In an Mmmbop--Chapter 2

Cried

*Warning: This chapter contains strong adult language* ...as if Rachel/The Documentary Star didn't! ;o) I'm also overexaggerating my parents juuuust a tad!

    Rachel walked into school. It was Monday again and she was still glowing from the Hanson's proposition. The Hanson brothers wanted her! She caught herself. Don't become an average fan! she told herself and she pulled everything together.

    Rachel prided herself in not being the average fan. She wasn't going to obsess over them and, upon meeting them, she didn't jump up and down like a damned idiot! There was a thin line between admiration and obsession that she dared never cross.

    She went to band class and sat down, getting her oboe ready and she watched as Steve ignored her. It was easy. She was used to it. She hated it, but was used to it. She watched as a girl hung on to him wildly and whispered things in his ears and nuzzled him and all Steve could do was smile like a pervert. Funny how it was girls like her got all the attention.

    So she sat in her place in the band and rehearsed for the period, blowing into her oboe warmly and playing beautifully. She messed up on one of her solos that she usually didn't and cursed herself under her breath.

    Class ended and Rachel put her oboe away on her shelf. Christi, too, had a solo with Rachel in the particular piece they were playing.

    "Oh, man!" Christi said and stomped her foot on the spit riddled floor. Christi was rounded out and had wavy blonde hair. She spoke with a slight lisp and always had a sparkling smile, "I totally messed the solo up for us!..."

    "Oh, come on Christi!" Rachel laughed "You didn't screw up as much as I did!"

    Steve stepped over and put his arm around Christi, who he and Rachel had only known for a year as opposed to their four-year friendship. Steve smiled his hazel eyes at Christi.

    "Oh, Christi!" he smiled, fixing his black hair, "It's okay! You're the best saxophone player I've ever heard! You'll do better next time!"

    Rachel saw this and smiled, but became angry inside.

    "Man!" she came in non-chalantly, causing Steve and Christi to pay attention, "I messed that solo up, too!"

    Steve had removed his arm from Christi and he looked at Rachel as she spoke.

    "I just can't believe I messed up that run!"

    "Well," Steve shrugged "Life goes on!... Life's tough!" and he walked away to talk to his friend Irene.

    Rachel scowled. To mess up even worse than Christi did was more sympathetic than Christi's fluke.

    Christi laughed.

    "Don't worry, Rachel," she consoled "I don't know anyone who could top you at oboe playing!"

    Rachel smiled. Christi was her friend and glad she was. But Steve still favored Christi over herself.
She looked after Steve and chuckled in disbelief. Then,

    I'm gonna be with Hanson this summer she thought slyly But Steve doesn't need to know that! He's got all his 'friends' to worry about!

    And so that day went on. No time for Rachel, no friend in Steve.

Rachel went through the motions of her day as always with the same old school subjects and jargon. She had to suffer in Spanish where everyone was obviously a complete idiot, and in art where she was one of the worst artists, despite her wide spread praise. She had to sit, being bored, waiting for summer to come, which wasn't too far off, now that she thought of it. Only a couple of weeks. Four to be exact! If her parents said "yes" and the Hanson family figured out everything they needed and talked it over, she could be playing and touring with Hanson, instead of working at her monotonous job.

"And this can be proved by the right angle theorem, also proving the tangent ratio of the angles..."
Rachel copied notes in math. A pain, but she knew she had to learn it. She'd be home soon.

     Rachel sat on her bed and took out her sketchbook. A wild face of rage came from her pencil onto the paper. She tried to make it as frustrated as possible. Dark circles look good she said to herself And tired hands she said taking her talents to work.

    "Hey, you dork!" Rachel's big little brother bashed through her door. He stood 6 feet tall and weighed over 200 pounds. He was a powerful wuss, a luck laced clueless boy. He was, quite literally in all senses of the word, an oxymoron. A paradox of sorts. "Can I borrow 20 bucks?"

    Rachel laughed and placed her sketchbook down "Get out of here 'homey'!" she made a goofy face and emphasized 'homey' sarcastically. "'lest I lay da smack down on yo' ass!" she mocked him, chortling.

    "Anyway," he shook his head as if he didn't know his own sister "Those Hanson fags are here...again!"

    "I love your vocabulary; it's sooo....lacking!..." she retorted sarcastically.

    "Whatever," her brother came into her room more.

    Rachel perked up and jumped off the bed and her brother eyed her drawing.

    "Nice self portrait, dumb-ass!" he chuckled spitefully.

    Rachel looked back at him, stopping her exit and growled, "It's not supposed to be me, dip-shit!"

    She composed herself and walked up to the brothers, standing in the hallway. She shook hands with them and they sat down and spoke with her.

    "Well," Walker said at the table, folding his hands together. The brothers stood behind their father and Rachel's father sat at the table as they conversed "We discussed it and looked at the song compositions and, all things considered, we'd like to have you along on the Hanson tour!"

    Rachel slowly smiled with pride. She started to laugh and looked around her, exchanging glances with the brothers who smiled, and then with Walker who chuckled at her. She then looked at her father who looked on confused and upset.

    "Really?" she giggled "I can't believe this! Really?"

    Isaac started to laugh and the other two saw the humor in it.

    "Of course!" he said.

    "Well," her father growled gruffly "I don't know...we're, uh, going to have to discuss this with her mother...."

    Rachel scowled off to the side. You're getting a little old, Dad... She had never been so mean spirited towards her parents, but now she just was mad. You're becoming an old grumpy windbag...

    "Oh, of course!" Walker stated matter-of-factly "You always have to make decisions as a family!"

