Sunday, 7/31: Orlando

I heard the phone ring before I saw the clock: 5:45. My hand shot out and dragged the receiver to the side of my head, and I mumbled something not even I understood.

"This is your wake-up call!" a man on the other end singsonged.

"Go back to hell," I mumbled, and dropped the receiver back into the cradle.

It was disgustingly early for his good mood. The buses were supposed to be leaving Miami at 7, but we hadn't gotten to the hotel until 11 - in the crew's case, much later - and I had been up well past 1 working. It was going to be a minimum-four-Diet Coke day.

Crawling out of my huge, plump bed, I stumbled over to the window and ripped open the curtains. The sky was just lightening in the east, and the city lights still sparkled, a slice of dark ocean visible in the distance. I liked to start my hotel mornings like this, staring out at the landscape. It was easy to forget where you were when all you saw was the inside of a hotel room, the front of a USA Today and the endless, hellish loop of HLN headlines.

Half of Diet Coke #1 from the mini-bar was gone before I climbed into the shower. When I climbed out, there was a text message waiting for me from an unfamiliar number: "Don't eat breakfast. Tour ritual on bus."

Tour ritual? What, were they going to sacrifice the journalist and it'd be less messy on an empty stomach?

My stomach was growling hardcore at the thought of breakfast, but I managed to get down to the lobby without dry-heaving. Christine was waiting there, wearing another expensive-looking tee with capris and heels, looking as polished as she had yesterday. I wondered if she was actually an android. My outfit was theoretically identical to hers, but finished with flats and a halo of still-damp curls I'd tried to tame with anti-frizz cream, and I was sure I looked exactly like I'd gotten four hours of sleep.

"I forgot to tell you yesterday," she trilled. "You'll want to go out the back. Less conspicuous."

I thought about telling her that her lack of an inside voice was awfully conspicuous in itself, but instead I just returned her vapid smile, did an about-face and left out the back.

The alley behind the hotel reeked of exhaust, and the air was already heavy with hot humidity. I climbed onto the bus, dragging my bags - no one there to help me - and was instantly greeted by a McDonald's bag under my nose.

"What's all this?" I said, shouldering my messenger bag and accepting the food from Brian.

"Your breakfast, Miz Michaels." He smiled, looked me in the eye for the first time. I was so surprised I almost dropped both my breakfast and my bag. His eyes were startlingly blue, yes, but it was more that he was actually looking at me. A friendly look. A friendly look in the eye from Brian Littrell to a woman who, 12 years ago, had wanted to be Meg Littrell.

Words failed me. All I could offer, all I had to give, was a smile in return. Oh, holy hell.

"Welcome to our nightmare," Nick called out over Brian's shoulder, once again through a mouthful of food, this time something that probably contained the ground-up knuckles of Third World cows. And now I could see that, in the midst of their luxuriously appointed bus, McDonald's wrappers covered the tables in the two small booths on one side. I hadn't eaten McDonald's in years, drawing the fast-food line at the golden arches, but the smell sharpened my hunger & made me dizzy.

I had to laugh, relaxing. "So this is why I wasn't supposed to eat."

"Yep," Brian said gleefully. "Tour ritual. This is what we eat every morning we can. We even rotate who has to go get it. We dance our asses off. Least we can do is eat something that'll probably kill us once a day."

"Also, glad you got my text," Howie called out, his back to me.

Well. Super. Christine hadn't told me she had given out my cellphone number to the guys. At least I hadn't gotten any late-night pictures of genitalia.

"I got you the fruit-and-walnut thing," A.J. said, a little apologetically. "It seemed like something a woman would eat."

I wasn't convinced their fruit and walnuts weren't coated in industrial chemicals, but far be it from me to look a devastatingly attractive gift horse in the mouth. I dropped my bags where I stood, sat down on the long couch across from their booths and ate.

"You're gonna be in the extra bunk," A.J. informed me. "Across from the bodyguard."

