“OK so where are they?” Gina asked as she glanced around the room, placing her hands on her hips.
“Are you talking to yourself again Geen?”
“Eric you are seriously NO help today. Why are you even here?”
She looked up at him with expecting eyes, then rose her hand just as he was about to speak. “Nevermind, don’t answer that.”
“Maybe they are running late, it does happen. I wont any mention any names of the people it has happened to on several occasions GINA,” he said, pushing her hand down away from his face and staring at her.
“It’s good that we aren’t presenting until later on in the show. That’ll give them enough breathing room to make sure they are there on time tomorrow. Actually, I’m sure a few of them wouldn’t dare miss the walk down the red carpet, since they love being the center of attention,” she responded, ignoring his comment.
Gina was looking around the room for anything that could resemble *NSYNC, which meant she was hunting for several large bodyguards and a lot of media attention. She knew what they looked like for the most part since they were all over TV, magazines, and even the newspaper from time to time. The media loved them, and you had to be living under a rock to not know who they were.
She was a bit nervous, but she would never admit that to Eric or anyone else. There was no reason for her to be, considering she had been in the business longer than any of them had. She had a gut feeling about their meeting though, and that was her main concern. It was not sitting right in her stomach, so that put her on edge. She didn’t know where they were, and it was beginning to tick her off the longer they were missing in action.
“There she is…wow…she looks a little pissed.”
“She has no reason to be mad, we’re here aren’t we?”
“Justin, we have missed our rehearsal time so she has every reason to be mad. Talk about a first good impression, she must think we are the biggest assholes.”
JC and Justin were leading the pack as the five of them quickly walked into the Shrine Auditorium. They were late leaving the hotel, and had hit lunch hour traffic in the busy streets of L.A. They didn’t make it to the venue until 1:30pm, which made them an hour and a half late and left them to deal with a very upset co-presenter whom they had never had the pleasure of meeting.
“Where is she? I don’t see her! I cannot believe we are late to meet Gina Corleone. She is like one of the best musicians around; I freakin’ have all of her albums! I cannot BELIEVE we had to wait on fro-man here. We would have been on time if he had gotten up and eaten lunch with the REST of us,” Chris said, glancing around the auditorium for her, then pointing at Justin accusingly.
“She is going to HATE us dude. What do we say to her? ‘Sorry we’re late, Justin takes more time getting ready than most females do’?”
Justin spun his head around and glared at Joey. “What is the big deal? Oooh, Gina Corleone. Oooh, she might be mad that we’re a little late. Who cares? She’s just another chick with an attitude I’m sure. You’ve seen one solo artist star, you’ve seen them all. I bet ‘Corleone’ isn’t even her real last name, she probably uses it because of ‘The Godfather’ trilogy to scare people and to prove that hey, she’s REALLY Italian.”
“Actually Corleone is my real last name. It goes all the way back to my ancestors that lived and grew up in southern Italy if you must know. Mario Puzzo just happened to pick the same name for his ‘Godfather’ trilogy, that’s all.”
Justin’s back was towards Gina as he spoke about her, and none of his friends had noticed her walk up silently behind them to see what had taken them so long. He turned around quickly and stared at her.
“Now I know, thanks for the history lesson. I’m Justin Timberlake.”
“I know who you are. I’m Gina…Corleone, obviously,” she answered in the same tone he had spoken in, which was flat and void of emotion or politeness. Justin did not reach out his hand to shake hers, and she made no move to offer her own hand out in welcome.
The others had noticed the tension and immediately stepped in to try to make the conversation move a bit smoother. It was off to a rocky start.
“Hi Gina, sorry we were late, we had to wait on some people at the hotel,” Chris said, glancing at Justin quickly. “This is Joey, then next to him is Lance, JC, and I’m Chris. Can I just say that I love your music and think you are extremely talented? I saw you on Rosie a couple of days ago too,” he finished sticking out his hand and smiling brightly, a slight blush creeping up his cheeks.
Gina moved away from Justin and giggled a bit, shaking Chris’ hand. “Thank you, I appreciate it. It’s nice to finally meet you. I was wondering where you guys were though. I was telling Eric that you might have stood me up.”
