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Click, click, click back down the hall, but right this time instead of straight, heading for, I guessed, the dressing rooms and green room.

 

"How was your flight?" Christine asked. It was a perfunctory question, her tone made that clear.

 

"Fine, thanks," I replied, in no mood to go out of my way to engage her.

 

We reached the green room, and I propped up my suitcase and messenger bag in a corner, keeping my phone and notepad handy. My purse was buried in my suitcase, not that either bag held much of value besides my camera, which I would dig out before I went back out there.

 

Christine turned to a table full of food, junk and real food alike, and a full-sized fridge at one end. "Help yourself. Can I get you something to drink? Water, Coke products?"

 

"A Diet Coke, thanks." I had felt like eating my entire arm since before the plane ever took off, and it took everything in me not to fall upon the table like a savage, especially with a caterer fussing over hot food at the other end of the table. I helped myself to a small dish of fresh-cut fruit and sat in a nearby chair, trying to straighten my back and eat daintily, feeling like a wildebeest next to this human snowflake.

 

The tour manager handed me the Diet Coke and opened a bottle of water for herself - ladies never drank soda, LOL duh - before settling into a chair next to me, crossing her legs primly at the ankles.

 

"OK! So! You are with us for the next week," Christine said brightly, stating the obvious. "Any questions so far?"

 

You mean, any questions that weeks of emails didn't resolve? I thought about asking, but thought better of it. I wasn't interested in making an enemy of this harpy, who was all that stood between me and a hasty trip home. Although...

 

Instead, I flashed another winning smile. "Not really. Anything I need to know that we haven't been over?"

 

"Well, aaaaactually, I did want to let you know that we discussed what you and Tom had been talking about, and we're not going to allow you to shoot any video or photos during the concerts." Christine smiled the beatific smile of someone quite pleased with herself. "We didn't get the impression that yours is a concert story per se, so we're going to reserve that right for people writing about the concerts themselves."

 

I clenched my toes inside my shoes to keep from clenching my fists or jaw, which would have been a more obvious tell. Never mind that the publicists had all but guaranteed us in writing that we'd get footage during the shows. Never mind that our story would probably generate more buzz for the guys than the dumb Miami Herald review. No, no.

 

"And I want to make sure we have the blog and Twitter addresses right," Christine went on, oblivious to the smoke I was sure was coming out of my ears. "We'll be reading them regularly, me and the publicists. Just to make sure there's nothing...untoward."

 

I found my voice. "Well, I'll give you the addresses, but any issues with content, you'll need to take up with Thomas," I said calmly, trying to keep the edge out of my voice. "I take orders from him. I don't imagine I'll have much more than random observations from the road, anyway. We had discussed that previously."

 

Christine's smile never flickered. "Of course. But better safe than sorry."

 

I ripped a sheet off the notepad, trying not to do so violently, and scribbled down my Twitter handle and the address of my blog. So much for tweeting, "God, why don't these guys Febreze their damn shoes every once in a while?" or "If I hear ‘Backstreet's Back' one more time, I'm going to lie down in front of the bus."

 

Christine took the sheet in one perfectly manicured hand. "Thanks. I'll share this with the publicists. Also," she went on, "I don't need to tell you to try to keep a low profile with the boys. They don't need any extra distractions beyond you being here at all."

 

I had just about had it with this woman, and I'd only known her for five minutes. I didn't appreciate being talked to like I was an intern who'd stumbled into an all-expenses-paid vacation.

 

"Anything else?" I said, too politely.

 

There wasn't, really, just logistics. I would have my own room tonight and whenever the band and its entourage stayed in hotels; the magazine had paid for all that in advance. There wasn't time now to go check into the hotel, so my stuff would live in the green room for now.

 

"Oh, and before I forget," she added, reaching into her back pocket. She produced an all-access pass on a lanyard, which I instantly hung around my neck.

 

More fake smiles on both sides as Christine stood up. "Thanks for your time," she said. "Make yourself at home."

