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Chapter 189

Welcome, Clairevoyance315.
You last visited: May 28, 2009 at 9:42 p.m.
Private Messages: Unread 0, Total 0.


Claire scrolled right past the welcome message on the Backstreet Boys forum and began skimming the threads. With Nick gone on tour again, this time overseas in Europe, she had taken to checking this message board again to keep tabs on him when she was not busy with Cait and Lainey. Those times were few and far between, but when it was night, and the condo was dark, and the two babies were sleeping soundly, she managed to find a few quiet minutes to sit at the computer and wonder what Nick was doing right then.

Sleeping, most likely, at this hour. He was in… (She scrolled until she found a thread with the tour schedule and checked.) ... Brussels tonight, Paris tomorrow night. That meant if it was eight p.m. in Florida, it was… (Again, she paused and did the math in her head.) … two a.m. in Brussels. She supposed he could still be out, checking out the Belgian nightlife.

She smiled as she pictured Nick dressed in hot Euro fashion, sipping drinks in some posh club in the heart of Brussels, then looked down at herself, in her raggedy t-shirt and pajama shorts. She would rather be eating Belgian chocolate, if she were there with him. A part of her wished she was.

Clicking the ‘Back’ button on her browser, she returned to the main page of the forum and resumed her scrolling. She passed a thread titled “Why Nick is still not as popular as Justin,” stopped, backtracked, and clicked. Smirking, she read the original post.


the dramabrewer: After six years as a solo artist, Justin Timberlake still sells out arenas. Nick Carter still does not sell out even small venues. You people wonder why. It’s not difficult. Justin constantly reinvents himself with music that is unique and innovative. Nick continues to sing whiny, generic ballads written for him by other people. When you go to a Justin concert, you can expect be entertained with something new and exciting every time. When you go to a Nick concert, you can expect to be bored by the same old thing – Nick sitting on a stool, grunting out meaningless lyrics and making tortured facial expressions. That is not entertaining. Hence, why Nick is still not as popular as Justin.


“Are you for real?” murmured Claire in disbelief, unable to stop herself from reading on.


05Ebony: Oh boy, here we go again. Why are you here?

the dramabrewer: Why are you so obsessed with me?

05Ebony: Don’t flatter yourself. I’m not obsessed with you.

the dramabrewer: Liar. You constantly come into my threads and ask why I’m here. Why are you here? Not to discuss the topic. You’re here because you’re obsessed with me.

05Ebony: Oooookay then. Think whatever you want.

the dramabrewer: I will. And you will continue to read my thoughts because you can’t ignore me.

JustIgnoreMe: I think Justin Timberlake’s “innovative” music sucks.

the dramabrewer: That’s because you are a teenybopper.

05Ebony: Why is everyone who disagrees with you suddenly a teenybopper?

the dramabrewer: Again, I ask, why are you so obsessed with me?

05Ebony: The only one who’s obsessed with you is YOU.

the dramabrewer: Lies. All lies. Stop making things up.

05Ebony: That doesn’t make any sense.

the dramabrewer: You make no sense.


“Arguing with her is like fighting with a brick wall, girl,” muttered Claire. “You’re not gonna get anywhere with it.”

She scrolled until someone new joined the conversation.


Dewfreak: I think you’re forgetting that Nick CAN’T do all the dancing and stuff Justin does anymore. He’s only got one leg. Of course he sits on a stool to sing. It’s probably a lot easier for him that way. It doesn’t matter to me anyway – it should be about the music, not all the other stuff.

the dramabrewer: No one has forgotten. Nick won’t let us forget. Instead of entertaining us, he bores us to tears with songs about all the trials and suffering he’s been through. As if anyone wants to hear that. People don’t go to a concert to be depressed; they go to have fun. Justin’s shows are more fun than Nick’s.

Dewfreak: You are horrible.

JustIgnoreMe: Have you ever been to one of Nick’s shows, dramabrewer? He’s amazing!! And like Dew said, it’s not about the dancing and pyro and all that stuff. It’s about the music. Nick could sit on a stool and sing about anything, and I would be entertained.

the dramabrewer: That’s because you have no standards. You don’t want Nick to succeed.

