in and out of your life that fastest leave the deepest and most indelible marks on your heart and soul.It’s funny, because sometimes the people who are in and out of your life that fastest leave the deepest and most indelible marks on your heart and soul.
Jennifer was like that for me.
I guess it bears mentioning that mine is a less than typical teenage life. I’m 17 now, and I’ve been in a band with my brothers-Isaac is a little more than two years older than me and Zac is a little more than two years younger-for the better part of, oh, I’d say 10 years or so. We call ourselves Hanson, because, well, it’s our last name. It’s not terribly creative, but it gets the point across and people remember who we are.
We’ve been writing songs and playing instruments since I can remember, and I guess it was like 1996 or something when we finally caught the eye of someone who agreed to be our manager and got us signed to a major label.
That was when my life got turned upside down, but in a good way.
As a teenager in a rock and roll band, you really have it made. I’m not going to lie and say “oh, the hours are hell” and “not being home sucks” and “the fans are psycho” and all of that stuff. Sure it’s all true, at least some of the time, but in all honesty the positives definitely outweigh the negatives.
Anyway, I guess for me the thing about being in the public eye that was always the hardest was that I never knew if people liked me because I was Taylor Hanson from the band Hanson or just because I was Tay, and I was a good guy.
I am a good guy.
I am the most loyal friend-anyone who’s known me for any length of time could tell you that. And to be honest, before this whole band thing happened, I didn’t really have a lot of close friends aside from Ike and Zac. I still don’t.
But I’m getting off the track here.
You meet lots of people when you tour. You see all different cultures, and you realize how different we all really are. I don’t really have an “ideal” girl that I find attractive … and once I started going out on the road, I knew why that was. Women are beautiful in general, whether they’re blonde, brunette, tall, short, skinny, chunky, whatever. I love women. Period.
When we started selling a lot of records and the fan mail started coming fast and furious, we started this fan club called MOE. I’m not sure whose idea it was; basically I think it was just a way that we could mass communicate with our fans, as it was becoming impossible to deal with every fan letter individually (as much as we would have liked to have been able to do that).
We really got a charge out of meeting and talking to the fans at the beginning, but that got dangerous after a while as well.
As we got more and more popular, the only people we talked to with any regularity were our family and people involved directly with our careers. It was kind of a lonely feeling for a teenager.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to get a big case of the poor mes and try to convince anyone that my life is a big steaming pile of dung or anything. All I’m saying is that sometimes, when everyone around you is telling you how much they love you and how great you are, you can feel more alone than you ever imagined possible.
Jennifer came into my life quite unexpectedly. She was interning at Mercury Records in New York, which is the label we record for, in the summer of 1999. I don’t even know what she was majoring in at college … probably entertainment management something or other. But like all interns, she was paying her dues, which meant she was stuck answering the switchboard. The only reason I even knew her name was that I heard her say it when she answered the constantly ringing phone.
We were recording an album that summer, so we were in and out of the Mercury offices a lot. She was always there, and she would barely glance at us. Sometimes she’s nod or wave a little, but all in all she was pretty unimpressed. I saw a lot of famous people walk in and out of there, and Jennifer never batted an eyelash.
She was tall and blonde, with the strangest eyes I had ever seen. They were almost amber-colored. She captivated me, largely because she was so indifferent to me. Like most people, I am in constant pursuit of things I think are out of my reach or that aren’t meant to be mine. That’s like the only commandment I break with any regularity.
It was funny, because I knew that I probably wouldn’t have had trouble getting a date if I wanted one. I am so not being conceited when I say that. I’m not even saying that any fan I asked out would have even liked me after we were together for a while. I’m a Pisces to begin with, and we’re hard to handle. Aside from my zodiacal shortcomings, I had to chuckle at all these girls who thought they were in love with me. My sisters could have told them what a raw deal being with me would turn out to be.
Anyway, we were staying in New York for a weekend at one point, and on Ike and Zac’s urging I decided I would bite the bullet and ask Jennifer to go somewhere with me.
I tried to be cool, I really did. But I think she knew I was full of it right up to my “dreamy blue eyes,” as BOP magazine once called them. I felt like I was trying to be Will Smith in “Wild Wild West” or something (PS and by the way, it’s okay if you laugh at the widely circulated wav of the dramatic reading of “MMMBop” Will did on the Rick Dees Show. We think it’s pretty funny, too), trying to be smooth.