 

She walked out, and I glared at her as she departed, scribbling down a few obscenity-laden notes. No, I wasn't about to piss her off today, but I had half a mind to tell her what I thought on my way out of Nashville.

 

I looked around the green room. It was huge, full of food and refreshments. This one was for the crew - Christine, the tour accountant, a couple of promo guys, the technicians, the two bodyguards, the guys' personal assistant, the makeup artist and hairstylist - and the backing band. The guys and their five backup dancers would have their own, the guys having decided for old time's sake or some such shit to all cram onto one bus. These groups would fill four tour buses, not counting the two semis of set materials, lights and sound. The opening act, some Disney pop tart whose name I had promptly forgotten and who was almost young enough to be my daughter, was traveling separately, with her own legion of buses and equipment trailers. The whole thing was dizzying, when you really stopped to think about it, but I was used to it, and so I no longer did.

 

After a few minutes of studying my notes, carefully composing a tweet, chugging my Diet Coke, and contemplating whether or not to call Thomas and tear into him for not warning me about the evil sorceress running the show here, I heard a symphony of footsteps and voices outside the door. A moment later, most of the crew came stampeding in, along with a gang of roadies. It was two hours to showtime, and it was dinnertime for them; the band, as I understood it, had sound-checked earlier and had already eaten. I excused myself and my luggage, wondering how safe it really was there.

 

Walking down the hall, I found a closet and stuffed my suitcase inside, writing a note on the back of my hand to find it there later. Everything I really cared about was in my messenger bag anyway, including my wallet.

 

My all-access pass meant I could go anywhere the band did, except the bathroom, so I took advantage of the chance to track down their green room. It wasn't hard; it was just down the hall from the crew's. I could hear voices inside.

 

Someone from the same caterer was standing off to one side as the guys pounced on a buffet of what I guessed were manly foods - like a bunch of lions on a wounded gazelle, I wrote on my notepad before shoving it into my back pocket. They muttered appreciative things about the food as they moved down the line, one by one heading to a long table in the middle of the room.

 

Nick looked up, mouth full of food, and waved me in. "Oh, good, the writer's here," he said as he swallowed what looked like a painfully large chunk of food. "Come eat some of this awesome food."

 

"Yeah, it's not like they fed you on the flight, right?" A.J. added before chomping into a huge burger.

 

I tried not to laugh. I couldn't believe these guys were older than me. Visibly they'd aged, and yet, as they chowed down like frat brothers, they seemed distinctly, well, boyish.

 

I took a plate and filled it with a burger, no bun, a couple hot wings and a huge scoop of cheesy broccoli and cauliflower, grabbing another Diet Coke from the fully stocked fridge at the end of the table. I had a feeling I, too, would be eating like a frat boy for the next week. With no clear opportunities for a run in sight, either, I wondered if all my pants would still fit at the end of the week.

 

I plunked down my plate at the opposite end of the table from the guys, so I could see them all. They were silent as they stuffed their faces. Frat boys, for sure.

 

After a few minutes, Nick swallowed another huge chunk of food and said, "Sorry, we're..." He winced, something clearly stuck in his throat. He took a big gulp of water. "We're not trying to be rude. We just, you know, really love food."

 

"What, are you only allowed to eat when you're together?" I couldn't help but chuckle, softening the sarcasm.

 

"We kinda forgot how good tour food is," Howie said, a bit sheepishly. "It's been a while, y'know."

 

I made a mental note of his comment. Still getting their tour legs back?

 

"In fact," Nick said, stabbing a piece of cauliflower with his fork as if it had insulted his mother, "the PR team told us to be nice to you." He winked at me, a completely innocuous wink. "Not that we wouldn't be nice to a pretty lady, but this whole being-followed-on-tour thing, it's a bit of a first."

