Pairing: Joey and Kevin
Words: easel; amiable; impound; ebb
This is the beginning of the end of the American dream: Kevin takes the phone call from Nick telling him that he's finally going solo and that he can't do any new stuff with the Backstreet Boys for a while.
It's a blow, but one they've seen coming for a long while. And they all have other things they need or want to do. AJ, in particular, can use the time away from celebrity, and yes, maybe Backstreet won't be coming back at all, but then again, maybe it's time to let it go. He's 30; he's sacrificed his youth and young adulthood to a demanding vocation that takes as much as it gives. He can use the rest. And if he doesn't know what to do with his life, well, he's got a wife and all the money he'll ever need, and the time to figure it out.
Nick does go solo. He does well. He's finally seen as an adult artist, and he enjoys life without four older brothers (and sometimes fathers, especially Kevin) always watching over him.
So Backstreet is dead. There is no funeral. The mourning process is prolonged because there is no ceremony to mark the end of the only life he had, and because, in the transition between having it and not having it, he never really let it go.
Because there's always reunion tours, and maybe it's denial, but Kevin still hasn't done anything about the rest of his life. He lobbies for his environmental causes, sets up an easel to paint and then leaves it empty most of the time, golfs, and sees more of Kristen than he ever did before.
When the truth finally comes out that Howie is -- and, really, always has been -- gay, it doesn't seem like much. Backstreet is over; the truth hurts no one. It affects sales some, but a group that doesn't produce can be quickly forgotten, and Backstreet has been. They're the group that gave the world Nick Carter, and a line in an Eminem song. That's about it. Their fame has ebbed.
Kevin tells himself he's happy. Most of the time, he believes it.
Three and a half years after Nick goes solo, Kristen divorces him. She cites irreconciliable differences, and Kevin is genuinely confused. He thought their relationship was amiable; he spent a lot of time with her and she was always polite and seemed happy to see him. If there were problems, he thinks they should have been fighting or discussing them, but they hadn't, and he doesn't understand.
Kristen gets half of everything, including the house in Kentucky where he's been living since Backstreet ended, and a generous alimony settlement. Very generous. He's left with a few of his investments and a small share of diminishing royalties. He still doesn't have to work, but until and if Kristen remarries, he's going to have to live more like an ordinary person and less in the style to which he's become accustomed.
A divorce is like a funeral, and the mourning is brief and intense. Kevin cries once, but isn't sure which loss it's for.
This is the end of the American dream.
Kevin moves into a condo he still owns in Orlando. Left over from earlier times, it's a reflection of his belief that rent is mortgage money ill-spent. It isn't large enough for the things he's used to having with him, and the atmosphere is dismal. He misses looking out the window of his home office and seeing trees and feeling the breeze blow through the screen window, and hearing nothing louder than the barking of their golden retriever. Kristen kept the dog.
In Orlando, the noise of traffic is pervasive, and the view out the window is of an impound lot.
He considers various occupations now, seriously, but his stands on environmentalism have rendered him at least temporarily unattractive to lobbyists, and no one he knows in the music business wants to work with him. It's due to Nick, and when he finally gets someone to tell him that, Kevin isn't sure whether to be angry or sad. Angry at Nick for badmouthing them or sad that he screwed up enough with Nick that this happened. And he did screw up, many times. He never wanted responsibility for raising Nick, but it became his responsibility and he took that out on Nick more often than not with impatience, sarcasm, demands and even ridicule on occasion. Nick was an immature brat, and now he's an adult with the power to get revenge. Kevin can't say that Nick doesn't deserve it.
There are no happy endings; every opportunity for good has the seeds for bad in it. Kevin has reaped what he has sown, and while he has some wheat left, most of what he thought was good has blown away as chaff.
He meets Joey because he still hasn't given up on the music business, and Joey is the member of the NSYNC team designated to tell him that he is persona non grata. Their star is still high; with Backstreet gone and their own members aging, they've begun to shift to a more alternative sound with less dancing and more ballads. It's working for them, but Kevin knows now that something will eventually bring them down too. They survived their own member-going-solo crisis, and the challenge of changing their music to suit the times, but everything collapses eventually. He's learned this.
Joey lets him down gently. It's the friendliest reception he's received from anyone since Brian called him in June to see how he was doing. Kevin asks him to see a performance with him, and Joey accepts. After a few tentative meetings, they begin to open up to each other. When Joey offers to help him get past the Nick thing with some work with NSYNC, Kevin turns him down. He needs a friend more at this point in his life than he needs work. When Joey brings him along to meet with his group one day, Kevin has to go outside for several minutes to keep from showing how much it makes him miss his own group. It was flawed, but there were good things, and it was his, and it's gone for good. He'll never have it back.
Joey is the best friend he's had since Brian got engaged to Leighanne, and Kevin knows that it won't last. He doesn't know what's going to ruin their friendship and turn all of this into another painful memory, but it doesn't matter, because he knows it's going to happen and to enjoy it while he has it, because this is the best that life gets.
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