I’ve always loved the night sky. It sucks because in LA, you can never really see the stars. Well – not the kind in outer space, anyway. Too many lights in the city. But out in the country, the stars really shine.
When they shut off the lights in the parking lot for the Luminaria ceremony, everyone “oohed” and “aahed” over how pretty the luminaries looked, little white buckets with candles flickering inside, lined up in a big rectangle around the middle of the parking lot. Some of them had been arranged to spell out the word “HOPE.” They did make for a pretty sight, but my attention was focused upward, on the stars overheard. With the lights off and mostly farmland surrounding the college campus, I could actually see some of the constellations. I named the ones I knew in my head. The Big Dipper and Little Dipper… Scorpius, the scorpion… Cygnus, the swan… Hercules, the hero… Cassiopeia, the queen, in her upside down chair.
I’ve always had a fascination with space… stars… planets… aliens. On a night like this, I wished I could put my spacesuit on, so I could jump into my rocket, break free from the gravity holding onto me, and take off. You know – pull a Lance Bass, only actually follow through with it. Take off and not come back. Destination unknown.
In a way, I guess I’d sort of done that in coming here. It wasn’t just about contributing to a good cause or returning a favor to Cary, even though, of course, I’d done it for those reasons, too. But really, it was just nice to get away for awhile, go some place else where I could distract myself from the decision I had to make. I’d only been back in LA two weeks, and I was already glad to be gone again.
Being out here in the heartland made me miss my house in Tennessee. I still owned the place, but I hadn’t been there in awhile. It had been easier to live out in LA when I was dating Lauren and recording with the Boys, and on our breaks between legs of the tour, that was where I had called home. And as long as I was getting treatment under the care of Dr. Submarine, that was where I had to stay. But really, although I loved the beaches and the weather out in California, I liked the slower pace and the seclusion of this part of the country a lot better.
“You okay?” Cary asked, and I realized I’d been spacing out. See? I really am a space cadet. I do that a lot. She did that a lot, too, though – not space out, but check up on me, ask if I was okay. I guess it’s a nurse thing.
Really, I felt pretty good, considering I’d just finished the chemo from hell in the hospital a few days earlier. I was just a little run down, like I was getting over the flu, but nothing I couldn’t cope with. After making it through most of the tour feeling that way, this was nothing. “I’m fine,” I told her, smiling so she’d know I was telling the truth. “Sorry, my mind’s in outer space. I was just noticing how you can see so many more stars here than you can in LA.”
She glanced up at the sky. “Yeah, I guess you can,” she said, smiling back at me. She didn’t sound too impressed; I guess she was used to it. But I marveled over how big the sky looked, stretched over the flat land like a giant dome. On a clear night like this, with no tall buildings or mountains in the way, you could see for miles. It made me feel small, but in a good way. Everything about this night had humbled me.
We got quiet as they started the ceremony with a poem and a prayer. All around me, people stood as still as statues, their heads bowed and hands folded. Except for the sound of crickets, it was silent. No one spoke over the people doing the readings. Every little sniffle or cough or clearing of the throat seemed magnified.
As the speaker talked about remembering loved ones who had lost their battle against cancer and honoring those who were still fighting, I heard Cary swallow hard next to me. My own throat felt tight, as the magnitude of what I was facing really hit me. I’d only been fighting this for a few months, but when I looked around, I realized that most of the people standing near me had been dealing with it, in one way or another, for a lot longer. Cary and her dad had been coming to this event once a year, every year, for who knew how many years. Cancer had affected their lives way before it was ever really on my radar, and the same thing was true of every person there. It had touched all of us, in some way. I had never felt so connected to a group of strangers – or to Cary.
Without really thinking, I stretched my hand out until I found hers in the darkness and took hold of it, the way she’d held mine at the opening ceremony. I knew she must be thinking of her mom, and I didn’t have any more words of condolence to offer, but I hoped the gesture would comfort her, somehow. I felt her hand tighten around mine, clammy but soft, and it made me feel better, too. More hopeful, which I guess was the point of this whole thing.
