- Text Size +
Chapter 156

“Welcome back to ‘Today.’ I’m Meredith Vieira, live from Rockefeller Plaza with Matt and Al, and let me just say… the weather may be a bit chilly on this October morning, but it is hot out here on the Plaza because joining us today is the man all the girls have come out to see – Backstreet Boy Nick Carter! His second solo album, Back on the Right Foot, comes out today, and he’ll be performing right here on the Plaza in just a few minutes. Nick Carter, welcome to ‘Today’!”

The hordes of girls pressed against the barricades squealed, and Nick smiled around graciously at them before turning to Meredith. “Thanks. It’s great to be here,” he spoke into his microphone. And it was great. He couldn’t have been happier, for today was the day he had been looking forward to for weeks, the day of his album release. He had been out on the road, making appearances and doing interviews, for several days now, but today was the big day, the day when he could finally say, “The CD’s on the shelves now. Go check it out.” It was always an incredible feeling.

“I can’t say the same for Matt and Al here, but I know it’s been quite awhile since I’ve seen you,” said Meredith. “If I’m not mistaken, the last time I talked to you was when you performed on ‘The View’ for your first solo album, Now or Never, back in 2002.”

Nick licked his lips and swallowed. “Right, right… it has been awhile then.”

Meredith laughed lightly. “A lot’s changed for both of us since then. I know you’ve had some serious issues in your personal life in the last few years, but it’s great to have you back with a new album. Music is the constant in your life; is that right?”

“Oh, absolutely,” Nick nodded. “Most of the time, music is my life. It’s great to be back to doing what I love.”

“Well, I know it’s great for your fans too. As you can see, quite a few of them turned out to see you perform today.” Meredith made a sweeping gesture to the crowd again, and Nick smiled as two of the cameramen scurried to pan across them.

“I appreciate it,” said Nick. “Thanks for the support!”

The girls squealed again. A few of them had posters with Nick’s face or the album cover and things like “We  you, Nick!” written all over them. Some things never changed.

“Now, Nick,” Matt Lauer jumped in, “I have to ask you about this title. The new album is called Back on the Right Foot. Can you tell us what the title means to you?”

Nick did his best to suppress a smirk. He had been asked about the name of his album in almost every interview he had done so far, mostly because people couldn’t believe he would give his own CD such a blunt title. That was, if it really meant what they thought it meant. Did it? They all had to ask.

“Well, it’s been six years since my last solo project, and, like Meredith said, I’ve been through some pretty rough patches in my life in those six years, and there were times when I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to do another Backstreet Boys album, let alone one of my own. But, obviously, I’ve released a couple of Bsb records since then, and now I’ve got another solo record coming out, and so I really feel like I’m back on track with where I wanna be in the music business… back on the right foot, you know?”

That was the standard bullshit answer Nick had been feeding everyone. The truth was, of course, that the album title had started out as a joke, a pun he’d made one day while he was still in the studio, and when he could not think of anything better, Nick had thought up a meaning to go along with it, besides its literal one, and decided, ‘What the hell?’ The joke title was now scrawled across millions of albums worldwide.

He let his smile return as he saw the way Matt and Meredith were nodding, straight-faced, and then he added, “There’s also a more literal meaning.” Pulling up his left pant-leg, he added with a smirk, “I’m always on the right foot these days.”

Matt chuckled, while Meredith looked both amused and embarrassed at being amused. Nick smiled easily, letting them know it was okay to laugh. He and Kenneth had laughed a lot the day they’d made the title official.

“Seriously, I think it’s a good move,” Kenneth had advised. “It’ll let people know you still have a sense of humor, that you can laugh at yourself. Then no one can laugh at you; they’ll be laughing with you… you know what I’m saying?”

Nick had known what he was saying, and now, a month or so later, here he was, laughing along with the hosts of the Today show.

“It’s always refreshing to talk with celebrities who have a sense of humor, and you obviously do,” Matt said to Nick. “I’ve heard people say before that the only way they could get through certain trials in their life is to keep a sense of humor. Would you say that’s true for you too? As Meredith mentioned, you’ve certainly been through some trials in the last few years.”

“Oh yeah, for sure,” replied Nick, swallowing again. “A sense of humor’s always important. It’s not always easy, but sometimes, I think you just need to learn how to laugh at yourself. Don’t take yourself so seriously, you know? I’ve tried to get myself to that point, where I can just laugh at myself and go, ‘You know, this is me. Take it or leave it.’”