JustIgnoreMe: Excuse me? Just because I don’t want Nick to copy what Justin is doing does not mean I don’t want him to succeed.

retardiefartie: Drama’s right – why do you get on our cases when we talk about what the boys can do to improve? You call US “bad fans,” yet you’re the ones who don’t seem to care how well they do. We just want them to put out good music and be successful, and we’re not content to just settle for pathetic attempts at music, like the kind that’s on Nick’s album.

EveryoneDoesHateMeNow: Reps to Fartie and Drama. Nick ain’t got nothin’ on JT. If y’all honestly think Nick’s more talented and unique than JT, then y’all be in denial.

cookie1fondler: Whiterly!! *squeezes* *huggles* *fondles* Oh heavens to Betsy, my old geezer body can’t handle all this physical contact! Brittle bones, you know? *wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeze*


Claire stopped reading and briefly skimmed, until it became clear that any chance of a mature conversation had been lost. As the posts became increasingly stupid, she clicked her ‘Back’ button again.

She soon found herself in a thread titled “Post your favorite Nick performances!” She wondered if there would be any new footage from his concerts in Europe, but instead she found herself clicking a YouTube link to a performance that was very familiar. In fact, she had a copy of it on DVD, a DVD which had been released to benefit cancer research. Practically everyone she knew had a copy, at her urging.

She hadn’t watched it in a long time, though, and now she wondered why. Maybe it was all the memories it brought back, both good and bad. As the piano melody to “Open Arms” drifted through her speakers, her head swam with them. So many memories associated with this song…

She closed her eyes briefly, remembering how she’d slow-danced with Nick in a club in Hawaii… and then how she had lain beside him at a time when dancing was out of the question, her hair still wet from the pool, his Journey CD playing softly in the background. The memories were so strong, she could still taste the booze from that club, still smell the chlorine from his pool, still feel his big hands on her hips and his warm, soft sweats against her body.

Then she opened her eyes and found herself looking at his pixilated face on her computer screen, an image which brought back the strongest memory of them all: just sitting beside him, watching this performance for the first time.

She ought to have seen it weeks before then, when he sang it live for a charity concert, his first one since the loss of his leg. But she had been stuck at the airport in Des Moines, kept away by Jamie even then, and he had sang it without her in the audience, sang it for her even with the knowledge that she wouldn’t be there to see it.

He had collapsed shortly afterwards.

Nick could have died not long after this concert was filmed; it might have gone down in history as his last, if the surgery to take out the tumor in his lung had not been a success. It had been difficult for her to watch this then, the first time, knowing that, and even now, it was no easier. She would never forget the nightmarish flight back to Tampa, that sleepless night she’d spent sitting next to his hospital bed, wishing she had never left.

The memory left her feeling unsettled, and knowing that Nick was so far away now didn’t comfort her any. When the song finished playing, she closed out of the internet and got up. She was tired, but she didn’t feel like sleeping yet. Maybe a hot bath would relax her.

A few minutes later, she was sliding through a layer of foam, into the steaming water of her jacuzzi. As her butt found the seat hidden under the water, she relaxed against the sloping side of the tub and closed her eyes, inhaling and exhaling through her nose. She had never been able to fully take advantage of this lovely feature of the condo while pregnant, but now she could make the water as scalding as she wanted and sit in it for as long as she wanted, without a care in the world. Well, until one of the twins decided to wake up, anyway.

She felt pretty safe for now, though; both girls were sleeping through the night and had a nice little routine of feedings and naps going. They would wake up before the sun, and so would she, but at least now she had a few hours’ guaranteed solitude to rest and relax. And dream.

There in the warm bubbles, she slipped away from the condo and all of her worries about the babies and the divorce and money and escaped to a different hot tub, where she was suddenly not alone, but snuggled against another slick body beneath the foam.


“This is nice,” she sighed, leaning her head back against the tub’s rim. “This is very nice.”

“You’ve never been in the one in my bathroom at home,” he murmured.

She chuckled. “No… I definitely haven’t.”

