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A month after my Idol elimination, my life was back to normal. I was home, living alone in my one-bedroom apartment, working at the nursing home, and writing songs for an album I’d probably never record. Sometimes I got recognized when I was out in public, which was always a little flattering and a little weird, but for the most part, the hype had died off, and life had settled down.

I thought I’d be okay with that, but the truth was, I missed it. I missed the hustle and bustle of Hollywood. I missed all the fun opportunities that had come my way when I was one of “the Idols.” Most of all, I missed performing on stage every week with a live band behind me and an audience before me. Singing to a room full of the elderly, half of whom were there but not really “there,” just wasn’t the same.

People kept asking me if I’d gotten any offers yet - for record deals, acting gigs, Broadway parts, commercials, anything. “You will,” they assured me, when I told them I hadn’t. “Maybe they’re just waiting until the season ends, to make sure you’re not still under contract.”

I always smiled and said “We’ll see,” but I wasn’t holding my breath. Eleventh place on American Idol may have been a significant accomplishment in my life, but in the larger scheme of things, it meant there were ten other aspiring singers who’d done better than me. I didn’t think many producers would be interested in the one who’d come in eleventh.

Maybe that was just as well. I was twenty-eight, almost twenty-nine. I was supposed to be settling down, not chasing fame. All of my friends were married, and most of them owned their own homes and had children. All I had was my career. If I gave that up, I’d have nothing at all.

And then an offer came.

It came on a Wednesday night, toward the end of April. I’d just gotten home from work, my arms laden with a few bags of groceries and a stack of mail. I dropped everything on the kitchen counter and put away the groceries before sorting through the mail - mostly junk and ads, as usual. I set aside the bills, chucked the rest into my recycling bin, and pulled my cell phone out of my purse to plug back into its charger. I always kept it silenced while I was at work, and as I went to turn the volume back up, I noticed a missed call. Viewing the call details, I frowned. It wasn’t from one of my contacts, and the number wasn’t familiar - in fact, there was no number at all. All it said was “PRIVATE CALLER.”

I checked my voicemail, but there was no message, so I shrugged, left the phone on my counter, and went into my bedroom to change out of my scrubs. “Hammy!” I called on the way in the high, sweet voice I reserved for animals and babies. “Where’s Mama’s baby?” As I pushed open the door to my room, I heard a muffled grunt and saw a tiny snout appear under the dust ruffle, as my pet teacup pig, Hambelina, nosed her way out from under my bed. “There you are!” I exclaimed, kneeling down, and my little pig responded with an oink of excitement and scampered into my arms. I picked her up, cradling her like a baby, and brought my nose down to her snout, giving her Eskimo kisses.

I’d wanted a pet pig ever since I had seen the old cartoon movie of Charlotte’s Web, which was also my favorite book. As a child, I imagined myself just like Fern, pushing around a little pink piglet in a baby carriage and feeding it from a bottle. Of course, my dad wouldn’t let me have one then, and even now, he regarded Hambelina with a sort of amused disapproval. He had reluctantly agreed to take care of her while I was in Los Angeles, but only because he loved me, not her. He had grown up in a farming town, where pigs were raised to be food, not pets, so I didn’t really expect him to understand.

After a minute or so, I set Hambelina down and stripped off my scrubs. I had just pulled on a t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants when I heard my phone ring. Scurrying back out to the kitchen, I plucked the phone up and checked the screen.

PRIVATE CALLER.

Normally, I screen my calls; I rarely pick up for numbers I don’t know. But after all the talk of “offers,” I have to admit, I was curious. You better not be a solicitor, I thought, as I pressed the button to answer the call. “Hello?”

“Hi,” said a man’s voice, low and uncertain. “Is this Cary Hilst?”

“Yes, it is,” I replied. “Who’s this?”

“This is Nick Carter.”

Now, of course, the first thought I had was of the Backstreet Boy. What other Nick Carters did I know? But “Nick” and “Carter” are both pretty common names, and that, coupled with the fact that there was no way the Backstreet Boy one would be calling me, made me think it had to be some other Nick Carter.

Whoever he was, he didn’t say anything else after his introduction, prompting me to reply, “Sorry, do I know you?”

There was a pause. Then he said, “I think you know of me. You sang one of my songs on American Idol, didn’t you?”

My stomach lurched, and my heart started beating fast. I held the phone tight to my ear, my fingers suddenly sweaty, my cheeks very warm. No way... I thought. Then the cynical side of me came to its senses, and I scoffed. “No, really. Who is this?”

“Nick Carter.”

I rolled my eyes. At the same time, my mind raced. Who would be trying to trick me? I thought of my guy friends... Some of them knew I still liked the Backstreet Boys, but could any of them pull off Nick Carter’s voice? Because now that I thought about it, it did sort of sound like him... Sort of...

“You need me to prove it or something?” he asked, when I didn’t say anything back right away. He sounded half-irritated, half-amused. Oh God, he so sounded like Nick...