 

"Gee, thanks," I said. "You have to be told to be nice to a journalist. This is going to be a great week." But the truth was, the guys were being friendlier than the first few minutes in the theater had led me to expect, and I was starting to feel reassured.

 

"You probably do this a lot," Howie said, unaware that I'd never spent a whole week with a band whose entire membership I had once lusted after. The least attractive person in this band at any given time still would have stopped traffic on the average American street. "We'll try not to make it too painful for you. Unlike, ah, some of our colleagues whom you've already met."

 

The guys all chortled. I looked down at my plate and smiled tightly. "Yeeeeah."

 

"Christine, she's, uh, she's a pistol." Brian's smile mirrored mine, but I noticed that he still wasn't looking me in the eye. There was still a slow, gentle, appealing twang to his voice, and I remembered that he was from Kentucky - he'd even made his home in Louisville for the last few years, I seemed to recall.

 

"She's a bitch on wheels," Nick said matter-of-factly, through a mouthful of food, having apparently abandoned any effort to be polite.

 

"Dude, mixed company," Brian said to him, and now the smile was a sarcastic smirk. "Did you spend the last six months on a construction site?"

 

"Oh, like no sour word has ever passed your lips." Nick swallowed hard again. "They told us to be nice to her. They didn't tell us to not be ourselves. Would you want it any differently?" he said to me.

 

"You using blue language in front of me doesn't piss me off half as much as you being artificially nice would be," I said. "So by all means, cuss, fart and rant on."

 

Nick grinned. "Noted."

 

"You shouldn't have said that." A.J. rolled his eyes. "He'll act like a caveman all week now because he can."

 

"Dude, he was gonna act like a caveman anyway." Brian made a dismissive gesture with his hot wing. He looked at a spot above my head again. "You're probably used to it."

 

"This may shock you," I said, equally dedicated to avoiding eye contact with him as I shook excess cheese sauce off a piece of broccoli, "but I've never spent every moment of a whole week with musicians."

 

"Jesus." Howie grinned around his can of Coke. "Allow me to apologize now for everyone else's BS."

 

A.J. rolled his eyes again. "Now if that isn't the biggest crock of shit I ever did hear."

 

"Anyway, getting back to the point," Brian went on, "Christine's gonna be the worst thing that happens to you all week. She hates other women, hates journalists, thinks she's our mother and micromanages everything." He ticked off each of these points on barbecue sauce-covered fingertips. "We used her for our last tour, and I have no idea why our manager asked her back." He wiped off his fingers. "She's actually worse than our manager, who, thank the Lord, will not be joining us for a few weeks. Great guy, tight ship." He shook his head, let out a low whistle.

 

"What Brian means by all that," A.J. clarified, "is that you shouldn't take it personally if she was a total bitch to you. Which I'm guessing she was, since you are a woman and a journalist who will be in her hair and ours for the next week."

 

"She wasn't so bad, apart from essentially telling me not to do my job." I bit into a hot wing.

 

"Reading your tweets? Telling you to stay out of our hair?" Howie guessed. I nodded. He smirked. "Sounds about right."

 

Nick raised his hand like a schoolboy. "Question. So how do you stay out of our hair when you're supposed to ride the bus with us?"

 

Brian just rubbed his forehead, a pained expression on his face.

"So, Miss Journalist, you from New York originally?" A.J. asked.

 

Here came the barrage of polite small-talk questions. "Western Illinois," I replied.

 

"Illinois, huh?" He popped a piece of broccoli into his mouth without using his fork. "How'd you end up in New York?"

 

I smiled tightly. "By getting into bands' hair."

 

"So you're gonna be a pain in the ass anyway this week?" Brian sounded hard like he was trying to make a joke, but his prickliness so far took the laughs out of it.

 

"Something like that," I muttered, feeling chastised again, as I sipped my Diet Coke. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Nick scowl at him.

 

We made small talk for the rest of the meal before they all finished wolfing their food and excused themselves, off to do whatever it was they were going to do before they went on. A little more than two hours to showtime for them.

