Kara strolled into her office Monday morning and found a note on her desk from her boss.
Kara shrugged. It could be anything. She sat down at her desk and turned on her computer.
“You’ve Got Mail!” the mechanical AOL voice said.
Kara pressed the button and waited as the page loaded.
“It’s from JC!” her face lit up. She loved hearing from him.
The email read: Hey Kara! We’ve just finished up our ‘No Strings Attached’ tour, and I’m sure you saw us on the MTV Awards 2 days ago. Anyway, since I’m on vacation now, I’m inviting you to Florida for a week. You can chill with me and the guys, and don’t worry, I’ll protect you from Chris! Anyways, give me a shout-out and tell me when you can come. Later big cuz. JC.
“Hmm… I’m not going on vacation anytime soon… I don’t know.” She laughed at JC’s comment about Chris. She was a little shy around Chris now that they had dated and… stopped dating, and JC kidded her about it.
“Thank you doctor,” Lynnsey’s mother said.
Lynnsey laid her head against her mother’s shoulder and sobbed. The doctor had just approached them in the waiting room, taken both of them in the hall, and told them that Lynnsey’s father’s cancer had spread. The doctors predicted that he would only survive for six months.
“Who’s going to walk me down the aisle when I get married?” Lynnsey whispered to her mom.
“Don’t think about that right now, sweetie,” her mom whispered back.
Lynnsey felt as if everything was falling down on her.
“Mom… I think I’m going to take next semester off… finish over the summer. If you have to leave your job to be here every day, I can at least leave school for a little while to be with you. I want to see him every day I can… I’ll move home for the next 4 months. Can…can I do that?”
Lynnsey’s mom nodded. “Of course, if you want to. He’ll want to be able to see you as much as he can.”
“Mom… does he know what the doctors found out yet?”
“No… they’re going to tell him soon, though. He’s strong, he’ll handle it OK.” Tears slipped out of Lynnsey’s mother’s eyes, and she quickly wiped them away.
Canada “Look, I’m going down to Tampa in a week, so you guys will have to do that radio station interview without me,” Kevin said.
“That’s OK,” Nick said.
“Yeah, Kevin…” Brian said in a fake, sad voice. “We’ll survive… somehow…someway.” Brian let out a fake sob, and laid his head on AJ’s shoulder. AJ pulled away.
Nick left the group and went to the hotel room he and Brian were sharing. He opened his suitcase and pulled out the piece of paper with two phone numbers on it. Gretchen Jones’s dainty handwriting spelled out ‘My cell and beeper numbers.’ He stared at the hotel telephone, and contemplated whether to pick up the receiver. ‘Maybe it’s too soon,’ he thought. No. He wanted to talk to her badly.
Before he could change his mind,he quickly picked up the phone and dialed Gretchen’s cell phone number. His heart sped up as it started to ring. ‘Be cool, Carter,” he thought to himself.
“Hello?” It was her.
“Gretchen?”
“Yes? Who’s this?”
“This is Nick. Nick Carter.”
“Oh… hey! How are you?”
“I’m great… where are you at right now?” he asked.
“I’m in Los Angeles. I got back from London this morning, and I’m back at the studio recording. I’m on a break right now, though.”
“Oh, so I caught you at a perfect time. I’m in Toronto right now. We’re doing a photo shoot for a magazine tomorrow, and then we have a radio station interview to do next week. In between the shoot and the interview, we’ll probably be doing different kinds of stuff. We have a varied schedule every day,” he told her.
“I know how it is…”
“Are you going to be in Los Angeles for long?” Nick asked.
“Yeah, for about 3 months. Then I go on vacation, and so I’ll go back to Georgia for a month or two.”
“Well, me and the guys are coming to Los Angeles in 3 weeks. Maybe I could… see you then?”
“Sure… we could do something,” she said. “Play basketball, maybe. They have this beautiful park about a mile from the studio. There’s always people there, playing basketball and picnicking.”
Nick grinned. That was his kind of girl! “That sounds great.”
They talked for a few more minutes, and then Nick heard in the background someone telling her she needed to get back to work.
“I have to go, okay? I’m glad you called. I’ll talk to you again soon, OK?” Gretchen said.
“OK. Bye.”
“Bye.”
Nick hung up, and he felt… different. Lighter. Mellow. In good spirits.
