over to Di.
"Heeeey Diana...I just told Taylor about you and guess what!"
"Uh-oh...what'd you tell him? That I'm a big Hanson fan?" Diana asked, worried that he would think she was obsessed or something.
"No, actually, I did not mention to him at all that you had even heard of Hanson, much less knew who I was talking to on the phone. He said you sound really cool, and he suggested that this weekend after he gets back from California that we get a few people together...like you, me, him, Sierra, Ike, Billy (he's their neighbor) and we could rent some movies or something."
"Wow...that means a lot to me, Paige. Thanks! We could have it at my house...I'm sure my mom won't mind, and we'll be finished unpacking by then..."
"Cool! I can't wait! But for now...well, how about I just talk to you about those three when you get over to my house? I mean, you may feel weird talking about them in front of Katie, but you could get here a little early...."
"Sure! Is it okay if I have my mom bring me over in a few minutes?"
"Well...one time, we were on this mini-tour bus on our way to...Canada, I think it was...it was probably around 3 a.m. But anyway," Katie went on, "I was just sitting on the couch watching a movie, and all of a sudden I hear Taylor come up behind me and say 'Barney in an Arnold Schwartzenegger movie? Weird.'" Katie smiled and finished her story, "I thought something was very wrong with him because Barney wasn't even in the movie, much less Arnold...it turned out he was sleep walking!" This made everyone laugh, but then Paige exclaimed, "Omigosh! We're missing Leno, guys!" and she flipped on the television.
The interview had already begun...they had missed them singing.
"...I made a gumball that looks like your face," Zac said, smiling.
Dang it,Zac, I wish you'd stop trying to be cute, Isaac thought to himself.
"Sorry, guys, you know I have to ask this...do any of you have girlfriends?" Jay asked, trying to change the subject.
"Nope, no girlfriends," they said, and Zac seemed to frown slightly. Meanwhile at Paige's house...
"I can't believe Isaac and Taylor didn't tell the truth!" Diana exclaimed, very upset, "I mean, they shouldn't be ashamed of you two!"
"Diana, it's okay. We told them to say that...otherwise, we would be on one hundred thousand girls' death lists and some fans may lose interest," Sierra explained, standing up for Isaac.
"Oh, I guess I never thought about that. Sorry," Diana said.
"So, who wants some peanut butter fudge before we start Meet Joe Black?" Paige asked, trying to break the ice. All four girls' faces lit up.
"Fasten your seat belts; we are about to make our landing in Tulsa," a stewardess instructed over the intercom.
"Yes! We're finally home!" Zac stood up in his chair and shouted.
"Honey, you need to take a seat and put on your safety belt," the stewardess said, annoyed.
