*Best short story
FADE IN.
We see a hotel room like any other. A bed is against one wall, a desk against another. A door leads to a small bathroom. On the desk is an open laptop, on the chair in front of the desk is a young man.
That would be me. The young man. All the world’s a stage, isn’t that what they say? That’s pretty much how I feel anyway. I mean, I’m living the life that millions would love, I’m rich, famous, relatively good looking I guess, at least that’s what they tell me. And yet, I fell as if I’m living a lie. I feel as if I’m acting in a role I was born to play. I feel like no one, except my four closest friends, really knows who the real James Bass is. They only know Lance. And frankly, that sucks.
Enter JUSTIN.
Ah, the golden child. His curls are gone now, an act of rebellion against the higher ups. We all got high one night a while back, each of us thinking of things that would piss off management. We made a pact to follow through with each thing we came up with. Justin went first. He got a gleam in his eye and strode to the bathroom, the four of us following him like well-trained puppies.
And really, that’s what we are. Puppies who follow Justin Timberlake around. It’s not so bad, I guess. We all act like we hate it, but we know that without Justin we wouldn’t be half as successful as we are now.
Fade back to the bathroom.
Justin pulled a pair of scissors out of his shaving bag – why he had scissors is beyond me – and proceeded to cut off his curls. When they were shorter, he took his electric razor and buzzed his head.
And the puppies stood and watched.
After it was over, Chris was the first to giggle. And when I say giggle, I mean giggle. That made me laugh, because seeing a man near 30 giggling is a funny sight. I guess pot reduces grown men to giggling.
We all had to touch it, of course. Justin just ducked his head and let us feel it. His curls were always surprisingly soft to the touch, and his short hair was no different.
As I touched his head, I thought about all the times that Justin would let me run my fingers through his hair when I was nervous or upset about something. Suddenly, I got a pang of regret for what he did. Even though the curls defined who Justin was in the public eye, and we were rebelling against that, I found myself wishing there were another way.
Fade back to the present.
Justin entered my hotel room and nodded at me before flopping on my bed and turning on the television. He didn’t speak much in the mornings. The rumor about Justin being miserable before breakfast was true. The cartoons blared from the television as we waited for room service to arrive. Not much was said between Justin and I, and that was fine with both of us.
Justin and I understood each other without speaking. He understood when I needed to feel his curls without me having to tell him. He would just come over to where I was sitting and lay his head in my lap. We didn’t always get along, and sometimes I regretted it, others, I didn’t care. We argued about a lot of things, sometimes not speaking to each other for days until one of us slipped and said good morning.
There was a knock on the door and we both looked up.
Enter CHRIS.
Chris started talking as soon as he walked into the room. “Hey guys, good morning. Lance, did you order breakfast?” I nodded and he continued talking, overcompensating for Justin’s quiet. He flopped onto the bed next to Justin and spoke to him, teasing him, purposely trying to piss him off.
When we tried to think of something Chris could do that would piss off management, we had a hard time with it. I mean, he’s the funny one, the one people expect to do stupid shit. So if Chris would suddenly cut his hair, people would laugh and say, “Oh that Chris, what a hoot.”
Chris is going to go last in our game. We’re going to make his really good. Of course, we just have to think of something first.
The two on the bed suddenly began wrestling. Chris had pushed Justin to his breaking point, and I looked at my watch. Two minutes, a new record, Justin must have had a bad night. I watched them with disinterest. Part of me wondered why they got along so well with all the years separating them, part of me was jealous.
But I hid that part of me that was jealous. Because even though they knew James, they didn’t need to know each of his insecurities. That was reserved for one person, and one person alone.
Enter JOEY.
Joey was easy. In our pot induced high, he informed us that Kelly was pregnant. We were all ecstatic of course. Joey would make a great dad, we knew that. He was a kid himself, boundless energy wrapped up in a nice, neat package.
So, we dropped rumors about Joey and Kelly on the Internet, using fake screen names to whisper in chat rooms, post on message boards, leak the information to the more popular fan sites. As we predicted, it erupted. And so did management.
They sat Joey down and yelled at him. They found us waiting outside the room to defend him. They talked about us like we weren’t in the room, brainstorming ways to keep Kelly out of the public eye, trying to find ways to keep this hush hush.
