“Three tabloids and counting…” Sandy said, flipping through one of them. “But at least the photos are flattering…well about as flattering as a tabloid will get.”
“Yeah, I’m sure they are with headlines like ‘Justin Gets Jungle Fever’ and ‘Blacker the Berry the Sweeter the Juice?’ Or the best one yet ‘From a Pop Princess to an Around the Way Girl.’”
“Look at it this way…at least they got a good bootylicious picture of K under the nice headline, ‘Justin’s New Lady: Baby Got Back.’” Sandy laughed. “But her ass is huge though…and nice and round like JLO’s.”
“If you keep talking like that you’re never going to meet her.”
She threw her head back as she laughed. “Justin, Justin, Justin…I was simply making an observation…not coming on to her.” She said flipping the page as she peered at another featured picture of Justin and Keisha. “At least not yet, there’ll be plenty of time for that later.”
Justin laughed while shaking his head.
“Has K seen these?”
“I don’t know for sure, but I’d guess she has.”
“Well if she hasn’t called you complaining or anything yet, then chances are she hasn’t.”
As if that was its cue, the phone rang.
Justin was just barely able to get the phone to his ear before K’s tirade began. “I can’t believe they took those pictures! Some of them we weren’t even in public! Why would---how could---” She started to scream then, causing Justin to draw the phone away from his ear.
“Are you done?”
“No.” She said before screaming again. “Okay, now I’m done.”
“Look at it this way as tabloids go those pictures were pretty nice.”
“Is that your sorry attempt to console me?”
“Well, uh…yeah.”
“Hmmm…at least you tried.”
“This happens to me all the time, K. Trust me, you never quite get used to it, but you learn to deal with it.”
“But this doesn’t happen all the time to me, Justin! And I sure as hell don’t want it to.”
“Well, what do you want me to do about it?”
“Nothing, nothing.” She sighed. “I know you can’t do anything about it.”
“And you know if I could I would.”
“Yeah, yeah. I gotta go.”
“Okay, but…um, when can I see you again?”
“I don’t know, Babyface, whenever you and I both have time.”
“So when is that exactly? Sometime between now and never?”
She giggled, her giggling always did make him feel good. “Let’s not forget who’s the loveable cynic of this couple.” She teased.
“Right, right…wouldn’t want to step on your toes.”
“No, you wouldn’t. I have enough bunions and corns already without you adding to it.” She laughed.
“If you loved me, you’d find a way to come and see me.”
“Ah, well then it’s a good thing that such lovely delusions haven’t overcome me.”
“But K…” Justin whined.
“As soon as I figure out a way to be around you without having to be around Justin Timberlake pop icon, I’ll come see you.”
“Do we need to go over this again?”
“No, I know. You and your alter-ego fame life are one, there’s no separating the two.”
“I’ll figure out something.”
“Alright, well that sounds like a good plan. I’ll leave the figuring out to my man.”
He laughed. “Why do you always do that?”
“Do what?”
“Rhyme.”
“I don’t rhyme all the time.”
“Uh-huh. Sure, you don’t.” He said, “Bye K.”
“Bye.”
What’s love got to do with it?
Was the motto Sandy had abided by for so long that the words had no meaning anymore. They were just the hollow utterances of a woman who knew that love had everything to do with it “ or at least much more than she’d care to admit. Because actually admitting out loud that it had an effect, meant admitting that it had power. Power enough to drag her across seas and have her sitting on the couch of a friend’s house, whom she hadn’t seen in half a decade.
But what’s love got to do with it? Couldn’t she have come all that way simply to visit an old friend? To find out what he’d been up to? Catch up on old times?
Old times, old memories…
Sitting there, in his home talking to him, she’d tried her best to keep the topics about anything that she could think of to distract from those damn old times, old memories. Because they had power too, ya know. They after all were the wind beneath love’s wings that brought her soaring over there in the first place.
But now that she was there nearly every moment was spent in attempts to distract herself from her true motivations. So what does love have to do with it?
She glanced over at him as him returned with the phone held at his side. Finally done talking to his…girlfriend.
She couldn’t believe that she’d said some of the things she had about her, about K. Call it jealousy, envy or what have you…but that wasn’t just it.
