Part III – Philadelphia

One really starts to question their sanity when they wake up the day after making a long eight hour drive and immediately repack for a six-hour drive. I couldn’t believe we were doing this again. But was I going to back out? No. Did it cross my mind? No. Was I gung ho about it? What do you think?

I was sitting in my room waiting for B to get her lazy ass to my campus so we could leave. I saw Kat pop online, and since I was bored and excited (a very bad combination), I pounced on her. Although I’m sure B had already told her everything that had happened in Atlanta, I told her again. I even confessed the Nicky Moment. What can I say? I’m weak. I managed to get her very excited about her upcoming concert in Toronto, and with good reason.

Finally, B arrived. Then she talked to Kat. I swear, we didn’t go anywhere on this trip without calling Canada first. We’d called Dani about four times already, all in the name of my Nicky Moments. Meh.

We were late to leave (surprise) but it didn’t matter because the show was the following night. We were driving to Philly this afternoon, stopping off at the house we were staying at (Backstreet friends of B) to make sure we could get there, and then venturing out again to pick up Emma, B’s best friend, who had gotten a ride down to just north of the Pennsylvania border in New Jersey. I had known Emma online for a long time now, but I had never met her. Although she had almost convinced me to drop everything and make a nine hour drive to New York at ten o’clock at night a few months before. (Yes, it was a Backstreet venture.)

It wasn’t until we got to D.C. that I realized Black and Blue had been on repeat since we’d left home. That meant, oh, about four hours. Whoops. So I took it out, and replaced it with a Backstreet Mix I’d created. (Gotta have some variety.) We started seeing signs for Philly, so B got Emma on the phone and chucked it at me so I could talk to her and figure out where the hell we were going. When you read the following conversation, please keep in mind I’ve spoken to Emma on the phone maybe twice.

“Em!” I hollered into the phone. “Get this!”

“What?”

“We’re in fucking Delaware! How cool is that?”

“Damn, girl. What the hell have you two been drinking?”

“Um, water?”

“Scary.”

“Tell me about it.”

I proceeded to take down some directions and a cell phone number between the random shouting and fits of laughter that seemed to strike B and I out of nowhere. I have no idea what got into us, but it wasn’t exactly unusual. I get giddy often, and it seems to be contagious.

It wasn’t long before we left Delaware and actually got into the Philly city limits. Can I say this? Philly is fucking huge. They say everything is bigger in Texas, which is where I’m from, but Texas doesn’t have a Philly. Wow. I was so glad I wasn’t driving. At least in the passenger seat I could blame getting lost on someone else. Until I realized I was holding the directions. Well, shit.

Although I was convinced we were going to get lost in the middle of Ghetto-Philly, we managed to find the girls we were looking for. I got a brief introduction to Amanda, Erin, and Lindsay before Amanda and Lindsay piled in the car with us to go Emma hunting. We figured out where we were going, and then ended up in New Jersey. I was alerted to this about fifteen minutes after the fact, so I felt dumb, but very excited to be in yet another state, and expressed that excitement vocally.

Once again, I was elected to be the one to get on the phone and figure out where we were after we got lost for the fourth time. We finally made it, and B literally flew out the car door and into the apartment where Em was waiting for us, leaving her car door open and everything. That left me with Lindsay and Amanda.

“Well then,” I said with a grin.

Can I reflect for a moment? I was standing in New Jersey, almost seven hours from home on a Monday night with two people I had known for about thirty minutes in the freezing cold all in the name of Backstreet. This is where I become afraid of me.

And you know, I was enjoying myself. Amanda had almost made me wet myself with her rants about Nick. I now know in great detail what she would do to him if she ever got her hands on him.

The three of us followed Bianca and found ourselves inside the apartment. B was in the process of asking for the bathroom.

“Down the hall,” a woman in her mid twenties told her. “It might smell. We had Chinese.”

“Ew, GROSS!” B yelled. “Damn Em! That shit stinks.”

