“I’m so sorry,” Kosic said, bringing me back to the situation at hand.
“No, it’s okay,” I lied. “I did grab on to you,” I reminded him.
“I thought that it was a bit forward for you, but hell, I rolled with it.” He laughed.
Although I was laughing for Kosic’s benefit, I scanned the crowd looking for Lizzie now that the paparazzi were in the club. My stomach flip-flopped with fear when I saw Lizzie mounting a small circular platform intended to be used as a stage for the fire throwers.
“Sorry, excuse me,” I apologized to Kosic before I was up and off the pillow.
Lizzie started dancing around as the paparazzi moved in for the kill. Pushing people out of my way left and right, I rushed to grab her. By the time I made it to her, the dress had slipped off her chest. Flashes of lights went off against the night sky like techno-lighting. Lizzie flipped her long blonde hair around until she realized the real reason everyone was looking up at her. She hiked the dress back up but continued to shimmy up and down on the small platform.
“Lizzie, dismount!” I shouted. “Lizzie, get down!” But, she just continued to ignore me as the paparazzi cameras fired away.
“Hey, you,” one of the men yelled at me. “You’re blocking my shot.”
Hesitantly, I looked up at Lizzie once more, trying to gauge how with it she was, but it wasn’t until she started posing for the shots that I had my answer. Sinking into the sea of cameras, I wished that I was with Riley in the van right now. Someone tapped my shoulder from behind and I turned around to look at a waiter who was carrying a tray filled with shots of alcohol.
“Compliments of that gentleman over there.” He pointed to Hawkins who raised his drink, though I could tell he still wasn’t happy with me.
“He says, and I quote, ‘That you’re going to need them.’”
6. TWEETING
The next morning I was up and out of my hotel bed before the others. It was hard to sleep after last night’s fiasco. Although the conversation with Hawkins was unexpectedly refreshing, I knew that he could use the information against me in any one of his tweets. Still, no one could have prepared us for what Lizzie had done. Beyond annoyed, I wanted to whack a pillow over her head as she snored next to Riley, but I restrained myself.
After my shower, I deliberated over which Grimm Brothers Band t-shirt to wear. My choices were somewhat limited until we could get to a laundry mat. Accidentally, I picked up the shirt with Hawkins face plastered across it and quickly tossed it to the side. That was going to be strictly for sleeping. I settled on an inconspicuous navy blue t-shirt that had a small sun design with a tribal boarder around it on the front and a list of tour dates on the back. The shirt matched well with a pair of dark jeans and after packing up the rest of my belongings, I headed for the door.
After walking down the hallway towards the elevator, I pressed the down button, and seconds later the doors opened. Slouching against the wall, I thought about last night. As a kid, I spent some considerable time daydreaming about the day when Kosic would kiss me, but I realized it didn’t get me as fired up as Hawkins’ reaction to it did. I didn’t like it, Hawkins didn’t like it, and I liked knowing that Hawkins didn’t like it.
And of course the other problem was, after what Lizzie did last night, how was I going to defend myself/Lizzie to the world? To the world, we just pranced around and flashed our boobs in front of a dozen or so paparazzi. What was I going to write? It’s one thing to do something stupid and have to explain it. It was a whole other ball game to explain someone else’s stupidity.
Ding!
The elevator doors opened and my taste buds were intoxicated by the aroma of baked cinnamon buns. I walked out of the elevator and smiled politely to the receptionist behind the front desk to my left. Not glancing around, I headed to the deserted breakfast tables to drop my bags off before going over to a counter filled with fresh baked goods. Once my plate was filled with enough food to feed my eyes and way too much for my stomach, I sat down in the back dining area.
Between the pure spite in Hawkins’ eyes after the mix up with Kosic and Lizzie’s striping incident, all I wanted to do was go back to bed, pull the covers over my head and hide. Unfortunately, I was wide awake and needed to start thinking about my comeback. I thought of some possible excuses for Lizzie’s behavior. Maybe, someone had grabbed the dress from behind and pulled it down? Rolling my eyes, I thought, if that was true then why did she/I pose for the photos? Lizzie and I were now connected and that alone was scary. The room was starting to fill up. A couple came in with a toddler and two strollers so I gave up my seat. With the rest of my powdered donuts wrapped up, I headed away from the breakfast area.
