He
waited patiently as the phone rang. Twice…Three times. Justin felt a pang of
disappointment when her answering machine clicked in.
'Hi, this is
Maddie. I'm not in right now but please leave a message after the beep. And I
have caller ID so if you hang up without leaving a message, I'm gonna call you
back and talk really bad about you, so I suggest that you do. Lata!'
He
took a deep breath and waited for the beep to end so he could speak. "Hey,
Madison, it's Justin. Guess we're playing phone tag now. I just got your message
and-" He paused when he heard clicking sounds on the other end. "Hello?" There
was a long pause and he was about to hang up when she spoke.
"Hello?"
Her voice was breathless, and high-pitched. He smiled, closed his eyes
and savored the sound.
"Maddie?"
"No, it's Wendy."
Justin sat straight up and his eyes opened wide with surprise. "Oh."
"It's cool, we sound alike on the phone, whos'is?"
"It's
Justin."
"Well, hey Justin, how's it going?"
"Pretty good, how
are you?"
"Maddie's driving me nuts."
"Oh really? What's going
on?"
"Well," Wendy sat on the bed and pulled a pillow onto her lap,
"she's upset because we caught Mike doing things no fifteen-year-old boy should
be doing."
"He was having sex?" Justin interrupted, kind of shocked, but
not really.
"Of a sort. Some girl was going down on him. They're all
downstairs right now, lecturing the poor kids to death."
"Who's all down
there?"
"Ron, Maddie, Paul, Jake, Maggie. They threw Nicole and Travis
in there, too, so they wouldn't have to repeat themselves."
Justin
laughed. "Who's Maggie?"
"You never met Maggie? She's the step-mom."
He laughed again. "You say that like it's a bad thing."
"It's
not, not really. Her and Ron have been married for like six or seven years, but
I swear she's been gone for about three-and-half of them. The woman is always
traveling."
"Man."
"Yeah. So they're all down there lecturing
the kid."
"How come you're not down there?"
"Maddie sent me up
here to answer the phone."
Justin paused at the mention of her name. He
couldn't wait to talk to her, yet at the same time, he was reluctant. He's built
up so many dreams and fantasies about this girl, what if she didn't live up to
them? What if she did? What if she was better?
"So, besides the Mike
deal, is she OK?"
It was Wendy's turn to hesitate. A lot had been going
on with Maddie but she wasn't sure if it was her place to tell Justin. 'What the
hell," she thought, 'he's my friend, too.' She sat back to begin her commentary.
"You know she has a bodyguard, right?"
"No, I didn't know that.
See, that's a sign that she's making it big, when she has to get a bodyguard,"
Justin smiled.
"No, it's more like a sign that there are sick, twisted,
demented people out there."
"Why? What happened?"
"Well, for a
while now, she's been getting these letters, the perverted kind, where this guy
gets all kinky talking about the things he'd like to do to her."
Justin
felt his skin tighten and the hairs on the back of his neck stiffen as he
listened.
"We kind of ignored it cause the letters were going to her fan
club at Jive and Jive told up that female singers get this kind of thing a lot.
But then, the morning after that party, there was this-you know about the cat,
right?"
"Yeah, it was on TRL."
"It was on TRL? Are you kidding
me?"
Justin winced at Wendy's high-pitched squealing. "Yeah."
"Damn."
Wendy was silent for so long that Justin had to prod her
into speaking. "After the cat thing?"
"Oh yeah. Well, the police said it
was a random thing, kids playing around. But then, like two days later, Nic
found a letter in the mailbox and it was from that same letter guy and was like
'How did you like my little gift?' And it said something like 'I wanted you to
find it that night so I could see your reaction but JC quit answering the door.'
Or something like that."
"JC was in it?" Justin asked, a lot more
concerned now. He had been worried before, he didn't want anything to happen to
Maddie or her family but this was his best friend, his family that they were
talking about now.
"Yeah. Romero called Johnny or somebody and told them
about it."
"Man."
"Yeah. So now we have Jacob."
"The
bodyguard?"
"Yup. He looks kinda Hulk Hogan, only with dark hair."
Justin was silent as he processed all this. He spoke softly. "Are you
guys in any danger?"
"We don't think so."
"You don't think so?
Wendy, this guy skinned a cat. While it was alive. And you don't THINK you're in
any danger?"
"First of all, there's no proof that this guy even did
that. He could just be taking the credit for it."
"Why would he do
that?"
"I don't know, Justin, hold on a sec, lemme call him and ask
him," Wendy said, both irritated and amused by Justin's questioning.
"So
if it might not be the same guy, why the bodyguard?"
