Spotlight on Nobody

- 5 -

~ song: Lucy by Still Woozy ~

I'm sitting on the counter in front of his mirror, watching him unhook his ear-monitor set and wipe the sweat off his face. Why the fuck am I here right now?

"Did you like it?" Leo says as he pulls his shirt off and puts on a fresh one. Um yes I like that very much. Oh shit, he didn't mean his abs. Fuck, he can't expect me to speak in coherent sentences with his shirt off. "Blackbird – was it okay?"

"Okay?" I stammer out. "It was beautiful. It was, it just... it felt like, like home," I manage to stammer out.

He smiles so wide it's like I just gave him a puppy rather than a measly compliment. He sits and kicks his feet up and for a second, he looks so young, I remember that we are the same age. That if he hadn't gotten famous, we would be living extremely similar lives – he could even be in my classes, a friend.

"Do you ever miss it?" I blurt out. His smile turns into a puzzled expression and I realize I need to clarify. "Being normal. Sleeping in on Saturdays, your only plans to do homework and hang out with friends. Doing homework at all. Waking up in the same place every day. Looking forward to a Spring Break road trip rather than a World Tour. Going to Wawa without a body guard, without anyone stopping you, without anyone looking at you. Being bored and mundane and just a regular 20-year-old guy. Do you miss it?"

He looks at me for a while, with a kind-of-sad face and I know I blew it. What gives me the right to come and question this guy's whole life? The fact that we have the same favorite song in common? Hardly. We are the same age and he's already sold platinum records, performed on award shows, has sold-out world tours and then there's me: in college, haven't made a name for myself anywhere, still living off my parents' money. And I'm the one passing judgements? I hop off the counter to apologize and leave – this is obviously not what he had in mind when he invited me. He stands up too and asks:

"What's Wawa?"

I crack a smile. "You've never had Wawa? It's only the most amazing convenience-store-hoagie-food-hang-out-spot in the nation." Instinctively I grab his hand and pull him towards to door. "Come on, my treat," I tease and then see the look on his face and drop his hand. "Oh wait. Shit. You can't go, can you? You'd probably get mobbed by people." This is what I meant about missing normal. "Um well, you can always get a henchman to pick it up for you," I joke.

"No, I want to go and experience this Eden of convenience stores," he urges.

"Well I'm not sure that will be possible. It's like the most crowded place on campus."

"But it's midnight!" Leo points out.

"Exactly," I say. "That's the perfect blend of stoners getting mac & cheese before bed, girls getting mixers for their drinks and people that started too early getting their drunk food."

"Okay well," he grabs my hand again and leads me to his chair, spinning me to face the wall. After some faint rustling and moving around, he turns me back.

"How do I look?" He asks. I can't help but smile. He changed into faded blue plaid pajama bottoms, a black hoodie with the hood pulled up and – "You wear glasses?" I ask.

"Not regularly," he says bashfully.

"Well, you look like a Wawa regular, and hardly like a famous pop star at all."

"Then take me to your kingdom!" He says with a flourish of his hand a slight bow.

"Do you need to drive with a fleet of body guards?" I ask.

"How do you normally get there?"

"Um, I walk."

"Then we are walking," he says decidedly as he grabs my hand for the second time tonight and pulls me out of the trailer.