The thing about Jennifer was that her eyes never betrayed what was going on in her mind. If, say, Ike or Zac were hurt or happy, I could tell just by looking at them. Their eyes told on them right away. Plus there was that whole thing with finally having a fan base … I had looked out into seas of beautiful eyes in every color of the rainbow, all wide with unabashed joy. Thousands of girls, and I knew exactly what every one of them was thinking. Jennifer, however, was really, really hard to read.
I sidled up to the reception desk. “Hey,” I said casually.
Jennifer, wearing a headset and shuffling a major pile of papers, looked up at me. “Can I help you?” she asked briskly.
Already this was not going well, and I wondered how I was going to recover. Can I help you? What was I supposed to say to that?
“I hope so,” I said, praying that I sounded sexy or coy or something.
Jennifer looked at me impatiently. “Do you have an appointment with someone?”
My worst nightmare came true as I turned about 10 shades redder than my usual rosiness and I began to stammer. “Um, no. I came to talk to you.”
Jennifer’s amber eyes narrowed. “Really,” she said suspiciously. “How come?”
“Well, I was wondering if we could maybe go out tonight,” I said quickly. “I’ve been wanting to ask you out for a while, but you know, we’re not usually here for more than a day at a time.”
Jennifer removed her headset and stood. She leaned on the reception desk, and her face was mere inches from mine. She smelled like salon shampoo and talcum powder. This was as close as I had ever been to her, and I thought my heart was going to beat right out of my chest.
“Well, I’ll tell you something, Taylor,” she said in a soft voice.
My heart jumped. She knew me by name. As nonchalant as she always was, I wondered if she in fact would know one of us Hansons from the other.
“I don’t date famous people,” she finished.
My heart fell.
“But,” she said, and I straightened back up.
“I do sleep with them.”
I know my mouth fell open at that point. I had heard what she said, but I just needed her to repeat it. “Excuse me?”
“I don’t get into anything serious with famous people,” she said matter-of-factly. “I just fuck them. I’m kind of the Marianne Faithfull of the new millenium.”
And so it was that Jennifer and I hooked up that night. She was a self-proclaimed star-fuck, and I was instantly in love with her. So in love with her, in fact, that I gave her my virginity in the back of her 1995 Suzuki Sidekick (which was no easy task … I’m a little over six feet tall and I’ll bet she’s at least five-foot-ten) under the halogen lights in the Mercury Records parking lot.
I didn’t know much about Jennifer when we just threw caution to the wind and surrendered ourselves to each other’s bodies, which was basically what we did on that hot Friday night in August 1999. I just knew that she felt right. She was the one.
It was raw, passionate and sweaty … it was the stuff smutty novels are made of. She bucked, she writhed and she screamed my name over and over. My back looked like a road map when it was over, because she clawed me like a wild animal.
I couldn’t even tell you how many times we did it … I know that I’ve never come so much or so hard in my entire life. I mean, I was a 16-year-old guy at the time, and I’d be lying through my teeth if I said I hadn’t had some marathon bishop beating sessions. You ride on a bus for months straight with your entire family and see if you don’t need some form of release.
I must stress that I used a condom … Jennifer confessed to me that she had been with a lot of people, both men and women, and she was prepared. She took care of me.
When the sun came up, she took me back to my hotel and dropped me at the door. She kissed me quickly and drove off.
I never saw her again. She left Mercury shortly after our encounter.
Now before you go thinking less of me for how I handled this situation, I think you need to put yourself in my shoes.
I don’t regret what I did with Jennifer, because I believe, in my midwestern boy’s heart, that I did what I did for the right reasons. I did it because I loved her.
I know that a lot of you are sitting there saying, “Jesus, Taylor, you never even knew her last name.” And you’d be right. I didn’t.
Let me tell you why I loved Jennifer, and why I didn’t think twice about making mad passionate love to her all night in the back seat of a car.
She was honest with me right from the get-go. She told me how she felt and she told me what she wanted. There was no bullshit.
And when it came down to it, I had been looking for that for a long, long time.
I hope you understand.