While they read off the names of all the people who had been remembered with a luminary, we started walking slowly around the path, almost single file, so that everyone could read the labels on each of the white buckets. They all had the name of a cancer victim or survivor, along with the name of the person who had bought the luminary in their honor. The names were in alphabetical order, and as we passed the Fs and the Gs and reached the Hs, I kept my eyes peeled for the one for Cary’s mother that I knew must exist.
We were walking three across, Cary sandwiched in between her dad and me. I was on the outside edge of the track, her dad on the inside, but it was Cary who spotted it first. She stopped suddenly, pulling her hand out of mine to point it out to her father. The two of them drifted out of the slow procession, stopping at the inner edge of the path, and Cary sank down to a squat in front of one of the luminaries. Her dad stood next to her, resting his hand on her shoulder. Hesitantly, I came up behind and looked down over Cary’s head at the white bucket. It glowed with the light of the flickering candle inside it, enough that I could read the label on the front.
CAROL HILST
Remembered by
FRANK HILST
Next to it was an identical luminary, only this one said, Remembered by Cary, and as I looked down the row, I saw several more with her mom’s name, purchased by others who must have known her. Cary and her dad stayed there, their heads bowed as they looked down at the buckets, for what must have been five minutes or more, not speaking or anything, just staring. Maybe they were praying, or maybe just remembering. To me, it seemed a little like visiting someone’s grave.
I stood back out of the way, feeling awkward and not wanting to interfere. I was about to keep walking on my own and give them some time alone, when Cary suddenly rose up again. Her dad put his arm around her, and they turned around. She reached out her hand to me, and I took it wordlessly. Even in the dark, I could see the moisture in her eyes. I gave her hand a squeeze, and we kept walking.
After awhile, I stopped looking at the buckets and sort of spaced out again as I listened to the drone of names. It wasn’t like I knew any of them. But then I felt Cary slow down and tug on my hand. I looked over at her, but her face was turned away, toward the luminaries. She stopped, and so did I. Looking down at the luminaries, I suddenly saw why.
In between the ones for “Elaine Nichols” and “Dave Nickerson,” I saw a single bucket that simply said,
Nick
Remembered by
C.R.H.
My throat closed up again, but I managed to ask hoarsely, “What’s your middle name?”
When I glanced at her, she smiled. “Ruth.”
I nodded, staring back down at my luminary. Just as I’d thought before, it was sort of like seeing my own tombstone. I was glad she had known better than to use my full name. It was still kind of weird, but I appreciated the thought. “Thanks,” I whispered.
As we kept walking around the track, I wondered what it would be like next year, once the public knew about my illness. Would other people, fans, put out luminaries in my name at fundraisers like this? Cary had said, “You can come back and walk with them next year,” meaning the survivors, but would I be around and well enough to do that? Would I be one of them, showing my pride over beating cancer with a purple shirt? Or would I be in the ground, memorialized with the marble version of this luminary, a headstone with my full name?
I didn’t ask any of these questions out loud; they were morbid enough inside my own head. But I still couldn’t help thinking them. I guess that’s just what happens when you’re faced with a serious illness. It puts everything into perspective. You realize how short life really is. You start to think about your own mortality. Even when you get the good news that it’s in remission, you wonder, What if it comes back? Even if I recovered completely, I knew I’d never take my life for granted again.
We made it to the end of the alphabet and did another slow circuit around the track before the reading of all the names finished. When it did, Cary’s dad said, “I’ll stay and walk awhile. Why don’t you guys go back to the campsite and relieve me in half an hour?”
Cary nodded. “Okay. Come on,” she told me, leading the way back to their campsite. Flickering tiki torches and battery-powered lanterns gave us enough light to see. It looked like everyone else had taken off for the night. “They’ll be back in the morning,” Cary said, noticing me looking around at the circle of empty chairs underneath their canopy. “My dad and I are walking until two, and then someone will be here to relieve us so we can sleep.”
“I’ll walk, too,” I said, realizing she hadn’t included me in that statement. “I don’t mind. I’d like to.”
“Sure… you can keep me company.” She smiled. “But if you get tired, you can come back here and crash anytime. It’s not a big deal. There’s sleeping bags inside the tent and an air mattress in the back of the truck, if you’d rather sleep under the stars.”