“We’ll have to go in it sometime then when we get home,” he said lightly and leaned over to place a tender kiss on her cheek. Smiling, she turned and returned the kiss, pressing her lips against his while her arms rose out of the water and slid around his neck, sending drips of warm water running down his back. Beneath the water, his hands found the small of her back, and he pulled her closer to him, moaning softly as he felt her body press up against his.

“Nick…” she breathed. “… are you… are you ready for this?”


And before she knew it, she was reminiscing on their first time, that awkward first foray into unknown territory, there in the beach house in Maui. The sex hadn’t been amazing, but it had been special, almost as special as her very first time. In a way, it had been like the very first, for both of them. Of course, she was no virgin, and to think of Nick as one was laughable, but in a way, it had felt like they were. She hadn’t given herself away in years before she gave all of herself to him. And Nick, in his own mind, was a changed man, a new and different man. For as much as experience as he, no doubt, had, he had seemed a little like a virgin that night. And that had made it special, for both of them.

Claire slid down lower in the tub, so that water flowed over her shoulders and sudsy bubbles clung to the wet ends of her short hair. Without opening her eyes, she raised an arm out of the water, reached behind her, and felt around until she found her small bath pillow. She adjusted it behind her neck, giving her head a more comfortable place to rest than the porcelain rim. If she wasn’t careful, she could easily fall asleep this way.

Totally relaxed now, she let her memories take her back to a different night, a night in which she’d soaked in a tub like this, surrounded by fragrant candles and a sense of romance, yet very much alone, like she was now. She would never forget that first night she’d spent alone in Nick’s house after moving in, when he’d set her up with the princess package, complete with flowers and candles and lingerie, even from his hospital bed. So not her, but he had put so much thought and planning into it that she would never forget it. Even now, if she listened closely, she could practically hear the strains of “Unchained Melody” coming from the next room, when really there was only silence, broken by the occasional crackle from the baby monitor.

Nick had always been ready to give her the world, then and even now. It was for that reason she’d been trying to keep her distance from him ever since that lunch at Leonardi’s. She didn’t want to dump all of her worries and woes on him, not only because he had more important things to focus on, but because she was not up for any more awkward conversations, offers of money and marriage that she could not and would not accept.

And why not? a little voice deep down inside her seemed to taunt, and her eyes flew open, taking in the surroundings of the beautiful condo she was living in thanks to him. She sighed. She had no answers.

Accepting would have been the easy way to solve her problems. The way that didn’t require any work or true sacrifice on her part. And that seemed wrong, even if it felt… She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block the rest of that thought from coming. It only felt “right” when she was lonely and horny and caught up in all these romantic memories she had of Nick. She had to remember the other memories too – the arguments and the lack of privacy and the separation… all those nights apart while he was working in other parts of the country.

She did remember, but could not deny that all of those issues seemed trivial compared to the ones that had ruined her marriage with Jamie. Sure, she and Nick had argued, as all couples do, but hadn’t most of those fights been over stupid, ridiculous, petty things? Hell, if she remembered right, Jamie had been the root of a lot of them. Even then, he had caused nothing but drama in her life.

And the lack of privacy… was it really so bad? She didn’t like having her picture taken in airports or her private conversations interrupted by outsiders, but then, neither did Nick. He couldn’t help it, nor could he stop it. Dealing with paparazzi and fans would always be a part of his life, and, thus, anyone in his life. It was something a person could get used to, if they had to.

As for the separation… well, as it turned out, distance had been a common element of both her relationships. She’d married Jamie and moved with him to Iowa imagining a perfect little suburban life with a white picket fence and children and a husband who would be home for dinner every night. What she’d gotten was a husband who was distant even when he wasn’t away on business, and in the end, all she had were the children. They were really all that mattered anyway.

Her life revolved around them and only them now; everything else seemed to be on hold. She sure hadn’t made much headway on her living situation or her job status. Only the divorce settlement seemed to be going as planned. Jamie had been served the divorce papers, and he had signed an agreement to her terms. When the final documents were signed, she would have sole custody of the twins and receive child support and alimony payments from him, in exchange for the house and the other property they’d bought together, which she didn’t want anyway. It seemed almost too good to be true, but she was praying it was, that as a testament to their long friendship, Jamie really was going to make things easy for the both of them.

