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Nick walked up to the bar, where Steph was talking to several people. He tried to order himself a beer, but the bartender carded him. Normally, Nick would have pulled the ‘I’m a Backstreet Boy’ routine, but he was pretty sure that it wouldn’t work in this place. So he sat there, sipping a Pepsi, and watching Steph talk to her friends. He listened in on her conversation, waiting for the right moment to jump in.
"You were really great tonight, Steph," someone said. She blushed slightly in response.
"Thanks, Jess," she said, but she didn’t look too happy. Then she said quietly, "I think this is gonna be my last night, though."
Everyone in the group began talking at once. "Steph! What the hell are you talking about?"
"You can’t quit! You’re the Back Alley’s top act, even if you aren’t exactly punk!"
"You’ve got way too much talent to quit, girl."
"What’s more important than performing here?"
Steph silenced all of them. "Calm down, guys. I just don’t have time. I love to play and all, but between going to school and working at the movie theater, I don’t have enough time to work on my music and stuff . . . I mean, I love it. But . . . I’m going on 3 hours of sleep a night, and my grades are going down, so . . ." She looked down at the floor, unwilling to meet any of her friends’ glances.
One of the girls reached over and gave her a hug. "Aw, sweetie, if you have to quit, you have to quit . . . but we’re gonna miss you around here!" The group chatted for a few more minutes and then everyone dispersed, leaving Steph and one other girl alone at the bar.
"Steph," Nick heard the other girl say.
"Yeah, Len?" she replied, starring into her soda.
"Why are you really quitting?"
Nick’s ears perked up at this.
Stephanie sighed. "I don’t really have a choice. If I were making more money doing this, then it would be fine. But I’m losing money because this takes away from my hours at my job. The Back Alley doesn’t pay the musicians, and since Orlando is so bubblegum-pop oriented, no one else will pay me either. It’s mostly a matter of money."
Stephanie’s friend sighed. "Isn’t everything?" The two girls clinked their glasses together. "I’ll be right back. I have to go to the bathroom."
"Don’t fall in."
With that, Stephanie was alone. Nick decided that it was now or never. "Excuse me," he said to her. She glanced up and looked around.
"Yes?" she asked him finally.
"I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation . . . you said you were having money problems."
Her eyes narrowed at him. "What does it have to do with you?"
He laughed nervously. "It could have something to do with me-"
She interrupted him before he could finish. "If you’re going to offer me cash to sleep with you or something, you can save your breath!" she snapped. Nick looked surprised for a minute, and then started laughing.
"Oh god, no, that’s not what I’m trying to say!" he chuckled. "The thing is, have you ever thought about singing professionally?"
"Yeah . . ." she replied warily.
"I work at a record company," he said. It wasn’t exactly a lie, it just wasn’t the complete truth. "I’m here looking for new talent."
"What company?"
"Jive Records."
She raised an eyebrow. "And . . .?"
"And I was wondering if you would be interested in me managing your career. I have a lot of contacts. I could get you a record deal very easily, if you listen to me." He was slightly exaggerating the amount of influence he had, but he figured it was necessary.
"Sure. Don’t call me, I’ll call you," she said, rolling her eyes and turning her back to him. He groaned audibly.
"I’m serious! Do you want proof or something?" he asked, sounding desperate.
"Yeah."
Nick sighed. He had really, really been hoping it wouldn’t come to this. "I’m a Backstreet Boy," he said in a low voice, sounding embaressed.
"What?" she asked.
"I said, I’m a Backstreet Boy." Steph stared at him for a minute and began laughing.
"Okay, who put you up to this? Madeline? Or Vanessa? You’re Samantha’s boyfriend Jason, right?" She kept on laughing. "God, you almost had me fooled for a minute. But seriously, a Backstreet Boy coming into this place? He’d get mauled!"
"Thanks for making me feel more secure about my environment," he said, starting to get ticked off. "Listen, I can prove it to you. My name’s Nick Carter. I’m a Backstreet Boy, usually said to be the cute Backstreet Boy. I’m offering you a chance to get signed to Jive Records. You could make millions of dollars and not have to worry about playing in small shit holes like this anymore, but if you don’t want to, then it’s your life."
