Karla got up and crossed the room to open the door and was greeted with a bubbly looking Justin.
"Howdy"
Karla looked at him like he lost it. "Umm...NO"
"What ever. So you ready to go out there and rock?!"
She sighed. "I'm about as ready as I'll ever be...Thanks for visiting me, my nerves are coming back together now."
A different stagehand pokehis head in the door. "We need you Ms. Reid..."
"Damn. well I guess I'll see you around" She said walking towards the door as if it were a death march.
"wait! what are you doing after the show?" Justin asked.
"um..nothing just chillin' I promised to call my best friend, and that could take a while.Why?"
Justin's smile faded a little. " I was hoping you would like...the tour party with me...but I understand."
Karla bit her lip. and the stage hand pulled on her arm."We'll talk later!" she said hurriedly scurrying with the aid of the stage hand to take her place back stage.
She could hear the loud roar of the crowd chanting for Nsync. So this is what she was up against...As far as I'm concerned they aren't even there...it's just me, my microphone, my voice and my dancers. we're just practicing She told herself. It's one big stage with a bunch of mindless critics...
What happened next was blurry to her, all she knew was
...They were announcing her name....there was screaming and booing....and almost as if she had stepped outside of herself in a burst of confidence, and before she knew what had gotten into her, she was on her place on stage ripping through dance numbers like it was second nature, hyping the crowd. It was almost as if something else was inside of her, it was weird. even when she looked back on that initial performance, she would never quite understand where all the energy came from. As her performance went on the booing was being drowned out little by little, and by the end of her set, there were people cheering. For her.for her.
She ran off stange, her makeup was caked on due to a mixture of persperration and tears of disbelif and happiness."My first major tour performance and I survived...there IS a God!" She muttered to herself as she walked down the hallway back to her dressing room, sipping on the water she was given after she had exited the stage.
"Wait till I tell Clea about this...."
"I told you so"
"Yeah yeah yeah, rub it in.."
"My pleasure" said clea. It was 11:00 that night and Karla had been reliving her stage experience on the phone for the last 30 minutes.
"Now what about them flight arrangements?"
"when can you come down?"
There was a pause on the other side of the phone, and some flipping of papers "WOOO-HOOO! Next week is the start of the rest of my life, on the 20th to be exact..."
"Oh yeah I almost forgot about graduation....We'll have to get to gether for some girl time and celebrate..."Karla said thoughtfully.
"Who needs a celebration when you've got 5 of the hottest guys known to man a couple rooms over? now THAT'S what I'm talkin' about when i say PAR-TAY!"
Karla laughed at Clea's antics. "You are too much..."
"So have you met any of those five pieces of meat yet?"Clea asked practically panting
"I've met them as a group twice and I've seen Lance and Justin a total of 3 times. I think we're becoming friends"
"I'll tell ya what? You get two and I get two....and..well....one of them is bound to have a girlfriend right?"
"Hehehehehe.Now about the flight... Well you can fly in on the 23rd if you want. I have the day off and I'll come pick you up and then you could see the show...and stuff. I'll check with my manager and see how long you can join me on tour."
"sounds like a plan to me"
"alright, well I guess I'd better be getting to sleep now..." Karla said in mid-yawn.
"Yeah me too. We got a few more test to take. damn senior projects are getting evaluated..." grumbled Clea.
"never change Clea..Never change..."
"Don't worry, I won't"
"5...6...7...8"
step turn, step step, arm out, shake, twist, turn, step step, cross, pose, kneel, slide, roll, up, step, step twist turn...Or something like that. It was hard to keep her mind on dancing when the aches of her body from doing the same dance for the 20th time were screaming out in in protest.
It was the second week of tour and it her choreographer saw it fit to change part of the routien. She looked up as she danced and saw Clea gabbing away to Justin who happened to be passing by. Clea winked and Justin looked over his shoulder and waved. She smilied back.
Slide, roll,stand up, twist, turn...kick, turn, flip..ugh Karla hated those. She didn't like the idea of her head going under her butt...she leaned forward and stretched her hands out and lifted her legs, preparing to put her wait onto her hands, in fact she was already in a hand stand position when she heard:
"wait Wait Wait wait WAIT!"
Everyone came screeching to a halt in mid move, except for Karla who attempted to come down smoothly, but being caught off gaurd ended up on her butt .
"Shane, you're supposed to roll to the RIGHT while your on the ground, and then slide COUNTERclockwise."
a thin guy in the back dressed in a Knicks t-shirt picked his head up "Sorry..."
Danya, the choreographer clicked her tounge. "fine. Just try harder next time. She began to demonstrate the parts where they had been messing up.
"Boom, boom, boom,boom,BOOM!, you see it's 'slide, roll, up, twist, TURN'!"
They all mumbled in agreement. After putting them through a couple more paces She was happy and let them go about their own ways. Karla stood up and headed over to where clea was standing, looking dreamy.
"Whoo, good work out if I say so myself"
Clea continued to stare out into space
"Clea?"
Still no response.
"Clea!"
She was like frozen or something. She tried snapping her fingers in front of her face and slapping her in the
back if her head.
"Look It's Justin Timberlake!"
As if snapped out of a trance, she became alert again. "really where? Lemme at him!"