“Nick, wanna come get something to eat? … why are you smiling like that?” Brian asked, sticking his head in the door.
“Like what?”
“… You know what? I don’t even want to know. It has to be a girl.”
“Not just any girl, Rok. A cool one.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that from you before. Let’s go to McDonald’s.”
Nick got defensive. “I don’t talk about all women like that.”
“Yes, you do. They’re all special at one point to you. Come on, Nick. You know it’s the truth. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. You’re only 20.”
“Well, maybe you’re right. Whatever. Let’s go.”
‘He’s right,’ Nick thought. ‘This is no different from all the other times I met a girl I liked. Right.’
“I’ve gone and been a jerk again,” he said. “She’s mad, but it’s my fault.” That was the only explanation he gave. He left the hotel room, and Howie shrugged.
“At least he has a girlfriend to fight with. I haven’t dated in who knows how long!” Howie said.
“Six months,” Nick piped up.
“Shut up,” Howie said.
AJ flipped the channels on the TV, and settled on ‘Entertainment Tonight.’
“Maybe they’ll talk about us,” AJ said.
“I hope not,” Kevin replied.
AJ groaned loudly as Michelle Colback’s face came on the screen.
“She’s pretty,” Howie said.
“You don’t hate her as much as you make it seem, AJ,” Kevin said.
“Yes… I do.”
“Whatever.”
“What do you need, Mr. Donahue?”
“Well, we’re doing a cover story at the end of the month… the ‘Most Intriguing People’ one, you know, and we’re thinking of featuring the Backstreet Boys. They’ve been very successful for the past year, and they in fact, intrigue many people. I want you to interview them.”
“Huh?” She had never done an interview with anyone more famous than with the guy who ate nails and metal!
“They’re going to be in Los Angeles in 3 weeks, and you’re going to have to fly up there, meet them, and spend the day with them. We want this article to be full of things no one ever knew about the Backstreet Boys. You get what I’m insinuating?”
Kara nodded.
“Good. I’ll have more information for you later this week.”
Kevin fidgeted with his jacket zipper as he waited for the elevator doors to open. He didn’t like hospitals. They reminded him of his dad, they reminded him of Brian’s heart surgery…
As he walked to the supervisor’s office, he felt a rush of anxiety. He got to the office, and walked in.
“Kevin, so good to see you. Have a seat,” the supervisor, Dr. Harvey said.
The fundraiser was to begin in a few hours, and Kevin’s job was to guest DJ on this Tampa radio station that was there, answer questions from fans, and encourage people to call in.
Kevin left the office, and walked back down the hall. He had a hotel room reserved at the hotel next door. He was about to walk right past a waiting room, when a peculiar sound made him stop. He looked in, and there was a redheaded girl, sitting on the couch, her face buried in her hands. She was crying. He slowly approached her.
“Are you OK?”
The girl chuckled bitterly.
“I’ll take that as a no. Can I help?”
“Unless you have a cure for lung cancer, no, I don’t think you can.”
Kevin sat down. “Will you tell me about it?”
She looked at him suspiciously. “You look familiar…”
He disregarded the comment. “Why are you crying?”
She sighed. “My dad has lung cancer… and there’s not much hope that he’ll live longer than six months.”
Kevin felt a wave of remembrance, and he placed his hand over hers.
“I know how you feel,” he said.
Then he had come, and she felt better… not so alone anymore.
He entered the room with two cokes in hand.
“You feeling any better?” he asked.
“Yes, thank you,” she answered.
“Kevin… what’s your last name?” she asked.
“Richardson…” he said cautiously.
Nope. Still didn’t ring a bell.
Gretchen hung up the phone, feeling down. She hadn’t seen anyone in her family for a month. She had never gone that long without seeing one of them. She was staying in a condo while in Los Angeles, and it was beautiful. She laid down in bed, and pulled out her photo album that she brought with her everywhere. She opened it, and sifted through the pictures. All of them had been taken her junior year of high school, which at the end of, she had left to record her first album. They were of her, and her friends, and from dances and stuff.
She flipped through them, smiling at the sight of some, laughing at others. She frowned though, when one fell out from the back. It was of her and Brandon.
‘I thought I threw all the pictures of us away,’ Gretchen thought. She ripped the picture up and threw it away. She didn’t want to remember Brandon, or all the pain he had put her through. But it was those memories that kept her scared to ever go out with anyone again.