Reflection

I sighed listlessly and looked around at my surroundings. Joey Fatone was longing on the couch, Chris Kirkpatrick was slumped on the floor, reading a newspaper, Lance Bass was tapping away at his laptop, and JC Chasez was furiously scribbling in a spiral notebook.

Less than a month ago I had known nothing about these men who made up the pop group *NSYNC. Now I knew their tour set list forward and backword, and the trivia that their fans worldwide prided themselves on. All of this was so I could pose as the girlfriend of one of their members, Justin Timberlake.

It had started innocently. Justin had broken up with his model girlfriend, Carmen Kenzington. Upset about losing someone he had grown to care deeply about, he lied on a radio station, saying that he had found a new girlfriend. The problem was that the press was prying into his business so much, asking who the girl was, what her name was, and more questions. The situation was getting out of hand.

That's where I come in. Wanting to find a "regular, yet mildy beautiful" girl, the group's management wandred onto the campus of UNC Chapel Hill and managed to find just what they were looking for: me, Kate Stafford. I had no idea what I had gotten myself into until I found myself face-to-face with the Orlando heartthrobs myself.

My mission, should I choose to accept it? Pose as Justin's girlfriend. I was to be seen on his arm at parties, smiling as if I were having the time of my life. I was to look blissfully in love with the curly haired pop singer, occasionally hug him or kiss him on the cheek. I nearly digressed-it was female degration-but the paycheck was enough to make me temporarily drop out of college to go along with this escapde.

I fingered the velvet on the notebook I held in my hands. I had decided to chronicle this unique adventure by writing the daily occurences of the tour life. It would serve as a memoir to myself, a reflection of the days I would spend on this tedious tour. I looked at the previous few entries, in which I had complained about the lack of privacy (Chris had accidentally barged in on me in the bathroom), the guy's quirks, and, of course, Justin. For the past two weeks I had known him, I had loathed him. I hated the way he had decided to lie about a relationship that hadn't existed, and the way that he was using a girl to carry this out. It was sexism in its worst extreme, and that I detested. It had become my mission then to anatgonize him in private every way I could.

chapter 2