Little did they know we leaked the story to Entertainment Tonight.
That was fun, actually. Watching them interrogate every person on their PR staff, trying to get to the bottom of the mystery, trying to find the crack in their privacy clause armor, never once looking at us to see our secret smiles on our faces, the smirks we were trying so hard to hide.
Fade to the present.
Joey glances at the ruckus on the bed and then at me. I grin at him, shrugging my shoulders, and a glint appears in his eyes seconds before he leaps onto the bed, pinning Chris’s arms behind his back and letting Justin have free reign.
None of them hear the knock on the door, so I move to answer it. It is only room service, and I tip him generously before shutting the door in his face. As the food is wheeled into the room, the three stop all their fighting and practically attack the cart, piling food on their plates like they haven’t eaten in weeks.
The morning after a high, we’re all pretty hungry.
Enter JC.
My breath catches in my throat. Food gets stuck halfway down my esophagus, I can’t breathe.
As usual, he looks beautiful. No, maybe beautiful isn’t the right word. Stunning, maybe. Or even alluring. Because when JC enters a room, nothing else exists for me. He is literally my sun and my moon. My earth and my sky. My fire and my water.
Well, you get my point.
He smiles at me before turning his grin on Justin, who is once again wrapped up in the cartoons on the screen, laughing at the antics of Pinky and the Brain.
“That’s us,” Justin says, pointing at the TV with his spoon. “We’re going to take over the world today.”
“Really, Justin, the world?” Chris says.
Justin shrugs, his attention back on the TV, “Well, management anyway.” He grins at me, “You ready for your time to shine, Scoop?”
With a barely perceptible glance at my shining star, I nod.
FADE TO BLACK.
SCENE TWO.
FADE IN.
We are now in the elevator. LONNIE and TONY are there with us, our constant companions, our road dogs. The other bodyguards are waiting downstairs, and I wonder if we should tell them what we have planned so they can be prepared.
This is it, really. This is the end of the line. The whole world is going to know the real James Bass. There’s no more hiding, no more running from the truth.
Beside me, Chris is giddy with anticipation. He almost doesn’t want to take his turn after me, because he knows whatever he does is going to pale in comparison. But that’s the price you pay for being the crazy one, I guess.
The elevator doors open and as we expected, the droves of teenies are there, the camera crews are there, the reporters are there, all waiting to get a glimpse of us. The Untouchables. There’s Pinky and his four Brains ready to take over the world.
We wait.
We walk to the front doors, and I see Chris trying to contain his glee, Justin bouncing from the excitement and Joey grinning ear to ear.
My sun takes a hold of my arm. “Are you sure you want to do this?” he asks me.
As if I could say anything but yes while looking into the oceans that he calls his eyes. I smile at him and nod, all the while screaming inside, yes, I want this, yes, I want them to know me.
He smiles at me and takes my hand, giving it a squeeze. From behind us, I hear Justin speaking to us, “Ready?”
We nod together.
“It’s showtime,” Justin says.
JC and I step out of the hotel doors, our hands still joined, our fingers still entwined. There is a slight gasp from the people, the teenies, who are closest to us, and I smile. The words are being passed along the crowd, the silent whispers that JC and I are holding hands.
This is my shining moment. This is what JC and I decided would piss off management. Well, not quite this, but close. The grand finale was coming right up.
“Ready to push them over the edge?” he asks me.
I turn to him and smile. And his lips close over mine as they have hundreds of times before. His tongue seeks shelter in my mouth, his hand curls around my neck. Behind me, I can hear the others laughing, cheering, I can hear management yelling from behind the doors of the hotel. I can hear the crying from the girls who want to be my wife.
JC pulls away from me with a smile on his face and we grin at each other.
I pull my world close to me again, thinking that I can finally kiss him in public whenever I want. And as our lips meet for the second time, someone in the crowd yells out in support, while others yell out in outrage.
But above it all, I can hear the clapping. It starts somewhere in the back of the crowd and slowly makes its way around. JC pulls away from me with a smile on his face and we grin at each other.
People finally know the real James Bass.
FADE TO BLACK.
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