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Author's Chapter Notes:

I think the judging period for the Felix Awards is past, but I still wanted to get this chapter out there for all of you.  ♥  I actually wrote this story arc as an afterthought, separate from the rest of the fic, and inserted it to fix some timeline issues.  It seems to have changed some things that I had planned for later on in the story, but I think the end result will be much more fun this way!  Sorry for the long delay in updating; I got really stuck on this chapter for a while before I decided to set it in Chicago.  Looking at period photographs, listening to music from the 30’s, and reading an old book on Chicago all got me in the mood to write again! =]


VIII: (A Rising Star)

May was the month that Carla first got flowers.

Shocked, she looked down at the bouquet being presented to her, up into the warm smiling face of the young man, and back again at the flowers.  They were an elegant arrangement of peach roses and ivory carnations, tied neatly with a silk ribbon, and the gentleman in question was quite possibly the biggest heartthrob she had ever met.  “Brian…” Carla breathed, “I don’t know what to say.”

It had all started after the pantyhose incident, when Carla decided that she was through hanging around the hotel room like a lonely puppy waiting for Nick to come home every night.  Just because she was a small town girl didn’t mean that she did not know how to go out and have a good time in the big city.  And, boy, were the two of them in a big city—they had just arrived in Chicago, the Windy City, and were rooming in an apartment hotel right next to the Uptown district, which was well known for its night life pleasures.  They were surrounded by tall terra cotta office buildings, movie palaces, amusement centers and restaurants, college boys and boys who didn’t go to college, and a seemingly never-ending stream of young ladies in gay hats.  Here in Uptown, the squalor and Depression back home seemed like a lifetime away to Carla.  She decided that if Nick could spend his nights out painting the town red, then she was going to enjoy herself as well, and that meant shedding her male guise and going out to interact with human beings other than her stage partner.

Although Carla had originally donned male clothing for its ease of wear while traveling and to help her get odd jobs that were unavailable to girls, it seemed silly to keep up the ruse that she was a mute boy when she and Nick weren’t out on the rails.  Unless they were on stage, there was no need to pretend to be a boy here in Chicago, and with all the money they were making together Carla was considering giving up her side job as an errand boy, as well.

And that’s exactly what she said to Nick as she announced her intentions to cast aside her trousers and suspenders for the time being: “I want to wear skirts and floral prints again, Nick!  And pretty shoes, even if they are impractical and bound to fall apart after one good trek in the woods.  I mean, it’s not like I can’t afford it; you and I have been doing well lately.  With all the shows we’ve been playing, not only can we afford to stay in a nice room like this one, but I can afford to send money back home to my family and splurge on myself for a change.”

“So I’m sorry to tell you this, but you’re just going to have to find some place else to romance your dates, Nick—because I’m not going to pretend to be a boy any longer.  From here on out, it’s pretty much all ‘girl mode’ all the time,” she warned.  “Well, except whenever we check into a new hotel because I don’t want to look like a floozy,” she added hastily.  “Or when we play gigs, of course.”

“That’s good, ‘cause I’m sure folks would be a bit confused if the mute piano boy they came to hear play was suddenly a girl,” Nick commented dryly.  He sighed, “Well, I knew it was gonna come to this sooner or later, living with a girl.  Would almost say it wasn’t worth the hassle, putting up with a female roommate, but playing with you has been landing me bigger gigs than ever and I’m pretty loathe to go back to my old life of bouncing around one-star motels—” he broke off with a grin and clapped Carla on the arm.  “Hey, for Chrissake I’m just kidding!”

“So you don’t mind?”

“Nah, it’s fine.  Besides, wasn’t chopping off your hair and pretending to be a fellow your idea in the first place?  I don’t care if you wanna go back to being a girl as long as we’re not on the road.  Do what you like!” he laughed.  “Anyway,” Nick turned away to grab his coat, “was that all you wanted to tell me?”

“Uh…” Carla hesitated for a moment, “Yeah!  Yeah, I guess that’s all.  Have fun on your date tonight.”  As soon as Nick was out of the room, she sat down on the bed and let out a deep breath.  “Phew…”

There had been something else, of course, but Carla wasn’t quite sure how to bring it up.  After all, she wasn’t even sure yet whether it would come to anything, so there was no point in telling Nick until she knew for certain:  The other half of her plan to become independent and stop moping around while Nick went out every night, was to go out and perform as a soloist.  Carla wanted to show the world that she wasn’t just Nick Carter’s sidekick but a force all her own to be reckoned with.

“I suppose that I can tell him later, if it turns into a big thing,” Carla decided as she pulled out her newly purchased girl clothes and got dressed.  She rolled on a pair of nylons, adjusted a navy blue hat over her short dark hair, and dabbed on a bit of rouge before heading out and hailing a taxi.  That night she was scheduled to make her solo debut at an amateur showcase—not as Nick Carter’s mute sidekick Carl, but as Carla Carter, a new arrival to the Chicago music scene.  She had decided to combine her and Nick’s names when signing up for the showcase not only because it sounded catchier but also because, however improbable the possibility, Carla still worried that news might eventually get back to her family.  Performing in nightclubs and lounges was not quite proper for a young lady, after all, so many female performers went by a stage name.