JC’s eyes went wide and he stuck his hand out to shake hers next. “Now why would we do something like that? We ARE nice guys, contrary to what you might believe. Sometimes it just takes us awhile to get from one place to the other because of how many of us there are. Who’s Eric, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Eric is-“
“I’m Eric, Gina’s head of security. You should have HEARD what she was saying earlier-“
“Nevermind him, he likes to cause trouble. Bye Eric!” Gina said, elbowing him in the stomach. He looked down at her, shook his head and put some distance between the two of them to give her some space.
“I have heard stories about you all though,” she added, turning her attention back to the men standing in front of her. She glanced over at Justin and rested her gaze on him for a few seconds before looking at the rest.
“You should know not to believe everything you read,” Justin almost snapped at her. She turned and raised an eyebrow to him in a challenge.
“I never said I READ it now did I.”
“I’m Joey, and if anything you heard about me was along the lines of me being a romantic, single, loving guy, it was right,” Joey jumped in, picking up Gina’s hand and kissing the back of it. She diverted her attention from Justin and smiled.
“OK, so let’s see if I have all of you remembered. You just told me you were Joey, so I got that down pat. Flirt much?” Gina said, pulling her hand away from his gently and winking.
“You’re JC, Mr. We-could-never-stand-you-up…”
JC smiled and nodded in a completely dorky yet totally JC way.
“You are Chris…and you are Lance, the one who hasn’t spoken yet,” Gina pointed, reaching out her hand to shake Lance’s. He seemed genuinely surprised and shook her hand with a smile on his face. Gina turned around a bit and was face-to-face with Justin.
“Lastly you are Justin Timberlake,” she said evenly, still trying to figure him out.
“The one and only.”
“So we pray,” Chris added in, getting a laugh out of the other three guys. Justin rolled his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest, completely unamused.
“So now that we’ve gone through all the introductions, do we get to rehearse or what? That’s what we are here for, remember?” Justin asked, giving Gina a once over from the top of her curly head to her platform sandals.
“Well, did you forget that you are here almost two hours late and I had to go up on stage and do it by myself? They ran through it, there is some kind of ‘Godfather’ comment, and we are presenting for ‘best new female artist’…the nominees are Christina Aguilera, Jessica Simpson, Mandy Moore and Britney Spears,” Gina rattled off, narrowing her eyes at the mention of Britney, waiting for his reaction to it.
Justin noticed and rolled his eyes a bit. “Great. Of course. I wonder who will win THAT category.”
“Well anyway, I’m heading out of here. It was nice meeting you guys,” Gina started, glancing at Chris, JC, Joey, and Lance. “Maybe tomorrow night you will meet me backstage and we can walk out together, instead of me hanging out up there while you all run up a half hour late,” she joked.
“Maybe if you stopped with the attitude, we would want to walk up there with you…”
Lance glared at Justin and shook his head. “Sorry about him, he has been a crabass all morning, we don’t know what’s wrong with him. I think that you are sitting near us during the show, actually, so we’ll probably see you before it starts.”
“Sounds good. I’ll see you tomorrow!” she answered, giving a little wave and walking away from the five of them with Eric following closely behind. She made her way through the venue and out the door, the guys following her with their eyes until she was no longer in sight. As soon as they could no longer see her, JC whirled around and glared at Justin.
What the hell was THAT? Why were you such a jerk to that woman? She was perfectly nice to all of us!”
Justin looked at him surprised. “What are you TALKING about? She started it.”
“How can you say that? You were standing there badmouthing her and her name and whatever else you were saying about her, and she walked up behind you and was tasteful in the way she totally caught you. You were the one who started with the attitude, putting her on the defensive.”
“ ‘I’m Gina…Corleone, obviously’. Who says that? She walked over here with that bitch attitude-“
“Jus you are completely wrong man. She was a sweetheart to all of us, laughing and being nothing but nice. You have had this major stick up your ass ever since you broke up with-“
“Shut up Chris. I don’t want to hear it, got it?” Justin interrupted and crossed his arms across his chest defiantly.