Skipping the coffee for obvious reasons, I didn’t need to be climbing the ceiling by lunch time, I walked over to a small cheery desk stationed in front of the elevator. At the computer, I printed out the next couple sets of MapQuest directions.
While I had some time on the computer, I skimmed through some information about Senator Nicholas Johnson for when my mom put it together that Lizzie McIntyre on Entertainment Tonight was our Lizzie—her best friend’s daughter. I sighed, it was only a matter of time. When I finished, I walked out of the hotel with the computer papers folded in my hand.
I had the time and no one was rushing me, so I decided to give the van some TLC. The first thing I did was check the air in the tires which really just looked like I was kicking the shit out of them because I found it instantly therapeutic. It wasn’t until I went to unlock my door that I was truly brought out of my thoughts when I realized that the door was already open.
“That’s weird.”
The doors were always kept locked and I made sure everyone else locked them as well. They thought it was because of the thick stash of cash under my seat, but really, I just wanted to keep the last thing that represented my dad safe. Though I could tell that the van was undisturbed, my heart raced as I quickly reached under the seat to feel for the thick manila envelope. Breathing a sigh of relief when I found it, I then got in the van and checked under Riley’s seat where we kept our stack of tickets and noticed that they seemed untouched, too. Had Riley just left the door unlocked? I tried to shrug it off as the only reasonable explanation.
Once my heart had stopped its rapid beating, I put the van in drive and made a quick run to the nearest gas station. After filling up, I loaded up on snacks for the road trip to Charlotte, North Carolina. My arms were full of chips, sweets, and drinks when I looked down in horror at the magazine display in front of the register. There on the cover of US Magazine was a picture of Lizzie swinging her hair around with her dress down around her waist. The picture was blurred across the upper part of her torso where her chest would have been. In bold print underneath the picture was the headline “Lizzie McIntyre will do anything for the spotlight.”
That was fast I thought, as I dumped the contents in my arms on the counter. The Hispanic lady behind the counter looked down at my food choices with a wide smile and boasted, “Someone’s hungry.” More like nauseous, I thought as I forced a smile.
Although it was pointless, I couldn’t stop from grabbing up every one of the magazines just so that no one else could. I laid the thick stack of magazines of Lizzie on the counter which made the lady’s eyes widen as she muttered something in Spanish under her breath.
“Do you want a bag?” she asked.
“No, just a trash can.”
After paying her, I made my way back over to the van and managed to prop the door open, dropping all the contents from my arms onto the driver’s seat. There was a trash can nearby so I grabbed up all of the magazines with some effort and dumped all but one into it. There was no question that the article would be bad and I didn’t have the guts to read it so I just tossed it behind me and started up the van.
The sun was coming up along the horizon as I returned to the hotel. With my sun visor pulled down, I thought it was sure to be another hot, uncomfortable and sticky day in the van. After, parking the van, Riley texted me, “Are you down in the parking lot?”
“Yep,” I texted, too angry to elaborate.
“We’re heading down now,” he texted back.
I grabbed the steering wheel with both of my hands just in case I “accidently” grabbed onto Lizzie and shook the shit out of her. Trying to keep myself centered and calm, I saw both of them come out of the hotel. Riley looked ever so cool with his dark aviators on and his wet hair slicked back. Lizzie, however, looked pale and hungover next to him. She was still tugging at that sequined dress from hell as they walked over to get in the van.
Leaning over to unlock the passenger side door, I realized for the first time that it was unlocked, too. “Did you accidently leave the doors unlocked last night?” I asked Riley after he had climbed up into the passenger side.
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’d remember,” he said. “Why?”
“Both doors were unlocked this morning,” I explained, as I pulled out of The Holiday Inn.
“That’s weird.” Riley’s face pinched.
“What’s really weird is that not a single dollar or ticket was taken,” I explained. We stared at each other for a long moment before he turned to look at Lizzie behind us.