I had a feeling I knew whose bunk the extra was, but I wasn't going to press it. "Great. Where's the bodyguard?" I popped a wilted green grape into my mouth.

"Jay's napping in the back," Nick said, busily mopping up a puddle of ketchup with the end of a perfectly oval hash brown. "He hit the hay as soon as A.J. got back to the bus. He doesn't exactly sleep soundly at night, having to babysit the likes of us."

The idea of a guy like yesterday's hulks lying across the aisle from me was unsettling at best, but he didn't stir when I eventually dragged my bags to the back. I pushed aside a short curtain to see a fairly utilitarian bunk bed with a fluffy-looking pillow and camel-colored bedding. The bunk was five feet off the ground, for some stupid reason, and I had to hoist my suitcase over my head to get it inside. There were ladders built into the wall next to each pair of bunks, but I didn't feel especially confident about them.

"It takes some getting used to," came a cheery, Southern-fried voice from behind me. I turned to see Brian heading back to the john. "Take it from another short person."

My everything clenched against a wave of I didn't even know what as he brushed past me. He smelled really nice, and his trim body was about half a foot taller than me, and his hair was still damp from a shower, something I refused to contemplate in much detail because all of these gorgeous men were still sources at the end of the day. Could be a long drive to Orlando.

"By the way," he called back over his shoulder, "there's a spot below the bunks for your suitcase."

Yep. It was going to be a long drive.

**

Thankfully, Orlando, where the guys had gotten their start, was just a few hours away. I would have gladly given my left kidney for a nap, but that would have been irresponsible of me as a journalist. Instead, I passed the time with a mix of work activities: a couple of tweets, a bit of video of A.J. and Nick talking about the band's lingering immaturities as they played some Call of Duty game on the Xbox in the front of the bus, the beginnings of the day's blog post. Some notes observing the brotherly camaraderie on the bus, which time didn't seem to have dimmed, although I was pretty sure it predated the term "bromance."

We hit Orlando at about 11 a.m., and everyone piled off the buses and into the Amway Center, which would be packed with a hometown crowd tonight. Someone else would take all the bags to the hotel and check them in.

"What exactly are you guys supposed to do all day?" I asked Nick, squinting against the bright sun in spite of my sunglasses. The bus had started to get chilly after a while, and the Southern heat felt almost nice.

"Well, we don't have sound check till 4," he replied. "Theoretically, we can do whatever we want."

It sounded familiar enough. "So what do you do? Hang out at Universal Studios?" I jeered.

"Well, I promised someone an interview." He flashed a photogenic smile down at me. I wondered if he'd ever had to buy a drink in his life.

Truthfully, he reminded me as we sat down in the bowels of the venue, iPhone-as-recorder between us in his dressing room, he hadn't had a drink in years. That was first a condition of the probation he'd received when he was hooked up for driving drunk, then a health decision.

The musicians I interviewed were often so flip about their criminal records, even as they paid lip service to it having been a dark time in their lives, their having learned a lesson, et cetera. I didn't feel like Nick felt any differently about his. After all, it hadn't affected his career. It probably wouldn't have affected mine, either. If either of us had been something normal, like a teacher or an accountant, it could have meant the end of our lives.

But it had been a tough time, and music had pulled him out of it, he acknowledged. He still struggled sometimes with his feelings, with getting angry, but he'd been the most prolific solo artist, even if none of them had exactly met with smashing success. It had helped him a lot.

"What did you say when there started to be talk of this album, this tour?" I asked him.

He chewed on his lip again; it appeared to be his nervous tic. "There was never any doubt we'd be out here again," he said quietly. "Never any real doubt. But you always wonder."

"Wonder what?" I pressed.

"Well... Think about it this way." He focused on a spot behind me. "We're all in our 30s. We're not kids. Some of us have kids. Some of us are old enough to have the big stars now as our kids."