She had stopped laughing about two sentences into his speech as she realized that he was serious. "You’re really a Backstreet Boy?" she snickered. He nodded. "Prove it."
"What?" he asked, his eyes wide and looking around the smoky club.
"Prove it. Get up on that stage and sing one of your corny teenybopper songs. Then we can talk about possibly getting me a record deal, okay?" she snickered.
Nick was torn. He had to regain the respect of the music industry and his fans, and the only way to do that was to make this girl into a teenybopper. But if he got up onto that stage and sang "As Long As You Love Me" or "Don’t Wanna Lose You Now," he would probably be laughed off of the stage, and it had been years since they had been laughed off of stages.
He glanced around the club again and he caught Jay’s eye; Jay was sitting at the other end of the bar, talking to a bunch of girls with nose rings. Jay arched his eyebrow at him and mouthed the words, "Giving up already?"
Nick decided that it was risk booing to regain his self-respect, so he turned back to Steph and said, "Deal."
It was her turn to widen her eyes. "Are you serious? You’re really a Backstreet Boy and you’re really gonna get up onto that stage and sing your bubblegum pop?"
"If it’ll get you to listen to me and think about signing with Jive records, yeah, I’ll do it." Steph looked thoughtful, and for a minute Nick thought that she was going to say something along the lines of, If it means that much to you, then let’s go someplace else and we can talk about it. But she just snickered.
"Okay, lemme go get Sarah, the emcee, and tell her let’s going on. Stay here." She jumped off of the stool ran into the crowd. Nick closed his eyes briefly. How come this stuff always happened to him, and not Howie or Kevin or AJ or Brian? Just lucky, I guess, he thought bitterly. He downed the rest of his soda, wishing that it was alcoholic. He was going to need it to get through the rest of the night.
Jay came and sat next to him. "So what’s going on now?"
Nick sighed heavily. "She thinks I’m a rapist or a John or something, so to prove to her that I’m really serious about this, I have to get up on that stage," he said, pointing to the stage where Killer Vegetarians were screaming out their lyrics, "and sing a teenybopper song."
Jay put on a sympathetic face. "Man, that really suc-" He burst out laughing. "Sorry, Nick, I really am," he managed to get out between gales of laughter, "but that’s fuckin’ hilarious!"
Nick put his head on the counter of the bar. "Nice to know you care."
"Anytime." He continued laughing. Just then, the music of the Killer Vegetarians died down, and the audience began to buzz with questions about why the music stopped. Sarah, the emcee, got back up onstage. She was giggling as she spoke into the microphone.
"I know you guys are disappointed, but we just got an offer we can’t pass down. A guy at the bar," she said, pointing to the back of the club, "is busy trying to pick up Stephanie. His main hook seems to be that he’s a Backstreet Boy and can get her a record deal." The club burst into boos and laughter. "I know, that’s what I thought. But this guy is really determined, apparently, and he agreed to get up on this stage and sing a song to prove it to us. So, would Nick get up on here?" A spotlight swiveled and pointed at Nick, who still had his head collapsed on the counter of the bar.
"Why me?" he muttered as he got up and walked through the crowd towards the stage. The audience members parted as if he was carrying the plague and they thought it was contagious. He climbed onto the stage, took the microphone from Sarah’s hand, and said to her, "Um, hi . . . am I gonna get any background music for this?"
Sarah snorted. "Are you kidding me? Does this look like the kind of place that just has Backstreet Boys music lying around?" She walked off of the stage, chuckling, leaving Nick onstage with the Killer Vegetarians behind him, all snickering.
He turned to them and said, "Can one of you give me a C note?" he asked. They all started snickering again.
"We don’t give out boy band members," one of them called out, and everyone in the club laughed at him again. He groaned; there were so many boy bands around that he honestly had forgotten that C Note was the new Latino boy band.
He sighed and said, "Whatever. Anyway, here’s a song . . . um . . . I guess I’ll sing As Long As You Love Me, because I kinda sing lead on it . . ." The crowd was silent as they all waited for Nick to make a fool out of himself.
