Chapter 55
The
following night, Claire padded down the stairs in a comfy pair of pajama pants
and the same scruffy leopard-print slippers she’d had for years, having
resigned herself to a quiet Saturday night in, for lack of anything better to
do. Dianna, who was usually up for a
‘girls night,’ had a date with some guy she’d met through work, so Claire
figured she’d hear all the details about that over the phone later.
For now,
she sank down onto the couch in front of the TV and picked up the TV guide that
lay on the coffee table in front of her.
Leafing through it, she scanned the night’s television offerings. Lots of scary movies on, she noticed –
Halloween was just over a week away.
Which reminded her, she’d get to see Nick in a week. He was flying her out to LA on Friday for a
long weekend and had promised to take her to a Halloween party she’d never
forget.
Smiling at
the thought, she turned on the TV and started flipping through the channels,
waiting until something caught her eye.
A movie was starting on HBO, so she left that channel on. She supposed she should have changed the
channel when she realized what it was – a horror movie called Saw that
she vaguely remembered coming out in theaters the year before – but after
watching for a few minutes, she was too caught up in it to turn away.
By an hour
into it, she was too disgusted to pop herself some popcorn and so on edge that
when her cell phone rang, she jumped, her heart skipping a beat. Letting her breath out in a shuddering gasp,
she steadied herself, trying to calm her racing heart, and reached for the
phone. She checked the caller ID and was
relieved to see Laureen’s name and number appear – there was no way she would
have answered it if it had been a number she didn’t recognize.
“Hello?”
she said faintly, turning down the volume on the TV.
“Hey,
Claire!” came Laureen’s chipper voice.
“What’s up?”
“Oh, not
much, just scaring the crap out of myself,” answered Claire, casting a dark
look at the television screen. “How
about you?”
Laureen
laughed. “Uhh, not too much. Just calling to see if you wanted to go to a
movie or something. Tim and I were
supposed to go, but he’s not feeling well, so…”
“Yeah,
sure!” said Claire, brightening. “Can we
maybe see something light? A comedy or
something?”
“Sure,
sounds good. You want me to come pick
you up?”
“Yeah, that
sounds fine. You remember where I live,
right?” asked Claire teasingly.
Laureen
giggled. “I sure do. I’ll be there in half an hour, and we can
catch a 9:00 show, okay?”
“Cool. See ya in a bit,” said Claire and hung
up. Tossing the phone aside, she looked
down at her frumpy, pajama-clad self and groaned. Aww man, I have to get dressed again?
***
“Thanks for
calling me, Laureen; I needed to get out of that house for a couple of hours,”
said Claire as Laureen navigated the familiar streets back to Nick’s
house. The two had gone to see a new
comedy that had just opened in theaters the day before, and Claire had enjoyed
it immensely. She liked movies that made
her laugh much more than ones that left her freaked out and paranoid. Being scared could be fun, but not when she
was facing a whole night alone in a gigantic house that was still new to her.
Speaking of which… she thought, as Laureen turned into
the long driveway that led up to Nick’s house.
The lights outside the mansion blazed brightly, but it still looked
somewhat ominous to Claire as she thought back to the movie she’d been watching
before. Don’t be ridiculous, she
scolded herself, but she couldn’t keep her mind from conjuring up the
frightening image of the freakish, oversized clown mask worn by the killer in
the movie. In Saw, he’d lurked in
the darkness of people’s closets, waiting to abduct them and subject them to
his twisted games. Despite all rational
thoughts, she couldn’t help but shudder.
As Laureen
pulled her car around the circle at the bottom of the driveway and lurched to a
stop in front of the house, Claire turned to her impulsively and asked, “Hey,
you wanna come in for a drink or something?”
Even in the
dim light, Claire could see Laureen’s whole face brighten. “Yeah, sure!”
Claire had
the suspicion that Laureen was more excited about getting to go inside Nick’s
house than she was about having drinks with her, but she didn’t care one bit;
she was glad for the company.
