Chapter 156
“Welcome
back to ‘Today.’ I’m Meredith Vieira,
live from Rockefeller Plaza with Matt and Al, and let me just say… the weather
may be a bit chilly on this October morning, but it is hot out here on the
Plaza because joining us today is the man all the girls have come out to see –
Backstreet Boy Nick Carter! His second
solo album, Back on the Right Foot, comes out today, and he’ll be
performing right here on the Plaza in just a few minutes. Nick Carter, welcome to ‘Today’!”
The hordes
of girls pressed against the barricades squealed, and Nick smiled around
graciously at them before turning to Meredith.
“Thanks. It’s great to be here,”
he spoke into his microphone. And it was
great. He couldn’t have been happier,
for today was the day he had been looking forward to for weeks, the day of his
album release. He had been out on the
road, making appearances and doing interviews, for several days now, but today
was the big day, the day when he could finally say, “The CD’s on the shelves
now. Go check it out.” It was always an incredible feeling.
“I can’t
say the same for Matt and Al here, but I know it’s been quite awhile since I’ve
seen you,” said Meredith. “If I’m not
mistaken, the last time I talked to you was when you performed on ‘The View’
for your first solo album, Now or Never, back in 2002.”
Nick licked
his lips and swallowed. “Right, right…
it has been awhile then.”
Meredith
laughed lightly. “A lot’s changed for
both of us since then. I know you’ve had
some serious issues in your personal life in the last few years, but it’s great
to have you back with a new album. Music
is the constant in your life; is that right?”
“Oh,
absolutely,” Nick nodded. “Most of the
time, music is my life. It’s
great to be back to doing what I love.”
“Well, I
know it’s great for your fans too. As
you can see, quite a few of them turned out to see you perform today.” Meredith made a sweeping gesture to the
crowd again, and Nick smiled as two of the cameramen scurried to pan across
them.
“I
appreciate it,” said Nick. “Thanks for
the support!”
The girls
squealed again. A few of them had posters
with Nick’s face or the album cover and things like “We © you, Nick!” written all over
them. Some things never changed.
“Now,
Nick,” Matt Lauer jumped in, “I have to ask you about this title. The new album is called Back on the Right
Foot. Can you tell us what the title
means to you?”
Nick did
his best to suppress a smirk. He had
been asked about the name of his album in almost every interview he had done so
far, mostly because people couldn’t believe he would give his own CD such a
blunt title. That was, if it really
meant what they thought it meant. Did
it? They all had to ask.
“Well, it’s
been six years since my last solo project, and, like Meredith said, I’ve been
through some pretty rough patches in my life in those six years, and there were
times when I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to do another Backstreet Boys album,
let alone one of my own. But, obviously,
I’ve released a couple of Bsb records since then, and now I’ve got another solo
record coming out, and so I really feel like I’m back on track with where I
wanna be in the music business… back on the right foot, you know?”
That was
the standard bullshit answer Nick had been feeding everyone. The truth was, of course, that the album
title had started out as a joke, a pun he’d made one day while he was still in
the studio, and when he could not think of anything better, Nick had thought up
a meaning to go along with it, besides its literal one, and decided, ‘What the
hell?’ The joke title was now scrawled
across millions of albums worldwide.
He let his
smile return as he saw the way Matt and Meredith were nodding, straight-faced,
and then he added, “There’s also a more literal meaning.” Pulling up his left pant-leg, he added with
a smirk, “I’m always on the right foot these days.”
Matt
chuckled, while Meredith looked both amused and embarrassed at being
amused. Nick smiled easily, letting them
know it was okay to laugh. He and
Kenneth had laughed a lot the day they’d made the title official.
“Seriously,
I think it’s a good move,” Kenneth had advised.
“It’ll let people know you still have a sense of humor, that you can
laugh at yourself. Then no one can laugh
at you; they’ll be laughing with you… you know what I’m saying?”
Nick had
known what he was saying, and now, a month or so later, here he was, laughing
along with the hosts of the Today show.
“It’s
always refreshing to talk with celebrities who have a sense of humor, and you
obviously do,” Matt said to Nick. “I’ve
heard people say before that the only way they could get through certain trials
in their life is to keep a sense of humor.
Would you say that’s true for you too?
As Meredith mentioned, you’ve certainly been through some trials in the
last few years.”
“Oh yeah,
for sure,” replied Nick, swallowing again.
“A sense of humor’s always important.
It’s not always easy, but sometimes, I think you just need to learn how
to laugh at yourself. Don’t take
yourself so seriously, you know? I’ve
tried to get myself to that point, where I can just laugh at myself and go,
‘You know, this is me. Take it or leave
it.’”
