I wasn’t
sure who exactly would be picking me up from the airport, so when the plane
landed, I took my sweet time getting off it, figuring it would be easier to
find whoever was supposed to meet me if the terminal was less crowded. I had a window seat, so I just stayed put,
letting most of the other passengers file out ahead of me. Then I grabbed my carry-on and joined the
back of the line.
When I
stepped into the gate and looked around, I realized I knew right where I
was. LAX was starting to feel familiar
to me. I’d flown there in January for
Hollywood Week, then again in February for the Idol semifinals. Before
that, I’d been far from an experienced traveler. I hadn’t grown up in the kind of family that
took vacations. After my mom died, it
was just Dad and me, and he wasn’t big on traveling. We went on road trips now and then – the kind
where we’d stop at antique shops in small towns and take pictures of random
roadside attractions, like the World’s Largest Catsup Bottle in Collinsville or
the giant statue of Superman in Metropolis – but we never really made it out of
the Midwest. Believe or not, I’d never
even been on a plane until I was twenty and flew to Florida with some college
friends for spring break. So it was
pretty weird to think I’d flown halfway across the country three times in five
months.
Despite my
best efforts to dawdle, the gate was still pretty crowded. I wandered around, wondering how in the world
I was supposed to find my driver. It
turned out to be a lot easier than I’d thought – I suddenly spotted a man in a
dark uniform, holding up a sign with my name on it. Seriously, just like in a movie! He looked up and saw me at the same time I
saw him, we made eye contact, and I hurried over, smiling in relief. “Hi!” I said brightly. “I’m Cary.”
“Right on
time,” said the driver, smiling back.
“Almost never happens here. Do
you have checked luggage?”
“Lots,” I
replied apologetically. I hadn’t had a
clue what to pack for a two-month tour, so I’d pretty much packed it all. We made our way to baggage claim, where we
stood around for a long time, waiting for all the luggage from my flight to
make it onto the carousel. Finally, the
bags started tumbling out of the chute.
I pointed out my two bulging suitcases and ukulele case, and the driver
helped me haul them down from the carousel.
Then we made our way outside, my luggage split between us.
It was a
typical California afternoon: bright,
sunny, and much hotter than the Illinois spring I’d left behind. I started perspiring on the walk to the car,
which turned out to be not just a
car, not even a cab, but a limo! A
genuine, shiny, black limousine! I was
quite impressed when the driver opened the door for me and then went around
back to start loading my luggage into the trunk. Jeez,
Nick Carter, I thought, as I slid across the soft, leather seat. We’d gotten to ride in limos on Idol, but that was American Idol, the number one show on television. I didn’t think the Backstreet Boys were doing
quite so well these days.
I still
wasn’t sure what I’d done to warrant the whole royal treatment, but my best
friend Jessica had some ideas. I texted
her from the backseat after calling my dad to let him know I’d landed, and she
replied, “Wow, is he trying to score points
or what! Don’t let him get u in his bed
yet tonite or he’ll think ur a groupie!”
“I’m not gonna sleep with him!” I texted back
feverishly. “Pretty sure he has a girlfriend.”
Her
response to that was, “Since when has
that ever stopped a celeb?”
I rolled my
eyes. “Please,” I typed into my phone, my fingers flying over the tiny
keypad. “He could score any girl he wants.
Why me?”
“Why not?” came her reply. “He obviously thought u were hot on Idol, or
he wouldn’t have called u. No offense!” And before I could decide whether to be
offended by her implication or not, my phone beeped with a follow-up text. “Just
be careful. Remember he dated Paris
Hilton. He’s prolly got VD!”
I texted a
two-letter response – “EW!” – and put
my phone back in my bag. I was starting
to feel nervous. It wasn’t the thought
of Nick’s possible STDs that freaked me out – it was the thought of meeting
Nick at all! I’d been a Backstreet Boys
fan since I’d gotten their first album for my sixteenth birthday. I’d seen them in concert several times, but
I’d never met any of the guys before. I
hoped I wouldn’t clam up and embarrass myself around him.
Traffic was
bad, as always, and it took a long time to get to Santa Monica, which was
apparently where Nick lived. That gave
me an equally long time to prepare myself for what I would do and say when I
found myself face to face with him, which really just made me more
nervous. When the limo finally stopped,
I still didn’t have a clue.
The driver
jumped out and opened the door for me.
As soon as I climbed out, I looked up.
I was standing at the base of a gorgeous high-rise, right on the
waterfront. I could see the Pacific
Ocean sparkling in the sunlight behind the building. “Wow,” I breathed.
The driver chuckled. “Swanky, huh?” he
remarked, as he set my luggage on the curb.