They got
out of the car and walked up to the front door, which Claire unlocked and then
held open as she ushered Laureen in.
“Wow,” breathed Laureen as she stepped into the foyer.
Claire
giggled as she shut the door behind them, locking it again. “Want the grand tour?”
“You bet I
do!”
Claire took
her all through the house, walking her through some rooms, giving her peeks
into others. They ended in the kitchen,
where Claire put her hands on her hips and said thoughtfully, “So… what do you
want to drink? I could make margaritas,
or we have beer, of course, and I think a few different bottles of wine… or we
could run to the store and grab some ‘bitch drinks’ or something.”
“A
margarita would be good, if you don’t mind,” said Laureen.
“No, sounds
good. My friend Dianna and I make ‘em
all the time, cause she doesn’t like beer,” Claire chattered on, as she got out
the blender and the tequila and started mixing the ingredients. “Hey, would you open that cupboard and get
down a couple of margarita glasses?” she asked over the hum of the
blender. “They’re lime green – yeah,
there you go,” she added, as Laureen brought a couple of thin-stemmed glasses
down from the middle shelf of one of the cupboards. “Thanks,” she said, shutting off the blender
and eyeing her concoction.
“No
problem,” chirped Laureen. She reached
up to close the cupboard door again, then paused. “That’s a lot of medicine,” she commented.
Claire
glanced up, realizing she’d had Laureen open the cupboard that contained, among
other things such as the margarita glasses, the prescription bottles containing
all of the medications she had to take.
A few chemotherapy drugs, which were much milder than the IV kind she
had used to take, as well as immunosuppressant drugs that kept her from
rejecting her brother’s bone marrow. She
swallowed a small handful of pills morning and night, but it was nothing
compared to the amount of medication she’d taken before and immediately after
the bone marrow transplant. Still, she
knew the sight of all those bottles could be intimidating.
“I know,”
she said wryly, making a face. “That
shelf actually looks kind of sparse; usually there’s a few bottles of Nick’s stuff
there too.” Seeing Laureen pale, she
added, “Don’t worry… I know it looks like a lot, but it’s pretty standard. We’ll both have to take this stuff for at
least a few more years, just as a precaution, you know.”
Laureen
nodded. “I figured. Just… wow.”
Claire gave
her a tight-lipped smile. “Yeah… well,
now that I’ve probably gone and depressed you… margarita?” She offered Laureen the glass she’d just
filled with the light yellow mix.
Laureen laughed, easing any awkwardness that had risen, and took the
glass, immediately raising it to her lips.
“Mm, you
know how to make them,” she said, swallowing a sip.
“Thanks,”
smiled Claire, pouring her own. They
took the drinks out onto the back deck.
The October heat had fallen with the sun, and it was quite pleasant
outside. Conversation flowed easily
between the two of them. Claire was
still getting to know Laureen, but she was really friendly and easy to talk to.
“So how are
you and Tim doing?” Claire asked after awhile, curious to know what Laureen
thought of Tim now that she’d been dating him for a few months.
Laureen
smiled. “Good. He’s a really sweet guy.”
“Yeah, he’s
nice,” Claire agreed. “Are you two
getting pretty serious then, or...?”
“I dunno,”
Laureen replied with a shrug. “I wouldn’t
go so far as to say I think he’s, like, ‘the one’ or anything… but we’re having
fun together.”
“That’s
good; I’m glad,” Claire said, and she genuinely meant it.
Laureen
smiled again. “Thanks. I’m really happy for you and Nick too. I’ve always thought you’re the luckiest
person in the world, getting to be with him, but he’s pretty lucky to have you
too, you know. I mean, he’s been through
so much… I’m glad he’s found someone who makes him happy.”
Claire
returned the smile, touched by that comment. “Thank you; that means a lot to me,” she
said. “I wish the rest of his fans would
feel the same way, but I dunno - they probably all hate me for marrying him.” She rolled her eyes, remembering what Nick
had once said: “In their eyes, every other woman I date is evil and will
only hurt me, and of course they are the ones who will treat me right.”
