I walked down the side steps of the stage and thought what nice guy he was. I rejoined the guys in the audience just as Jordan walked on stage and took his position. He waved at me and I waved back with a smile. The guys just gave me a funny look.
“Why is he waving to you?” Joey asked.
“Because.” I said pulling the cd cover from my back pocket and showing Joey. “I just went up to him and met him.”
“We could’ve introduced Jen, you didn’t have to go up by yourself.” Lance said.
“Yeah but I bet I wouldn’t have gotten a hug if you guys were with me now would I have? I don’t think so.” I said laughing.
“He hugged you?”
“Yeah a friendly hug. He said he needed more fans like him. He is so nice, I don’t see where people can get off saying he was rude and obnoxious.”
Jordan was on stage for a long period of time I decided I wasn’t going to wait any longer so I got up and went to wait for Lindsey along with Mrs. Long and her daughter, April.
I reached the gate where a gaurd was standing to keep out all of the fans. He opened the gate a little and when he did everyone started screaming thinking it was going to be one of the guys. I walked through and he shut the door behind me. I looked around and saw neither Lindsey or Mrs. Long so I sat down on the curb by the gate next to two girls.
“Did you just come from inside?” one of the girls who was about my age asked.
“Yeah I did.” I replied as simply as possible.
“Really? How did you get that?” She asked pointing to the VIP pass around my neck.
“Umm well I guess you could say I’m kind of connected.” I said trying to avoid blabbing who I really was.
“No way” the other girl said “Is there any way in the world you could possibly help us meet them?
“Well I really don’t..”
“Come on please? We’ll do anything, come on!”
“I don’t even know your names.” I said.
“I’m Lisa” the one girl said.
“And I’m Mandy. What’s yours?”
“I’m Jen, ok you two I don’t really feel like making you two do some werid little song or anything out here cause then people would know something was up. BUt ok here’s the deal. Are you two e-mail junkies?” I asked.
“Oh my god I’m like the biggest one, well we both are.”
“Great! Well I’m on tour with the guys till this tour is over and I’m going to bored and need some e-mail to respond to so you two each have to write me and you also have to send me a detailed concert review about tonight. Is that too hard?” I asked.
“Oh my god no, what’s your e-mail address.” Lisa said pulling out a pen and paper from her bookbag.
“Here” I said writing it down for them both. “Now a deal is a deal, but you have to wait a few minutes. I’m meeting my aunt and another lady here in a second.”
The girls sat there wispering about me wondering who I was.
“Maybe she’s a cousin of one of them or a friend, or wait what if she’s...” Mandy said.
“Jen?” Lisa asked.
: “Yea?”
“Are you by chance one of their girlfriend’s?”
“Hmm.. maybe, maybe not, ya never know.” I said smiling.
“Oh my god she has to be” Mandy whispered to Lisa while in the meantime I had spotted Lindsey.
“Lindsey I’m right here.” I said waving my hands in the air as if I was signaling an airplane to take off.
“Hey” she said giving me a hug. “I saw Mrs.Long and April in the parking lot they were pretty close behind me. In fact...” she turned around “There they are now.”
“Hi Mrs.Long, Hi April.” I said when they approached me.
“Just call me Susan.” Mrs.Long said.
“Ok, well April since it’s your birthday I have made arrangements for you and your mom to come with me and go listen in on sound check and then come backstage and meet the guys.” I said watching her cover her mouth with her hands.
“Oh my god, are you serious.”
“Yup, I’ve got this here pass so you’re in girl.”
“I can’t believe this!” She shouted.
“Ok can you keep it down a little bit cause these people are gonna know something is up and I really can’t have them coming too. So you ready?” she nodded.
“Ok Lisa, Mandy, we’re going in now. The 5 of you all have to be on your best behavior and stay right by me.” I walked up to the security gaurd on the other side of the fence. “Ok I’m ready to come back and I have 5 people with me.” I told him as he slightly opened the gate and let us all through. We all went to the front of the stage and took the seats in the first row and watched the sound check. Lisa, Mandy, and April were busy taking pictures of Justin and JC while me, Susan, and Lindsey actually sat down. It only lasted about 15 minutes longer and then we got up and met up with them backstage.
“Ok guys I want you to meet, Lisa and Mandy, they’re two really sweet girls I met out front. Then we have our birthday girl, April, celebrating her sweet 16th.” I said as they shook the guys hands. Then we all sat down and carried on a normal conversation and the girls asked some questions.