“Christ on crutches. I warned you, didn’t I? Sorry!” Another person came into view, and Emma glanced from her to the rest of us standing at the bottom of the stairs.

“I’d introduce you, but I don’t know who any of you are,” she announced. We introduced ourselves one by one, and when it came to me I put my trademark cheesy grin on my face. “Whitney!” I said proudly.

“Whits!” Emma cried in excitement. “We meet at last!”

“Yay! It took long enough!”

“Right. What a good first impression I make, right?”

“Hey, I don’t care. I’m in New Jersey. That’s never happened before.”

Finally, we piled back into the car to the sound of Howie singing “How Did I Fall In Love With You.” Emma made a face and popped the CD out. “Ugh. I can’t stand that song.” I made a puppy dog face, considering I’d only declared it the best song Backstreet had ever done. Oh well. Emma was actually on a ‘NSYNC kick, and confessed she hadn’t even listened to all of Black and Blue yet. Not only that, she had no ticket for the show and wasn’t even sure if she wanted to try and get one. Well. We could fix that. My powers of persuasion are legendary. Ask me some time about all of the people I have converted to Backstreet and The West Wing.

To my delight, Emma popped in her demo CD for us to hear. See, it turns out that Emma has this fantastic voice that I think the whole world should get to hear. When she actually does get famous, I have the privilege of saying ‘I knew her when.’ That makes me feel very special.

On the way back, we drove past the hotel we were pretty sure the Boys would be at, and spotted the tour buses parked along the street.

“A.J.’s bus is here,” B said excitedly. “A.J. and Nick. Woohoo!” Okay, so much for being tired. That adrenaline kicked in big time, and I was high as a kite.

When we finally made it back to Philly, we discovered that Erin, the sweetie, had made up beds for us in the living room. They had even gotten an air mattress for us. We started settling in, after we made our plans to stake out the hotel the next morning, and I took the opportunity to chat with Emma for a little bit. I joined her on the porch (even enduring the freezing weather) while she smoked a cigarette.

“So, Whits.”

“Yeah?”

“You gonna tell me what happens next in Legend?” (I am NOT trying to plug myself here folks. This really happened.)

I grinned like an absolute fool. “No.”

“Damn. So when do we get the next chapter?”

“Soon.” (I lied. It took like, two more weeks. Whoops.)

“Well, you can’t blame me for trying.”

I laughed. “Sure can’t.”

We talked for a little bit, me bitching about the weather, her agreeing with me. (If you haven’t guessed, I really hate the cold.) Fan fic was of course, a topic. Just lead me to a conversation about writing and turn me loose. Emma is a kick ass fic writer, whose stuff I love.

By the time we were ready to crash, we had gotten Emma all psyched up to try and get to the show. (Told you) All we’d needed was time to work our magic.

“I am so in tour mode now,” she said excitedly. “If I don’t get tickets tomorrow, I’ll just cry. I know I will. Arg. I can see it now. I’ll go home after this, learn everything off of Black And Blue, and totally love it. That’s what happened with Millennium. I hated the album, saw a show, and loved it.”

A show? She saw the damn thing six times. I was jealous. I only saw one.

“Oh, you’ll get one,” I said confidently. “Damn right you will.”

Oh, if only I had known how good our luck was going to be. (Hehe! Foreshadowing! Whee!)

* * *

Okay. So I’m not a morning person. Getting up at 8:00 the next day was living (or not so living, depending on how you look at it), proof of that. But, as I’ve said, it was all in the name of Backstreet, so I was willing to at least try to be coherent. We alternated between showers and snacking on handfuls of Count Chocula, and then were forced to settle back and wait for Amanda’s phone call saying they were out of class and ready to go. If there is one thing I’ve learned from the world of horse showing, it’s how to live by the motto “hurry up and wait,” which was a good thing, because that’s exactly what Backstreet fans do. Hurry our asses up, and wait. And wait. And wait some more. And then just keep waiting. At least at the house, we had other means to amuse ourselves. So we did. Erin pulled out the Backstreet Boys board game, and Emma, B, Erin, me, and Nat, (Amanda’s little sister) sat around to play. I have this to say about Nat: She is the first pre-teen Backstreet fan that I have not labeled as a Twinkie. What do you know. They do exist! Nat was not only not a Twinkie, she was cool. And she was a Brian lover, so obviously she had good taste to boot.