Like a
fancy hotel, the high-rise had its own doorman, who came over to help me with
my luggage. I thanked the limo driver,
quickly digging some cash out of my wallet for a tip, and followed the doorman
inside. As he escorted me into a
sprawling lobby, I tried not to look around too much. I didn’t want to act like a tourist, even
though I felt like one. The interior of
the building was even more impressive than the outside. I wondered how much people paid for the
condos in it and if there were any other celebrities living there. Maybe I’d ask Nick once I got to know him
better.
The doorman
brought me to a front desk, and the security guard sitting behind it asked my
name and business. Apparently he’d been
told to expect me, because once I introduced myself and said I was there to see
Nick, he got up, came around the desk, grabbed my suitcase from the doorman,
and grunted, “This way.”
I followed,
lugging my other suitcase into an elevator.
I shifted my weight from foot to foot on the ride up. There were butterflies in my stomach, making
me feel jittery. When the elevator doors
slid open again, I took a deep breath before stepping out into a long
hallway. The man with my suitcase took me
down the hall and stopped outside one of the doors. He rapped on it three times, then moved
aside, leaving me standing in front of the door.
It took a
moment, but then I heard footsteps on the other side. A lock clicked. The doorknob turned. I drew in a sharp breath. Then the door swung open, and there he
was. Nick Carter.
“Hi,” I
breathed, with what I’m sure was a dopey smile and total deer-in-the-headlights
expression.
“Hey,” he
said casually, flashing his trademark half-smile. “I’m Nick.”
He held out
his hand, and I took it. “Cary.”
“Glad you
made it. Come on in. Lemme grab your luggage here.” He ushered me inside, thanked the security
guard who had walked me up, and dragged my bulky suitcase in behind him. Closing the door, he said, “You can just
leave all this stuff here, till I drive you to your hotel.”
I wondered
why he hadn’t just had the limo take me to the hotel first, but I didn’t
ask. I had so many questions, I didn’t
know where to start. I let Nick do most
of the talking at first. He made small
talk as he showed me around his condo.
Had my flight been okay? Was
traffic bad on the way over? What did I
think of the view?
“It’s
beautiful,” I said, gazing through the sliding glass doors that opened onto his
stone balcony, overlooking the ocean.
“We don’t have scenery like this at home, that’s for sure.”
“Illinois,
right?” I was glad he remembered to
leave off the “S” at the end. Any
Illinois resident will tell you they can’t stand when people pronounce it “Illinoise.”
“Yep. Mostly just flat land and cornfields, where
I’m at,” I replied, with a self-conscious giggle. “It’s sort of pretty when it’s green in the
spring and summer, but not like this.”
“Yeah… I
like to have the ocean nearby,” he said, a faraway look in his eyes as he
followed my line of sight.
My eyes
shifted to him, studying his profile. He
looked different in real life than he did in pictures. He was gorgeous, of course; his eyes were
just as blue as the water outside his window, and with his face thinned down, I
was able to follow the angles of his cheekbones and jawline, which was covered
in a fine, blonde stubble. I could
definitely appreciate how attractive he was, but up close, he looked older than
I’d expected. There were lines on his
face, creases in his forehead and little crinkles around his eyes. I figured his weight loss made them more
noticeable. I knew he’d lost quite a
bit, but it was even more obvious in person.
He was smaller than I’d expected, too – tall, but lean. Skinny, even.
His baggy jeans and t-shirt hung on him, but his body had never looked
better.
“So,” he
said, turning back to me, and I promptly blushed, caught in the act of giving
him the once-over. “You want something
to drink?”
“That’d be
great.”
He gestured
for me to sit down in his living room while he went to the kitchen. I couldn’t stop looking around, marveling
over the fact that I was really sitting in Nick Carter’s condo. I felt like I was in the plot of some
teenybopper fan fiction story. When Nick
came back, carrying two cans of soda, he handed me one and flopped down on the
white couch across from the chair I was sitting in, stretching out his long
legs. “So,” he said again, and I could
sense him searching for something to say.
Maybe I wasn’t the only one who felt awkward. “Tell me about yourself.”
I hated
that request. It made it feel like an
interview. Then again, maybe that’s what
this was. I’d been interviewed a lot for
Idol, but I still never knew what to
say. I supposed there was a lot I could
tell him, but most of it wasn’t very interesting. The most exciting thing that had ever
happened to me, before this, was being on American
Idol, and he already knew about that.
“Well…” I was grasping at straws.
He laughed
at my hesitation. “Sorry – I guess that
was pretty broad. So you’re a nurse,
right?”
“Nurse
practitioner,” I corrected with a smile.
“It’s like a step up from a nurse.
I work in a nursing home, and I do a little bit of everything there.” I left it at that, figuring he probably
wasn’t interested in the finer points of my job description.
