Isabella walked out of the Psychology building into the fresh April air. It was an unusually warm night in Edward, NY. She began walking home when she saw a familiar figure standing at the bottom of the steps.
“Joey!” She yelled running and jumping into the Nsyncer’s arms, ignoring the fact that everyone was looking.
“Izzy-bell! How’s my favorite little sister?” It had been forever since he had called her that. She wasn’t Joey's real little sister, but his best friend growing up. They had lived next door to each other in Brooklyn and their families were very close. Izzy felt closer to Joey than her own siblings.
“Oh I’m just fabulous! What are you doing here?”
“What, I can’t just stop by to see my favorite girl?” He pouted playfully and Isabella rolled her eyes,
“Whatever, You’re supposed to be off on your big promotion of your up coming tour, no time off, remember?”
“Yeah well, I escaped. I’m playing hooky.” He grinned.
“You are not, Joey Fatone!”
“Okay you’re right. I have a few days off because of some difficulties with production. So I decided to come and visit you.”
“I’m so glad that you did!” She said hugging him again.
“Me, too princess. So where are you off to now?”
“I’m going home to the house, come on.”
“Ooo, I actually get to see the inside of a sorority house. Is it like those ‘Sexy Sorority Sweetheart videos’?” He said and Isabella rolled her eyes once again laughing.
“Yes, Joey, it’s exactly like that.” She had to admit that she had missed Joey. Ever since he had moved to Florida she barely saw him and now with his busy schedule she was lucky to see him once a year if that. Isabella opened the door to the Theta Omega sorority house. There seemed to be a big commotion going on. Izzy’s best friend and big sister, Lucy, ran up to her. She was wearing a camisole and underwear. Other girls were running around in their pjs, screaming.
“Oh my god!! You won’t believe what we just heard! Joey Fatone of Nsync is here on campus!!! Susie saw him outside the psych building, no lie! God he is sooo hot!!! I would die to meet him!” Izzy laughed at her friend, Lucy looked at her with a quizzical look on her face and then looked up behind Izzy at Joey, who was smirking. “Oh my god. You’re, you’re, you’re…” Lucy stammered, pointing and then she fainted dead away. More girls stopped and stared at Isabella and Joey in the doorway.
“Okay,” Isabella said not turning around, “On the count of three, follow me up the stairs. One, two, three!” They both dashed up the stairs and down the hall, she quickly opened her door and then locked them both in. Soon there was pounding on her door.
“Joey! I love you!!”
“Please Izzy let us in!” Izzy shook her head while Joey was laying on her bed laughing.
“Tell me do you guys shower in groups like in the videos, too?” Izzy threw a pillow at him.
“Oh stop, you just happen to walk in at a weird time and it’s all your fault.”
“Well if my walking into a sorority changes it like this, I might have to visit them more often.” He said still laughing and she pointed to Joey,
“You, stay.” She walked out of her room and was bombarded by her sisters. “Hey, hey, HEY!! SHUT UP!!” She yelled and they all quieted down. “Not another peep until I’m done, okay?” They all shook their heads. “Okay,” Izzy continued, “now Joey Fatone is a very good friend of mine and he’s staying here on vacation. He doesn’t need a million sorority girls hounding him. He’s a normal guy, just like if one of your boyfriends or guy friends came to visit. I expect you to treat him as such.”
“Hell, I’ll treat him like my boyfriend.” Susie butted in and Izzy raised an eyebrow at her,
“None of that, I want you all to be on you best behavior around him okay? No begging for autographs, pictures, to meet the guys, or asking him endless questions about his life. I want you to act like he’s not even here or that he’s just another sister, nothing special.” The girls all stared silently at her. “Now go back to what you were doing, Jamie, Karen, don’t you have that huge bio final to study for? Amy, Sarah, and Christina, you’re paper is due in two days isn’t it? Marie it’s your turn to clean the bathroom this week.” One by one they all began to disperse. Isabella went to check on Lucy who was getting a drink in the kitchen. “Hey how you feeling?” Lucy turned around with a half-smile on her face.
“Like an ass.”
“What? Why? Cause you fainted?”
“Yes! And made a complete fool of myself in front one of the hottest guys in the world!”
“Oh come on, he’s not that hot.”
“And you, I thought you were my best friend. How come you never told me that you were friends with the Joey Fatone of Nsync!?”
“I told you I knew him. I've told you all about Joey.”
“No, you said that you had a guy named Joey who was like a big brother to you. He grew up next door to you and now he was so busy that you never see him anymore. You forgot to mention that he was Joey Fatone from Nsync!”
“Because he’s not Joey Fatone from Nsync! It wasn’t a big detail to me, it was just his job. I don’t ask what your friends do for a living.”
“Well my friends aren’t major pop icons.”
“Oh, please Joey is not a pop icon! He’s just my Joey, no big deal.”
“Oh, you so don’t get it.”
“What’s to get? It’s weird for me to have people make such a big fuss over him. I mean to me he’s the boy who made mud pies with me when I was three. Imagine if Billy was a major pop star.” Lucy burst out laughing.
“Billy would be horrible, but I think I see what you mean.” Izzy laughed at the thought of Lucy’s older brother being a rock star. He had more in common with Bill Gates.