If you haven’t played the BSB Board game, or have been scornful of its very existence (like me), then I suggest you stop reading, go out, and get it. Oh, the fun you will have. And be prepared to look like an idiot. For instance, I’m sure that Dani would have given quite a bit to see me dancing like Santa Claus to the chorus of “Yes I Will.” I’m not prone to dancing like Santa Claus, especially not to a Backstreet song. For those that know me, the very suggestion is enough to instigate a giggling fit, which is precisely why I swallowed my pride and did it.

I also found it very aggravating that when I rolled the die I kept getting Nick. It’s a conspiracy, I swear. It always has been. At the Millennium concert I saw, out of all five Boys, I just HAD to be on Nick’s side (I didn’t mind so much when he flew about six feet above my head though). It’s always Nick. Was someone trying to tell me something? No. Don’t answer that, because I’m not listening.

At last, the phone call came in, and we bolted, I mean bolted, for the car. There was nothing that was going to stop us from getting to that hotel. B and I were a giddy mess, and we blasted ‘Get Another Boyfriend’ – repeatedly – on the way. After a near parking fiasco, we finally managed to hit the hotel. It was raining, and it was freezing. Joy. Did we stand outside anyway? Uh huh. Thankfully, that didn’t last long, because we had Emma, and Emma is a pro at this.

“I’m going to scope out security. Then we can go inside, and play it cool.”

We did just that, right down to entering the hotel two at a time, so as not to draw attention to ourselves. I had to try very hard not to gawk at the lobby. Holy shit, this was far nicer than any hotel I’d ever stayed in. I wondered how long before we were thrown out. For the time being, there were no fans in sight. Turns out we didn’t have to worry.

“I wonder how much a room here is,” B mused after awhile.

“Probably something like $800,” Lindsay said bitterly.

“That much? I doubt it. Binaca, come with me. We’ll check.” (Emma likes calling Bianca Binaca. By the time we left Philly, she’d shortened it to Breath Spray.)

“Sure. Why not?”

So the two of them got up and wandered over to the desk while I sat with Erin. Lindsay, Amanda, and Nat were sitting in another small cluster of chairs to our left. When B and Em came rushing back over, I thought B was going to have a canipshit right there.

“Get this. $205. Let’s do it.”

“What?” I yelped. “You mean, get a room? Here? For the night?”

“Yes! That way they can’t kick us out. Is everyone game?”

All of us, Lindsay, Erin, Amanda, Nat, and myself agreed within a millisecond. It came out to like, thirty bucks each. Who the hell would turn down a chance to stay in a place like this for that? Not I said the fly.

“We need a credit card to hold the room. We can pay in cash when we check out, but we need a card.”

I surrendered my card with only brief hesitation. Was I on crack? Yes. But at least it was A.J.’s. I rushed up to the counter with them, and we worked out the logistics. The lady who helped us had a really cool accent, and so we struck up a conversation with her. Turns out she was from Ireland. Fun stuff! I can’t even begin to get over how this whole excursion has made me so friendly to random people. I’m normally very quiet in a strange place. This trip? Not so much. It’s all B and Emma. Fearless. As the rest of this ordeal would continue to prove.

