“You hear ‘bout Jade and Ali’s little girl trip?” Brian flops down in the chair next to Nick.
“Huh?”
“Next week, to Tampa?”
“Oh yeah. Ali told me. I was pissed… Hey, she’s takin’ Jade?!”
“Yup, Jade just told me.”
“No fair! She told me I couldn’t go because it was all work and I’d distract her.”
“Jade said I couldn’t go because they want to BOND,” Brian says sarcastically.
“They LIVE together! How much more bonding can they do?!”
“Beats me,” Brian shrugs.
“Women,” says Nick. “I will never understand ‘em.”
“I gave up tryin’ a LONG time ago.”
“What’s that?” Kevin and AJ enter the room and sit on the chairs either side of Brian and Nick.
“Women,” says Nick glumly.
“Ah, don’t EVEN try,” laughs Kevin. “Thing I found with Kris… Is just PRETEND you understand them and they’re happy.”
“Happy? I’m ALWAYS happy,” says Howie as he sits next to AJ. They all give him a look. “What?”
“You’re a WOMAN now?” asks AJ dryly. “I guess those pants were just the start of it…”
The others start laughing as Howie looks even more confused.
“Woman? No way! You just said Howie’s happy as I came in.”
“I said THEY’RE happy, meaning women,” laughs Kevin.
“You got yourself on the brain,” chuckles Brian.
“Who better?” Howie jokes as a petite blonde woman enters the room. “Oooh,” he says quietly.
“Cute,” whispers AJ. The other guys just nod. “For once, I’m glad I’m single Boy.”
“Single Boy?!” Brian chokes out laughing.
“But you have Sarah,” says Kevin.
“Not OFFICIALLY,” AJ says with a wink. “Yup, I am single Boy. He’s desperate Boy…”
“Hey!” Howie punches AJ lightly and then laughs.
“He’s married Boy, he’s attached Boy and you’re goofy Boy.”
“Why do I get the goofy tag?” Brian complains as the others fall about laughing.
“Uh, hi guys,” the blonde says nervously from her chair opposite them.
They all look at her and stop laughing.
“Sorry,” Kevin says.
“That’s ok,” she smiles. “I have a camera crew outside and it’d be great if you could give me a quick tour of the arena.”
“No problem,” AJ jumps up and holds the door open. Howie tries to get through the door first but AJ smacks him. “Hey, ladies first. I know you have that problem but…”
The rest of his words are drowned in howls of laughter from the other Boys.
“Thanks AJ,” the woman steps through the door. “I’m Lisa by the way.”
“Good to meet,” says AJ following her towards the camera crew. “I’m backstage tour guy.”
She laughs. “Say that again on camera.”
“Sure,” AJ grins at her as the other guys catch him up.
The camera and sound men introduce themselves as Paul and Mark, and the filming begins.
“Welcome to the dungeons of Houston. I’m backstage tour guy, and these are…” AJ looks up at Kevin’s sticky-up hair. “Weird hair guy…” Nick trips over Howie’s feet. “Clumsy guy and big feet guy…” Brian pulls a silly face and AJ claps him on the back with a grin. “And goofy guy.”
“Hey…” Brian starts but gives up as AJ carries on talking.
“We are your hosts for the next hour or so. So, c’mon… Let’s go tour!” AJ leads them all into the main arena where Jade and Ali are chatting to security. “This is the main area. We get on that thing up there.”
“The stage,” explains Kevin.
“Yah. And then all these people magically appear here.”
“Those would be the fans,” says Kevin.
“Fans, yeah. Very cool.” AJ jumps over a couple of seats and races over to the stage.
“Are these a couple of your dancers?” asks Lisa smiling at Jade and Ali.
“Dancers?” Kevin chuckles. “Hardly.”
“Hey, I can dance!” Jade retorts. “Oops I Did It Again anybody?”
AJ laughs and does a few steps. “Hey, I remembered the dance! I rock!” He high-fives Jade and laughs at Lisa’s puzzled expression. “Jade here got to do a week on Britney Spears’ tour as a dancer. And then she came here and taught us all the Oops dance.”
“So you ARE a dancer?” Lisa asks.
“Nup, I’m a writer,” Jade grins. “I’m freelance and Teen Girl magazine hired me to go join Britney’s tour and then write about what it was like. It was a lot of fun actually. Mainly cos we were in Vegas!”
“Are you here as a writer then?”
Jade glances at Brian and Kevin before answering. “Yup, I’m putting together a backstage tour book for the guys. Ali here is the photographer.”
“Hey,” Ali says.
“So, what’s it like hanging out with the Backstreet Boys?” asks Lisa.
“Very boring,” Jade yawns exaggeratedly.