She’d spent so many years hearing about her, about K, Special K, Keisha. His teddy. She’d spent so many years rolling her eyes as he continued to find one thing after another that reminded him of her, of K…that Sandy had eventually grown to dislike that letter of the alphabet.
But Justin had become like Tony in Westside story over his Maria’s name. And for how much the word K came out of his mouth, to Sandy he might as well have been singing, “The most beautiful sound I ever heard: K, K, K, K. All the beautiful sounds of the world in a single letter: K, K, K, K, K, K. K, I’ve just met a girl named K, and suddenly the letter will never be the same to me. K! I’ve just kissed a girl named K. And suddenly I’ve found how wonderful a sound can be. K, say it loud and there’s music playing. Say it soft and it’s almost like praying. K, I’ll never stop saying: ‘K!’”
K, K, K, K…
She had figured K would still be around in his life, but now…
Now, she’d become an even bigger part of it. And how could Sandy compete with her?
From what she’d heard about Keisha, she wasn’t like Britney. And that’s what worried Sandy the most. Because taking Justin away from Britney would have been easy. Simple even. Sure when Justin and Britney were together there was a lot of love between them. But Sandy had spent enough time around the little Pop Princess to know that even if she didn’t step in between them, time would…and they would have broken up anyways. She’d been able to see that the expiration date on their relationship was fast approaching and probably the only reason they’d even lasted for as long as they had was merely for the comfort/comfortable and convenience factors.
But now that Britney was out of the way, the only thing that stood in the way of her picture perfect, walk off into the sunset together, happily ever after ending with Justin…was what she’d come to think of as the worst letter in the alphabet: K.
And how could she attack an enemy she knew little to nothing about? All she had to go on to figure out who actually K was, was that she was black, attending Florida State University, majoring in psychology (so she must be smart)…all of which she’d learned after questioning Justin about her and she would have pried more out of him if he hadn’t gotten so suspicious of her sudden interest in K.
Oh yeah…and to hear the way Justin talked about her, she was the love of his life. Although when Sandy had said this to him, he’d been quick to shy away from using those words.
So what did that mean? Was all not well in their relationship? Was there a weakness big enough that if she jumped on it the two of them would crack and fold in half?
So far, she hadn’t found the crack to crumple their little love shack. So instead she played the only card she had: the race card. And took a few cheap shots at K. But did that make her racist or prejudice? She’d like to think not. And she hoped that Justin didn’t think so either, knowing that if she had truly come off that way that Justin would have been majorly turned off by her anyway. Making any attempts on her part to appear desirable futile.
Thinking about that, she decided to back off permanently from the interracial couple nay-saying, even if somehow by some very off chance it could have helped her in the end. That’s not the way she wanted to win. She wanted Justin to choose her over Keisha, simply because he knew she was the best choice not because she was the white choice, making a relationship with her more culturally favorable.
And she knew she was the best choice, now it was just a matter of getting Justin and his-stuck-on-Keisha-self to understand that. In knowing that she’d decided that she was going to tell him how she felt, when she’d made that call from her hotel room the other night, cause she hadn’t built up enough courage to just say it to him face-to-face. But as soon as he said “hello” she couldn’t bring herself to say any of that. She couldn’t even try to drop little subtle hints. So instead she’d wound up making idle small talk which made things a little awkward, at least they felt awkward to her, but Justin didn’t seem to notice it. And before Sandy knew it Justin was back on his favorite subject: K. Talking about how he had this surprise for Keisha, which instantly put Sandy into a bad mood, but she’d listened to what he was saying anyways and even reluctantly agreed to let him drag her out to see the surprise he’d come up with.
After the long and mostly quiet drive over to the spot, she’d gotten out slowly, looking around and immediately regretting ever agreeing to this.
“You think she’ll like it?” He’d asked, after he’d felt she’d been quiet for a little too long.
Sandra had loved it, which made her love him more…if that was even possible. And before she could start blubbering over the fact that all this wasn’t for her, but instead was for some other woman, she nodded and said, “She’ll love it. It’s perfect.”