“You ask if you care, 'cause I don’t,” I said, glaring ahead at the long stretch of road while searching for the highway signs. The rising sun cast a golden sheen over the fast food restaurants and gas stations along the street. It was still pretty early in the morning and everything looked vacant or closed. With the exception of one other car that passed us while heading in the opposite direction, we were the only ones on the main drag.
“Lizzie, is any of your stuff missing?” Riley asked.
“What?” She braced her head with both hands as she spoke, clearly still hungover.
“Is any of your stuff missing?”
“Why?”
“Just check,” I snapped at her.
“Okay, okay.” She sat up. “God.”
She went through her bags of clothes. “No, I’m not missing anything,” she pushed her bags to the side, “but there is a pocket knife back here.” She held it up.
“That’s weird.” Riley took it from her hands to examine it more closely.
“It’s probably something my dad left behind in the van.” I dismissed it. “I don’t think anyone has cleaned it out since he had it. Hey, I just thought, is my camera still back there?”
Riley turned to look and gasped, “What the hell?” He reached back and grabbed up the magazine from behind us. His eyes bugged out as he looked down at the picture of a half-naked Lizzie.
“Yeah, that was the kind of night
I had
,” I said with an edge. After we merged onto the highway, I glanced out my side window and carefully passed by a slow moving Subaru while waiting for Riley to give it to her.
“Lizzie McIntyre!” he said like a reprimanding parent. “What did you do last night?”
“Did it make the front cover?” Lizzie exclaimed, apparently forgetting about her hangover. She jumped forward and grabbed it out of Riley’s hands.
“That’s what you care about?” I asked with utter revulsion, pulling the van over to the second lane while hoping to avoid impatient speeders and oncoming traffic from the exits.
“Someone had to make it interesting because you and Hawkins dancing around the subject wasn’t going to make it.” Lizzie flipped through a couple of the pages. “Seriously, the two of you should just do it already.”
“You guys talked?” Riley asked.
“More like, they huddled together in the corner of the club. I thought that maybe Joie was going to get some action for once…but no,” Lizzie quipped. “Maybe you just need to grab on to Hawkins the way you did Kosic last night.” She aimed a crooked little grin my way. “Then we would have a real story to blog about.”
“You what?” Riley dropped his mouth open in shock.
“Yeah, so why isn’t she getting the reprimanding parent spiel?” Lizzie huffed.
“Because I didn’t do it half-naked,” I reminded her as a semi-truck came up close behind us. Gosh, there were five other lanes to pick from on the highway. Why was he riding my bumper?
“And it wasn’t like that,” I said, flipping the truck driver the bird when he zoomed past us.
“Honestly, Lizzie, if you noticed all that, how come you didn’t notice the cool breeze on your chest?”
“This dress slides down so much…I was just trying to have a good time,” Lizzie mumbled to herself.
“How do you even remember anything that happened last night?”
“I’m really good at this too when I’m drunk.” She held out her arms while one by one she brought her hands in to touch her nose.
“That’s a real talent.” I rolled my eyes.
Lizzie cleared her throat and read out loud, “The love saga continues to heat up between J.T. Hawkins and Lizzie McIntyre. McIntyre recently blogged that, ‘I’m not talking to his fan base now when the only thing he really cares about is Jack and Coke. Forget about your hair color, girls, because the only action you’ll be getting is watching him down another drink while texting away on his BlackBerry all alone.’ Just days later, Hawkins was seen at The Mirage night club with two girls who wore shirts with the slogan ‘Jack’ and ‘Coke.’ In response to McIntyre’s blog, Hawkins tweeted, ‘You supposedly have these rules: no backstage visits, no tour buses, no hotels…but I have yet to see you follow any of them. Well, get ready to be a hypocrite, you should be used to it by now.’ No more than hours later, media hungry McIntyre was seen flashing her boobs to the paparazzi at the same night club. ‘I think that it’s disgusting,’ a fan said, who was there at the club. ‘Hawkins deserves someone so much better.’” Lizzie abruptly stopped.