“We’re not all like that, you know,” Laureen spoke up after a
moment. “Backstreet Boys fans, I mean.”
“Well, I
didn’t mean you,” Claire replied quickly, hoping she hadn’t offended
her. “I know you’re not like that!”
“No, I
know. I’m just saying… most of the other
fans out there are like me. We like the
guys for their music first and foremost… looks are only secondary. Maybe some of us do crush on them and
fantasize about them, but it’s just that – a fantasy. And we can separate that from reality. We know we’re not going to marry any of them
or anything like that. I know there’s
still some crazy fans out there that are like that, but most of us aren’t!”
Laureen insisted.
“I-I’m
sorry,” apologized Claire, caught off-guard.
“I didn’t mean-“
“No, no,
I’m sorry,” Laureen cut her off quickly and rather grudgingly. “I didn’t mean to go off on you. It’s just… I dunno, that whole teenybopper
thing is such a stereotype. Whatever
negative stuff you’ve heard about Bsb fans probably comes from the few psychos
who give us a bad name. Any crazy fan
stories from Nick and the guys – again, probably just isolated incidents. And most of those kinds of girls have grown
up and moved on by now anyway. It’s just
not like that. That whole stereotype of
the rabid teenybopper is what gives Backstreet Boys fans a bad wrap, and it’s really
annoying to the majority of us, who are actually sane. I don’t even tell a lot of people I’m a Bsb
fan because there’s such a stigma attached to it!”
Claire
nodded slowly, still surprised by this outburst. She’d never heard Laureen sound anything but
cheerful, and she felt bad for saying whatever she had said in the first place. “I see what you’re saying,” she said. “Honestly, I just… didn’t know. I don’t really know any other fans besides
you, and I guess most of what I’ve seen and heard about is what you were
describing – the teenybopper stuff. I’m
glad you’re not all like that though… those kinds of people scare me.”
“Trust me,
we’re not,” said Laureen firmly. “And
the fans don’t hate you. They don’t know
enough about you to decide what they think of you.”
“Oh.” That was a good thing… wasn’t it? Maybe not.
“Just wondering, how do you know all that? Do you have a lot of friends who are fans?”
“Nah, not
really, but I see stuff online. Websites
and message boards where people post and stuff.”
“Really?” Claire was suddenly curious. It had never really crossed her mind to
search for stuff about herself on the internet.
“Fans talk about me online?”
“Well, now
they do, ever since everyone found out Nick was engaged.”
“What do
they say??”
Laureen
laughed. “You wanna see?”
“Well…
yeah!”
They went
back inside and, after refilling their drinks, parked themselves in front of
Claire’s computer. Claire sat off to the
side, watching as Laureen typed a URL into the address box on her internet
browser, which brought up an online Backstreet Boys forum. She surfed through tons of links to different
threads before clicking on one, opening up what appeared to be a discussion
about Nick’s engagement.
“There ya
go,” said Laureen, scooting aside and letting Claire sit directly in front of
the computer monitor.
“Thanks,”
Claire murmured absently, her eyes already flying across the screen. She was both surprised and relieved to find
that, just as Laureen had said, most of the comments were pretty positive. Some people wanted to find out more about
her; others didn’t care who she was, as long as Nick was happy with her. Most of their posts were much more centered
on Nick than her, which was how it should be.
There were
also some negative posts, many of them coming from the same user,
ParisHiltoNTampaBayFan, who kept calling her ugly, calling Nick stupid, and
saying that if Paris Hilton were still alive, she would be a much better match
for him.
“Don’t mind
that girl,” said Laureen, pointing to the girl’s screen name. “She’s one of the crazies.”
Claire
chuckled. “Good to know.”
“But see,
except for her, it’s not so bad. And
once they get to know you, they’ll have nothing but nice things to say about
you. Just be friendly when you’re on
tour with Nick,” Laureen advised with an encouraging smile.
Claire
returned her smile, but inside, she did not feel as confident. On tour with Nick… Of course they would tour after their album
was released, assuming things went well.