A few minutes later, we had ourselves a room, and a reason to park in the lobby. So what did we do? Run out of the lobby like a stampede so we could see the room. Naturally. If you really want to know how blown away we were, watch the Diary that MTV did of Backstreet not long ago. You know how A.J. was going ballistic over the toilet on the plane? Yep, that was us. We were snapping pictures, calling friends, and in general carrying on like psychopaths. Emma wound up sprawling in the tub. It was unbelievably fun. I recommend it.

When we had gotten a hold of ourselves, we returned to the lobby to wait some more. B and Emma agreed to go on a McDonalds run, because by now it was going on two o’clock. Get this: to make sure they didn’t miss anything, we had walkie talkies. So they took one and Lindsay kept one, and we stayed in touch the whole time. Up until now, we hadn’t seen anyone. I was beginning to freak out that we had the wrong hotel, but the methods the other girls had used to track them down made us pretty sure we were right. I felt better when the security people began watching us like hawks. (Does that sound twisted? I think so.) Not only that, but an employee came over to us to ask what it was exactly, that we were doing. Talk to the key, buddy. He left us alone after that.

Once we had the food we retreated to our room to eat. We told B and Em about the security thing, and Em cracked up and told us how she had gotten chewed out by some chic at one of the other times she had stayed at their hotel.

“She was like, ‘All right. I know why you’re here, and you know why you’re here. So let’s get one thing straight. You do anything like start begging for autographs, or bothering the Backstreet Boys in any way, I will have you removed.’ So I just got all pissed off looking, and said; ‘Backstreet Boys? Ma’am, with all due respect, I wouldn’t know a Backstreet Boy if one bit me on the ass. So back off.’ She looked like she wanted to melt into the floor. It was awesome.”

Before long, B and I became very, very antsy. We did not want to find out we’d missed them while we were eating. So I crammed a few more fries and we vanished to the lobby again. More hurry up and wait. Are you sensing a pattern here?

This time wasn’t any different. We went back to being nonchalant, and I once again started getting pissed I hadn’t brought my notebook. B got hit on by one of the hotel employees, and exchanged email addresses. By now we were starting to see a few more fans here and there. The others joined us eventually, and when Emma came back over to where B and I were sitting, she filled us in on a couple of fans she’d talked to on the elevator on the way down. They were currently up at the front desk, because their room situation was messed up. When they were done, they wandered over to chat with us. I was suspicious at first, I admit. The more fans there were, the less chance we had of getting to the Boys. They introduced themselves as Shawna (Kevin lover) and Kelly (Nick lover). Both of them were married, and were friends through Backstreet. Shawna had flown in from Minnesota, and Kelley was from Pennsylvania.

I soon forgot about trying to be aloof, because they were both sweethearts. They were ecstatic about the concert (with good reason; they were going to be in Philly both nights, and had 2^nd and 3^rd row), and desperate to at least catch a glimpse of the guys. I was still wary about releasing the information we had about the Boys to them, because once again, if it gets out, the odds of actually getting to them get really slim, something I learned from B. Just try getting info out of that girl if she doesn’t want to give it. Try. I wanted to give my letter to Brian so bad, I was willing to be a selfish bitch. I admit it. I can be very hobag-ish if I need to. If I had any doubts left though, Kelly erased them almost immediately because when we talked about the possibilities of seeing the Boys, she held up a letter.

“I don’t want autographs, pictures, whatever. In a perfect world, I just want to shake his hand, and hand him this. I have too much to thank him for.”

Sheepishly, I held up my letter. “Ditto,” I told her. From then on, both of them were on the top of my Cool People list. It was a good thing, because we made a tight little group after that, and stuck together.

It didn’t take long for us to get utterly bored of sitting there. Plus, we didn’t have a great view of the doors. If they came off the elevator, the odds of us being able to get to them before they got outside were all of zero, so we migrated to the stairs across from the elevators, so we couldn’t miss them. That’s when we met Joe.

