Part 1: Joey
"Can I ask you all something?" Joey asked. He blinked slowly and looked away from the bright sunlight shining in the hotel room window.
"What?" JC asked, tiredly. He raised his head off of the small square hotel pillow.
"We're successful, right?" Joey asked.
"Um, Joe?" Lance said. "You *have* been on tour with us for the last six years, haven't you?"
"And we inspire a lot of people?" Joey continued. He leaned back in his chair and rested his right hand on his stomach.
"Yeah," Justin said. "I mean, come on, Joe. People tell us we inspire them, so I'm guessing we do."
"What are we really doing to benefit society, though?" Joey asked. "I mean we sing, we dance, and we participate in charity basketball games, but what do we really do?"
The hotel room was silent.
"We do lots of stuff," JC said. He looked around the room. "We do--"
"We make people happy," Chris interrupted. He stared heavily at Joey. "That's doing something, isn't it?"
Joey nodded. "But how about all those people who can't get tickets to our concerts? How does that make them happy? Or the people who can't afford to go?"
"Why are you thinking about this?" Justin asked.
Joey shrugged. "I just got to thinking. There are those stars who do so much for the less fortunate and I just can't help but wonder what we really do."
"Don't worry about it," Chris said. "We do enough."
Joey turned back towards the window and closed his eyes in an attempt to block out the sunlight.
"But we should do more," he said.
And then he started thinking.
--
The children's ward of the hospital was decorated in bright blocks of primary colors. There was a mural by the nurses' station of zoo animals: smiling and happy. It had a yellow-orange sun rising into a sky-blue Crayola crayon-color sky.
Joey relaxed the muscles in his face for a few moments before forcing them into a smile. He looked over at the rest of the guys. Chris, JC, and Justin all had their smiles ready to go, but Lance looked as if he were having a harder time.
Joey rested a hand on Lance's shoulder and squeezed gently.
"It's okay, man."
"I *hate* this, Joe." Lance spit the words softly, so that no one but Joey heard.
A nurse passed by them and Lance smiled. Joey could see the effort his friend was putting into maintaining the happy expression.
"We all do," Joey said. "But this is the least we can do for this girl."
The Children's Miracle Network coordinator met them partway down the hallway.
"Hannah is 14," the woman said. She tugged at her suit jacket. "She was born with a hole in her heart and she was never supposed to make it to her second year. Her heart is getting weaker daily and at this point every day is a miracle." She looked over her shoulder, then back at the guys. "Her wish was to go to your concert, but because of the seriousness of her condition, that was impossible. Thank you for bringing the concert to her."
Joey blinked once, trying to get the dampness out of his eyes and keep his smile. He saw a tear drip down Lance's cheek and watched as his friend wiped it away.
"Hannah awaits." The woman turned around and walked into room 340. The door was a solid block of royal blue with a small window cut into the wood.
"Hannah? Honey? You have visitors." The woman motioned for the guys to enter the room.
Joey watched as Chris went first, like he always did. His youthful exuberance paved the way for and eliminated any discomfort the other four might be feeling.
"Hannah!" Chris said loudly. He smiled at the too-small girl in the bed. "We heard that our biggest fan in the whole world lived here in Portland, so we decided that we had to come see for ourselves."
Joey looked at the girl, Hannah. She was shaking and tears were welling up in her eyes. Joey felt a lump forming in his throat. He looked at the wall above the bed and saw an 'N SYNC poster that had been folded and unfolded, stuck up on walls and taken back down, that was torn in the corners. It looked very loved. He looked back down at the girl.
"It's always an honor to meet your biggest fan," Justin said, "so we thought we'd drop by. We hope you don't mind."
The girl shook her head.
"I'm Joey," Joey said, sticking out his hand. Hannah took the hand softly and Joey gave a gentle squeeze. He leaned down. "The rest of these guys are just too awed by your beauty to introduce themselves."
"Forgive us." Lance stepped forward. He took the hand that Joey had just released and gave it a small peck.
Hannah turned bright red.
"So, Hannah," JC said. He sat down on the edge of the hospital bed. "You wanted to go to an 'N SYNC concert?"
"Yes." Hannah's voice was weak and shaky.
"Well, what would you say if we told you that we'd brought the concert to you?" JC continued.
Hannah sobbed once and the welling tears spilled down her cheeks.
Joey looked away again and saw a woman--Hannah's mother, he thought--standing
by the window of the room. She was crying, too.
--
The camera flashed one more time and Joey stepped away from the hospital bed. The Children's Miracle Network coordinator set the camera down on the edge of the dresser. Chris and JC remained sitting on the bed, talking with Hannah and signing autographs for all of her friends (who were just going to be *so* jealous, Hannah had said more than once.)
