Wardrobe Malfunction

by Ian McDuff

For the Double Cross Challenge.

I had intended to write something along the lines of a Feydeau farce.

Canon has a nasty way of intruding. So, it’s a little darker than I had wanted.

It was their first group meeting after the Super Bowl. The public was still gibbering about halftime, and had not yet heard, as they had, of the fallout affecting the Grammy Awards, and the Pro Bowl performance JC had previously been slotted to give. But they knew already. That is why they were having a hasty meeting in the first place.

Chris was fidgeting, waiting for Justin, who was the only one not yet arrived; fidgeting, and trying to see just how far he could tip his chair back without positive disaster. Joey was trying to keep an eye on JC and on Chris at the same time, an ability now honed by fatherhood. JC was sprawled in an armchair, but whether he was relaxed or merely listless with dashed hopes was anyone’s guess. And Lance, of course, was not about to waste the unforgiving minute: he had his laptop open and his hands-free cell engaged, and was quietly multi-tasking.

Justin came in quietly, head down, shoulders hunched, and went immediately over to JC. He pulled him out of the chair and held him close, murmuring, ‘I am so freakin’ sorry, man … I am so sorry –.’

They two held each other for a long moment, to the point at which Chris, who could not stand having had none of Justin’s immediate attention, broke in: ‘If you two want to slow-dance, we three could harmonize the Mouse Club theme for you.’

JC blandly flipped him off, as Justin released JC, stepped back, and cleared his throat. He kept his head down as he spoke, partly from discomfort, partly from the unconscious training of years that had taught him what he could get by with when he looked vulnerable and gave them beseeching glances from a lowered face.

‘I’m. Um. I’m going to be leaving the group for a bit.’

JC made a – typically melodic – noise of protest. Joey would have challenged the statement coherently, but he was engaged in fielding Chris, whose chair had indeed started to go over backwards, with him in it, at the announcement. Only Lance remained collected.

‘Fallout from the ’Bowl, J?’

‘Um. Well, yeah. I –’

‘No, man, no,’ JC stammered: ‘th- they can’t, like, dude, that is just. It’s not. Just because of, uh –’

‘A wardrobe malfunction,’ Joey said, his eyebrows raised.

‘Um.’ Justin flushed a little, high on his cheeks. ‘I. Um.’

Lance had spun around in his chair whilst the others were yammering. He had a hand raised for quiet, and they could faintly hear his side of the cell-phone conversation he was having. Riiiight … oh do they though … no shit, Johnny … unh-huh. Oh, I’m so sure … I’ll call you.

He spun back around to face the others, and there was a faint trace of amusement in his face as he looked at Justin and shook his head.

‘I repeat,’ he said, ‘this is fallout from the game. Not the halftime show. Right, Justin?’

‘Well. Yeah. But the way it’s playing out, it’s because of halftime.’

‘This will teach you to listen to Kirkpatrick.’

Chris sat up, so suddenly he almost managed to tip his chair forward this time. (Chris was convinced that inanimate objects were all part of a vast conspiracy against him personally.) ‘Ooooookay, just how is this my fault?’

Lance grinned. ‘Well, “Slips”….’

JC rolled his eyes and Joey snorted. That was a nickname from before Chris ever left for Orlando, from his Life Before, when the teenaged sprite had not merely bagged groceries and done odd jobs to help feed his family, but had acted as an artful and dodging courier, a runner of numbers.

‘You bet on Carolina?’ Chris was on his feet now, waving his arms. ‘How bad did you – no, don’t tell me, it was side-bets, it has to’ve been, you got entangled in some damn over-and-under thing with lay-offs on the side and – God damn it, Justin! You know you are utterly fucking hapless at this shit! And you didn’t even consult me about the line, you glorious idiot! Aaargh!’

Joey enjoyed a floor show as well as the next guy, but he wanted clear and material answers, and he wanted them now. He clamped a paw on Chris’s shoulder and sat him forcibly down, and asked Lance straight out: ‘Okay, exactly what went down, and why does it affect the group?’

‘Apparently – feel free to bust on in with any corrections, Jaybird – apparently, our boy J got involved in some eight-ways-from-Sunday bet, side-bet, laid-off bet, clusterfuck where about the only way he could have lost was for Ca’lina to lose in the last couple minutes by a field goal. And, what d’y’know, sure enough….’

‘Who?’ Chris’s eyes were narrowed.

‘Um. I bet with Nicky,’ Justin muttered.