“Enough of this guys. Tomorrow, Justin, you better be nice to her and come to this thing with a better attitude. We’ll lay off for now, but in all honesty, you were a jack ass and made us look bad to a colleague. I don’t appreciate it,” Lance said, ending the conversation and walking away from the group.
Justin looked at his friends as they walked away one by one and shook his head angrily. Who were they to tell him that he was out of line? Did they miss her sarcasm and animosity towards him from right off the bat? He had heard some things about Gina; that she thought she was too good for the business, that she acted like a princess, that she was just a flat out bitch. So far, what he had heard was pretty true, because the first things out of her mouth were full of attitude towards him. It was true that he had been in a pretty bad mood lately, but that didn’t give her any right to attack him. He also wanted to know why everyone thought she was so pretty; she looked average to him, nothing special. He had had enough of female artists in the music business and was already dreading the following day, having to see HER again and acting like they were good friends on stage.
Gina headed towards her limo with Eric almost running to keep pace with her. She got in the car and was steaming.
“OK can we say, ‘hi I’m Justin Timberlake and I think I’m God’s GIFT to everyone’? Jeez!” she said frustrated, slamming the seat with her hand.
“Deep breaths G,” Eric called from the front seat, “it’s not like you didn’t spar back with him.”
Gina glared at Eric for a few seconds, trying to not yell at him for being a typical guy. She pulled her cell phone out of her purse and dialed a familiar number quickly, waiting for someone to pick up the phone.
“Hi this is Sharlene and I’m not here right now, leave me a message and I’ll get back to you!”
Gina sighed and began speaking angrily into her phone, leaving her best friend a voicemail and trying to calm herself down a bit. “Hey Sharshy, its me. I just met the people I am presenting with at the awards tomorrow, and yes, it is *NSYNC. Lemme JUST say that Justin Timberlake is everything I thought he would be, and THEN SOME. What a little conceited, egotistical, pig-headed-“
“Gina you are going to run out of tape if you don’t stop with the name calling,” Eric interrupted from the front seat. She glanced up at him and narrowed her eyes once again, then continued talking into the phone.
“Well yeah, you get the picture. The rest of the guys are sweethearts, cuties too. Call me tonight if you can, OK? Later girl,” she finished, then tossed her phone back into her purse. Gina let out a large sigh and rested her head back against the seat, closing her eyes.
“How I am going to be able to pull off being civil to Justin Timberlake tomorrow? I can’t even LOOK at the guy without cringing.”
Gina’s limo finally made it to the red carpet after waiting what seemed to be endlessly in line with all of the others. Whoever was in front of her had caused quite a commotion, because it took them a good ten minutes to move up.
“Wow, I cannot believe I’m here, arriving in style!” Steph said, bouncing in her seat.
Gina looked over and smiled at Steph’s excitement. She could remember a time when she used to get this excited over an awards show, and she kind of missed it. If only things would stop being so routine.
“Of course we are girl! Now, don’t worry about all the cameras, just pretend they aren’t there. It’s showtime!”
Eric opened the door and Gina reached her hand out to his outstretched one. Her legs came out one by one and the paparazzi were waiting to see who this person was. Gina’s head popped out of the limo and that was when the screaming started. Flashes began going off at least ten at a time, but she was so used to it that it didn’t phase her one bit. She smiled wide as questions were fired at her a mile a minute. Soon after she had exited the car, Eric helped Steph out, who looked to be extremely overwhelmed.
“Gina! Gina who did you bring with you?”
Gina reached back and grabbed Steph’s arm so she could stand next to her. “This is my friend and stylist Steph Dexter; she rocked our outfits tonight.”
Steph blushed as people began asking her questions and taking in their outfits. Gina was wearing an orange and white flame print backless tank top that ended just above her belly button. White low-rise sparkling flared pants accompanied her shirt, and were finished off with a pair of white strappy chunky sandals. She had changed her navel ring to an orange stone to complete her outfit, and her hair was corn-rowed half-way back on her head, allowing her curls to spring out freely and wildly behind the tight twists.
Steph’s outfit wasn’t as outrageous and wild as Gina’s, but was ultimately more her personality. She was wearing a pair of black fitted pants and a red halter tank top with black slides. Her hair, semi-curly, was loosely cascaded across her shoulders.
