January 5, 2000
“Where is she?” JC asked impatiently, glancing at his watch for the fifth time in the past minute. He and the other members of N Sync were standing in their hotel lobby, surrounded by various assistants and security members, waiting on the photographer they had scheduled shoots with for the next few days. “Wasn’t our meeting for noon?”
“Yes,” confirmed one of the assistants, after consulting a clipboard that she clutched to her chest as if it were a lifeline. “Maybe she’s just running late.”
“Dude, I hope she gets here soon,” complained Joey. “I’m starving.”
“Here,” volunteered another one of the assistants, pulling a granola bar from a bag she carried and handing it to him. Joey grimaced slightly, yet accepted the offer. He wasn’t one to pass up food.
“I thought we were told she was one of the best up-and-coming photographers out there,” Justin grumbled. “This doesn’t seem very professional of her.”
“I said she was good. I never said she was professional,” the first assistant defended.
“I say we give her 5 more minutes, then we go get something to eat,” Justin said.
The words had hardly left his mouth when a young woman laden with bags of camera equipment came rushing through the door. She spotted the conspicuous group and immediately made her way over to them, apologizing profusely. “I’m sorry!” she exclaimed. “I stopped by a shop to buy some electrical tape for my tripod, and they had free food samples and you know how addictive those things can be and before I knew it, half an hour had passed and I’m really really sorry!” she babbled.
“Wait... you’re the photographer?” JC asked disbelievingly. The others had similar looks of incredulity on their faces. Except for Joey, who was nodding in agreement with her description of free food samples. The girl in front of certainly didn’t look they way they pictured the world-reknowned photographer that everyone had been raving about. She looked barely older than sixteen, with straight chin-length reddish brown hair and blunt-cut bangs. Her blue eyes were framed by a pair of vintage-looking cat’s eye glasses that were almost the exact shade of her hair. She was tall and extremely thin, vaguely reminiscent of Twiggy. By no means was she beautiful, but she had a unique look and a way of carrying herself that was oddly appealing.
“Yes,” she mumbled. “I’m Audrey Whittingham. You don’t need to introduce yourselves, I know who you are.” And indeed, she did. She had been a fan of ‘N Sync for about a year or so, but not many people knew, as she was slightly embarrassed about it. But she had been excited when she’d received the call from their record company asking her to shoot the pictures for their soon-to-be-released record. Though she was basically a freelance photographer, she loved working with musicians, and portraiture was definitely a field she excelled in.
“How old are you?” he asked, ignoring her introduction.
“I’m nineteen,” she replied somewhat defensively. “Well, actually, I’ll be nineteen next month. But I’m close enough.”
“And you’re supposed to be photographing us?” Joey asked.
“Haven’t we already covered this?” she replied, shooting him an exasperated look. “But actually, I won’t be photographing you today.”
“What do you mean?” JC asked, slightly annoyed at the fact that he had gotten all dressed up and stood around in the lobby for half an hour, only to be told that they weren’t even shooting that day. “I could have stayed in bed!”
“Sorry,” she apologized. “The weather’s too miserable today, I don’t think you’d want to be standing around freezing your attractive little butts off, besides, the lighting is awful for pictures, and I hate to use studio lights. It’s supposed to be much sunnier and warmer tomorrow. Look on the bright side, you guys get a day off!”
They all cheered up noticeably at this prospect.
“Under one condition!” she continued, “I don’t want you guys out too late tonight! I expect to have perky, happy, well-rested popstars at my shoot tomorrow, got it?”
“Yes!” they replied, grinning.
“Well then run along now!”
They headed towards they elevators, arguing good-naturedly about what to do that day.
Audrey watched their retreating backs for a moment before heading over to the desk to check in.
*****
“What are we going to do, guys?” Justin asked.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m going back to bed,” JC said, smothering a yawn with the back of his hand.
"I met this chick in the bar last night," Joey grinned. "I think I'll call her up, see if she wants to do something."
“I’ve been wanting to go check out the Globe Theatre!” Lance said excitedly. “Maybe see a play or something.”
“That sounds kind of cool,” Chris said. “I’ll come with you!”
“Boring!” Justin exclaimed. “I want to explore London! Come on, how many times do we get a whole day off to explore a city like this? And all you want to do is go to some old theatre.”
“Hey, Shakespeare is awesome,” Lance defended. “I can’t help it if you’re uncultured.”
“Fine, I’ll just go off on my own today," Justin huffed.
“I don’t think so,” came the deep voice of Paul, one of the bodyguards.
“Come on!” Justin said. “It’ll just be me, I’ll stay real inconspicuous! I’ll wear a hat and sunglasses, the whole deal! And since it’ll just be me all alone, I won’t attract much attention. Not like I would having a bodyguard with me,” he added pointedly.
“Fine, fine. Just don’t come crawling to me when you get mauled beyond recognition by teenyboppers.”
"So what do you think of the photographer?" Lance asked, quickly changing the subject.
"That Audrey, girl right? I don't know, she seems a little scatterbrained to me," Justin mumbled.
"And she looks awfully young," JC frowned.
The rest of the guys nodded in agreement, except for Justin who was pretty much the same age as her and knew how hard it was to be taken seriously when you were so young.
"Has anyone actually seen any of her work?" Lance asked thoughtfully. There was a vague chorus of "no"s from all the guys.
"I've got some of her portfolio shots in here somewhere," the head assistant said, fumbling in her bag for the elusive prints. Before she could produce them, the elevator dinged to a stop and they all disembarked.
"Don't worry about it," JC said. "We'll see them later or something." And with that, all the members quickly dispersed to their own rooms to get ready for the day ahead of them.