‘A-HA!’ Chris cried. ‘And unlike Mistah-Jay-I-Consult-No-One-Tee, he had the sense, I betcha, to let himself be guided by AJ! Why didn’t you just hand over whatever you bet at the start and’ve saved yourself the trouble and suspense –’

Joey pinioned Chris again, and clamped a hand over his mouth.

‘Weeeeeeeeell,’ Lance went on, rather obviously not laughing out loud, ‘I expect that, in the usual course of events, this half-wit bet’d’ve been subject to cancellation by management, on account of what they bet, what they bet was that J would swap places with one of them, a Backstreeter t’be named later, for a couple singles. But of course with what-all just went down at halftime, the Suits see this as a godsend. They have decreed that they will allow, nay, they will flat-out enforce, the wager, with the singles going to charity, to scrub our image.’

‘This isn’t right,’ JC said, plaintively. ‘J’s being made the scapegoat here, and, well, yeah, I’ve been dropped in the grease, and. No.’

Joey shrugged. ‘I don’t guess it’ll hurt.’

Chris bounced forward in his longsuffering chair. ‘And J’s the one who made the bet.’

JC looked at Lance. ‘Bass?’

Lance quirked a half-smile at him. ‘Wager’s a wager. Debt of honor. Gentleman cain’t walk away from a bet.’

JC sighed. ‘Okay. I mean. Nicky’s an okay dude.’

Lance raised an eyebrow. ‘I don’t know that it will be Nick as we get in the trade. No guarantee.’

Joey thought for a moment. ‘Well, they can’t send Howie, he really runs things. Or Kevin, who thinks he does. Besides, it wouldn’t balance, we need to swap a tenor for a tenor. Two basses wouldn’t work.’

‘Not to mention Lance would kill him in five minutes,’ JC observed.

‘Or fuck him,’ Chris chipped in, cheerily. He waved off their stares. ‘Pfft. You ever stop to think that maybe all that snark from Kevin is just a bad case of UST?’

‘Is there any way,’ JC asked of no one in particular, ‘we can keep J and swap Chris?’

‘Wait, though,’ Joey said, disregarding him. ‘If they’re not thinking about doubling up voices and unbalancing things, they can’t send AJ either. So that means…. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, we’re trading J for Brian.’

‘Meep,’ Chris said, or words to that effect.

‘Well,’ Lance said, eyes twinkling. ‘That certain-sure cleans up our image, and J can take over the bad-boy mantle AJ’s done had to go and give up….’

JC just buried his face in his hands. ‘We are so screwed.’

‘He’s a great feller,’ Lance said, gently.

‘He’s – he’s –’ Chris was sputtering.

‘Lance,’ Joey said, as if he were explaining something to his daughter. ‘You know how we are in the studio. And now we’re going to have to behave. No more of Chris’s dirty jokes –’

‘Okay,’ JC muttered, ‘so it’s not all bad –’

‘Hiding, well, things about just how, um, unique C is. And no more detailed “what you did to Jess and he to you last night” from you.’

Lance chuckled. ‘Oh, who knows. Maybe we’ll open his eyes. No, seriously, y’all. He’s got a cousin who’s eight ways from nuts, he’s been there while Aidge went through hell, he’s watched Nicky damn near cross that line, and he’s spent years watching Nicky and Howie mack on each other. I seriously doubt we can shock him.’

‘Naw,’ said Brian, as they waited for the studio musicians to finish warming up. ‘It wouldn’t make sense to send anybody but a tenor. Now, Howard has the range to cover that as well as countertenor, but then we don’t have a countertenor. And he needs to be here with Nick, and with all that’s goin’ on with Jane and Bob and Aaron and all, Nick needs to be here. I’ll do it, and it’ll be all just fine. Heck, I like them fine, we get along, ain’t a thing to worry about.’

‘But it was Nick’s bet,’ Kevin groused.

‘But what it is now,’ Brian pointed out, ‘is a management-sponsored charity stunt. So. I’ll go clean their image up and they can send y’all some street cred.’

He ducked as Kevin took a playful swipe at his head.

The rest of Backstreet had not been convinced by Brian’s reasoning, but had been willing to drop it for now and revisit the issue later. After all, nothing could be done about fulfilling the terms of the wager until March at the earliest, after JC’s CD finally dropped and arrangements could be made for some trade-off recording dates.

But in that interim, things simply got worse, with each excoriating press report only buttressing Brian’s argument, and reinforcing the need for Nick to stay where he was, with Howie and with all his brotherly support system.

And Howie and Lance spent hours on the phone, each week, coordinating damage control.

Bruce Willis bought Aaron Carter $1 million worth of gifts, a recent lawsuit by the teen heartthrob against his mother revealed. Willis’ rep didn’t return The Scoop’s calls wanting to know what prompted Willis’ generous bouts of gift-giving. . . .