He laughed, happily. “Good, good cause I want it to be perfect. I always feel like when I come back, I should do something big…you know. Something to let her know that I missed her while I was gone. Cause I’m gone a lot and I want her to know I love and appreciate her.”
She’d just nodded, hoping that he wouldn’t continue to tell her how much he loved another woman.
“So you ready to head back? It’s kinda a long drive back and I wanna make sure I’m fresh for tomorrow.”
Making sure to use words this time so he wouldn’t get suspicious of her sudden wordlessness, she simply said, “Yeah, I’m ready.”
And after that, whatever little courage she’d developed had been severely deflated. How could she throw herself out like that now, when the chances were becoming more and more painfully obvious that to do so would bring about almost certain rejection?
She couldn’t. Or at least she really, really didn’t want to.
It would be so simple
“Sorry ‘bout that.” He laughed, drawing Sandy away from her thoughts and back into the present again as he placed the phone back in the cradle before walking over to where she sat and sitting down beside her, his arm casually falling on the part of the couch directly behind Sandy’s head.
“It’s okay.” She said forcing a smile on her face. “I know how you are when you really like someone. I remember when you had a lil’ crush on me…we used to talk on the phone all the time.”
Ain’t what it was
What should it be
When it comes to you
And how it seems
Ain’t how it is
There's been a change
When it comes to me, yeah
“Yeah, it was pretty bad. I was head over heels.” He laughed moving his arm from where it had been resting to run his fingers over his close cut hair, remembering some of the crazy things he’d done to get her attention, like trying to straighten his hair…with an iron on an ironing board. “I don’t know what I was thinking. You and me a couple?” He laughed harder. “How weird would that have been?!”
She laughed too, softly. “It might not have been that weird.”
“Are you kidding me?” He said, rolling his eyes in disbelief. “You’re like a sister to me. Or at least a cousin once removed.”
“Oh.”
“What do you mean ‘oh’? You know you weren’t feeling me. You shot me down everytime. It was like you took pleasure in it.”
“I didn’t…I just---I was young.”
He smiled and nodded. “Yeah, we were both young. Young and dumb.”
Oh maybe we can try another day, another way
All in my mind,
I'm wondering why,
We can not find what was left at the beginning
She must have gotten too quiet for too long, because the next thing she knew he was nudging her and tapping her forehead. “What’re you thinking about that’s got that pretty brow of yours so furrowed?” He asked.
She looked up at him, meeting his sea foam blues with her own steely baby blues. Sighing, she shook her head. “You don’t wanna know. It’s something stupid.” She said, standing up and dusting off invisible grit. “I should go.”
“So soon?”
“Yeah, work calls. Got a couple of final photo shoots left to do.”
He nodded understandingly, but still eyed her with concern. “Are you sure you don’t want to tell me what was bothering you?”
Need you again
Kiss you again
Kiss you again
It would be, it would be so simple
Cause I would love you again,
Hold you again,
Need you again
It would be, it would be,
Could it be, could it be so simple
She paused for a few seconds, a voice in the back of her head said it was “now or never,” but as soon as she opened her mouth the phone rang.
“Hold on a sec.” Justin said, going to answer the phone.
Sighing, she took this opportunity to organize her thoughts a little.
“Hello?” He said, holding the phone to his ear. “Ooh hey, baby.” With his hand over the receiver he said, “It’s K.”
She nodded, restraining the groan that begged for release. Why is she calling again?! Sandy wondered in frustration as she sat down, again waiting for him to get off the phone with K. But the more she overheard him talking to Keisha, the more she realized how stupid she was for even thinking about doing what she was about to do.
It's just simply hard,
When it comes to you and
I find myself
Not being myself
Just to avoid all this confrontation with…
Deciding she had it right the first time, when she’d gotten up to leave, she glanced at Justin, as he stood in another nearby room still talking to K, as she went to get her coat. Holding the doorknob, she heard him call to her.
“Where are you going?”
“I uh- I have to go.”
“Why? Right now? I’m almost done.”
“No, no, it’s okay, talk longer if you want. I really should have left a while ago anyways.” Actually I shouldn’t have even bothered coming, period. She thought.
“So where are you going? You still wanna meet K before you go right?”