As she arrived at the theatre where the showcase was being held, Carla began to feel terribly nervous.  Backstage was abustle with singers and dancers, and it was strange not to have Nick there guiding her through the sea of people.  It would be Carla’s first time playing professionally without him by her side.  She felt the absence of his comforting presence, and everywhere she looked, Carla expected to see Nick standing there with that encouraging grin of his.

All of a sudden, she began to wonder what had compelled her to try performing solo.  After all, she and Nick were a team and had been doing really well professionally, so why did she need to try and do this on her own?  There were plenty of other outlets by which Carla could express her femininity.   Her whole body went cold when finally she heard her name called, and she stepped out on stage to polite applause, trying not to tremble.  /Get a grip, Carla!  You’ve done this plenty of times before,/ she told herself and sat down at the piano.  /Just because he isn’t here, you can’t become a nervous wreck and fall to bits!/   Perhaps that was why Carla needed to perform solo: perhaps she needed to prove to herself that she could do something without Nick.  She was grateful for all of his help over the past couple of months, but she wanted to show that she had grown enough to stand on her own.

With the lights shining brightly down on her Carla couldn’t quite tell how many faces were out in the dark audience.  But she could smell the mingled aromas of perfume and cigar smoke, and she could hear the faintest of sounds like ice cubes jostling as someone set down a tumbler.  Placing her hands on the keys of the piano, Carla felt that familiar warmth and confidence begin to spread through her and smiled.  She opened with a roaring upbeat song that made the audience clap along.  “You’re on my mind, you’re in my heart… It doesn’t matter where we are.  We’ll be all right, even if we’re miles apart…”

Carla sang three songs that night and ended her set to enthusiastic applause.  The response from the crowd was so positive that she felt encouraged to come back and try performing solo some more.  She returned to play at the amateur showcase several times, and before long Carla was being approached by several proprietors of local nightclubs out scouting for new talent, who handed her their business cards and asked her to come perform at their venues.  And that was how “Carla Carter” made her debut as a gifted new artist on the Chicago music scene.

Over the dizzying next couple of weeks, several notable things happened: The Lindbergh baby was found dead, causing Carla to cry for three days straight; Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, winning several distinguished medals and awards; and Carla Carter was quickly turning into one of the most talked about new artists in Chicago, so that every small-scale venue in the city had to have her.  It seemed to Carla that one day nobody had known her and the next everybody did, and now she was receiving more offers than she knew what to do with.  Of course, Carla was nowhere near as popular as the duo “Nick and Carl,” who were very much in demand for larger gigs, but still, for an unknown musician who had just barely hit the scene, Carla’s music was garnering quite a bit of attention.

Unfortunately, the change had come about so suddenly that she hadn’t found a way to break the news to Nick before she was so popular that she was ashamed to admit that she had been keeping it from him.  Also, Carla was unsure of how he would feel that she had been playing without him, not to mention using his name to do it, so in the meantime she tried to keep Nick from finding out by limiting her performances to smaller gigs.  These locations were too minor for the better established duo Nick and Carl to play at, and the longer she kept Nick Carter and Carla Carter from crossing paths, the better.

But Carla wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep the whole thing under wraps.  After all, she was already beginning to receive offers from more well-known locations, and she wondered what she would do if asked to perform at the same venue as both Carl Miner and Carla Carter.  Or what if a fan of “Nick and Carl” were to go to a Carla Carter show and recognize her face or name and connect the dots?  Carla realized in hindsight that she shouldn’t have made her stage name so obvious, yet she hadn’t imagined at the time that she would reach this level of popularity so soon.

 “So deep in thought!” Nick interrupted with a clap on her shoulder as she sat chewing a pencil to bits, puzzling over what to do about her current predicament.  “Please tell me you’re gonna get away from that desk and go out and have some fun tonight, Carl?”

“S’pose I might,” Carla said with a shrug.  Actually, she was scheduled to play at a club that evening but was trying to figure out a good way to break the news about ‘Carla Carter’ to Nick before the show.  “Maybe I’ll go check out a movie, heard there’s a new horror film playing.  What about you, got a date lined up or is it lady hunting for you tonight?”  Since they primarily held rehearsal in the day, Nick spent most of his nights out with a beautiful girl on his arm unless they had a performance lined up—and even then there was usually some dainty miss in the audience smiling prettily and batting her eyelashes at him.

“Actually,” Nick laughed, “I’m on a hunt of a different kind tonight.”

“Oh?” she turned to him and raised an eyebrow.

“Well, I was talking to a buddy of mine, and you’ll never guess who he tells me is going to be playing here in Chicago on an unannounced stop of his tour this weekend…” he paused, letting the suspense build.

“Come on, tell me!”

Nick struck a pose, like a dashing crooner holding a microphone close to his mouth, and said, “Brian Littrell.”