"Thank you," Hannah's mother said to Joey. She smiled as she looked at her daughter. "This afternoon. I've never seen her so happy."
"She's a great girl," Joey said. "It's not fair."
"No, it's not," Hannah's mother said, "but life isn't fair and sometimes we have to accept that." She looked at Joey. "You guys gave her the one thing she wanted more than anything in the world."
"We love doing this," Joey said, realizing as he said it, that it wasn't a lie. "We just wish there was more that we could do."
"How could you do more?" Hannah's mother asked. "You've made her forget about everything for an afternoon. You made her forget the pain, or that she might not wake up tomorrow morning, or that her heart might just stop any minute."
"It doesn't feel like we're doing much." Joey looked away from the woman standing by him and watched as Justin and Chris did a contained rendition of their Making the Video golf cart chase.
"Just by being here, you are. I wish I could repay you somehow."
Joey looked back at Hannah's mother and blinked, a thoughtful expression crossing his face.
"What's your name?"
"Evelyn," Hannah's mother said.
"Then, Evelyn," Joey said slowly, "the best way you can repay us is by helping other people; by doing something that they consider to be a big deal."
"What?" Evelyn asked.
"Pay it forward," Joey said. "You know, help others and then tell them to help more people. They say what comes around goes around. Help it go around."
Evelyn blinked. "But what should I do?"
"You'll know when the time comes. And maybe it won't seem big to you, but it will mean the world to them."
Evelyn ducked her head and then looked up at Joey.
"Will you do that?" Joey asked softly. "Will you help, say, three other people?"
Hannah's mother nodded. "Okay," she said.
--
"Joe?" Lance stopped flipping the pages of the paperback book sitting in his lap and looked at Joey. "What did that girl’s mother say to you? At the hospital?"
Joey looked over at Lance. "She thanked me for the joy we’d brought to her daughter."
"Oh." Lance looked back down at the book in front of him and then back up at Joey. "What did you say back to her? Because it looked like you asked her to do something."
Joey swallowed. "Well, she asked if there was any way she could repay us."
"Uh huh," Lance said. "And normally you say, ‘oh, no. It’s our pleasure.’"
"Yeah," Joey said. "But this time I said that the best way she could repay us was by helping three other people with things that would mean a lot to them." He twisted his hands, his fingers weaving in and out of each other.
"Three other people?" Lance asked. "And what did she say?"
"She said okay." Joey looked at Lance. "If she helps three other people and asks each of them to help three other people, that will be nine more. And then if each of them ask three more…"
"Uh huh." Lance’s face was slack with thought. "Is it fair to ask her to help three other people, though? I mean, we don’t have a set number of people we help, so how can you ask her?"
Joey started to shrug, but stopped. "I’m going to help two more, so that it won’t be unfair. Two other people in major ways, not just visits in the hospital."
"Those are important," Lance said.
"I know." Joey gestured with his hand. "I know we can do more, though.
I know that *I* can do more."
Part 2: Evelyn
The funeral had happened two months before. It had been a small, private affair, held at the local church. Pictures of Hannah--happy and smiling and healthy looking, the way Evelyn preferred to remember her--had stood next to the casket. Bundles of daisies had decorated the luminescent wood.
It had been a beautiful service. Hannah would have been proud. Beauty didn't bring her back, though. It didn't replace the reality that Evelyn’s daughter, her little girl, was gone.
The house still seemed empty, and Evelyn didn't doubt that it would seem that way for far too long. Her one consolation was that Hannah was in a better place now. One where there was no more worry, no more pain.
Evelyn sat on the floor of her house--a two-bedroom place, with one bath, that was decorated in whites and the lightest wood she could find--raking her fingers through the red setter's fur and leaving a visible pathway in the thick hairs. She looked over at a framed picture sitting on the bookcase, of Hannah sitting in the hospital bed with the members of 'N SYNC sitting on the bed around her. Her daughter's smile had never seemed so real.
Joey's word's echoed in her head, as did her promise to help three other people in major ways. You'll know when the time comes, he'd said. Maybe it won't seem big to you, he'd said.
Evelyn really had no clue where to start. Hannah had talked of nothing
but 'N SYNC in her final days: of how Lance had kissed her hand, of how
Justin had sung 'God Must Have Spent' directly to her, and how Joey had
said she was beautiful. How was she supposed to create that sort of joy
for three others?
--
Reggie had been a gift for Hannah on her eighth birthday. The red setter puppy sitting all alone in the shelter cage had captured both of their hearts and they'd never regretted the decision to adopt him. Now he was a large dog with long silky auburn hair, a dark wet nose, and a feathered tail that waved happily.