“We’ll take you!” Meredith chimed in, playfully grabbing his shoulder. “Right, girls??”

A fresh chorus of squeals rose from the crowd, and Nick smiled again, a warm feeling rising inside of him.

“Well, Nick, we’re going to let you go get warmed up for your performance in a few minutes, and before that happens, let’s turn it over to Al for a check with the weather. Al?”

On the other side of the Plaza, Al Roker jumped in with his weather report, and Nick was led to the stage he would be performing on, where his band was already set up, off-camera. He had already done a sound check, and as soon as the live feed went to a commercial break, he got warmed up for the first song in his set, his single.

The first performance went well, and when the show took another commercial break after “Bruised Not Broken,” Nick kept performing for the crowd outside as planned, though he changed the order of the songs. Only one other performance would be televised, he had been told, and he had planned to sing the song that would probably end up being his second single. But, in the course of his interview with Meredith and Matt, Nick had changed his mind. There was another song, a different song, that he felt like singing today, not just for the people in the plaza, but for the television audience as well… just in case she was watching…

“Welcome back to Today,” Meredith smiled into the camera when the show returned from the second commercial break. “I’m Meredith Vieira, back on the Plaza, where Nick Carter is about to perform another song off his new album, Back on the Right Foot, in stores today. Nick, would you like to introduce this one?”

Standing on the stage next to a lone grand piano, Nick rested his hand on the piano’s sleek black top and pulled the microphone towards him. “I wrote this song about three years ago, for the person who taught me how to keep my sense of humor through everything. I dunno if you’re out there watching or not, Ren, but if you are… this one’s for you. This is ‘Live for You.’”

***

Sitting at home on her couch, in her pajamas, Claire’s mouth fell open as she stared at her TV screen.

It was filled with the image of a grand piano, a man leaned over it, his fingers moving gracefully over the keys as he played a soft, mournful prelude, but a moment earlier, there had been Nick, his blue eyes seeming to stare right through the screen as he said, “This one’s for you.”

For me, she thought, watching in wonder as the camera panned out to include Nick in the shot. He had stepped away from the piano and put the mic back in its stand, ready to sing. She listened intently, and when he finally opened his mouth, she drank up every word.


“I thought I’d reached my breaking point,
Every ounce of my strength gone,
But when I thought I couldn’t walk any further,
You’re the one who helped me carry on.

“It would have been so easy
To give into the pain,
Let the walls close in around me
And forfeit the game.

“I wanted to give up,
I just wanted it all to end;
Who knew that in my darkest hour
I would see the light again…”


Tears filled Claire’s eyes as she watched Nick sing. He looked so good, so fit and healthy, and he seemed happy, but she could remember the weeks and months when he had been anything but, when he had been so miserable and depressed that she had worried more about his emotional state than his physical health. A part of her had been truly scared that he really would give up and try to end it all.

But Nick was strong, stronger than even he thought he was, and of course he hadn’t tried anything. He had gotten through everything on his own, through his own strength and will, not because of anything she had done. And yet, here he was, singing to her, as if she were the reason he was alive…


“You opened my eyes to everything I could be,
And I would do it all again,
If I knew when it was over,
You would be the first person I would see.

“Through all the lies I’ve been told,
You’re the only thing in my life that stayed true...”
And when I didn’t want to live for me,
You made me live for you…”


It’s not true, thought Claire sadly, stricken with guilt and shame. I didn’t stay true to him. I left him. I hurt him…

The camera zoomed in for a close-up shot of Nick’s face, and as it did, his eyes found its focus. Suddenly, he was staring through the TV screen again, his blue eyes like tractor beams, slowly reeling her in. She gazed back, unable to look away.


“So the least I can do is return the favor.
Know that I’ll always be by your side…”


One corner of his mouth twitched upward as he sang, but Claire could tell that the smile was not genuine. Not really. She knew him too well; she could read him like a book, and she could see the heartbreak deep within his eyes.


“The world can turn against us,
But together… we’ll be alright…”


Together, she thought, Nick’s image swimming before her eyes. He had written these lyrics when they were together. And if she had known, she would have agreed. They had been through it all together; it seemed nothing could break them, as long as they loved each other. But something had broken them. She had broken them. She had destroyed the very thing Nick had thought he could always count on – their love.

And yet, she had never fallen out of love with him. Watching him sing, feeling her heart thumping against her ribs, Claire knew she would never completely fall out of love with Nick Carter. He still had a piece of her pounding heart, and he always would. She knew he had to feel the same about her, or he wouldn’t have put this song on his album.