It was the light at the end of her tunnel, the knowledge that at least she would have some support, a way out of this hole she was in. He could have taken the divorce suit to trial and drained the last of her savings with legal fees, but thankfully, there was mercy and understanding left in Jamie. One day, when the bitterness had passed, she would thank him.

She took a calming breath and tried to make her mind go blank. She’d never sleep if she kept on thinking of Jamie and dwelling on her past with Nick.

It worked for about a minute, until her cell phone rang. She’d brought it into the bathroom with her, not expecting a call, but not wanting it to wake her parents or the babies if it went off either. She knew without checking that it was Dianna; the Spice Girls ringtone was reserved only for her best friend, with whom she’d spent many a night driving around with “Wannabe” blaring back in high school. Smiling, Claire flipped open the phone with a soapy hand and pressed the button for speakerphone. “Hey, Di!” she called from the tub.

“Oh my god, Claire!” Dianna’s voice echoed through the bathroom. “I just had to call you! You’ll never guess what just happened!”

“What?” wondered Claire, her curiosity piqued. She hadn’t heard Dianna sound so excited in a long time. Most of their conversations involved her lamenting how her life was going nowhere and threatening to break up with her boyfriend Todd, the commitment-phobe who was supposedly the root of the problem.

“Todd proposed! We’re engaged!! I’m getting married, Claire – finally!”

Claire gasped. “Di! That’s awesome!! Congratulations!”

Before she could even ask, Dianna launched into a full account of how the proposal had gone down, including every last detail, from the word-for-word transcript of exactly what he’d said to a jeweler’s description of the engagement ring. She was so giddy that Claire could not stop from smiling as she listened. Dianna had been yearning for this for a long time; by the time they hung up, she’d made Claire her matron of honor, set May as her optimal wedding month, and emphasized that she wanted her colors to be bright teal with accents of pink. “Everyone looks good in teal, don’t you think? I thought about dark pink for the bridesmaid dresses, but that would look horrible with your hair. You’ll look awesome in teal, though,” Dianna babbled. It may have sounded as if she was deciding these details on the spot, but knowing her friend, Claire had a feeling they had been planned even before her own wedding.

Claire was genuinely excited for her, but after she got off the phone and slid lower into the water again, her emotions changed. The warmth had seemed to evaporate from the water, and she suddenly felt cold and… empty. She drew her arms around herself, but didn’t feel any comfort, only loneliness.

Was she jealous?

It seemed horrible that she, who had gotten married first with nothing but support from Dianna, should be jealous of her now that she was the bride-to-be. Quickly, she decided that she wasn’t. She was happy for Dianna, truly happy. Dianna’s only real ambition in life had been to find a man, and finally, she had. And surely, Todd had to be the one. Dianna had complained about how long it had taken him to propose, but their long courtship had given her a chance to do what Claire had taken for granted: really get to know him and decide, without a shadow of a doubt, that he was the man she was meant to marry.

Claire wasn’t jealous of Dianna; she only envied what Dianna seemed to have – a committed, adult relationship, ready to enter the next phase. It was something Claire had only kidded herself into believing she had with Jamie, when really, all they’d had was a rekindled high school relationship that had not been strong enough to stand the test of time and adulthood.

Next year, she and Di would both turn thirty. Dianna would be a bride, and she, a divorcee. She wasn’t jealous… only bitter. Bitter because what Dianna would soon have, she’d already lost.

***

When the jacuzzi could satisfy no longer, Claire climbed out. She let the tub drain while she patted her body dry, slathered on some coconut-scented lotion, and wrapped herself in a short robe. All seemed quiet in the condo when she left the bathroom and stopped for a listen. Even the baby monitor was silent; still, Claire couldn’t resist tiptoeing out of her bedroom and down the hall to the babies’ room to check on her daughters.

They had finally made the move from bassinets in her room to the cribs in their own, and while they had adjusted with no trouble, Claire was taking longer. The baby monitor was on constantly and would easily pick up the beep of the devices they wore that would signal her if they stopped breathing in the night, but Claire still poked her head in a few times each night to reassure herself that all was well.