“Sure,” I said on impulse, trying to play it casual. If he was just someone messing with me, I didn’t want to seem gullible. “Prove it.”

“Alright... what’s your favorite Backstreet song?”

I considered this carefully. Here was a way to test him. “Evergreen,” I finally decided. It was a song they’d recorded for Unbreakable, but never released. If he wasn’t a Backstreet Boy (or a fairly hardcore fan - and none of my friends were), he wouldn’t know it.

“'Evergreen,' huh?” He chuckled, and my skepticism rose. He was totally stalling. But all of a sudden, he started singing! “I’ve been on the run, slept under the sun, feedin’ off the clouds and eatin’ them like ice cream...”

My mouth dropped.

“...I’ve been all around, never left this town, blisters on my eyelids like it’s spring in Paris...”

I pressed the phone against the side of my head, absorbing the sound of his voice in my ear. My cheeks felt fiery hot now; I was overheating.

“...I’ve seen everything, I’ve dreamt every dream, I am every human...”

It was him. I could hardly believe it, but it was so him! Nick Carter! On the phone! Singing to me!

...Oh, I’m not even finished... Can I stop now?” he cut off abruptly.

I giggled at the irony and squeaked, “Sure!” My heart was pounding so hard, it felt ready to burst out of my chest at any moment.

“You believe me now?”

“Yes...” My voice was still higher than usual. “I believe you.”

“Good. I have a proposition for you.”

Later, I would laugh as I told people Nick Carter had propositioned me. “Okay...” was all I managed to say then.

“The North American leg of our tour is starting in another month,” he began. “It kicks off on the twenty-ninth of May in Miami and will run through the end of August, with a break in July. We’re looking for an opening act, and I thought of you.”

Gaping silently, I practically gagged as I sputtered, “Are you serious??”

“I saw you sing on Idol,” was all he said. “You wanna sing at our shows?”

“Um, yes!” I burst out. “But - I don’t have an album or anything...”

His reply came quickly, like he’d anticipated this. “But you have some songs, right? I mean, you’ve written songs? You’d only need, like, three for your set.”

I’d been writing songs since junior high, but that didn’t mean they were any good (in fact, it meant a lot of them were pretty bad). “Well, yeah...”

“So no problem.”

I shook my head. This was all so unbelievable, my skepticism was starting to set in again. “Dude, is this for real, or are you just messing with me? Did someone put you up to this?” I asked desperately.

“No, I’m for real.”

“How did you get my number?”

“Ellen DeGeneres.”

My heart sank. “You are messing with me! Or she is!” I groaned. This whole phone conversation was probably being recorded for a bit on Ellen’s talk show. I’d seen her segments when she made celebrities like Dennis Quaid and Paris Hilton go out and do silly things in public while she coached them through a bug in their ear. This was just another stunt like that.

“I swear, I’m not messing with you, Cary.”

When he said my name, I so wanted to believe him. But my dad hadn’t raised me to be easily taken advantage of. “Why would she give you my number?” I demanded. “That information should be private.”

“’Cause I promised her an appearance on her show after the tour. Why, do you wish I hadn’t called you?”

I sighed. “No,” I admitted. “Just... are you sure you’re serious?”

“I’m super serial.” He said it deadpan, but with a lisp, like South Park’s impression of Al Gore.

I giggled again. Despite the humor, I had to believe him. I wanted to believe him. And he kept repeating that he was for real... “Okay,” I said, “so then, what’s the catch?”

“What?”

“You know - the catch? I’m just thinking this is too good to be true for me, so I wanna know what’s in it for you,” I pressed. I don’t know why I didn’t just say, “Sure, I’m in!” and leave it at that. I guess it’s because, like I said, I wasn’t brought up to be taken advantage of, and something about this whole “proposition” of his seemed off. Just as I’d told him, it sounded too good to be true.

“I told you, the tour starts in a month, and we still don’t have an opening act. I saw you on Idol and liked what you did with ‘Just Want You to Know.’ I think the fans will like you, too. What do you think?”

It didn’t occur to me that he hadn’t actually answered my question. He sounded almost too serious, like he was starting to get annoyed by my grand inquisition, and I was afraid he was going to retract the offer and hang up on me any second, so I gushed, “I think it sounds amazing! Thank you! You don’t know what this means to me...”

“Trust me, you’re doing me a favor, too. Us, I mean. So listen, why don’t I fly you out here in a couple of weeks so we can meet and talk about the tour? I know you probably don’t have a manager or anything yet, so I can be that for you, for now. I can help you with your set and whatnot.”

Again, I wondered vaguely why he would make such an elaborate offer, but this time, I didn’t ask. With no thought to my job, my family, or the life I’d just gotten back in order after the roller coaster ride of American Idol, I blurted, “That sounds great!”

“Awesome. I’ll be in touch,” he said.

Then he hung up.

***