 

I pulled my notepad back out and made a few notes about our dinnertime conversation - no sense in intimidating them with it in our first chat - then finished my plate of food, which was getting cold. For someone who had little else to do, it was still a long time to showtime, when I would go out into the audience and sit near the front and experience it all. The green room had fallen silent. I assumed the backup dancers had long since eaten, if they ate at all.

 

I started typing my blog post for the day, then gave up. There would be more that night, and my own thoughts were somewhat muddled.

 

I had met many celebrities in my day, I reflected as I leaned back in my chair. Many of them had surprised me with their kindness, many more with their bad attitudes. These guys surprised me with how down-to-earth they were. It amazed me that fame hadn't gone to their heads.

 

Or maybe it had simply evaporated, after all these years.

 

Eventually, I dug my camera out of my bag, slung the bag over my shoulder and went for a walk. The guys' dressing rooms weren't far away, and showtime was drawing ever nearer. Maybe this was the place for a few good pre-show candid shots, maybe a composite shot of the four.

 

A.J. was touching up his guyliner. Howie had his elbows on his vanity, forehead resting on his clasped hands, a rosary snaking from between them - a beautiful image, I thought, hoping the click of my shutter wouldn't disturb him.

 

Brian, too, had his elbows on his vanity, but he was talking quietly into an iPhone. He glanced furtively at me as my camera clicked, but his eyes still didn't meet mine, and he swiveled in his chair so that his back was to me.

 

Anxiety prickled through me. Brian and I were not off to a good start.

 

Nick had his feet up on the vanity but was looking into the mirror as he spiked his hair. He glanced up when he heard the shutter click on my camera.

 

"Guess I better get used to this again, huh?" he said with a smirk.

 

I grinned unapologetically. "I'm sure it'll be like riding a bike."

 

Nick leaned back, uncapping a bottle of water that sat on the vanity. "You'd be surprised. This sorta thing was always sorta weird for me. And what you're doing?" He shook his head, a bemused look on his face. "Totally out of the ordinary."

 

I leaned against the doorframe, my camera hand dropping to my side. "You toured not that long ago, right?"

 

"Yeah, but..." He took a sip of water. "Not like this. Not when it felt like so much was riding on it. I don't know if any more than usual is, but..." He shrugged. "It's hard not to feel old right now, you know?"

 

I reached around to my bag, feeling around for my recorder.

 

Nick sighed heavily. "You're not looking for a notepad, are you?"

 

"Oh, didn't the Ice Queen or one of your publicists tell you? Each of you is going one-on-one with me." I crossed my arms and gave him my best sickly-sweet smile. "See, so I can't stay totally out of your hair."

 

"Well, just...not right now, OK?" He swung his feet to the floor and glanced at his hair in the mirror, then rose to his feet. He was every bit of a foot taller than me, and I felt very small as he walked over.

 

He placed a hand over his heart. "I promise I will sit down with you in the next 24 hours. And I promise I will lean on the others till they cooperate."

 

I couldn't keep from smiling, from dropping the sarcasm. "Well, I appreciate it. I've met a lot of surprisingly nice musicians, but I gotta say, you guys are really shocking the hell out of me with your hospitality." A thought nagged at me. "For the most part."

 

Nick looked thoughtful. He crossed his arms and studied me. "You seem nice. Nicer than a lot of journalists." He chewed on his lower lip. "I can tell you right now, Brian is going to take longer to buy that than anyone else in the band."

I snorted softly. "Yeah, I kinda picked up on that."

 

"He has to, though," he went on, as if he hadn't heard me. "Everyone knows it's a big deal that you're here. There's a lot riding on that, too."

 

He sat back down, and I turned to leave. But before I did, something else occurred to me.

 

"So, what's your opening number?" I asked.

 

Nick beamed up at me, the face that launched a thousand Geocities tributes. "Isn't it obvious? ‘Backstreet's Back.'"