“Uh, actually I can’t. While you were on the phone I got a call from my agent there’s this big photo shoot that they need me for that’s tomorrow. It just came up. So I gotta go.”
“Oh okay.” He said, slowly, not sounding completely convinced that that’s what really had happened. “Well that’s too bad.”
Laughing she said, “Like you wanted us to meet anyways.”
“No, actually the more I thought about it the more I realized that y’all meeting isn’t a bad idea.” He retorted. “I was just afraid that if you two ever met you might not get along or something.”
“Where did you ever get a silly idea like that?”
Smiling, he rolled his eyes at her. “I dunno, must be just another one of my delusions.”
“Yeah, probably.”She said, holding back a sigh. “So I guess I’ll be seeing you.”
“Farewell until the next five years.” He said, a small smile on his face.
“Promise?” She asked, holding her pinky out to him.
“Promise.” He said, his pinky clasping hers. “Okay you know this means that I don’t wanna see yo’ ass at my door in anything less than five years, right?”
Laughing, she playfully shoved him. “Whatever, you’re gonna miss me.”
“Yeah, the abuse will definitely be missed.”
Oh maybe we, can put this armour down and settle down
Oh it's off track
That is a fact
Can we get it back, get it back to the beginning
“Good.” She smirked, shoving him again before pulling him into a tight hug. “Bye Timberlake.”
“Bye Sandy.”
“Don’t be a stranger.” He called behind her, as she was walking out the door.
Too late. She thought.
Twenty four hours later and Sandy was tired of being holed up in her little hotel room. She wanted out, but she knew if she left where her feet would lead her. And that’s a trip she wasn’t ready to make. Sure, she’d spent most of the time since she’d walked out of Justin’s house, pacing the floor, replaying what had happened in her head, going over every smile and laugh wondering if there was something she could have done differently that would have lead to different results. But that didn't change anything. She was still going to leave, just like she'd told him she was.
Glancing over at the bags that she had never unpacked, as if she knew she wouldn’t be staying very long, she knew her flight was scheduled for departure in the next hour or so and she knew she needed to get up and get out of there. But she just couldn’t bring herself to leave, because to leave would mean having to admit defeat, which was something she wasn’t ready to do.
When she did manage to force herself up off that hotel bed, she wasn’t surprised when she found herself not that long after... knocking on his door. Her feet were so predictable sometimes.
After a few unanswered knocks, she took a deep breath and decided to take the closed door in her face as a sign that fate didn’t want this to happen. But her stubborn feet weren’t moving, and half a minute later the door was opening, with Justin smiling slightly, yet confused down at her.
“Dang, it’s been five years already?” He said, his smile growing slightly as he took her in.
“Shut up, fool. Can I come in?”
Stepping to the side, he made a flourishing sweep of his hand as he allowed her entry. “So what’s up?” He asked, sitting down opposite her, but jumped up before she could respond. “You want something to drink?”
“Um, no.” She replied, all his bouncy energy making her suddenly nervous. “I just have to say something and the quicker I say it the better.”
He frowned then, but even his frown didn’t take away any of the pleasantness of his face. “Hmmm…sounds serious.”
Laughing, nervously she said, “It kinda is.”
“Well, then in that case I might need a drink. Hold on a sec.” He said, before disappearing off into the kitchen.
Returning with a drink in hand, he leaned against a nearby wall, looking at her expectantly, waiting patiently for her to begin talking.
Getting up from where she’d been sitting, she chose to pace the room instead. “Alright I’m just going to say this. Don’t interrupt me, cause if you do I’m not sure I’ll be able to finish.” She took a deep calming breath, watching as Justin took a large gulp of his drink before deciding that he needed to sit down for this. Still pacing the floor, she began again, “I’m twenty-two, off traipsing around in Europe, modeling, dating all these handsome European boys, going on shopping sprees whenever I feel like it, scoring the covers of a couple of big time magazine over there, and thinking about trying to do some modeling over in the States so I can be closer to my family. And then I think, why not go to college? Why am I wasting my money on shoes and clothes and cute little Euro cars when I could be spending it on something worthwhile? So I apply to Penn State on a whim and I get accepted. I have everything that I’ve wanted and still…” She sighed, her eyes looking upward, focusing on a small spot on the ceiling, which helped her to continue.