“We’ll take
you!” Meredith chimed in, playfully grabbing his shoulder. “Right, girls??”
A fresh
chorus of squeals rose from the crowd, and Nick smiled again, a warm feeling
rising inside of him.
“Well,
Nick, we’re going to let you go get warmed up for your performance in a few
minutes, and before that happens, let’s turn it over to Al for a check with the
weather. Al?”
On the
other side of the Plaza, Al Roker jumped in with his weather report, and Nick
was led to the stage he would be performing on, where his band was already set
up, off-camera. He had already done a
sound check, and as soon as the live feed went to a commercial break, he got
warmed up for the first song in his set, his single.
The first
performance went well, and when the show took another commercial break after
“Bruised Not Broken,” Nick kept performing for the crowd outside as planned,
though he changed the order of the songs.
Only one other performance would be televised, he had been told, and he
had planned to sing the song that would probably end up being his second
single. But, in the course of his
interview with Meredith and Matt, Nick had changed his mind. There was another song, a different song,
that he felt like singing today, not just for the people in the plaza, but for
the television audience as well… just in case she was watching…
“Welcome
back to Today,” Meredith smiled into the camera when the show returned
from the second commercial break. “I’m
Meredith Vieira, back on the Plaza, where Nick Carter is about to perform
another song off his new album, Back on the Right Foot, in stores
today. Nick, would you like to introduce
this one?”
Standing on
the stage next to a lone grand piano, Nick rested his hand on the piano’s sleek
black top and pulled the microphone towards him. “I wrote this song about three years ago, for
the person who taught me how to keep my sense of humor through everything. I dunno if you’re out there watching or not,
Ren, but if you are… this one’s for you.
This is ‘Live for You.’”
***
Sitting at
home on her couch, in her pajamas, Claire’s mouth fell open as she stared at
her TV screen.
It was
filled with the image of a grand piano, a man leaned over it, his fingers
moving gracefully over the keys as he played a soft, mournful prelude, but a
moment earlier, there had been Nick, his blue eyes seeming to stare right
through the screen as he said, “This one’s for you.”
For me, she thought, watching in wonder as
the camera panned out to include Nick in the shot. He had stepped away from the piano and put
the mic back in its stand, ready to sing.
She listened intently, and when he finally opened his mouth, she drank
up every word.
“I thought I’d reached my breaking
point,
Every ounce of my strength gone,
But when I thought I couldn’t walk any
further,
You’re the one who helped me carry on.
“It would have been so easy
To give into the pain,
Let the walls close in around me
And forfeit the game.
“I wanted to give up,
I just wanted it all to end;
Who knew that in my darkest hour
I would see the light again…”
Tears
filled Claire’s eyes as she watched Nick sing.
He looked so good, so fit and healthy, and he seemed happy, but she
could remember the weeks and months when he had been anything but, when he had
been so miserable and depressed that she had worried more about his emotional
state than his physical health. A part
of her had been truly scared that he really would give up and try to end it
all.
But Nick
was strong, stronger than even he thought he was, and of course he hadn’t tried
anything. He had gotten through
everything on his own, through his own strength and will, not because of
anything she had done. And yet, here he
was, singing to her, as if she were the reason he was alive…
“You opened my eyes to everything I
could be,
And I would do it all again,
If I knew when it was over,
You would be the first person I would
see.
“Through all the lies I’ve been told,
You’re the only thing in my life that
stayed true...”
And when I didn’t want to live for me,
You made me live for you…”
It’s not true, thought Claire sadly, stricken with
guilt and shame. I didn’t stay true
to him. I left him. I hurt him…
The camera
zoomed in for a close-up shot of Nick’s face, and as it did, his eyes found its
focus. Suddenly, he was staring through
the TV screen again, his blue eyes like tractor beams, slowly reeling her
in. She gazed back, unable to look
away.
“So the least I can do is return the
favor.
Know that I’ll always be by your
side…”
One corner
of his mouth twitched upward as he sang, but Claire could tell that the smile
was not genuine. Not really. She knew him too well; she could read him
like a book, and she could see the heartbreak deep within his eyes.
“The world can turn against us,
But together… we’ll be alright…”
Together, she thought, Nick’s image swimming
before her eyes. He had written these
lyrics when they were together. And if
she had known, she would have agreed.
They had been through it all together; it seemed nothing could break
them, as long as they loved each other.
But something had broken them. She
had broken them. She had destroyed the
very thing Nick had thought he could always count on – their love.
And yet,
she had never fallen out of love with him.
Watching him sing, feeling her heart thumping against her ribs, Claire
knew she would never completely fall out of love with Nick Carter. He still had a piece of her pounding heart,
and he always would. She knew he had to feel
the same about her, or he wouldn’t have put this song on his album.