“Oh Jen.” Lindsey said reaching into her bookbag, well my bookbag, that she had brought. “It’s your lucky day.”
“It is?” I questionned.
“Yeah the mail came and so did a UPS man. Here you got a rather big letter from Tiffany and then you got this.” she said handing me a semi-large package.
“Oh my, I’ll look at this in a second, but you brought it didn’t you?” I asked.
“Oh no I knew I forgot something.” she said. My smile turned into a frown I was hoping she had remembered to bring Taylor but she didn’t. “I’m kidding silly, I wouldn’t have forgotten it.” She said pulling Taylor out of the bag. I grabbed him from her and showed Lance.
“See do you remember him now.” I asked. He just laughed and nodded. Everyone started up a conversation once again but I simply ignored it and opened up the box. Inside was a rather large scrapbook with a home-decorated cover that said “Maryland Memories” on it. I opened the cover and looked at the front page it was a list of the authors, Kristin, Alana, Alissa, Ben, and all of my other neighbors/friends from home. I turned to the first real page and was shocked.
“Oh my god they are so sweet.” I said silently to myself.
“Who is? What’s that?” Lance asked.
“Kristin, and all my friends back home made me this scrapbook and they have pictures from when we in like pre-school.” I leaned the book towards him and continued to flip the page. “Oh no way, how did she get ahold of this picture. This is me and Seth when we were like 8 and we had our little thing going. We went on a “date” to McDonalds with our Mom’s and look.” I said pointing to a picture. “This was my first kiss that day. Gosh this brings back memories.”
I flipped to the next page and it was entitled “Rock ‘N Roll Diary” then below in smaller print “Starring Kristin on Keyboards and vocals, Seth and Ben on Guitar, Justin on Drums, and Jen on keyboards and lead vocals.” This was pictures from when we were about 10 years old and decided we wanted to make our own band and honestly we sucked so bad cause none of us could really carry a tune or play.an instrument.
Pages ahead we got to middle school and my first school dance that I went to with Scott. and then ditched him for Corey. Skipping more pages ahead I found my high school memories. My first homecoming dress shopping experience was indeed a nightmare that Kristin and I had both gotten into together so she left a little message on that page. “To the memories of the dress that was too big, too small, too short, too long, too dark, or too light. We got ourselves to homecoming by a miracle that night.” I laughed.
On the next page was not a bunch of our pictures but a collage of *NSync entitled. “Total Request Live: The day it all began.” There were little pictures of the guys bak when “I want you back” had just come out in the USA and landed itself a spot on Total Request. The first day we had ever seen the video Kristin was at my house spending the night and Carson played the video. We had both gone into complete silence absorbing these fresh faces into our heads. Once the video was over we had started talking. Kristin recapped the conversation in her own dialogue. “Remember the reaction and our frist three words? ‘Backstreet Boys wannabe’s. Then we talked a little more and both thought Justin was so adorable! What were we thinking? Just kidding. then we ran out the next day and got their CD. Next thing we knew you were “in love” with Lance’s hotness and I was in love with them all and couldn’t choose. Next thing you and me won ourselves those tickets off of the radio for front row tickets and we were all pumped up and then I came down with strep throat the day before and you ended up going with your mom cause none of our other friends would go. Then you go off and get backstage passes and don’t tell anyone and hook up with your little hottie! hehe we forgive ya now though!” I laughed and turned to the next page entitled “16 Candles.”
They had pics of me and my friends hanging out at my 16th birthday party. A picture of my cake which said “Happy Sweet 16th, now everyone run and hide” and there was a picture of a car on it. Also there was a picture of my car my parents had gotten me for my birthday along with a pic of all the weird “stuff” my friends had gotten me at Spencers that remained in my bottom drawer.
We skipped a year into the next page to my 17th birthday. A pic of me shocked started off the memories. Then some of the people that were there on the page beside of it. This memory continued on the next page. Right at top Kristin had a picture of me staring into Lance’s eyes when I turned around and saw him for the first time since I had ran out. Below was a caption “Can you remember the drama through this one picture.”
“Oh you better belive I can.” I said rather loudly.
“What Jen?” Chris asked from across me.
“Oh it’s just a pic I can definitely remember.”
“Let me see.” he said. I got up and showed it to him and everyone ended up looking at it and Mandy, Lisa, Susan, April, and Lindsey were confused about it.
“What drama?” Lindsey asked reading the captions.
“Oh nothing...” I said silently.