November 26th, 2001.
I had talked to Lance at least once a day, and I talked to Justin at least twice a day, and usually when he was on, Joey was around so I talked to him as well. I couldn’t get over how much Justin talked. I knew more about him than any of the other guys. I first talked to Lance on the phone on Monday. It was now the Friday afternoon that week. I was at the airport picking him up to take him to his hotel. I was staring out the window, and didn’t notice the figure come up behind me.
“Rachael?” The voice asked.
I jumped a bit and turned around to see Lance standing there, looking down at me. “Hey Lance. How’d you know it was me?” I asked him.
“Well you did send a picture with your letter so you were the only one here that looked close enough, so I presumed it was you.” He replied looking over the top of his sunglasses.
“Ok. How are you?” I asked him as we made our way down to baggage claim.
“I’m good, a tiny bit jet lagged, but that’s about it.” He said as he pulled off his bag from the turntable and we headed out to my car. We placed his bags in the boot and I climbed into the front seat as he hoped into the passenger seat beside me. “Nice car.” He said as we pulled out of the carpark and onto the highway.
“Thanks. I hope you enjoy your stay here.” I said, not knowing what else to say to him.
“I hope I will, if I have a fairly good tour guide to guide me around this unfamiliar territory, of this place you call home.” Lance said, looking out his window and then the front windscreen.
“Oh.” I said, changing lanes. “Who did you have in mind for this guide of yours?”
“You. Only because you live around here and you seem to know where you are going and I’m also trying to keep a low profile here, I don’t want to be swamped by the media on my holiday.” He said, looking at me. I could tell that he was looking at me from the corner of my eye.
“You want me to be your tour guide around here?” I asked him, just to make sure that I heard him right.
“Yeah, you heard me, I want you to.” He said, smiling at me.
I could feel myself blushing a bright shade of red. Luckily, we had turned up at the Sofitel; the hotel Lance would be staying at. “Well, here we are.” I said, looking through the huge glass doors and into the lobby.
I got out of the car and walked around to unlock the boot to get his bags out. “You wanna come in for a bit and have a drink or something. It’s the least I could do for you; after all, you did pick me up from the airport.” He said, as he got out of the car and started handing the porter his bags.
I thought about it for a minute. I could have a chance to go home or go upstairs to the bedroom that Lance would be sleeping in and have a drink with him. “I’d love to.” I said. I opened the passenger, reached across to change from my sunnies to my normal glasses. I put on my blue wire framed glasses and closed the door. “What about the car?” I said, holding the keys out in front of me.
“Here, let me take that for you miss.” Another porter said.
“Thank you.” I said as I handed him the keys to my car. I followed Lance into the lobby and over to the front desk.
“Hi, good afternoon.” Lance said as he confronted the man at the front desk. “I have a reservation for a Mr Chuck Chip.” The guy looked at him strangely and then focused to the computer to put in the details.
“Ah yes, Mr Chip. Your room is on the twenty-ninth floor, room number 2902. I hope you enjoy your stay while your here.” The guy said handing over the key cards.
“Thank you. I’m sure I will.” Lance said, taking the cards of him and following the porter to the elevator.
“Chuck Chip?” I asked him.
“Will, you see, I couldn’t say Choc Chip, because that just sounds corny, so I picked one of the closest to it, Chuck, so if you ever come to find me in a hotel, ask for a Mr Chuck Chip.”
“Do I dare ask what the other guys use for their names?”
“Well, let’s see, Chris has B J Bond, for the whole Bond, James Bond thing going on there. I think Joey has Homer Simpson at the moment. He picks any character from the Simpson’s. JC uses Pepe Le Pew and Justin uses K Frog for ““
“Lemme guess,” I said, interrupting him, “Kermit the Frog?”
“Good girl, you’re starting to catch on.” Lance said, smiling at me as the doors opened to the tenth floor. We wandered down the hallway looking at the door numbers as we went past. “2906...2904...2902, we’re here.” Lance said, as he entered his card into the door, unlocked it and opened the door. “After you.” He said, holding the door open for me.