Turning the doorknob soundlessly, she eased open their door and stepped into the nursery. With the help of her mother and father, Claire had taken advantage of the twins’ extended hospital stay to fix up this room as nice as she could afford to make it. It was decorated in soft shades of blue, green, and yellow, the crib sets and matching curtains adorned with turtles. There were even matching turtle mobiles over the head of each crib. Claire gently touched the one over Delaine’s crib as she crept up to it, sending the turtles swaying through midair.

Smiling, she looked down at her daughter. The soft glow from the nightlight provided just enough light for her to see Delaine’s face, her features relaxed in sleep, her small chest and belly rising and falling steadily as she breathed along with the hiss from her CPAP machine. Claire kissed her own fingertips, then pressed them lightly to the baby’s forehead, stroking her silken locks of dark hair. Then she moved to Caitlin, who was sleeping just as restfully, and did the same, smoothing down her wisps of red.

She left the room, closing the door silently behind her, and returned to her own, double-checking to make sure that the baby monitor was still on, the volume turned up. When she was satisfied, she sat down on her bed and absently turned on the TV. It was now almost ten, her parents were in bed, and she still wasn’t sleepy. Tired, but not sleepy. It was a Friday night; maybe there would be an old horror movie on. She flipped through the classic movie channels, but found nothing worth watching. That wasn’t such a bad thing; knowing her luck, the old King Kong would be on, and she would be forced to relive even more memories of Nick, memories which tempted and confused her.

Too late.

The movie wasn’t on, but she’d done it to herself; just thinking of it made her remember the kiss, not only the one in the movie theater, but that time just a few months ago, when she’d let him kiss her right here on this very bed. A mistake; she’d known it even then, but what a wonderful, pleasurable mistake it had been. She couldn’t deny how good he had tasted or how good he’d made her feel, how loved and desirable she’d felt in the moment he had brought her lips to hers. The forbidden kiss… it had been wrong, though it had felt so right. She had wanted it then, even though she’d forced herself to break it off, and although she knew she shouldn’t, she craved more even now. She craved Nick… the forbidden fruit…

When she realized she was actually licking her lips, Claire snapped out of her reverie and got up, cross with herself. She couldn’t keep doing this. She walked over to her dresser, smeared on some lip gloss, and glared at her reflection in the mirror. Sometimes she felt like she didn’t know the woman frowning back at her. This was a woman who had ended every relationship she’d ever been in, with the exception of Jamie in high school. He had dumped her then, but she supposed she’d made up for it by divorcing him now. Why was she always the one to push the other away?

With Jamie, there had been a whole host of reasons… and most of the others, like Tim, she just hadn’t loved. Hell, some she had hardly even liked. But then there was Nick. She’d already been over all the reasons she and Nick hadn’t worked. Silly reasons. Petty reasons. Reasons she might have been able to get over, had she actually tried. Had she not given up on him. Why had she?

Was it fear? Impulsiveness? What had driven her to pack up her things and drive away, without so much as a call? A note… that was all she’d left behind. A little ironic, it seemed, now that she’d been thinking about all the romantic little notes he’d left for her in their time together. Scraps of paper tied to roses, with the lyrics to “Open Arms,” going all up her stairs... A sweet little note to accompany the drawing he’d done for her on the day she moved in… and another with the lingerie he’d left for her to find that night. All those lovely, romantic gestures, and she had thrown them back in his face with a note of her own, a rambling “Dear John” letter. Not on purpose, of course… she hadn’t planned it to be that way. Truth be told, she hadn’t planned it at all. It had been hastily-written, that note, very spur-of-the-moment. She couldn’t even remember what it said. Not a word of it. Writing it had been a blur, and she wasn’t sure she’d even read it over before signing her name. All she remembered was leaving it on the step and forcing herself to leave too, knowing that if she stayed even another minute or two, she would lose her nerve.

Maybe she should have stayed.

All her life, she’d been told she was too impulsive, and maybe she was. Her friends had always liked her for being spontaneous, and she liked being that way too. It was fun to just do what she wanted, when she wanted, without a care in the world. But she couldn’t afford to be that way anymore. Too many mistakes are made by those who don’t think before they act or speak. Claire was tired of making mistakes. There was too much at stake. She had to be a responsible adult now and think long and hard before she did anything that might affect her and her children.

