Chapter 3

            The next morning Heather was the first to wake up so she could walk her dogs. Melina had asked her to wake her up so she could walk too but Heather left the house without her so she could catch up on her sleep. She and the dogs were gone for a good half hour. She took her time enjoying the cool morning. The Puppies were enjoying it too. They loved visiting “Aunt Kelshie” and the shore because of all the new smells and sights to see on their morning and night walks.

            When Heather got back to the house she fed the Puppies then went back downstairs into the movie room. Everyone was still asleep but Heather wasn’t surprised at all; Jess and Kelshie were the queens of staying up late and sleeping in. They wouldn’t be moving for another two hours and Melina needed her sleep. So Heather decided to flop on the big, fluffy, purple beanbag she fell asleep on the night prior.

            “Yes! I can actually go back to sleep after taking the dogs out!” Heather thought to herself. “I haven’t been able to do that since… wow I don’t even remember. Oh well I’ll be able to sleep in for the next two weeks!”

            About two and a half hours later Heather’s friends started to wake up one by one.

            The first to wake up was Melina and when she found out the dogs had already been taken out she pouted, “I really wanted to take a walk with you to see the neighborhood.”

            “I’ll wake you up tomorrow so you can walk with us. You needed your sleep and you’ll be here for a while so there will be plenty of mornings.”

            “I’ll tell you what,” Kelshie said yawning and stretching, “We’ll take a ride around town and all over today to take you sightseeing.”

            “That sounds like a good plan. Can we go to the beach?” Melina asked excitedly, “I’m really looking forward to getting a Jersey shore tan!”

            The two Heathers and Jess laughed.

            “It will be crowded but we can go today if you’d like,” Kelshie said.

            “Didn’t they just open up that new town pool you guys were telling me about?” Heather asked.

            “Oh yeah I forgot about that pool,” Jess replied. “That will probably be less crowded than the beach.”

            “Yeah usually Sundays and weekdays are the better days to go to the beach because all the people from up North go back home,” Kelshie informed Melina.

            “Ok. So if the beach is crowded we’ll go some other day,” Melina commented.

            “Sounds good to me,” Heather added in. “So what’s for breakfast?”

            After the girls took showers and finished their breakfast they packed Kelshie’s car with snacks and drinks to show Melina around town. Kelshie drove everywhere and Jess became the perfect tour guide explaining all the different hot spots and land marks and Melina was awed by all the new sights. For lunch they stopped at a local dinner were everyone they knew hung out. The two Heathers and Jess had been going there ever since they were little and everyone who owned shore houses or just visited the shore over the summer knew about this little diner. While they were eating Heather recognized a few familiar faces of some old high school friends and people from her hometown.

            “Kelshie we have to take Melina to the Big Dipper!” Heather said smiling at her best friend.

            “How did I know you were going to say that?” Kelshie joked.

            “What’s the Big Dipper?” Melina questioned.

            “It’s the best place to get ice cream down here!” Heather exclaimed.

            “It’s pretty much the only place where you can get good homemade ice cream,” Jess informed. “This place has good desserts too but now that Hermie mentioned the Big Dipper I’m craving ice cream!”     

            “You don’t have to convince me to go to the Big Dipper,” Kelshie chuckled. “Let’s go!”

            Heather and Jess got their usual mint chocolate chip. Kelshie bought her favorite vanilla peanut butter and Melina got orange sorbet. They sat at one of the outside tables as they ate their ice cream and enjoyed the gorgeous, sunny day. After they finished they drove around for a little longer until Kelshie’s car actually started running low on gas. They headed back to the house just in time to catch the mail man.

            “Hey look I got something from Groundctrl!” Kelshie exclaimed flipping through her mail.

            “I wonder what that could be,” Jess commented as she headed into the kitchen. “I’ll start dinner while you guys set the table.”

            “Ok,” Heather said and showed Melina where the plates and utensils were. Just as Jess got into the swing of cooking and Heather and Melina were almost finished with setting the table Kelshie screamed.

            The other girls jumped and dropped what they were doing. They rushed into the living room where Kelshie was looking at a letter with her jaw wide open.

            “Kelshie what’s with the dropped jaw?” Heather questioned.

            “You guys are never going to believe this!”

            “Believe what?” Jess asked.

            “Just read the letter,” Kelshie pushed the piece of paper toward Jess.