"Although loneliness has always been a friend of mine, I’m leavin’ my life in your hands.
People say I’m crazy and that I am blind, riskin’ it all in a glance
And how you got me blind is still a mystery
I can’t get you out of my head
Don’t care what is written in your history
As long as you’re here with me.
I don’t care who you are, where you’re from, what you did
As long as you love me.
Who you are, where you’re from, don’t care what you did
As long as you love me.
And every little thing that you have said and done
Feels like it’s deep within me
Doesn’t really matter if you’re on the run
It seems like we’re meant to be.
I don’t care who you are, where you’re from, what you did
As long as you love me
Who you are, where you’re from, don’t’ care what you did
As long as you love me . . .
I’m tryin’ to hide it so that no one knows, but I guess it shows
When you look into my eyes.
What you did, where you’re comin’ from, I don’t care
As long as you love me baby . . .
Ooooohhh . . .
I don’t care who you are, where you’re from, what you did
As long as you love me
Who you are, where you’re from, what you did
As long as you love me
Who you are, where you’re from, don’t care what you did
As long as you love me
Who you are, where you’re from, what you did
As long as you love me
Who you are, where you’re from
What you’re from
As long as you love me
Who you are
As long as you love me
What you did
I don’t care
As long as you love me."
When he stopped singing, he realized that throughout the song, he had had his eyes closed. As the last note sounded through the close, he opened them hesitantly and saw a sea of faces with opened mouths. Then one person, far in the back, began to laugh. Suddenly, so did everyone else, and they started chanting, "Backdoor Boys! Backdoor Boys!"
Nick had had enough. He jumped off of the stage and began walking briskly out of the club, his lips pressed tightly together. As he walked out of the club, he could still hear people laughing and chanting, "Backdoor Boys!"
Out on the street, he began to unwittingly talk to himself. "I just don’t get it. I do everything people want me to do and they still laugh at me. I’m just trying to get Kirsten back for what she did to me, but do I really want to get her back? Yeah, I think I do . . .little bitch. Both her and that Steph girl. I did what she asked, and how does she repay me? I’m swearing off women. That and I’m gonna have to stop talking to myself."
"I don’t think you’ll be able to swear off women," he heard someone say from behind him. He stopped walking and turned to see Stephanie. "I’m sorry, I never properly introduced myself. I’m Stephanie Chalifour, and you’re Nick Carter, right?"
"Yeah," he said, starting to walk quickly again.
"You’re gonna have to slow down. I’m short, remember? I can’t walk that fast." Nick just glared at her.
"Listen, I’ve had a damn bad few days and you’re not helping. I’m trying to get you a career. You said you needed money. But if you’re not going to listen to me, then why should I help you?"
Stephanie grabbed his shoulder, and he stopped walking. She looked up at him nervously, biting her lower lip. "Are you serious? Can you really get me a record deal?"
Nick sighed and looked around. The sidewalks were crowded with teenage girls going out, and he was getting nervous; he wasn’t in the mood to be mobbed that night. "Yeah, I can."
"Why would you help me?"
"You’re a good singer. You’ve got potential. You could do really well."
"And you would get a cut, right?" Steph asked with a raised eyebrow. Nick just shrugged.
"I’d get the 10% as manager. Standard fee. But it’s not about the money – hell, I’ve got enough of that."
"Modest, aren’t you?" she asked.
Nick shrugged yet again. "I’m 19 and I’ve sold over 20 million CDs. I’m allowed to have a slightly big head." She just rolled her eyes. He reached into his pocket and whipped out one of the permanent Sharpee pens that all the Backstreet Boys carried with them for autographs. Then he grabbed her hand and scrawled his phone number on her palm. "Call me soon and we can get started, all right? I have to go. It’s my second day of vacation and I haven’t even been home yet . . ."
"Okay, thanks," she said nonchalantly as he left. The second he disappeared into the crowd, she squealed. She grabbed a random 20 year old guy who was walking by with a bunch of his friends. "Guess what? I’m gonna get a record deal!" she said. The guy gave her a strange look before running to catch up with his friends. But Steph didn’t care. She was finally going to get signed.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
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