DID Bruce Willis really buy 16-year-old Aaron Carter a million dollars worth of gifts? Depends on whom you ask.

MSNBC.com’s The Scoop reported yesterday the “Die Hard” star’s generosity was revealed in the pubescent pop star’s recently settled emancipation lawsuit against his mother, Jane Carter.

“I'm saying to you: that story’s false,” Willis' publicist Paul Block told us yesterday.

But when asked if Willis, 48, had sent any gifts to Carter, the denial disappeared.

Block’s office said whether Willis sent Carter a gift was "a private matter," one they couldn’t ask him, although Block said he spoke briefly with the actor, who was on location in the Los Angeles hills.

– Philadelphia Daily News

‘Harry and Max’
Directed by Christopher Munch
What if former Backstreet Boy Nick Carter and his younger brother, teenybopper idol Aaron Carter, were having an incestuous affair? Munch imagines the provocative, deep possibilities without casting judgment.

– HX, The 2004 Sundance Film Festival Gay Roundup

Los Angeles – A week after he busted a move the whole nation is talking about, Justin Timberlake was back on stage last night.

He picked up two Grammys – and issued another mea culpa for ripping off part of Janet Jackson’s top during their Super Bowl duet, mostly baring one of her breasts.

– AP Wire

Parents can be, like, so embarrassing – even when you’re Aaron Carter.

A bench warrant has been issued for the popster’s mother after she skipped out on an arraignment hearing for a battery charge.

It’s not the first time Jane Carter has been cast in a less than flattering light over the last few months.

First Aaron, 16, publicly fired her after accusing her of dipping into his bank account; then she made headlines for allegedly assaulting her estranged husband’s girlfriend.

In the latest development in the Carter family drama files, Jane was a no-show at the Florida courtroom where her battery hearing was set, thereby forfeiting her $5,000 bond.

The charge stems from Carter’s visit to her estranged husband Robert’s home last month, during which she reportedly dragged his girlfriend Ginger Elrod out of bed by her hair and hit her with a remote control.

Elrod called the cops, who came to the Florida residence and arrested Jane on a misdemeanor battery count.

– E! News, 6 February, 2004

WHICH sexy young socialite might want to be extra careful when she delivers some charity benefits between the sheets to her new boyfriend? We're told that the handsome young hunk has dallied with plenty of dudes in the past.

– Page Six, New York Post, 17 February, 2004

They had taken Bay to see his grandparents in Kentucky, where the air was still iron-cold on some days. Leigh and Bay were staying there for the week, rather than in Atlanta, and Brian had elected to drive his way south, into the burgeoning first blush of spring that was already beginning to tease Florida and the Gulf Coast. He had the time, and he was sick of airports and planes.

Leaving home, his route had run past the community ballpark, its backstop stark against a grey, sullen, and scudding sky. It was early yet in a day that held no promise of warmth and sunshine at its best, and the base paths were hard, their clods rimed with frost. The grass of the infield and the outfield alike was brown, wintry, seemingly dead.

Even in Atlanta, when he reached it, the neighborhood diamond was still, unoccupied, unkempt as yet.

But as he reached South Georgia and the Florida Panhandle, where, under the sweet influence of the Gulf breezes, the dogwood and azalea trails were already in full blow, with traffic moving slowly through small town main streets as little old ladies from the garden club toured and peered, he saw it. A local Y’s diamond, the bleachers full of intent parents. The sward was emerald, the base paths powdery red, the chalk crisp. It was the home fifth, a scoreless game, and the Little Leaguers were as intent as ever was Boston in any season’s final series against the Yankees. A left-handed batter stood in the box, his jersey vibrant red; the infield, their uniforms as green as the turf, had shifted a few steps, except for the first baseman holding the runner, playing the batter as a pull hitter. The pitcher was looking the runner at first back to base.

Brian grinned as he drove slowly past. A true son of Kentucky, he had been all but weaned on a basketball; but there was always something about the return of the National Pastime…. It was like Easter, and the spring planting, an annual resurrection, joy and life springing new from the dead earth.

And they needed that, he reflected, after the past few months.

‘I’ma kill the motherfucker.’

‘Nick….’

‘No, Howie, I am. Okay, fine, I’m out there, it’s the price of fame, I can deal, but, fuck, he’s not even eighteen – ’

‘Nick. Talk to the lawyers, okay? Please.’

‘It’s not that they’re doing this to me –’

‘I know, baby. I know.’

‘God fucking damn it. The Bitch is probably in on the deal, too.’