            Jess read aloud, “The Backstreet Team is happy to announce that you and the rest of the CarterFan28 party of four have won invitations to the BSB After Party on August 26th, 2010, following the concert in The Manhattan Center in New York City. You will get to spend the rest of the night dancing with and getting to know the Backstreet Boys themselves and other lucky fans. Also the Boys are hosting a search for New York’s Best BSB cover singers- a glorified and fun Backstreet Karaoke challenge. Please RSVP to the After Party by August 23rd by signing up on the Backstreet Fanclub. Also please be aware that this After Party is a Masquerade and there will be a best mask contest. So dress to impress and don’t forget your masks! See ya on August 26th. Signed the Backstreet Team.”

            The four girls looked at each other then started jumping up and down together as they screamed!  

            “THIS IS AWESOME!” Heather exclaimed, “First we can all finally afford VIP tickets and now we got invited to the After Party!”

            “This is way too good to be true!” Kelshie screamed.

            “This is definitely the best trip to America!” Melina clasped her hands together excitedly.  

            The girls laughed then Jess came to a very important realization.

            “What are we going to wear?” she asked after jumping around. This question caused the other girls to cease jumping as well.

            “Oh damn,” Heather commented, “What are we going to wear?”

            “Well we have thirteen days to figure it out. It’s supposed to rain this weekend so we can go shopping then,” Kelshie suggested.

            “That sounds good to me,” Heather chipped in.

            “But maybe we should RSVP on the fanclub now,” Melina suggested.

            “Yeah that’s a good idea,” Jess agreed.

            “Ok I’ll RSVP now. Kelshie can I use your computer to do that?” Heather asked.

            “Yeah go right ahead. Oh by the way all three of you can use it whenever you want to,” Kelshie offered.

            Heather logged into her Backstreet fanclub account and after reading the private message about the after party, registered herself and three best friends.

            After dinner and a movie the girls started falling asleep, a little later than the night before. And as usual Heather wrote down the events of the day in her diary.

            The next day the girls woke up together and took the dogs out for a walk. Afterward they set out to go to the local zoo to show Melina some of America’s wildlife. On the way home the girls hit traffic due to a many car pileup.

            “Alright which BSB CD do you guys want to listen to?” Kelshie asked when she pulled her ipod out of her pocket and handed it to Jess who was riding shotgun.

            “I haven’t listened to Unbreakable in a while,” Jess commented.

            “Me neither actually,” Heather said. “What CD do you want to listen to Melina?”

            “It doesn’t matter to me. I love them all.”

            “Fine then since it’s my ipod and we are in my car I say we listen to Unbreakable,” Kelshie added.

            “Unbreakable it is then,” Jess plugged in Kelshie’s ipod to the connecter and started Unbreakable.

            The girls started singing along with the songs and Heather listened intently to her friends. An idea popped into her head but she decided to listen to more songs before making her idea known.

            After Panic played Heather asked Jess to pause the CD before You Can Let Go started playing.

            “What’s the matter Hermie?” Kelshie questioned.

            “I have an idea,” she replied.

            “Uh oh. Here we go,” Jess said sarcastically.

            “Shut up!” Heather retaliated. “I’ve been thinking about the Backstreet Karaoke Challenge and I wanted to ask the three of you, do you want to do that?”

            “I love to sing! I’ll do it if you want to sis,” Melina answered.

            “I’ll do it,” Kelshie said.

            “I’ll do it too but I can’t sing,” Jess said hesitantly.

            “What are you talking about?!”Heather exclaimed. “You have been in choir with me ever since the 6th grade! You are a singer!”

            “No I’m not! You are the singer out of the three of us!” Jess argued. “I suck at singing. Kelshie’s better than I am.”

            “Jess,” Heather sighed, “how many times have I told you this? You, me and Kelshie are all equally talented singers! We carried the enter alto section for crying out loud! We could have even been leading sopranos but the only reason why our choir director didn’t move us was because we were the strongest altos.”

            It’s true. Heather, Jess and Kelshie all sang beautifully. They had joined their school choir when they were in the 6th grade and continued to sing for the choir until they graduated. The three best friends were all altos who could hit the high notes when they needed to. They technically could have been sopranos but they were needed to carry the lack luster alto section. Heather was often jealous of Jess and Kelshie because they could hit higher notes easier than she could most times.