I thought about what I knew of the guys. Nick was 31, just a few months older than me; A.J. was 33; Brian was 36; Howie was about to turn 38. Kevin, the missing member, had to be pushing 40. Justin Bieber was 18. In my small hometown, where it wasn't unheard-of for the obituary of a person under 80 to list great-great-grandchildren among the survivors, the musically reprehensible source of Bieber fever easily could have been Kevin's or Howie's kid, maybe even Brian's. His fame had now eclipsed their own, though maybe not at the height of their stardom. Then again, there had never been a Backstreet Boys 3D concert film that I was aware of.

"It's hard to keep up with such younger kids," Nick was saying. "I mean, we give it all we have to give, and yeah, we all still act like a bunch of college kids, but we're not. I have to wonder if we'll get too old for this someday."

He looked at the floor now. Now it was he who seemed eager not to look me in the eye. "I'm trying to enjoy this for what it is and not think of it as the last of something, but it's hard sometimes, you know?"

I wondered if it was the last time I'd hear that.

He sat up straighter. "Boy, I don't know where that came from." He gave me a forced smile. "You're good."

I shrugged. "Well, I guess that beats being called a bitch to my face."

He jumped up from his chair. "Nah, that was pretty painless, I have to say. I'll go lean on the others some more."

I stood up as well. "Some more?"

 "I told them I was going to do my interview and they damn well better do theirs soon, too." He grinned. "I also told them you didn't seem so bad."

I crossed my arms and arched an eyebrow up at him. "I see. You wouldn't have anything to do with a certain bandmate of yours suddenly not being a total ogre, would you?"

Nick's grin didn't budge, but it did turn just a hair shitty. "I don't know what you're talking about."

**

With still a couple of hours to go before sound check, and with the caterers nowhere to be seen, Nick took off to meet the rest of the guys for lunch, an invitation I declined so I could get some work done. He told me excitedly, before running out the door, that a Lee Roy Selmon's had just opened up in Orlando. I knew it to be a popular chain in Tampa, the general area where I seemed to recall Nick had grown up. I also knew, based on a family vacation years ago, that if I ate that, McDonald's and backstage catering all in the same day, my ass would jiggle for the rest of the week.

As I sat in the band's and dancers' green room, transcribing my interview, I was surprised to see the caterers coming in to set up.

"You guys are here early," I said to one of them, a chubby young lady with her hair in an untidy chignon.

She shrugged. "There's a rider in the contract that the backup dancers get their own meal."

Oh, God. Here came the nymphettes of the stage now, fairly prancing into the room to group around the table. If Christine had made me feel like a wildebeest, these women made me feel like Jabba the Hutt.

One of them, a statuesque black woman who was six feet tall if an inch, gave me a friendly smile. "You must be the Rolling Stone gal," she said to me, taking me by surprise.

I smiled back politely, pulling out one headphone. I would judge momentarily whether it was worth pulling out the other. "That's me. Meg Michaels."

"Nice to meet you." She held out her hand for a much less underwhelming handshake than I'd gotten from Christine yesterday. "I'm Asia. Lisette, Heather, Kylie, Amber," she added, pointing in turn to a petite blonde girl, a redhead, a taller blonde girl and an olive-skinned brunette. All were built like Jillian Michaels, all were several years younger than me, and with the exception of Asia, all were just a few inches taller than me.

"Because you'll totally remember all those names," Asia added with a wink. I liked her instantly.

The dancers descended on a huge salad bar the caterers had set up. "You're welcome to this, too," Lisette called out, in a voice with a surprising trace of an exotic accent I couldn't place. "Some of us remember what the guys' tour food is like."

Amber rolled her eyes. "Trust me, we remember what the man food is like," she informed me in a husky voice as she plunked down her plate of what looked mostly like lettuce and fruit. "It was hell trying to get our own rider, but we couldn't keep living on hot wings."

"So have you all been on tour with them before?" I asked, closing my laptop and pulling out the other headphone. I surreptitiously switched the recorder on.

"Asia, Lisette and I have," Amber said. "Kylie and Heather are new. Actually, there used to be seven or eight of us, but it would've been a little overpowering with just four guys, you know."