Joe was the manager of the place. I don’t think he was very happy to see us at first. Not that I blamed him, it wasn’t like we could convince him that the seven of us were there on a business trip. He was a frowny kinda guy, but he didn’t seem all bad, so we all turned on the charm. He let us be reluctantly, but he was keeping a close eye on us. Neither of us actually acknowledged what we were doing there, but we all knew. And we all knew that we knew.

Anyhow, our cover was blown moments later, because lo and behold, Krystal appears with her manager. B and I have a joint minor spazz-fest, and immediately called her over, asking her if she remembered us from Atlanta. Go figure. She did. I guess it doesn’t really surprise me; B is very, very hard to forget. (I mean that affectionately.) I could not get over how TINY she was. I mean, I’m not all that tall, and I dwarfed her.

“Can I have a picture?” B pleaded.

“Of course! Absolutely,” she said cheerfully. B, Emma, and I all rotated through and got pictures taken with her, told her she was awesome about eight times, wished her luck, etc. I told her that the show just kept getting better each time we saw it. She was thrilled, and so were we. I couldn’t believe it. I KNOW this girl is going to be hugely famous, and that meant I would have the honor of saying that I have been a fan since the beginning. If you are reading this, and you have not heard her sing, kill whoever you have to in order to change that. After that, B and I made the decision that when she tours on her own, we were tour hopping for her too.

Okay. So now we were excited. We’d also spotted Joe smiling at us, so that made me feel a lot better. See, as long as we behave, things are cool. We weren’t out to piss people off. We were all likeable. Not one of our little group was going to be rude or inconsiderate to anyone except for Twinkies. Joe actually started talking to us after awhile. He couldn’t tell us if the Boys were actually there or not, but we understood. He did say that he would prefer if we waited outside for them, so for a while we did. We were okay with that. At one point he asked us how we knew. It was a good question. He was rather impressed with how we had managed to track them down. Shawna and Kellie said it was actually dumb luck, and the rest of us explained that Backstreet fans should be hired by the CIA, because we know everything. If we don’t, we know how to find out. Joe thought this was very amusing.

Around then, one of the catering guys (I think that’s who he was) came by wheeling a cart of roses. Personally, I thought he could have passed with Chris Kirkpatrick, and Emma agreed with me. He paused for a while to talk with us, figure out what we were doing there, etc. Someone, I think it was Amanda, asked if she could have a rose. Not only did he give her one, he gave all of us one. How sweet! We thanked him profusely, and then all of us posed on the steps to have a group picture taken. The next chance I get, I’m going to frame that picture. It turned out beautiful.

What followed after that was really just an exercise in frustration, as we tried to think like the Boy’s security, and figure out where they would go, and what they would do. It gave us a headache, and also got no results. We got conflicting information about whether they were actually there, if they had left, or if they hadn’t even arrived yet. Finally, it got to be too much, and we all went back upstairs. B and Amanda and Lindsay all went back to the house so that Amanda could go to a meeting about a presentation she had to do, and get everyone’s stuff to bring to the hotel for the night. That left Erin, Emma, Nat, and myself to goof off in the hotel room. We did exactly that. Well, first Emma took a catnap, while we watched absolutely nothing on TV. Then, all the sudden, “Shape Of My Heart” comes BLASTING from the bedroom where Em was napping. The three of us exchanged looks, then bolted for the door. We found Em wearing a Cheshire Cat grin, singing along.

“It came on the radio,” she said cheesily. We weren’t objecting. In fact, we were singing along. It was then that we discovered that the radio/clock was also a CD player, so Erin dug around for a Black and Blue CD. Thankfully, she found one, popped it in, and soon we were singing at the top of our lungs. That was interesting, because I had totally trashed my voice after Atlanta. I had none. I had a frog. I definitely couldn’t sing worth shit, which was annoying because I usually could, but that didn’t stop me from doing it anyway. Erin and Nat started jumping on the beds while we sang ‘Shining Star,’ and then Erin climbed up on the windowsill and started dancing. Thank God for cameras.

Seven thirty couldn’t come quick enough.

* * *