“C’mon get some pants on and maybe I’ll introduce you.” Lucy followed Isabella up the stairs to her room. Lucy made a pit stop at her room, which was right next door to Izzy’s. Izzy had to shoo away more of her sisters to get into her room again.
“Hey.” Joey said suddenly sitting up from the bed when Izzy walked into the room. “Everything under control out there?”
“Yep, I had to beat them off with a stick, but they’re all under control.” She sat down on the bed in front of him and Joey rubbed her shoulders.
“Thank you Izzy, you don’t know how much I appreciate this.”
“You owe me big time.” A soft knock on her door interrupted their conversation. “Must be Lucy, with clothes on this time.” Joey laughed and Izzy opened the door to let Lucy in. She timidly walked in and Izzy turned to Joey, “Joey I want you to meet my best friend and big sister, Lucy Smith. Lucy this is my best friend Joey.”
“Hi it’s nice to meet you.” Joey said standing up and extending his hand. Lucy shook his hand,
“Hi it’s nice to meet you too. I’m a huge fan and I've heard so much about you from Izzy.”
“Well hopefully good things.” Joey joked and Izzy giggled,
“No, I tell Lucy all the dumb and embarrassing things you do, especially when I've caught it on video. Like the time you decided to learn how to fly by jumping off the roof? He broke his leg in three places and he wanted to do it again! Or there was that time when you ripped the butt of your-” Izzy was directly stopped by Joey covering Izzy’s mouth with his hand.
“That’s enough out of you.” They all laughed and Joey let her go. “So you’re her big sister, huh? What’s Gina got to say about that?” He asked.
“Oh, Gina still says that she’s my only big sister. You know her.” Izzy said,
“Yeah I do, so what do you do as her big sister?”
“I was the one that got to beat her when she was a pledge.” Lucy joked but Joey looked worried.
“You beat you're pledges?”
“Actually we just fuck with their minds." Izzy countered and Joey wasn't laughing, "Joey, we’re just kidding, we don’t haze in this sorority. Every sister wants to be a pledge again. It’s the best time, no worries, you get lots of presents and dinner is made for you every night! Oh the torture!”
“Hey that sounds pretty good where do I sign up?” Joey joked and Izzy rolled her eyes at him as Lucy laughed.
“So Joey are you in town long?” Lucy asked.
“A couple of days, then I have to go back.”
“You wanna go out to a party with us tonight?”
“No, I want to stay in and read physics equations.” He said sarcastically.
“Well what ever floats your boat Joey.” Izzy replied.
“On second thought I’ll take the party. Are you going to have one here?”
“Tomorrow night we are. Tonight, we’re gonna go up to Pi Sig, we’ll probably make an appearance at Sal’s, their parties are usually pretty good.” Izzy said.
“Oh I forgot, Kent from Delta told me that he was having after hours and if we don’t go, he’ll be really upset.” Lucy said and Izzy sighed.
“If I don’t look at the boy he gets upset. But hey I guess we’ll go for a few minutes.” Joey was lost in their conversation; all he knew was that they were going somewhere tonight.
“Oh yeah, Greg called for you, twice.” Lucy said impishly and Izzy smiled.
“Twice, really?” Joey perked up at the mention of this.
“Greg? Who’s this Greg character?”
“This engineer that Izzy’s been seeing.”
“I think I’m gonna have to meet this Greg guy and approve if he’s good enough for Izzy.” Joey half joked.
“Stop you will do nothing of the sort. We've been friends for a while and went out for coffee a couple of times, no biggie.” She shrugged her shoulders.
“Mm hmm, sure Izzy, I saw how you said good-bye to him last night.” Lucy teased.
“And how are we doing this, Miss Mariani?” Joey prodded.
“Will you two stop? You’re an instigator, Lucy. You don’t even know Joey for five minutes and you’re already tag teaming me. Why don’t you go get ready to go out, huh?”
“Okay.” Lucy said getting up and smugly went out the door chuckling to herself. Izzy shook her head and reached for the phone.
“Are you calling Greggy-boy?” Joey teased.
“You be quiet or I’ll set my sisters on you!”
“Okay, Okay! Anything but that!” He joked as Izzy dialed up Greg. He picked up quickly.
“Hey Greg, it’s Izzy…Not much, returning your phone calls, I just got out of class. So what are you up to?” Joey began making funny faces at her making her giggle. “Hold on Greg.” She held the phone away and said, “Will you stop!” She said laughing and he just shrugged his shoulders innocently. She shook her head and went back to her phone call. “Hey sorry about that…Yeah, uh huh, yeah I’m going out tonight. Making the rounds with the girls, you know the usual.”
“Hey let me talk to Greg!” Joey shouted.
“No, you be quiet. What? Oh sorry, my good friend Joey's up for the weekend...Yeah, he’s been here less than fifteen minutes and he’s already being a pain in the ass.” She stuck her tongue out at Joey. Joey backed up getting ready to pounce on her. “Yeah maybe I’ll see you out tonight.” She caught sight of Joey and her eyes grew wide. “Yeah well I gotta go. See you later bye!” She hung up the phone just as Joey tickle attacked her.