“There’s this ache. This ache inside me that grows all the time. Sometimes I’m so busy with my job, and juggling boys, hair and nail appointments and such that I can avoid thinking about it and therefore dull the feeling for a while. But every night, when I’m lying in bed, it comes back. Stronger than ever. And for the longest time I just thought I was being weird…or ungrateful. Because I thought I had everything that any girl could ever want. And then one day, when I’m walking down the street I saw a poster.” She smiled softly. “It had your face on it. Well not just you, it had all the *NSYNC guys on it too. Apparently y’all were about to go on tour soon. So I took out a scrap piece of paper, scribbled down the information and made sure I got a ticket to see the show.”
Justin opened his mouth as if to say something, but then remembering her request that he not interrupt her, he closed his mouth again. “I know you’re probably wondering why I didn’t tell you that I’d been there, or try to come backstage or something to see you. But the thing is I really don’t know why I didn’t, cause I did want to. But instead I just took my seat like the rest of your overly enthused fans and watched you do your thing on the stage. And after the show was over, I remember that, that night the ache didn’t start. Even as I lay there in bed waiting for it to come…it never did.”
She hesitated then, noticing the uncomfortable shifting he’d started to do at that point as he could sense the direction her next words were heading in. Taking another deep breath, she continued. “That’s when I realized that I didn’t have everything I wanted. I missing that close connection to a person that I used to have with you. And seeing you on that stage had temporarily levitated it. But the very next day it was back again and probably stronger than ever. I spent a lot of the next day debating on whether I should call you or not…but I never did get around to picking the phone up. And that’s when I started my subscription to the teenie mags as a way to keep up on what you had been doing. And I think it helped, but it wasn’t enough. Reading about you wasn’t enough. I wanted…needed to see you.”
She sighed, letting the room dissolve in silence for a while. Britney’s “Lucky” played quietly in her head, while she wondered why she’d even bothered to start this story with him the first place. He wasn’t going to choose her over K. He wasn’t going to do anything but make her regret this trip even more than she already was. Releasing another frustrated breath of air, she squinted as she again focused on a small spot on the wall, turning her back to him as she struggled to keep herself together long enough to at least get out the door.
The door was open and she was nearly out of it, when she felt his hand on her arm. She hadn’t even heard him coming. Keeping her back to him, her eyes looking out the door, she whispered, “Let me go. I should have never come here. I don’t know why I did.” When he didn’t let go, but instead continued to hold onto her in silence, she pleaded with him. “Please, let me go.” Her voice dissolving into tears.
It wasn’t long after the first tear fell that he’d managed to pull her into him, her head now resting against his chest, while he stroked her hair, begging her to stop crying. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Was she could manage to say, as she stood in his arms. The more she tried to pull herself together, only causing her to fall apart that much more.
When the tears had finally stopped, she pulled away from him slightly.
Need you again
Kiss you again
Kiss you again
It would be, it would be so simple
Cause I would love you again,
Hold you again,
Need you again
“Are you okay?” He asked, softly, feeling more than a little awkward in this situation.
She looked up at him then, those gentle azul eyes of his carefully watching her. And that’s when she did it. Her mind hadn’t even thought to go there, but her heart must have taken over, cause there was no way she would have kissed him if she had of been thinking clearly. Or thinking at all.
The kiss started off small, soft, and hesitant, but when he didn’t pull away, she deepened it, giving him the passion she felt for him in every flick and taste of her lips and her ravenous tongue. When the kiss ended, it was Sandy that had ended it. It was her that was pulling away. She stared up at him in silence, feeling whatever confidence she’d gotten from his not pulling away, slipping on the awkward silence that now clung to them. And that’s when she finally realized that for all his not pulling away, he’d also never kissed her back.
So what did that mean? She wondered, desperately searching his eyes for the answer.
He opened his mouth then and she waited anxiously for the words he was about to say. She watched as his mouth closed again, his eyes dropping from hers as he backed away, mumbling something about needing another drink.
Could it be, Could it be so simple