The two made their way down the carpet, and with the help of Eric, were finally inside. If they thought their journey was over after getting inside the venue, they were mistaken. There were people everywhere, socializing before they made it to their seats. The media wasn’t inside which was a plus, but there were fans in the upper balconies screaming as they saw their favorite artists and actors. Gina would take fans over media any day, so she turned and waved up to the crowd, which got them screaming louder than they were in the first place.
“Well Gina, you look fabulous. Who is this you brought with you?” A voice asked, causing her to turn around. She was faced with a pair of light green eyes and a dazzling smile.
“Hi Lance! Thank you, you don’t look so bad yourself. This is my friend and stylist, Steph. Steph, this is Lance,” Gina replied, pulling Steph closer to Lance. Steph was in shock; she was meeting one member of her favorite group. Gina knew she would be a little star struck, so she covered for her.
“Steph is a bit overwhelmed; this is her first time coming to any awards. She is thinking, ‘nice to meet you Lance’.”
Steph’s eyes went wide and she shook herself out of her daze. “I’m sorry, it’s very nice to meet you Lance.”
Lance laughed at the two, getting a better idea of Gina’s personality and liking her more and more. “You are sitting by us Gina, have you been that way yet? I can walk you over there.”
“And a gentleman, wow. Hard to find guys like you these days,” Gina smirked and nodded as he blushed and led them towards their seats. The rest of the guys were already comfortably seated in the third row from the stage on the aisle.
“Gina! Hi! Glad to see you made it all safe and sound…and with a friend!” Joey called out, standing up out of his seat and hugging Gina impromptu. She was a bit surprised but hugged him back tightly. JC and Chris both acknowledged her by standing and hugging her, smiling brightly. On the other hand, Justin stood and nodded his welcome to her like he couldn’t be bothered.
So he’s gonna be like that I guess…I should have expected it.
“Everyone, this is my friend Steph. She is also my very cool stylist and picked out my outfit tonight, her own too obviously. Steph, you met Lance but here’s Chris, JC, Joey, and the last one over there is Justin,” Gina said, introducing her to everyone and making sure her own personal opinion of Justin was not reflected in her tone of voice.
They all shook her hand and went through the necessary introductions. The lights began to flash, indicating everyone to take their seats because the show was about to start. Lance pointed at the seats in front of them, and that is where they sat; Eric in the aisle, then Gina, and Steph on her left. Soon after, the host made his way onto the stage and began the show.
Everything was running smoothly; the presenters were hitting their marks and reading the teleprompter accurately, and the winners were keeping their acceptance speeches pretty short. The performers were wonderful, even though Gina could tell Britney’s performance was lip-synched. She thought her presence on stage was phenomenal, and stood up to clap when it was over, along with many other people in the audience. She glanced over her shoulder to see Justin glaring at her, but clapping decently for Britney. She rolled her eyes at him and turned back, clapping louder for Britney and calling out words of encouragement.
Soon after Britney’s performance it was time for Gina and *NSYNC to head backstage to get ready to present. Gina informed Steph of her departure and stood, cueing the five men behind her to stand. The six of them made their way backstage and over towards a production assistant who would lead them to where they had to wait.
“You look very nice tonight, Gina,” JC said, making conversation as they waited to be announced.
“Thank you very much, you all look wonderful,” she answered, looking at all of them with a smile. They were all so sweet and kind to her, and she was glad that she had the opportunity to work with them, even though it was for a tiny piece of time in their busy schedules.
“We are about to bring some MAJOR talent on this stage. They’re the unstoppable quintet straight out of Orlando, and she’s been on the scene and working her magic over the public since she was six years old. Please welcome *NSYNC and Gina Corleone!”
“That’s our cue, shall we?” Chris said, holding out his arm for Gina to take. She slid her arm around his and JC came up on her other side and the six walked out onto the stage with the crowd screaming. They made it to the podium and all six plastered on their winning smiles.
“Well lookie here, I’m on stage with the five SEXIEST men in the business, don’t you all think?” Gina started, reading the beginning of the teleprompter but adding her own pizzazz to it. The crowd screamed louder if possible, and the guys blushed a bit.