Carla’s pencil dropped.  “What!  Really, Brian Littrell?  The same Brian Litrell who’s topped the charts with his beautiful crooning for three years straight, whose dashing looks and angelic voice have lifted the sad hearts of girls across the nation from their Depression woes with his promises of love?”  She clutched her hands to her breast with a faraway, dreamy look in her eyes.

“I see you’re familiar with him then,” Nick observed wryly.

“Am I ever!  Did you know they say that his natural approach and comforting melodies have him on track to become the most popular vocalist of the decade?!” she exclaimed then stopped.  “But what do you mean by hunting?”

“Well, apparently that unannounced stop he’s playing this weekend is going to be held in a secret venue, you know—one of those real intimate shows where he can connect with the fans—but even though it’s a big secret, tickets have long been sold out.  So my buddy and I are gonna hit up the town, work our connections, and see if we can’t hunt down a couple of tickets to the show after all.  Would you like a ticket, too, if I can get an extra one?”

“Oh boy, would I!  Sure!”

“All right, then I’ll try to snag one for you, too.  Try not to get your hopes up, but I’m feeling pretty confident about this one,” Nick said with a wink as he shrugged into a coat.  “All right, I’m off.  Oh, and try not to stay out too late tonight, Carl—I do want you to go out and have fun, but try to get enough sleep ‘cause you’ve been looking a bit drawn at rehearsals lately.  It takes a real man like myself to live such a depraved late-night lifestyle, you know,” he said with a wink.

As soon as the door had shut behind him, Carla leapt up from her seat to get dressed for her performance.  Glancing in the mirror, she realized that Nick was right—she did look a bit tired and worn.  Carla decided that she should cut back on shows, especially now that she was receiving offers to play at better-paying venues.  Tonight, for instance, would be the highest-paying gig she had ever accepted, a supper club over in the busy Loop district, where she would play for the audience while they wined and dined before the band came in for the after-supper dancing.  Fortunately, she could perform there without worrying about Nick finding out: Carla knew that her partner would stay far away from this particular dance hall, as he had once been thrown out by the owner for romancing the man’s daughter.  

For the performance, Carla wore a stylish new dress in swathes of chiffon.  It was girly and excessive and just barely within her budget, and she loved it.  She felt glamorous, like a starlet in the movies.  In a dress like this, Carla could hardly remember her days of living in a crowded house overrun with siblings and being a normal girl who went to school in nice but ordinary clothes.  Viewing the elegant clubhouse surroundings as she played, from the crystal chandeliers above to the grand piano at her fingers, Carla was struck by the difference between her shabby former life and where she was now.  For just a second her smile faded and Carla’s voice faltered.  Compared to her old life she really was living on top of the world, but her family was still back there in that small town just trying to scrape by.  Sure, Carla helped them out with the money she wired back home, but was she doing enough for them?

Forcing a smile, she cleared her throat and put all her attention back into the show.  It would do no good to blow it in one of the nicest supper clubs around; she had to make a good impression if she wanted to keep her reputation as the best new musicians in Chicago.  After her set, the owner Mr. Raymond Bradbury, a well-groomed gentleman in his forties with dark pomade-styled hair, introduced the band and then escorted her over to the VIP room as the dancing began.

He offered his arm which she took and quickly began to extol on her virtues.  “Miss Carter, what a pleasure it was to have you play in my club tonight.  You know, they’re starting to say that anyone who’s anyone must have at their club the delightful gem Carla Carter, that mysterious new musician who’s quickly risen from the obscure piano bar scene.  I’m happy to be the first supper club on the Loop to be able to brag about having you here.”  

“Well, it was my pleasure to play for you, Mr. Bradbury.  Such an elegant club you have!” she gave him a warm smile, hoping this meant he would make her an offer to come play again.

“Why thank you.  And now, while I would so love to keep your talents all to myself, a guest who was dining here tonight was quite taken with your performance and requested a private audience.  Please say that you will humor the gentleman for a little while?”

Carla hesitated.  The request was completely unexpected, and she worried that “humoring a private audience” was a euphemism for a less than innocent meeting.  Mr. Bradbury seemed to detect her reluctance and gave her an encouraging smile.  “No need to worry, Miss Carter.  I can assure you that the gentleman in question is a man of the highest honor.  One of the waitstaff shall be here at the door should you have need of anything.”

“Well, it’s getting rather late, but I suppose a very brief meeting shouldn’t hurt.”  Carla smiled bravely.  She entered the VIP room, a stylishly furnished room overlooking the dance floor, and found a handsome well-dressed young man sitting at a table waiting for her.  She recognized him immediately.  “Oh my.”

The man rose from his seat and crossed the room to meet her, extending his hand.  “Miss Carter, it’s a pleasure to meet you.  Brian  Littrell.” 


Chapter End Notes:

Descriptions of Chicago are referenced from John Drury’s "Dining in Chicago" (1931).

The song Carla sings at the amateur showcase is “Just Want to Be with You” from High School Musical 3.  (Don't laugh, it's a guilty pleasure!  I found to be surprisingly good for a Disney tween movie.)