When people
asked, it was easiest to just say I was a cross between a nurse and a
doctor. Like a nurse, I was able to
develop a rapport with the residents and their families. I gave physical therapy and ran weekly focus
groups for the seniors, and I got to know most of them that way. For the sicker ones, I took on more of a
physician’s role. I examined patients,
ran tests and procedures, diagnosed problems, and prescribed treatments. I was a bridge between basic nursing care at
the home and the more intensive treatment doctors would provide in a hospital.
“Sounds
like a tough job,” Nick said. “You like
it?”
I
nodded. “Most days. It’s not easy, but it’s rewarding.”
I was nine
years old when I decided I wanted to be a nurse. Seeing the gentle way in which the nurses at
the hospice where my mother was dying took care of our family had a huge impact
on me. They couldn’t take away my pain,
but they did my mom’s, and in time, the knowledge of that helped ease mine,
too. I would never forget the way they’d
accommodated my visits, bringing me coloring books and treats to help pass the
time I spent sitting around in my mom’s room.
They explained things better than her doctors did, in a way I could
understand, showing me what each piece of equipment was for to make it seem
less frightening. They gave me an old
stethoscope to play with, which I kept until I was in nursing school myself,
and showed me how to make balloons out of latex gloves. I remembered their compassion as much as I
remembered the smell of the hospice, the sounds of the medical machinery, and
the way my mother had looked in her last few weeks of life, and after I had
accepted her death, I made a promise to pay it forward and provide the same
kindness for other families like mine.
When he
found out I was interested in medicine, my dad had pushed me to become a doctor
instead. “Nurses do all the dirty work
and get paid squat for it. The doctors are
the ones who call the shots and make the big bucks,” he’d urged. But at the time, I’d had no desire to go to
medical school. I didn’t admire doctors
the way I did nurses. My mother’s
doctors hadn’t done much for her. They
hadn’t saved her, nor had they comforted and cared for her the way the nurses
had. Even if it meant less money, I
wanted to comfort and care for people, not give orders and walk away. So I’d gone into the nursing program instead
and earned my license as a registered nurse.
The two
extra years of school it had taken for me to become certified as a nurse
practitioner had been a compromise to my dad.
He was a blue collar worker who had never gone to college, and he wanted
better for me. As a CNP, I made more
money than I had as an RN. I also got to
make more of my own decisions, take fewer orders from doctors, and do less scut
work. Yet I still saw fewer patients and
had more time to spend with them. It was
the perfect position for me. Sitting
there across from Nick, I wondered if I’d been a fool to leave it.
“I never
considered singing for a living instead,” I told him. “I guess I was always practical enough to
realize most aspiring singers never make it in the music business. I only auditioned for Idol ‘cause my coworkers talked me into it, and it was my last year
of eligibility. I’ll be twenty-nine in
June.”
“Aren’t you
glad you did?”
“Oh, sure!”
I said quickly. “It was a cool
experience. I’ve always liked
performing, but I never dreamed I’d have the opportunity to sing on national
television! It was a wild ride,
though. A rollercoaster. First I was up, and then I was down…”
“… and now
you’re here,” Nick finished for me, his lips twitching into another half-smile.
“And now
I’m here,” I repeated, smiling back at him.
“So… now what?”
He licked
his lips and considered me through narrowed eyes. “Now… I guess I should tell you something
about myself.”
“Okay…” I
said, amused. When he didn’t say
anything back, I prompted, “So… what are you going to tell me?”
He leaned
forward. “It’s a secret,” he said in a
low voice. “Something nobody else
knows…”
I raised my
eyebrows and waited, wondering how juicy it could be.
“I…” he
started, then paused, seeming to channel Seacrest. He locked eyes with me, and when he had me at
the brink of suspense, he finished, “…just farted.”
“Ew!” I
cried, as I burst out laughing, wrinkling my nose. “That is charming. Just charming. Do you always woo your opening acts this way?”
He
snickered. “Eh, a good belch works just
about as well. I can do it on command,
you know.”
“Wow. You are truly
talented.”
Nick was
still laughing. I grinned at him, but my
smile faded as his chuckles went on.
There was something strange about the way he kept laughing, like he was
forcing it. When the laughter finally
died down, an odd expression flickered across his face, like a passing
shadow. It was just for a split second,
and then he turned away from me, reaching for his drink.
I watched
him take a long swig from the can. “You’re
not gonna demonstrate for me?” I teased, when he set it back down on the coffee
table.
“Huh? Oh.”
He chuckled again, and it sounded just as forced. “Nah, I’ll save that one for next time. Gotta give you a reason to come back, right?”
“An audience
for my music is plenty reason enough,” I said, smiling at him again.
He returned
the smile, but it didn’t seem to reach his eyes. “Good,” was all he said back. He glanced down at his lap, tugging at the
hem of his t-shirt. I stared at him,
long after he’d broken eye contact. He
was holding back somehow, hiding something.
There was
no doubt in my mind that Nick Carter had secrets, and they didn’t have anything
to do with farts.
***