“Thanks.” I said as I walked into the huge room. “Wow.” I gazed my eyes over the room. It had it’s own kitchen, a huge sitting room, and two doors, one was one the left side of the room, and the other on the right side of the room which I believed one of them went to an adjoining room. There was also a double glass-sliding door, which led out onto a balcony, over looking the city and you could see the ocean in the distance. Lance took of his sunnies and placed them on top of the counter.
“What would you like to drink?” Lance asked me, as he made his way into the kitchen and to the fridge.
“Umm, what do you have?” I asked him, walking over to the kitchen bench and sat down on one of the stools.
He opened the fridge door and gazed over the shelves. “Umm, let me see here, we have water, orange juice, coke, lemonade, and milk.”
“I’ll have an orange juice please.” I said. I watched him get out two glasses from the cupboard and pour orange juice in each glass. He replaced the lid back on the orange juice and put it back in the fridge. “Thanks.” I said as he handed me a glass.
“So what do you have planned for the rest of the afternoon?” He asked me as he came around the bench and joined me on one of the other stools.
“I was just planning on going home and that’s about it.” I said, taking a sip of the orange juice.
“I hate to be a pain, but can you come shopping with me please? I sorta need a few things.” He pleaded with me.
“Umm, alright then.” I said, looking at him funny.
“What?” He asked.
“Nothing really. I just think that it’s strange that you trust me so much, I’ve only just practically meet you and you’re actually asking me to come grocery shopping with you.”
“Well, I wanna get to know you some more before Friday night and also because I have no idea where the shops are around here, I don’t have a car, and knowing me, I’ll get lost.” He said, laughing.
“Well, you can always call me if you need a car.” I said, finishing my orange juice. I got up and placed my glass into the sink and adjusted my glasses.
“Could you wait a minute while I unpack, so I know if I’ll need anything else.” He said, walking into the kitchen and placing his glass next to mine.
“Yeah, sure.” I said.
“Make yourself at home. You can watch TV or something. I don’t know, do whatever you want to do.” He said as he picked up his bags and walked over to the door on the left side of the room.
I walked over to the coffee table in the middle of the room and picked up the remote. It didn’t take me too long to figure out how to work it, but after a quick flick through, there was nothing on TV, so I just left it on the music channel and walked over to the balcony. I opened the door stepped out and closed the door behind me. I looked at the scenery and saw the Brisbane River, the airport, the Story Bridge and a few other buildings such as the AXA and AMP buildings, with their huge signs. I heard a door shut from inside, so I turned around to see Lance looking right at me. I walked over to the door, opened it and walked inside. “Ready?” I asked him.
“Yep, I even made a list.” He said, waving a small piece of paper in front of him. “Nice view?”
“Yep.” I said, walking over to him.
“I’ll get what I need for the kitchen as we gone down the isles. You ready to go?” He said, picking up his sunnies and a hat.
“Yep.” I said walking over to the front door with Lance following behind me. I opened up the door and walked out. Lance closed the door behind him, making sure that it was shut.
We walked down the hall to the elevator and I pressed the down button. The doors finally opened, we stepped in and Lance pressed the ground level button. “Going down.” He said, finally breaking the silence between us both.
“Where do you wanna go first?” I asked him as we made our ascent down.
“I dunno, you tell me.” He said, glancing over at me.
“Sorry, I forgot. Umm, well, what type of stuff do you have to buy?” I asked him.
He pulled out the list from his back pocket and scanned it. “Well, some of these things I can buy later.”
I grabbed the list off him and looked at what he had to buy. He had to buy a new pair of boardshorts, another hat, an external modem for his laptop, a phone charger for his mobile, and a few toiletries. “Okay, well we can go down to the Myer Centre for the clothes, modem, charger and then we can go to Woollies for the toiletries and food. That sound okay?” I asked him, giving him back the list.
“Umm,” Lance said as he took the piece of paper, “yeah, that sounds fine.”
“Cool, well that’s settled then.”
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