“And they’re the WORST bosses EVER,” says Ali rolling her eyes. “Especially the blonde one.”
“Way too demanding,” says Jade, keeping a straight face.
“And quick to hand out the redundancy notices to wayward employees…” says Kevin.
“They’re WONDERFUL,” says Ali.
“Simply the BEST!” laughs Jade.
“Simply the best! Better than all the rest!” AJ starts singing and does a Tina Turner strut across the stage.
“They’re mad,” Lisa giggles to the girls. “I couldn’t spend more than a day with them before questioning my sanity.”
“Sanity questioned,” says Ali.
“Sanity ran away,” deadpans Jade.
We watch the guys move on with the journalist and Ali wanders across the stage to pick out a few notes on the keyboard. I walk to the centre of the stage and stare out into the deserted arena.
“Wow, imagine what it must be like standing here in front of all those people every night.”
“Crazy,” Ali giggles.
“A total high,” I say. “I’m not surprised Brian comes back every night totally hyped.”
“I would too.”
“Hey, I feel like singing!” I suddenly exclaim. “I wish I could sing.”
“You can!” Ali says. “Gimme a tune and I’ll play it.”
“No way.”
“C’mon, there’s nobody here to hear!”
“Ok… Uh, Ain’t No Mountain?”
“Of course,” Ali giggles and starts to play the song. Ali and I have danced around our apartment many times to this song. We can do the dance routine perfectly. I start to hum the verse, singing the odd word here and there until we reach the chorus.
I throw my hands up high as I start to sing loudly, “Ain’t no mountain high enough
Ain’t no valley deep enough
Ain’t no river wide enough
To keep me from getting to you baby!”
“Whoo!” Ali yells and joins me at the front of the stage. “One more time girl!”
“Ain’t no mountain high enough,” we both belt out.
“Ain’t no valley deep enough
Ain’t no river wide enough
To keep me from getting to you baby!” we finish on our knees and start to giggle.
“Whoo!” somebody yells and starts clapping. We spin round and start blushing when we realise Marcus had witnessed the whole thing. “Way to go!” he grins and walks up front to us.
“You weren’t meant to see that!” Ali says.
“NOBODY was meant to see that!” I say and Marcus chuckles.
“Well it wasn’t no Diana Ross but it was cool.”
“Why, thanks,” Ali flutters her eyelashes at him.
“I always wanted to sing up here,” Marcus admits, running his fingers along a microphone stand.
“Every kid’s dream huh,” I say and he nods.
“Do the routine with us!” Ali suggests. “We just got four basic actions…”
“I don’t think so,” Marcus says dryly.
“C’mon!” I beg him. “It’s cool. You can be Diana Ross and we’ll be The Supremes!”
“Hmm…” he starts to waver.
“Ya just go like this on ‘high enough’,” Ali says throwing her hands up into the air and then dropping them down to the ground. “That’s ‘deep enough’ and THIS is ‘wide enough’,” she throws her hands out wide and shakes her breasts slightly.
“I can’t shake nothin’ there!” Marcus points out with a grin.
“Shake ya balls then.”
“Ali!” Marcus and I exclaim at the same time and she just shoots us a mischievous look.
“And this is ‘getting to you’,” Ali says as she points to a random spot in the audience.
“Kinda obvious really,” Marcus rolls his eyes.
“Yeah,” I agree. “Ready?”
“Why not?” he shrugs and takes his position behind the microphone stand.
Ali and I stand on either side and all three of us launch into an out-of-tune version of Ain’t No Mountain High Enough. We only know the chorus so we just keep repeating it. After about three times, we find our tune and harmonies and start improvising in our dancing. Marcus does a mean moonwalk across the stage while Ali and I do the Ricki Lake move and yell “Go Marcus, go Marcus, go Marcus!” We get interrupted by the sound of poorly stifled laughter and stop dancing to look offstage. AJ, Nick and Brian are standing there, practically howling.
“Shut up!” Ali tells them and Nick staggers across the stage to her, still laughing hard.
“I never thought I’d see Marcus moonwalk!”
“It was a good moonwalk dude!” Brian laughs.
“Marcus,” AJ walks across and lays a hand on the big guy’s shoulder. “The 80s called, they want their dance back!”
“AJ,” Marcus says. “Fuck off.”
“Ooooh!” AJ says in a camp voice. “Dude, it was good.”
“I especially LOVED the routine,” says Brian shaking his chest like we did for the chorus and laughing hard. “Marcus, yours didn’t bounce!”
“Brian!” I yell and he walks over to me with a wide grin.
“Yours, my darling, definitely DID.”
“God…” I shake my head and then giggle. “Guys.”
“Totally,” Ali rolls her eyes.