I looked, and she was right. An air mattress filled the bed of the pick-up. I hadn’t noticed it there before, but maybe someone else had inflated it before they left. “That’s a cool idea,” I said.
“Mine,” she replied, grinning again. “As long as it doesn’t get too wet and cold, I bet it’ll be comfier than the tent.”
“Let’s see,” I said, heading over to the truck. I climbed into the back and sat down on the mattress, scooting myself backward until I reached the cab. I rested my back against the window and stretched my legs out straight in front of me. “Hey, not bad!” I called to Cary. “C’mere, come test it out with me.” I patted a spot next to me on the mattress.
She scrambled up into the truck bed and sat beside me. “It is pretty comfy,” she agreed, bouncing a little before settling back against the cab windows.
We got quiet, listening to the chirp of crickets and the murmur of voices from other campsites. It wasn’t an awkward silence, but I felt the urge to say something. “So…” I let the word hang in the air, not sure what else to add.
“So…” she echoed. We both laughed. “I’m really glad you’re here,” she offered.
“Me too,” I replied, and honestly, I meant it. “I’ve never been to one of these before. Like I said, we were supposed to sing at one once, but we had airplane issues.” It had been Kevin who’d insisted we do that gig, as part of his activism for colon cancer awareness. Maybe I’d get more involved with the American Cancer Society or whatever organization they have for lymphoma, once I was better. It would be a good way to give back.
“Well, again, I really appreciate you singing at this. I know it’s pretty small and hick compared to what you’re used to, but it means a lot.”
I laughed. “You kidding? I’ve played amusement parks, water parks, county fairs… hell, I’ve sung for much smaller crowds who don’t give a shit who I am, in bars and stuff, just ‘cause I felt like it.” I thought of the Brass Monkey, my favorite club in the Keys. I’d sung lead for local bands there countless times, doing mostly covers of rock songs I’d grown up with, just for the fun of it. “Sometimes it’s nice to go up on stage with a mic and my guitar and not be a Backstreet Boy for once. You know, just sing whatever the hell I want and not worry about having to sing ‘Quit Playing Games’ for the five billionth time, just because the fans expect it, or bust my butt doing the choreography for ‘Everybody.’ It’s nice to just jam solo and do my own thing once in awhile, you know?”
I looked over at her. She was nodding. “That makes sense. And that’s really cool. I’m glad it was fun for you.” She paused for a second, before adding, “I saw you at the Heart of Illinois Fair, back in 2003. You absolutely killed it. I hadn’t seen any of your solo shows before, and I was so impressed.” She grinned. I was still trying to remember what show she was talking about, when she went on, “That was back when your hair was long.”
I grimaced. “Yeah, and I weighed, like, a ton.”
“No,” she said quickly. “You looked good.” Then she added, “You look even better now, though.”
I laughed. “Thanks.”
Knowing Cary, she was probably blushing when she said that, but it was too dark to tell for sure. Still, I looked over at her, trying to read her expression in the flickering light from the tiki torches. Her hair was pulled back into a bushy ponytail, frizzed out from the humidity, and her face gleamed, dewy with a faint sheen of oil and perspiration. She didn’t look as put together as I’d seen her, in her flirty dresses and high heels and red lipstick, but I could make out the hint of a smile that played at the corners of her bare lips, and that was all it took to bring out her natural beauty.
I knew she dug me, and selfishly, I liked that about her. But even though she was a fan, she didn’t worship me like I was some kind of god. She knew I wasn’t; she’d seen me at my worst and taken care of me when I needed her and put me in my place when I needed that. She treated me like a regular person, and that was something I needed, too. Being a celebrity and a cancer patient, I craved normalcy, and Cary had allowed me to have it. She always seemed to know exactly what I needed.
And in that moment, still studying her profile in the starlight, I was filled with a different kind of need. It hit me like a sudden craving that I just had to satisfy. I don’t have much self-control around the opposite sex; to be honest, I’ve never needed it. Women fall at my feet. I don’t get rejected by them very often. So I made my move, slipping my arm around her shoulders and drawing her closer to my side.
For a second, I just held her there, savoring the warmth and softness of her body, the way it seemed to fit with mine. And then, when she turned her head toward me in surprise, I leaned in and kissed her.
***