After all this time, he was still in love with her. She could see it in his eyes. And if he had truly been able to look through her TV screen, he would have seen the same expression in hers. But along with it was guilt. Guilt, because she had a husband, whom she also loved, and it seemed almost adulterous to stare at her ex-fiancée on television and realize that she still had feelings for him. Guilt, because she had moved on without Nick, and here he was singing to her in spite of it.

Had he ever really moved on? She thought he had, many times, but every once in awhile, when she looked closely at him, she started to wonder what he was really thinking and feeling.

She thought of the women he had dated since her, and how none of them had worked out for him.

Was he alright?

Then her thoughts turned to Jamie, the only man she had been with since Nick, and the shaky marriage they’d been struggling to hold onto. And she had to ask herself…

Was she?

***

Hours later, Claire sat alone in her SUV in a far corner of the local K-Mart parking lot, her mind filled with memories, her ears filled with the sweet sounds of Nick’s voice.

In her lap sat his new CD, the plastic wrapping torn away, tossed haphazardly next to its receipt on the passenger seat next to her. She’d gone to buy the new album and, after hearing Nick sing the song he’d written about her on TV that morning, she couldn’t resist tearing it open and popping it into the car’s stereo the minute she’d climbed inside.

She was already on the fourth track, and she hadn’t yet made a move to put the car into gear. It sat idling in its parking spot, while she poured over the album jacket, studying every picture of Nick, every lyric, every word of his liner notes. There was no message to her in the thank-yous at the back of this album’s booklet, but it didn’t matter. This time, the thank-you was in the lyrics, the lyrics of the song “Live for You,” the second-to-last track on the album. The song was incredibly beautiful, and the lyrics were touching, though Claire felt she didn’t deserve the credit. Nick had not lived just for her; he had lived for himself. He was living his own life now, a life which she was hardly part of anymore.

And as she listened to him sing and stared down at his picture, staring back at her from the album jacket, she regretted that. She missed being able to see him every day, being able to spend time with him without feeling like she was doing something wrong. He had been such a big part of her life for so long, and now it seemed they only saw each other when one of them needed something. She hadn’t seen Nick since he had come to be with her after the selective reduction, over a month ago.

Yet, as she continued to flip through the album jacket, vivid memories from much further in the past took over her thoughts. With a wave of déjà vu, she remembered how she had poured over every detail of his first solo album, Now or Never, a few months after she had met him. It was the first time she’d really paid any attention to his music, and she had been surprised to find that she actually liked it. She remembered listening to it while she was in the hospital for her bone marrow transplant. Nick had teased her about it, but she knew he had been secretly pleased that she liked it. And though the memory was foggy and dreamlike, she remembered him singing “Who Needs the World” at her bedside. In her mind, his voice had sounded as beautiful then as it did on the studio-recorded track that was playing in her car now.

Glancing up at the numbers on the face of her CD player, she realized the album was already almost half-over, and she’d been sitting in this parking spot for over twenty minutes now. I need to get home, she realized, remembering she had groceries in the trunk. But even as she went to set the album jacket aside, her eyes lingered on it, drawn to the picture on the last page.

It was of Nick, and he was boxing, sparring an invisible partner in an old-fashioned looking ring, his fists covered by a battered pair of boxing gloves, their leather worn and torn. The photo was obviously staged, and yet, it was symbolic; Nick’s jaw set with determination, a steely look in his eyes, dressed in a grubby wifebeater and shorts that showed his flexed arm muscles and robotic leg.

His face looked bloody and bruised, and she, like nearly everyone else who would see this picture, assumed it was makeup, not realizing that beneath the crusted fake blood lay the real injuries her own husband had inflicted on him. The imprint of knuckles on his cheek matched the fist of Jamie, who had gotten in one good punch the night before he moved Claire to Des Moines. Jamie, who had not been there for her during her transplant, nor the selective reduction. Jamie, who would never write a song for her or sing to her when she was sick. Jamie, who was expecting her to have dinner on the table when he got home from work.

Sighing, she pushed the album jacket away and put the car into drive, pulling forward out of her parking space. She had every intention of going home to put her groceries away and start on dinner, but she didn’t. Instead, she drove around for over an hour, navigating winding country roads in circles as Nick’s album finished and started over again.

Finally, when “Live for You” had played for a second time, and the sun had sunk low enough to glare right into her eyes, Claire turned the SUV around and headed for home.

***