"Better safe than
sorry. Second of all, Maddie's been traveling a lot lately. A lot. And it's only
gonna get worse. So it'll be just about impossible for this guy to follow her.
Even I have trouble keeping up with where she is and I'm with her most of the
time."
"That made absolutely no sense, but OK."
"The point is
don't get your drawers in a bunch, we're OK, Maddie is OK. Although that little
display of protectiveness was quite cute." Wendy grinned into the phone.
"You think so?" On his end, Justin was also smiling.
"Oh yeah.
Just don't do that shit with Maddie, she'll cut you to pieces."
"That's
good to know."
"Speak of the devil, I see Miss Thang coming up the
stairs now, I suppose you want to talk to her."
"Oh, I suppose," Justin
teasingly drew the word out, "but only if it doesn't put you to any trouble."
Wendy assumed an accent that started out as British but ending up
sounding more Australian. "Oh, it's no trouble, no trouble a'tall. But beware
the wrath of Maddie, the medication she's taking turns her into a real bitch."
"What medication?" Justin asked too late. Wendy had already pulled the
phone away from her ear. He heard their voices, but they were muffled, their
words indistinct so he assumed she'd covered the mouthpiece with her hand. He
waited patiently, toying with the stitching on the comforter. He sighed and
pushed back on the bed so he could lie down. He rested his head in the crook of
his right arm. Just when he started to think they had forgotten about him, he
heard her voice.
"Justin?"
He closed his eyes on a gentle sigh.
How could just the sound of her voice affect him so much? How could he have
mistaken Wendy for her? "I love the way you say my name." The words were out of
his mouth before they had even formed in his brain. His eyes popped open and he
held his breath as he waited for her reaction.
"Well…that's a good
thing, right?"
Maddie's teasing tone relaxed him and put a goofy grin on
his face. "Yeah."
There was an awkward silence while both of them racked
their brains for something to say.
"I had a really nice time at your
party."
Maddie smiled as she lay back on her bed. "Was that before or
after I molested you?"
Justin chuckled, a low, sensuous sound that sent
ripples of electricity up and down her spine. "During."
"Oh really?"
Maddie all but purred.
"Really."
"So you guys are performing at
the Movie Awards, right?"
"Yeah, 'It's Gonna Be Me'."
"Cool. I
like that song."
"You going?"
"I'm performing."
"Really?" Justin's voice betrayed his excitement at this news.
Maddie smiled again. "Yup."
"Good. I'm looking forward to seeing
you again."
There was a long pause at the end, then Maddie said, "Me
too."
"So."
"Yeah."
Another awkward moment.
"This is weird."
"Yeah, I know. I hate talking on the phone,"
Maddie admitted.
"Oh, I do too. I like to be able to see people as I
talk to them."
"Me too!" Maddie exclaimed, more excited than the
situation warranted. A shadow fell on her, blocking the light from the hallway.
Maddie lifted her head to see Kristina waiting for her.
"Justin, can you
hang on for a sec?"
"Yeah."
She turned her attention to her high
school friend turned back-up dancer. "Romero called downstairs and said to tell
you to get off the phone and go to sleep, you have a photo shoot early in the
morning and you know how you are when you don't get enough sleep," Kristina
smiled as she paraphrased her new manager.
"God, even from halfway
around the country, he's running my life," Maddie laughed.
"You're
talking to Justin?"
Maddie beamed at her and nodded.
"Timberlake?"
"Is there any other?"
Maddie hadn't
covered the mouthpiece so Justin was able to hear their entire conversation. He
couldn't help but smile at this. At that moment, he felt as if he were ten feet
tall.
"Can you tell him to tell Lance I said hi?"
"Yeah, sure."
Kristina turned to walk back downstairs. "Get off the phone!" she called
over her shoulder.
Still smiling, Maddie brought the phone back up to
her ear. "Hello?"
"I'm still here."
"I have to go."
"I
know. I heard."
"Oh."
For a moment, all that was heard was the
sound of their breathing.
"How bout this? When do you get to New York?"
"Well, I have to go on Saturday to work on some tour stuff with Jive,
why?"
"Well, we'll won't get there til Tuesday morning but we have the
rest of that day off. How bout I call you and we get together? We can talk
then."
"OK."
Justin smiled, glad that they had plans to see each
other again. "OK."
"So, I'll see you on Tuesday."
"OK."
"Bye."
"Bye."
Justin waited til he heard the click of
Maddie's phone before he disconnected his own. He smiled at himself. He didn't
realize how sentimental and sappy he could be. 'Til Tuesday,' he thought to
himself.
