It was almost 8:00 that Thursday night, and Colleen was losing her mind. Nervous, excited thoughts kept running through her head. What if they don't call? What if it isn't really them? What if I mess something up? She'd finished her homework hours ago, and written her questions for the interview. Colleen was too afraid to turn on the TV or a radio in case she didn't hear the phone, and she didn't want to mess up the phone lines by signing online. Colleen decided to check her stuff. Tape Recorder? Yup. Questions? Written and right here, neatly stacked. Paper to jot notes on? Whole pad. Phone? Ringing. RINGING!! OMIGOD! Colleen rushed over to the phone. "Hello?" she said, voice shaking. As Colleen steadied her voice, a male voice answered her:
"Hi, um, is Colleen there?"
"This is me, I mean she." Colleen corrected herself and gave her mind a mental slap for sounding like a ditz.
"Hi, this is Taylor. Taylor Hanson." He said, almost shyly. Wow, Colleen thought. Everyone always says he's shy. I guess I'm finding that out for myself.
"Hi," she said. "Hey, thanks a lot for calling, I really appreciate it, and I know you must not have a lot of free time."
"It's a Thursday night, nothing good on TV, my homework is done, I have nothing BUT time." Taylor said, laughing. Colleen laughed, too.
"Okay, well, let's get started." she said.
"Hold on," Taylor said. "Do you want to talk to all three of us, or just me?" he asked.
"Um, how 'bout I start with you, then talk to Isaac and Zac, ok?" Colleen asked. "Then I can get all three viewpoints, without influence from others."
"All right," said Taylor. "Ask away."
center>*Next Day*
Colleen's friends crowded around her at school. Questions pelted her from all sides: "Did they really call?" "Was it really them?" "How long did you talk to them?" "Did you get good answers to your questions?" That from the newspaper director.
"Yes, yes, about 2-and-a-half hours, and I got REALLY good answers." Colleen replied, laughing.
Then came more questions: "Did you talk to all three?" "Did you find out any dark secrets?" "Were they like they are on TV?"
Colleen tried to answer them all. "Yes, but Taylor the most, I didn't ask about any private secrets, they have a right to their privacy (Colleen had strong beliefs in the newspaper industry) and they're just as nice and funny and sweet and charming as they are on TV, if not more."
"Hold on a sec, back the phone-mobile up here." Liz came up beside Colleen. "You talked to Taylor the MOST, and you talked for 2 1/2 hours?"
"Yup," Colleen answered, grinning. I interviewed each of them seperately, then Taylor and I talked for a while."
"For a WHILE?" Liz asked. "How long exactly did those interviews take to do?"
"About half an hour, each." Colleen casually replied.
"So you and Taylor talked for an hour????" Liz stared at Colleen in disbelief.
"Um, yep, guess so." Colleen laughed. "Really, Liz, your math skills are definitely ones to be admired." Liz was not the best mathmatician at school.
"That is one HECK of a long time!" Sara came up to Colleen's other side. "You really talked to them for that long?"
"Yeah," Colleen said. "I probably would have talked longer, but it was after 10:30. But we'll talk more, I'm sure of it."
"How can you be so sure?" Liz asked.
"Cause, we sorta made plans for him to call back." Colleen smiled.
"WHEN?" asked Sara.
"Tonight." Colleen answered casually.
"No kidding?!" Liz asked.
"Well, we wanted to talk more, so we figured we could cause tomorrow's Friday."
Two more of Colleen's friends, Lisa and Amy came up to join the small crowd and fought their way through to Colleen.
"He's calling you, right?" Amy asked.
"I hope so!!" Lisa broke in before Colleen could respond. "He's the one with millions of dollars probably saved just for making long-distance calls to people halfway across the U.S whom he's never met!"
Colleen frowned at Lisa and told her to shut up. "They do not have millions of dollars, Lisa, and they're saving all their funds for college, and we have talked before, through email." Colleen turned back to Amy. "He offered to call me, and I could always call him on a calling card or something."
"Oh, well, I guess if you wanted you could always pay him back for like half or something." Amy stammered, a little surprised at Colleen's anger. Colleen had been growing sick of the conversation, but she shrugged off her annoyance and turned back to her friends.
"I really don't want to think of the future past what's happening tonight!" she said. Her friends laughed, relieved she was back to her normal self.
"So what are they like, really and truly?" Liz asked.
"Just like how they act. Ike's goofy but smart, Zac's really hyper, but he has a good sense of humor and he's not THAT wild, and Taylor's sort of quiet, flirty, and a little reserved. He knows how to answer the questions with good answers, but it's almost like he has so many answers he has trouble putting them into words sometimes. He's very smart, and the sweetest guy I've ever met." Colleen's voice had grown quiet while she was describing Taylor, and her eyes took on a distant, faraway look. She didn't notice her friends' glances or grins, as the small group stood in a few seconds of silence.
"Strange how you described Taylor the most," Liz teased.
"Well, I did talk to him the most." Colleen reasoned.
"So are you talking to all three or just Taylor tonight?" Amy asked.
"Just Taylor. The rest of his clan are all gone tonight. Jessica, Avery and Mackie are at their grandparents to spend the night, and their parents are taking Zac and Ike shopping."
"Wait a second, aren't you home alone tonight, too?" Sara asked.
"Yeah, my parents have the sports-banquet thing for Tom's (brother) soccer team."
"So it'll be just you two." Liz grinned.
"Yup." Colleen smiled.
"Lucky." Liz said. They all said as the headed off to class.
1998 by Hanson Lovers
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