            “Jess, I really like your voice,” Melina spoke up. “You have a beautiful voice.”

            Jess blushed, “You really think so?”

            She turned in her seat and Melina nodded her head and smiled, “I love it! And you are really good at hitting hit notes.”

            “Awe thanks. Ok I’ll do it.”

            Heather’s jaw dropped as she looked at Melina, “You have just done the impossible my sister.”

            “What’s that?”

            “You just made Jess believe in her singing voice! You don’t know how long I have been trying to tell her that she has a good voice!”

            Everyone cracked up. As the laughter died down Kelshie spoke up, “So Hermie what were you saying about your idea?”

            “Well remember how we would sing together when we were younger? Each of us would cover a certain Boy’s part of the song? And then we would come together during the choruses and make a three part harmony?”

            “Yeah! I miss doing that,” Kelshie smiled reflecting on the simpler times as she and her friends called it.

            “Well how about we do that for the Backstreet Challenge. But this time we’ll have Melina singing with us.”

            “I like it!” Jess exclaimed.

            “I do too,” Melina added.

            “We could sing something from either Unbreakable or This Is Us so nobody’s doubling up on parts and everyone has an equal amount to sing.”

            “So who’s going to cover which Boy?” Kelshie asked.

            “I was listening to you guys and I would say that you sound the most like Howie Kelshie. Besides you are the best at high notes. Jess you sound like Brian. Melina you have a rich powerful voice like AJ,” Heather said.

            “And of course you get Nick,” Jess commented.

            “Of course!” Heather laughed.

            “I’m guessing Nick is all yours huh sis?” Melina questioned.

            Heather nodded her head excitedly.

            Kelshie chuckled, “Yeah there is no fighting Hermie over Nick because there is no way your gunna get anywhere close to him. She’s had her grip on him the moment she first saw him.”           

            “No Kelshie it was the moment she first heard him sing on the radio!” Jess corrected.

            Heather smiled and sighed out, “Ahh I’ll never forget that day. It was the three of us squashed into the backseat of my mom’s car and my older sister Stephanie was in the passenger seat. Steph just changed the radio station and on comes As Long As You Love Me our first ever BSB song.”

            “Yeah and I can clearly remember you saying when you heard Nick’s voice “Damn he sounds hot! I’m claiming him.” She didn’t even see the guy and she claimed him! And ever since then Nick has been Hermie’s. Melina you have no chance honey,” Jess informed.

            Heather started laughing uncontrollably.

            “Hermie what’s so funny?” Kelshie asked as she started to giggle herself.

            Heather stopped laughing enough to say, “Jess’s impression of me! It was hysterical!”

            Again the car was filled with laughs. After the laughter subsided Heather brought up her idea for the Backstreet Challenge again.

            “So what do you guys think about the four of us singing like BSB?”

            “I like your idea,” Kelshie said. “What song are we going to sing?”

            “That I don’t know yet.”

            “Well let’s just keep listening to this CD. Kelshie you’ll cover Howie, I’ll take Brian, thank you for that Hermie, and Melina you’ll cover AJ’s parts. Let’s see how it goes and what song is best for us,” Jess reasoned.

            She hit the play button and You Can Let Go sounded through the speakers. They stuck to Heather’s plan and she was excited to hear their four voices mesh beautifully together. 

            The CD ended just as Kelshie pulled into her drive way.

            “So what song do you think we should do sis?” Melina asked.

            “To be honest I don’t know yet. We have enough time to figure it out so I’m not too worried about it.”    

            Sticking to their new routine of eating dinner then watching movies until they fell asleep, they settled down to watch Music and Lyrics. During the movie Heather pulled out Violet from her bag.

            “Dear Vi,

            Today we went to the zoo and enjoyed the gorgeous day. It wasn’t too hot and there was a nice breeze. We got lunch there and each of us got another water bottle shaped like different animals to add to our collections. On the way home we got stuck in traffic and I proposed my idea about the Backstreet Challenge. They all agreed on it. I knew they would. And I’m glad they are ok with who they are covering. And my master plan worked! Melina and I didn’t have to fight over Nick! Ha ha! Now all we have to figure out is which song we’re going to sing. I’m thinking about Unmistakable. We all love that song and the harmonies are pretty easy to master but sound amazing. I just have to make sure I can get through it without thinking about him.

            I’m starting to nod off here so I’ll write more later. HMH”