After all
this time, he was still in love with her.
She could see it in his eyes. And
if he had truly been able to look through her TV screen, he would have seen the
same expression in hers. But along with
it was guilt. Guilt, because she had a
husband, whom she also loved, and it seemed almost adulterous to stare at her
ex-fiancée on television and realize that she still had feelings for him. Guilt, because she had moved on without Nick,
and here he was singing to her in spite of it.
Had he ever
really moved on? She thought he had,
many times, but every once in awhile, when she looked closely at him, she
started to wonder what he was really thinking and feeling.
She thought
of the women he had dated since her, and how none of them had worked out for
him.
Was he alright?
Then her
thoughts turned to Jamie, the only man she had been with since Nick, and the
shaky marriage they’d been struggling to hold onto. And she had to ask herself…
Was she?
***
Hours
later, Claire sat alone in her SUV in a far corner of the local K-Mart parking
lot, her mind filled with memories, her ears filled with the sweet sounds of
Nick’s voice.
In her lap
sat his new CD, the plastic wrapping torn away, tossed haphazardly next to its
receipt on the passenger seat next to her.
She’d gone to buy the new album and, after hearing Nick sing the song
he’d written about her on TV that morning, she couldn’t resist tearing it open
and popping it into the car’s stereo the minute she’d climbed inside.
She was
already on the fourth track, and she hadn’t yet made a move to put the car into
gear. It sat idling in its parking spot,
while she poured over the album jacket, studying every picture of Nick, every
lyric, every word of his liner notes.
There was no message to her in the thank-yous at the back of this
album’s booklet, but it didn’t matter.
This time, the thank-you was in the lyrics, the lyrics of the song “Live
for You,” the second-to-last track on the album. The song was incredibly beautiful, and the
lyrics were touching, though Claire felt she didn’t deserve the credit. Nick had not lived just for her; he had lived
for himself. He was living his own life
now, a life which she was hardly part of anymore.
And as she
listened to him sing and stared down at his picture, staring back at her from
the album jacket, she regretted that.
She missed being able to see him every day, being able to spend time
with him without feeling like she was doing something wrong. He had been such a big part of her life for
so long, and now it seemed they only saw each other when one of them needed
something. She hadn’t seen Nick since he
had come to be with her after the selective reduction, over a month ago.
Yet, as she
continued to flip through the album jacket, vivid memories from much further in
the past took over her thoughts. With a
wave of déjà vu, she remembered how she had poured over every detail of his
first solo album, Now or Never, a few months after she had met him. It was the first time she’d really paid any
attention to his music, and she had been surprised to find that she actually
liked it. She remembered listening to it
while she was in the hospital for her bone marrow transplant. Nick had teased her about it, but she knew he
had been secretly pleased that she liked it.
And though the memory was foggy and dreamlike, she remembered him
singing “Who Needs the World” at her bedside.
In her mind, his voice had sounded as beautiful then as it did on the
studio-recorded track that was playing in her car now.
Glancing up
at the numbers on the face of her CD player, she realized the album was already
almost half-over, and she’d been sitting in this parking spot for over twenty
minutes now. I need to get home,
she realized, remembering she had groceries in the trunk. But even as she went to set the album jacket
aside, her eyes lingered on it, drawn to the picture on the last page.
It was of
Nick, and he was boxing, sparring an invisible partner in an old-fashioned
looking ring, his fists covered by a battered pair of boxing gloves, their
leather worn and torn. The photo was
obviously staged, and yet, it was symbolic; Nick’s jaw set with determination,
a steely look in his eyes, dressed in a grubby wifebeater and shorts that
showed his flexed arm muscles and robotic leg.
His face
looked bloody and bruised, and she, like nearly everyone else who would see
this picture, assumed it was makeup, not realizing that beneath the crusted
fake blood lay the real injuries her own husband had inflicted on him. The imprint of knuckles on his cheek matched
the fist of Jamie, who had gotten in one good punch the night before he moved
Claire to Des Moines. Jamie, who had not
been there for her during her transplant, nor the selective reduction. Jamie, who would never write a song for her
or sing to her when she was sick. Jamie,
who was expecting her to have dinner on the table when he got home from work.
Sighing,
she pushed the album jacket away and put the car into drive, pulling forward
out of her parking space. She had every
intention of going home to put her groceries away and start on dinner, but she
didn’t. Instead, she drove around for
over an hour, navigating winding country roads in circles as Nick’s album
finished and started over again.
Finally,
when “Live for You” had played for a second time, and the sun had sunk low
enough to glare right into her eyes, Claire turned the SUV around and headed
for home.
***