I wondered why the guys were bothering with backup dancers in the first place. I'd been surprised by the size of their tour, half arena shows and half big music venue shows. For a group trying to kick-start things, I might have expected something intimate. But apparently they weren't out to do things halfway.

"In fact," Amber went on, "Lisette's been with them a couple tours. She'll give you all the real dirt you need, right?" she called out to the smaller girl as Lisette sat down.

Lisette smirked. "True story. They're just a bunch of big goons. Nick wants me to teach him French. I think he just wants to be able to say ‘voulez-vous coucher avec moi?' to French girls. He hasn't figured out Quebecois girls don't take that shit."

Quebecois. She'd answered that question. She'd also made me want to punch Nick in the back of the head next time I saw him.

"Anyway," Asia said, "you ever get tired of the boys, you come on over to our bus." She paused, and a naughty, not-quite-embarrassed grin crossed her face. "That didn't sound quite like I was intending."

I giggled, a sound that didn't often come out of my mouth. I hadn't had close female friends since college, and while I didn't expect to be close to these girls, they were refreshing.

They ate quickly, and then it was out the door again, the caterers sweeping in to whisk things away and set up the "man food." The appointed time for sound check came and went, but I hardly needed to go to every one of them, and I had hit my stride with work.

I felt a little like I was on the set of a constantly moving, week-long play. Problem was, it was hard not to want to feel like one of the actors.

Christine's half-scolding yesterday came to mind, her admonition that I keep a low profile. She had no idea what it would actually take for me to get the story I wanted, and yet I had to admit that if I were any other sort of journalist, she'd have a point. There was some merit to staying detached from the story and its handsome, friendly subjects. Leaving them alone all day seemed like a good start, even if it meant a long, boring day of busywork for me.

I wanted so badly to embrace the kindness they seemed to have been showing me so far. It felt as though they wanted to include me in their little world, something I hadn't expected and didn't want to keep avoiding.

But what kind of a story would I be writing if I didn't? I had never become part of my story. Bad enough I was covering a band in which I'd once been emotionally invested.

A voice startled me out of my reverie. "I feel like you've been hiding from us ever since we got here."

I looked up. A.J. was standing over me, one of those ridiculous stocking cap-flat cap hybrids on his head despite the 90-degree temperatures, a teasing grin on his face.

I shrugged. "Staying out of your hair."

"Well, first of all, don't listen to Christine. She's completely friggin' clueless. Second of all..." A.J. pulled out a chair next to me. "I've read some of your other stuff, you know," he said as he sat down. "I remember something you wrote about Hunter S. Thompson being your hero."

I nodded, surprised. I tried to sneak in a Thompson reference every once in a while, but I never assumed they actually sank in with most of our readers.

"I've read some Thompson," A.J. continued, surprising me further. "Seems to me that what he meant by gonzo journalism was that you sort of become part of what you're covering. Right?"

I stared at him in frank amazement. Was I really discussing journalistic philosophy with a member of a boy band?

"Yeah, well, you know, it doesn't usually work that way," I finally managed. "The rest of us plebes are called to be objective observers. That's sort of part and parcel in our work. There's no sense in me living your lives for the next week."

"Sure, there is. Our lives are kinda fun. And I, for one, think you oughta share in our fun." A.J. grinned. "Think of this as gonzo journalism for the post-boy band era."

His comment about the post-boy band era was the one I needed to chase for my story, but the part about gonzo journalism was the one that resonated with me. It was my dream. Was I supposed to live it now? Here? With these guys?

At that moment, footsteps sounded outside. A.J. rolled his eyes. "We'll catch up after dinner. But I want to knock out my one-on-one before the end of the night."

I raised my eyebrows. "Yeah?"

"Might as well get it overwith." He winked, then glanced over his shoulder as the other three walked in. "Nick might have threatened to shave my eyebrows," he added, loud enough for them to hear.

"I'll deny it to the grave," Nick said cheerfully, not breaking his stride to the food table for even half a second.