‘Nicky –’

‘I don’t care, Howard, I don’t. That woman is not my mother, not in any sense that means it. She’s stolen from him, she got him to bail her ass out and then skipped court, she’s sold everyone she ever knew down the river starting with me, I’d bet money she’s involved in this fucking dirty movie somehow. She’d whore the family dog out if she could –’

‘Nick. No.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Just. Whatever you do, don’t let this fester. Oh, and Nicky?’

‘Babe?’

‘Do not bet money on things. Look where it got Timberlake.’

‘Hey.’

‘Brian!’

‘Hey, Lance. Am I on the guest list?’

‘Why, you little smartass. Sure, come on in, it’s only Kevin we have the restraining order against.’

‘Sounds like Bob and Jane. Hey, Chris. JC. Joey, how’s everybody doing?’

‘Brian! Come here and gimme some sugar!’

‘No, thanks, Chris, it could only end in heartache.’

Joey laughed. ‘He gets wired at these things.’

Brian nodded, dropping his duffle on the studio floor. ‘I just thought he got amorous. The Carter-Doroughs always get extra-schmoopy when we’re recordin’.’

‘That’s because you cats do all those slow-dance ballads,’ JC grinned, giving Brian a hug. ‘Lookin’ good, dude. Fatherhood must be a great thing, judging from you and The Joe these days.’

‘Oh! That’s right!’ Joe pulled up a chair and sat Brian down in it. ‘First things first, tell me you got new baby pictures, man.’

‘There goes this block of time,’ Lance smirked. ‘Daddy poker: “I see your baby pics and call. Read ’em and weep.”’

‘Um. Hi?’

‘Look, guys! It’s Mistah JT, the Grammy-award-winning supahstah!’

‘AJ, c’mon.’

Howie shook his head and went to pull Justin into a welcoming hug.

‘Keep your hands off my boyfriend’s nipple, J,’ Nick warned, laughing.

‘He can strip AJ,’ Kevin offered. ‘Exhibitionist little bastard would record nekkid if we let him.’

‘No way,’ Nick shot back. ‘I may want to sing at a bowl game someday, and I don’t need the guilt by association.’

By now, Justin was several interesting shades of red. ‘I could have stayed with my own group and got this sort of shit,’ he said, stepping away from Howie to bump fists with Nick.

AJ grinned, wolfishly. ‘Yes, you could’ve – if you’d been bright enough not to fuckin’ bet on Carolina.’

‘All right,’ Brian chuckled. ‘Joe and I will trade tips on Burping 101 after the session, I promise. So. I saw the sheet music, y’all, but there was something wasn’t clear. Doesn’t show who sings what.’

‘There are bands where someone other than the two lead tenors gets to sing?’ Lance was straight-faced, but his eyes were dancing. JC just stuck his tongue out at him.

Chris, though, pounced, twining his arms around Brian. ‘I love you! Tell me more about this concept of sharing solos, O Normal-Sized Person Surrounded By Gigantesque Freaks!’

Kevin had laspsed, naturally, into serious mode. ‘Honestly, I want you to know, we really all felt for you, and C, over all this shit. We’ve had a right fair chunk of our own to deal with, as you know, but we never didn’t spare a thought for y’all.’

‘I know, man. I just … knew. That it’d be like that. Appreciate it, man.’

‘Okay. So, if the teasing gets out of hand, just say so.’

‘No big.’

‘All right. Now. I’ve been listening a lot lately, and figuring your range and tone and timbre versus Cuz’s. No offense, but, how good is your relative pitch?’

Justin laughed, happily; and then, in response to Kevin’s inquisitive look, explained. ‘Man, I’d forgotten what it was like to record without Chris. You guys are all in professional mode.’

Nick smirked, and AJ cackled. ‘We can punk your unsuspecting rosy-white ass, kiddo. Just not when the fuckin’ meter’s running.’

Howie explained. ‘Chris keeps you guys loose, and that’s a good thing. But we spent so much time still carrying Lou’s sixth around, we’ve gotten really stingy about studio time.’

‘I get a verse?’ Chris was bouncing. ‘That’s it, we’re keeping you! Wanna run away to Massachusetts and get married?’

‘I’m already married, Chris,’ Brian said, mildly. ‘That would be bigamy.’

‘Actually, I thought it was pretty big of me,’ Chris said.

‘Thank you, Groucho, that’s very funny.’

‘Huh. Well, I’ll just have to stalk you, then.’

‘And he will, too,’ said Lance. ‘And your little dogs.’