That meant Nick would be on the road and away from home for weeks, maybe
even months. And what about me?
she wondered. What would she do? Neglect her job and spend a few months riding
around the country on a tour bus, living out of a suitcase and sleeping in
hotel room after hotel room? Or stay at
home by herself and just miss him, the way she was now?
Neither
choice sounded particularly appealing.
Of course she would want to be with Nick, and she liked traveling to an
extent, but she also liked her job and didn’t want to lose it. And she was such a homebody… everything she
knew and everyone she loved was here.
Everyone but him. There was a
reason she’d never moved far from the area in which she’d grown up. It was her home. Then again, this hardly felt like home
without him. She’d miss him like crazy
if he went off on tour without her. How
did the other Backstreet wives do it??
She took a
deep swallow of her margarita, letting the strong, icy cocktail numb her
mind. She didn’t want to think anymore
tonight… not about touring with Nick, nor how his fans felt about her. And she certainly didn’t want to think about
the freaky clown-headed guy from that movie.
She still
had a decent buzz going by the time Laureen went home and she went to bed, but
that didn’t stop her from dreaming as she slept. She awoke bathed in sweat and trembling from
a nightmare about the Saw killer bursting out of the deep walk-in closet
in her and Nick’s bedroom and grabbing her, just as he had the little girl in
the movie. Not fully awake yet, she
instinctively reached over to Nick’s side of the bed and groped around,
searching for him. But her hand was only
met with empty space.
As she sat
up and pulled the covers around her shaky body, she felt just like that scared
little girl. Even half-asleep and still
a little tipsy, she knew that no masked psycho was going to jump out of the
closet and attack her, just as she’d known deep down that there was no monster
living in the closet of her bedroom in the house she’d grown up in. Still, she longed for the comfort of Nick’s
warm, safe embrace, just as she’d wanted nothing more than a hug from her daddy
when she was little and afraid of the dark.
Scooting to
the very center of the bed, she drew her knees to her chest and hugged them
instead.
***
Two
thousand miles away, Nick woke to find himself trembling as well, his stump
twinging with phantom pains that had surely been brought on by the dream he’d
just had. No, not just a dream – a
nightmare. His worst nightmare,
in fact – a dream about the recurrence of his cancer. He’d been having them every so often for a
long time now, especially after his lung surgery the previous December, but
they had become more frequent lately.
Maybe it was because of Casey, whose leukemia had relapsed after almost
five years of remission. Maybe it was
because things in his life were looking so good at the moment – maybe he was
destined for another downfall. He’d sure
had enough of them in recent years.
He tried
not to let the dreams worry him because physically, he felt great, better than
he had in years. Yet he would be lying
to himself if he did not admit that the nightmares left him upset and
nervous. No matter how good he felt or
how clean his tests looked now, the cancer could always come back. It had for Casey, and it could happen to him
too. He had to get through four more
years before they would call him cured, and even then, was it a guarantee? Nothing was truly guaranteed.
Though he’d
been drinking earlier that night, he was wide awake now and too agitated to go
back to sleep right away. He stretched
his leg out beneath the covers, crossing over onto what should have been
Claire’s side of the bed. He wished she
were there. She would have rubbed his
back and bugged him about the bad dream until he had no choice but to tell
all. Sometimes – a lot of the time,
actually – he hated revealing his innermost feelings and fears like that, even
to her. But this… this was something he
would have had no problem talking to her about.
Especially her, for he knew without a doubt that she would
understand. Surely she had the same
worries from time to time.
But Claire
was practically on the other side of the country and probably sound asleep at
this hour. His eyes spotted his cell
phone, plugged into its charger on the nightstand, but he resisted the urge to
pick it up and call her. Instead, he got
up and fumbled around for his crutches, then shuffled into Howie’s kitchen to
find something to eat, unaware of the fact that back at his own house in Tampa,
Claire, too, was wide awake and yearning to hear his voice just as much as he
needed to hear hers.
***