“Hey now, we’re the lucky ones. We’re standing next to the ‘Godmother’ of music,” Justin read, giving Gina the fakest smile he could conjure up. She smiled back at him and placed her hand on his shoulder.
“Enough of that. Lance, why don’t you tell them why we are here.”
Justin glanced at Gina’s hand on his arm and tried to subtly move it away. Gina turned to look at Lance and pulled her hand off of Justin’s arm, placing it on the podium.
“Well, to let everyone know who the nominees for the best new female artist are. So, here they are!” Lance finished and the group turned to watch the video of nominees.
“You’re going to start a helluva lot of rumors about us woman,” Justin whispered over to Gina harshly. She turned her head a bit to look at him and made sure he saw her roll her eyes.
“Don’t flatter yourself, MAN.”
“Whatever.”
“Whatever is right,” Gina finished as the lights came up. They all turned around and Joey opened the card revealing the winner.
“And the winner is…Britney Spears!”
“Yeah girl get on up here!” Gina yelled into the microphone as everyone began clapping and cheering. Britney made her way up onto the stage and Gina ran over to hug her friend. She whispered a few words of congratulations to her while the cameras were zoomed in on the two supposed ‘rivals’.
Justin took in the spectacle in front of him and found yet another reason why he did not like Gina. He didn’t know that her and Britney were friends, because Britney had never said a word. Britney had a lot of friends, but for some reason Britney being friends with Gina made him dislike her more than ever.
Britney gave her acceptance speech and when she was done, Britney, Gina, and *NSYNC made their way off the stage and back to their seats with Justin not saying a word, and Gina chatting with JC and Lance. The awards show ended quickly after that, and everyone was beginning to make their way out of the venue. She bade farewell to *NSYNC and made her way to her limo with Steph.
“Did you have fun?” she asked as they got into the limo.
“That was great Gina, seriously. You were of course beautiful and amazing on stage with *NSYNC, it really seemed like you all got along well. There was this kind of chemistry that was uncanny,” Steph answered, waving her hands wildly as she spoke.
“Thanks, I’m glad you had a good time and got to see everyone you wanted to. It was pretty cool, I haven’t presented an award in a long time,” she said, not going into detail about how there was a certain member of *NSYNC that she was butting heads with.
The rest of the ride consisted of Steph recounting everything that went down at the show, and Gina listening to her sheer amazement of it all. She dropped her off and made her way home, glad she went to the awards but excited for her week off of work. She thought their presentation went well, but she wondered what Justin’s problem was. She had a first-hand look on how he could be a jackass, and she wished she could just leave it at that. He was annoying, but she didn’t know how these other four guys could be so close with someone that was the exact opposite of them. She pushed her thoughts to the back of her head and walked into her empty house, sighing. Just as she was getting used to the quiet, her cell phone rang, scaring the living daylights out of her.
“This is Gina, what’s up?” she answered, kicking off her sandals and tossing her purse onto her kitchen table.
“Gina, the show was amazing, you looked wonderful. Steph did an amazing job yet again.”
“Hello to you to Mark. Thanks, I’ll let her know you thought it worked.” Gina started walking up her stairs towards her bedroom.
“Sorry, Hi Gina. Anyway, I have news…and I think you’ll like it, seeing that the presenting went so well tonight.”
Gina came to a stop on the middle of her stairs and took a deep breath. Whatever was coming, she wasn’t sure she was going to like it. “OK, spill it.”
“Well, everyone saw the chemistry you had on stage with *NSYNC and they loved it. The heads of JIVE and Arista have been planning to get a joint thing together recently, and this provided the perfect opportunity. Here’s what they want to do. JIVE wants to take their leading artist, being *NSYNC these days, and do a joint tour with the leading artist of Arista…which is you. Johnny Wright and I have already talked about it and agreed so guess what? You and *NSYNC are joining up and both headlining what will be the biggest concert tour ever, starting at the middle of next month. This is the exciting thing you have been looking for Gina!”
Gina stood on the stairs in shock; this was the LAST thing she needed.
“Gina, are you there? Say something! You’re going to be on the road with *NSYNC from mid September through the beginning of December!”