Chris nodded, vigorously. ‘Heed the man. After all, he’s a friend of Dorothy’s –’

JC had already gone galloping down a sidetrack, of course. ‘Y’know, it’s weird, man, but there are, like, a lot of stalker songs.’

‘You mean,’ Brian said, a bit dryly, ‘other than the video for “The Call”?’

‘Well, dude. What about “Every Breath You Take”?’

‘“Just My Imagination,”’ Joey offered.

‘“Paper Doll,”’ Lance said.

‘“Roxanne,”’ JC murmured, reverently.

‘“Save the Last Dance For Me,”’ Chris added.

‘“Cab Driver.”’

‘“My Guy.”’

‘“You Always Hurt the One You Love.”’

Brian leaned over to Joey and whispered. ‘I bet we’ve got a good half hour to trade baby stories while they try to one-up each other.’

It had taken fewer adjustments than Kevin had feared to reweave their five-part harmony with Justin in Brian’s place. They were taking five, outside where AJ could get some nicotine into his lungs before he fell apart.

‘With all the damn gossip and scandal and everybody pontificating about you and Janet and Sundance and the Pro Bowl and Jane and AC and all…. It’s been rough on all of us.’

‘Well, at least everyone has a new obsession now. I was tempted to send flowers to the mayor of San Francisco, just for bumping our asses off the front page.’

Kevin snorted. ‘Handing the election to W and giving us four more years of the fucking Republicans seems like a high price to pay for it. They’ll sell the ANWR to Halliburton yet, thanks to this.’

‘Don’t forget the Senate,’ AJ said, sourly. ‘Boxer’s seat’ll fuckin’ change hands, just you watch. Fuck, and you thought Terry McAuliffe was Rove’s only mole in the party.’

Justin’s eyes went round, and he nodded furiously over to where Nick and Howie were sitting on some concrete steps, sharing a water bottle and some quiet time.

AJ shrugged. ‘Republicans, both of them, anyway, and opposed to equal marriage. Don’t ask me, I fuckin’ gave up tryin’ to figure them out years ago.’

Perhaps it was the ballads. Perhaps it was Brian’s offhand comment about the effect recording had on Nick and Howie, that he had made on the first day. Perhaps it was merely spring, or the Zeitgeist.

Whatever the reason, as the second day of recording progressed, Joey and Chris kept shooting each other glances that were first perplexed, then incredulous, and at the last, frankly worried. Fortunately, Brian seemed not to be noticing Lance’s and JC’s behavior.

By the third day, both ad hoc groups had wrapped their studio production. The Suits had decided, in their finite wisdom, that each should also cut a video, its proceeds specifically dedicated to NFL Charities, which Justin and JC had both resented loudly but ineffectually.

‘Now, when we get to the last line,’ AJ had said, ‘J, you reach over and rip off my shirt pocket –’

‘Don’t tempt him, Alex,’ Howie said. ‘Happy as he is with the NFL, he just might.’

Justin blushed, harder than the remarks seemed to call for, from his brow to his ears to the long column of his throat. And that was a mistake: the make-up for the video shoot caused his blushing to reveal, rather than any longer to conceal, a succession of hickeys that began under his right earlobe, and trailed down his neck to his collar-bone, and, tantalizingly, to where his shirt cut off the view of the swell of his pectoral.

Kevin did a double-take, knowing that Justin had not been with Cameron or any known woman the night before, late as they had wrapped recording; Nick sputtered and smirked; but it was Howie, of course, who immediately looked over at AJ, who was simply too nonchalant to be credible, and who looked resolutely off into the middle distance with the faintest of lupine grins.

But it was at the video shoot for what Lance had taken to calling Bri-N-Sync that things actually got out of hand.

‘Where the hell have those two got to?’ Chris had actually gotten Joey to give him a piggy-back so he could scan the milling crowd, but there was still no sign of JC and Lance.

It was at that point that they heard a door snap to behind them, the door to the wardrobe trailer. Turning, they saw Brian, his face red to the very tips of his ears, sit down outside the trailer with his back braced against it, guarding it.

They trotted over.

‘You okay? We can’t find JC and L–’

Faintly, from inside wardrobe, they heard a bass moan, as Brian blushed deeper still.

‘Oh, God Almighty,’ Chris said; and Joey said, ‘Not again, I thought they were over that –.’

Brian just looked at them, shaking his head. ‘Ballads,’ he said. ‘Worse than D and Nicky.’

‘Jess is going to go ballistic,’ Joey said, sitting down next to Brian on the steps.

Chris shrugged. ‘Well, if it ever leaks out. We can just call it a … wardrobe malfunction.’

END