A couple hours later, as it was starting to get really dark outside, there was a knock on my door. When I opened it, I found six men standing on my doorstep. I let them all in and they all flopped down on various chairs or the sofa, except for the black man, Mookie. He took a hardback dining room chair and sat in that. The six of them did not look well. "So, what do you think, Becca?" Mookie asked me as I paced around the room.
"About what? About her saying those things? About Rolling Stone writing them down for the world to see?"
Kevin chuckled. "Yeah, pretty much what you just said," he commented.
"It drives me mad," I said, knowing it was more than just that. "That stuff hurt. I can’t believe she said all those things. I mean, she loves you guys and I thought she loved me. But I guess I was wrong."
"You weren’t wrong," Howie stated. "She does love you. I just think the interviewer wrote stuff down wrong or something."
"So, should we sue, or what?" Kevin asked the group.
"We really should wait on Krystal," Mook told them. "I mean, the interview was with her."
Just as Mookie was finishing talking, there was a knock on the door. I was almost fearful of opening it. I had a sinking feeling I knew who it was, and as my luck would have it, I was right. When I flung open the door, there was Krystal, eyes all red and puffy with tear stains on her cheeks. When she saw me, a new batch of tears started pouring out of her pretty blue eyes.
I didn’t want to let her in, but courtesy overwhelmed me and I stepped aside to let her in. She didn’t even attempt to hug me, probably knowing that I really didn’t like her too much then. Instead she slipped inside and sunk to the floor. She started talking before any of us had a chance to say anything. "I never meant for it to come out that way," she apologized.
"What do you mean, Krystal?" Kevin asked. "Did you actually say those things?"
She sniffed. "Yeah I said them, but not like that," she defended. "The way they printed it, it makes me sound so childish, so unsympathetic and oblivious to what everyone else feels."
I just stood there by the door, staring at her. Yeah, sure it sounded like she was apologizing, but in the same instance it sounded like she wasn’t.
"It’s okay, Krystal, we understand," Mook said. It was a lie, because I didn’t understand. I couldn’t understand it.
"I’m sorry guys, really I am." The Backstreet Boys got up of the sofa and hugged Krystal in this massive group hug. Mook sighed.
"What?" I asked, looking at him.
"Well," he started, "we either don’t raise an issue and keep on Rolling Stone’s good side or be black listed."
"I thought that was illegal?" I inquired.
"Nope," Mook informed me. "If we raise a fuss and lose, which we very well may, it would take us years to undo the damage and we wouldn’t get any more coverage from the big magazines."
It dawned on me then. Although Skip couldn’t put me on a black list, telling other radio stations that I was queer and not to hire me, it could be done in the ‘zine world, very easily. Mainly because a lot of reporters free lance, so they end up having their articles published in many different magazines. "So, if we were to fight Rolling Stone and they kicked our asses then People, Entertainment Weekly, US Weekly, and all the rest wouldn’t pick us up either. And we would be stuck with the teeny magazines, right?"
"Right."
I sighed. Mook had a point. As wrong as it was for the author to take Krystal’s words and twist them, if we fought, we would undoubtedly lose. Then an idea hit me. "What about Judge Judy?"
"You wanna go on TV?" Nick asked, having just come out of embracing the group.
"No, no, no," I said waving my hands. "Civil court. What if we were to take the author, not the magazine, but the author to civil court and filed for...defamation of character, or slander or something."
Mookie stared at me for a moment and the spoke up. "Yeah. I’ll look into that." He then turned towards Krystal. "And as for you missy, where have you been? You’ve had us all worried sick."
Krystal was glad for a change of topic, I could tell by the look on her face. "I went for a drive. I needed some time to clear my head. And then I drove up here."
I turned away from her, but she was looking at me. "Becca, I really am sorry," she told me.
I refused to look at her.
"Becca, what’s wrong?"
I finally made eye contact and just stared at her for a moment. "Krystal, I don’t understand how you could have said those things and why you said them. I thought you loved me."
"Becca I do love you. I don’t know what came over me." In the background I could see the men growing very antsy, starting to wiggle in their seats.
"You said you were using me." The tears started to flow again. Even though it was growing later and later in the night, I wanted to get this out now.
"Becca, I’m sorry."
"No amount of you telling me you're sorry is going to make up for it."
There was a knock on the door and before I had a chance to get it, it flung open. Andy was on the other side. "Becca, we’ve got an interview with KIIS FM!" he shouted before completely taking in the scene. When he did, he slowly tried to slink back out the door.
I waved him inside to a seat and turned away from Krystal momentarily. "Andy, you chose a really bad time to come, but you’re here now, so you might as well stay. We’ll talk about that in a moment." I turned back to Krystal. My mind was made up; I just had to say the words. "I love you, Krystal Marie, but," I paused for a breath, "I can’t devote my life to someone who is using me for whatever means. I don’t want that type of relationship. And so you know, it’s because of you I lost my job. I’m in the public eye too much. Normally this would be a good thing for a fledgling radio station, except all the publicity I bring in is negative. So, unfortunately, I can’t be in a relationship with a big time celebrity where all I get is negative publicity. It just doesn’t work that way. I’m sorry Krystal. I can’t do this anymore."
* * *