    Rachel smiled. This religion type stuff should sock Dad at home--he's the one with the cross hanging from his rear view window. She then thought of religious conflicts that she might have with the Hanson family, being so far from religion herself. Oh, well, she consoled herself, I can live with it for three months!

     "Yes," her father grumbled disrespectfully at Walker "So we'll talk this over later..."

    Rachel stood up from the table and the boys looked at her and her locked jaw. She then cleared her throat, "I, uh, didn't show you guys my artwork, Saturday..." she started and motioned to her room and the three looked to their father for approval, which was gained.

    Rachel led the three up the short, crammed hall and opened her door room. A whiff of acrylics and paint ventured out and she recoiled and laughed "You don't notice that until you've been gone for a while!"

    "Or not here at all!" Taylor laughed and she led them in and they stood there and gazed, absorbing their...well...odd environment.

    "Okay," she smiled embarrassed at the Hanson pictures on her wall and CDs in her stereo "So it doesn't seem like I'm any different from an average fan, but I am!" she reassured them.

    "Well," Zac informed her as if she didn't know, "You didn't hop up and down and scream like a maniac and cry 'I love you! I love YOU!'" and he demonstrated this to her.

    She smiled almost afraid of the hyper little boy! Taylor reasoned, as usual, "It's those girls who keep us where we are today!"

    Rachel rolled her eyes to herself. That was Tay’s little catch-phrase!

"Hey," Isaac picked up the painting Rachel was working on and gazed at his own well-composed acrylic face, "This is so awesome!"

    "Thanks!" Rachel said, grooming a piece of hair delicately from her face as Isaac smiled at her, impressed, but he couldn't tell--was he impressed with the painting, or with her?

    "OH!" Zac grabbed his head in realization. He then grabbed a tube of her expensive acrylics "That's how you use them!"

    "Oh, yes, the feeling of being clueless with the expensive art supplies!" she reminisced and looked to Zac "You'll get over that as you get older!"

    The three had gathered around the painting and ooh-ed and ahh-ed at it. Zac was impressed at her talent for the most part. He saw what he could be if he tried at it. Taylor and Isaac were completely impressed. Almost too impressed.

    The brothers had left, informing that they had to go back home and do some last minute touches on tours and tour dates and gave Rachel their phone number telling her to inform them as soon as possible if she could go.

    Rachel sat down with her parents in the living room. It was getting dark and the only light on was the one on the table in the corner.

    "No," Ron put bluntly.

    Rachel's heart sank her hopes dropped. She looked over at her mother who, because of an abusive previous marriage, had a little trouble standing up for people when things were tense. "What?" she asked, astonished, but fully expecting the answer given to her by her father. She never backed down. She was a rebel, if not direct, then indirect. But now was not a time to be indirect.

    "I could have a chance to tour around the country, see the world, and perform music saxophone in front of thousands of people and get housing with a nice family, and--"

    "I don't like that Walker man!" Ron snapped, "They're up to something..."

    Rachel couldn't believe this.

    "Rachel, you can't trust anybody these days!"

    "THEY'RE FUCKING CHRISTIANS!" she blurted out. Actually, she wasn’t sure of that, but they were pretty close! Swearing was common in her household. She continued, emphasizing any noun she came across, "I'll be in the shadow of the Hanson public eye! What? Are the HANSON boys gonna murder me and blame it on the damned SPICE GIRLS, or something? Yeah, they're gonna plant a bomb in my sax and frame me for assassinating the BACKSTREET BOYS!"

    "Rachel!" her mother scolded giving her a look that she should stop while she was ahead--of course that 'being ahead' was in negative numbers. "Who knows what those big-headed male rock stars will do to a girl!"

    "MOM!" she yelled "You're not helping any!"

    "Shut up, Rachel!" he father snapped.

    "Oh, oh," she laughed wildly "You guys...you guys who think Hanson are a bunch of high-pitched, panty waist teeny-boppers think that, oh, sex crazed Zac's gonna rape me? Oh, oh, yeah, that's very CHRISTIAN-LIKE! Saying that that family would ever let something bad happen to me is like saying that my family gives me the chance to...I dunno, 'expand my horizons'!" she hated quoting stupid new-age books and sermons, but it was all she could think of.

    "FINE!" her mother bleated "Just get the Hell outta here if you think that Hanson family's so much better than ours!"

    "Just don't expect to come back home when your done!" her father growled.

    "Ha!" she laughed with rage and ran up to her room and quickly packed a suitcase with all she thought she needed.

    "What the Hell am I doing?" she said to herself momentarily. "I can't go anywhere now!" she threw a shirt to the ground and stood in thought, contorting her face, "I've still got three...or four ...I dunno...a couple weeks 'till I can actually leave!" she shook her head and fell atop her bed. She almost cried, but didn't. She hadn't cried recently except for Saturday. After she had gotten over her ex-boyfriend, Carl, there was just nothing to cry about. There were things to get incredibly mad about, but not cry.

    She then looked at some papers Walker had given her about medical releases and legalities that were beyond her. She wonder what her parents would do with them...

Rachel walked in from school the next day and ventured into her room. She picked up the colored legal forms in her hand and smiled; her mother signed them all. Amazing are the things people do when they're half asleep and need to wake up at 6 in the morning to take you to school early so you can "finish your homework. She picked up the phone.

She dailed.

    She heard a few rings.

    "Hello, Walker Hanson speaking, may I help you?"

    "Walker? This is Rachel. I'll be ready June 16th, 8 am, legal papers, oboe, saxophone..." she smiled slyly "...guitar. No later."

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