"You..have..PROBLEMS"
Clea took her glasses off and cleaned them on the bottom of her shirt. "Nothin's new there." She said putting her glasses back on. Her shoulder-length reddish brown hair was crinkly today and Karla also noticed that she had gotten new frames for her glasses,the thick black ones were replaced by thin brown designer ones, which were smaller, but complemented her face. Her carmel colored skin was slightly darker than the last time she had seen her but her deep brown eyes were full of energy.
"would you stop looking at me like I'm a piece of meat on display. you HAVE seen me before ya know, Hell you LIVED with me!"
"Sorry we haven't been able to spend much time together..lets go for a car ride or something" Karla offered.
"Sounds good to me..um let ME drive though."
"Why?" Karla protested.
"I'd like to LIVE or at least come back in one peice..."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Clea turned and started toward the exited. "You drive faster than a bat outta hell"
"fine. be like that. But remember that time I got you out of that speeding ticket...."
"Newsflash! You GOT me the speeding ticket"
"Um..good point"
Clea laughed and tugged on her sleeve," go get your stuff I'll meet you out in the car."
Karla grabbed her bag and headed for the exit, but as she reached for the door she heard someone call her name. She turned around to see Justin jogging toward her.
"hey...y..y..you forgot your scrunchie hairband thing" He panted, handing her a navy blue hairband.
"Thanks"She said accepting it and tieing it on her head.
"Oh..and..um...you have any free time oh I don't know....tommorrow around 3ish?"He asked nervously.
"Yeah I think we all get an hour off or something" She said getting slightly suspicious. She should have known that he had been up to something if he had chased her down the hall with a scrunchie.
"Well that's great..becuase um you and me can..er.. go out to lunch or something. Together. Ya know? I mean..only if you want too though. I'm not forcing you or anything..."He rambled on, barely stopping to draw breaths.
great, just what I need; an arogant prick after me. Just because he's some famous guy, who has his way with women he thinks he can con me into a date! if I ever get his status, I need to make a note to myself not to be like him...oh boy. not the puppy dog face... Karla thought to herself. Maybe he was sincere. Maybe he wasn't. It was hard for her to tell. With all of her past boyfriends, she'd been best friends with before they got involved with one another. At least she could tell the real from the fake. She thought that they were on the road to friendship and here he was asking her for a date.WOOAH! Slow your roll Karla who said it was a date? Friends go out to lunch together all the time! Two friends hanging out on an off day. Besides, Clea seemed to have her eye on him...
"I'll think about" she said turning away.
"Ok! see ya later!" he said thrusting his hands in his pockets staring at her as she picked up her bag. Lance came up from behind him.
"Are you ready to practice?" he asked tossing Justin a water bottle.
"Um..er.. yeah" he replied distractedly. Lance looked up and met Karla's gaze and flashed a brief lopsided smile.
"Hey Karla. I didn't see you there. how're you doing?"
"I'm ok, I was just about to leave with Clea" she said cheering up about the thought of her friend.
"I remember her--I like her--a bit forward, but she's cool"
"that's sounds like just like her" She laughed, then looking at her watch. "woah I gotta get going. she's waiting for me"
Justin, in a last attempt to make himself know patted her on the back. "well have fun!"
"Oh that's a definite when my 'twin' is near. Bye!" She said picking up her bag again, turning to leave.
"And stay out of trouble!" lance added. once she had left he turned to Justin. "She seems so happy with her friend around. That must be nice for them" He speculated thoughtfully. "yeah...er right" his friend muttered absently.
"What's up?"
"Nothing, just trying to remember..the..um...set list"
"Set list? we've performed 10 concerts and you don't know it. think of a better excuse than that"
"No, see I just like to know what we're practicing so I can..er.. get in the mindset of the song so I can dance right and everything, ya know my special stretches and all..." justin stammered.
To lance it wasn't even worth a response. Justin was a terrible liar and he knew it.
Justin knew he wasn't convinced yet. "What? I always do it when we tour...."
Lance raised an eyebrow. "Right"
"Ok you got me. I lied. Now leave me alone"
"Do you still want the set list?"
"Sure. What comes after I thought she knew?" Jsutin asked attempting to throw Lance off of his trail.
Lance was so good at detecting lies and emotions that it fed him up sometimes. What was really bothering him was the fact that he had spent 5 minutes stuttering at Karla, when BOOM he walks up and she's all smiles. What had he done wrong. she acted as if she was being threatened by him or something. He was snapped out of his thoughts when Lance nudged him in the ribs--hard.
"Ouch"
"Sorry--you looked like you had spaced out for a second. Where was I? um..Tearin' up my heart, It's gonna be me, I drive myself crazy, I thought she knew, just got--"
"What are you on about?"
Lance furrowed his forehead in confusion. "But you just asked about the set list right?"
Justin paused and took a swig of his water nervously. "Yeah, but I think I've got it now. Thanks" He needed to get outta there before he blew his cover even more. maybe it wasn't such a good idea to go chasing after Karla, she's just a girl, there are plenty others....Besides, since when did he actually take all this flirting to heart? it was JUST FLIRTING. Yeah she was cute, yeah she was Sweet, but truth beknown he barely knew her and they were'nt even familiar enough with each other to be friends yet!Play the field But a nagging voice in the back of his head contradicted that thought Karla Reid's feild is the only one you plan on playing right now...