Staring hard at herself in the mirror, she saw the signs of maturity in her face. Her skin was not as smooth and youthful as it had once been. Lines were starting to appear at the corners of her eyes. Yet when she looked deep inside those eyes, she could still see the uncertainty of a teenager peeking back at her, the uncertainty that had always been there, usually hidden to those around her, but always visible in her mirror image. Naïvely, she had once thought that when she was all “grown up,” on the verge of thirty, she would have her life together and suddenly know all the answers. Now the thought was laughable. Fifteen years or so older, she may have been fifteen years wiser, but she definitely didn’t have all the answers. The ups and downs of the last year were enough to show that life was just as much an uncertainty as it had always been.

She sighed and set down the tube of lip gloss, finally breaking her gaze with herself. Turning away, she went back to her bed and flopped down, drawing the robe tighter around herself. She picked up the remote again and flipped through a few more channels, not looking for anything in particular now, just something to distract her from her thoughts and hopefully lull her to sleep.

What she found was The Wedding Singer, which made her groan. It was one of her favorite movies, but like so many other things, it reminded her of Nick. They’d watched it together… on the same night they’d lain in his bed listening to “Open Arms,” actually…

All of a sudden, the memories came back so strongly Claire had no chance of forcing them out of her head. On that particular night, at that time in her life, all she’d wanted was to show Nick how incredible a man he still was and how much she loved him. Because she had loved him then, no doubt. And she had suspected, by then, that he had feelings for her too, but he’d stubbornly kept on pushing her away, convinced he was not worthy of a woman’s love anymore.

And now, it was almost the opposite. He kept reaching out to her, telling her so many times, in so many words, that he still loved her, and instead of taking his hand, it was she who pushed him away. And why? Because she didn’t love him? What a crock. She still loved him like she’d loved him then, and she was now being the stubborn one in not accepting it.

And again, she asked herself why. Because it was too soon? Because letting herself fall back into his arms just a few months after leaving Jamie was impulsive and weak? It was impulsiveness and weakness that had caused her to leave him in the first place.

But impulsiveness wasn’t always a bad thing.

It was impulsiveness that prompted a man to reach for his girlfriend’s hand as they lay together in bed, laughing through the end of a cheesy horror movie, and whisper, “Marry me.”

It was impulsiveness that caused the girl to answer “Yes” a heartbeat later.

It was impulsiveness that sparked couples to fly to Vegas to elope on a whim… and impulsiveness that drove Adam Sandler to board a plane to Vegas too and sing a song over the plane’s intercom to win Drew Barrymore’s heart.

The movie had reached its climax, which was, in its simplicity and sweetness, one of the most romantic scenes Claire had ever seen, and as she paused to watch it now, her own heart began to staccato in her chest.

Sometimes you had to be impulsive to make things happen. Sometimes impulsiveness paid off. Sometimes you just had to do things on a whim, a wild hair, or you’d never work up the nerve to do something that wild again.

Claire’s mind raced along with her heart.

Nick was in Brussels. In a matter of hours, he’d be on his way to Paris. Paris, the City of Love. She’d never been there.

Logic told her now was just about the most inopportune time to go. Her beating heart cried that now was the perfect time. There was only a short window of opportunity, and this was it. Now was the time to do something impulsive, something crazy and romantic, something to rival all of those sweet little gestures of Nick’s. Now was the time to show him she could still be spontaneous, show him she was willing to sacrifice for him, show him that she wanted to be with him. Now was the time to make a move straight out of a chick flick… only not straight out of one, because this time, there was a twist.

In chick flicks, it was always the man who did something uber-romantic to get the girl in the end. But Nick had already done plenty of romantic things. It was her turn. She was not going to sit back and wait for him to try again to win her back. If she didn’t act soon, maybe he never would. Maybe he would give up on her. Maybe he already had. She couldn’t let that happen.

If she had learned one thing in her life, it was the simple fact that life is too short to wait. Having cancer made it okay to be spontaneous. You had to do things on a whim because you knew you may never get the chance again. Even now, Claire knew it to be true: if she didn’t do this, she may never have another chance.

Now was the time to go get her man.

***