The air was cool, but it merely felt refreshing as Evelyn jogged. Reggie stayed at the end of his four-foot leash, tugging occasionally in an effort to get her to let him smell a bed of ivy or the base of a pine tree.
The street was empty at seven in the morning, but it was the only time Evelyn had to take Reggie out. Work consumed her daylight hours and the streets simply were not a place she wanted to be at night, even if she knew Reggie would protect her until his death.
She was five houses away from her own when Reggie gave a sharp tug at the end of his leash pulling her towards another dog--white and fluffy--sitting on a lawn. She took a sudden step sideways, landing heavily on her right ankle.
"Reggie!" She tugged sharply on the leash and dragged the dog back out into the street. "Come."
Reggie dug his claws into the asphalt and spread his legs out as Evelyn pulled. His tail was planted firmly in between his legs.
"Reggie, come." Evelyn gave another tug and Reggie came.
She started running again, flicking the leash once to make sure that Reggie kept pace with her, and then moved to the side of the road as a car came speeding up the street towards her.
"Reggie, stop," she said. The dog stopped at her side.
The car passed and she'd started walking again when she heard a yelp of pain, a thud, and the screech of tires as the car picked up speed, leaving the street.
Evelyn turned and saw a mass of white fur in the middle of the street. "Oh, god." She dropped Reggie's leash and ran towards the fallen dog, kneeling down and touching the dog's fur tentatively. "Oh, god." Reggie was there, right by her side, sniffing at the bundle of fur.
"Reggie, stay." Evelyn stood up and ran--stumbling over her feet--to the door of the house the dog had been sitting in front of. She rang the doorbell and listened as the sound echoed throughout the house. "Answer," she repeated softly, a quiet mantra.
A minute that seemed like an hour later, the door opened and a small, older man peered out the door. "Hello?" he asked, looking up at Evelyn. His back was hunched over and his shoulders were curved.
"Sir." Evelyn swallowed. "Do you by any chance have a dog?"
"Oh, yes, I do." The man nodded and a smile filled his face. "Fluffy. She was my late wife’s pride and joy."
"Oh, god." Evelyn swallowed again. "I’m afraid that just a minute ago, sir, your dog was hit by a car. It was sitting on the lawn, and then a car came speeding down the street, and then I heard a yelp." She took a deep breath.
"Fluffy?" the man asked. He looked over his shoulder and then back at Evelyn. "Hit by a car? But she’s in the back yard. That’s impossible."
"Small? White? Fluffy?" Evelyn asked. She saw the man nod slowly. "It was sitting in your front yard. It wanted to say ‘hi’ to my dog."
The man stepped out onto his front stoop and saw the lump of white on the black asphalt of the road.
"Oh, Fluffy," he said. As quickly as his aged limbs would allow him, he moved towards the street.
Evelyn moved beside him, making sure that he didn’t fall down in his haste, and she then proceeded to kneel down beside the dog, rubbing the soft fur at its neck softly. The dog didn’t move.
"Fluffy," the man repeated. He looked at Evelyn. "It’s bad, isn’t it."
Evelyn looked at the motionless dog. She nodded. "I think she needs to go to the vet."
"I don’t." The man stopped talking. "I don’t have a car."
"We’ll take mine," Evelyn said before she thought about work or the plans of the days. "I live in that house, right up there. I’ll be right back, okay?"
The man nodded and stared down at his dog.
--
There was a single car in the parking lot outside of the vet’s office, but Evelyn supposed that was normal considering that it was just slightly after seven on a Thursday. The vet had said he’d be there, waiting for them.
Evelyn held the dog in her arms, moving slowly so that the older man, Carl, could keep up with her.
The door to the clinic opened and the vet stood there, motioning them inside.
"Come in," he said brusquely. He took Fluffy out of Evelyn’s arms and began walking straight back to one of the examining rooms. "We’re going to take Fluffy right back here and see how bad the damage is."
Evelyn motioned for Carl to go first and they walked down the hallway
with shiny tiles together.
Part 3: Joey
"Joe-ey," Kelly flung her arms around Joey’s neck and giggled as he picked her up off the ground. "It is *so* good to see you. I’ve *missed* you."
Joey smiled, squeezing Kelly tightly. He lowered her gently towards the ground and let go only when her feet touched the carpeted floor of the hallway in her apartment complex.
"I’ve missed you, too, doll." He grabbed Kelly’s hand and followed her into the small New York City apartment. "You look great."
Kelly’s hair was pulled back into a curly ponytail that bounced as she walked with light, springy footsteps.
She turned back towards him, grinning widely. "You look different, Joey. Your hair’s, like, a normal color."
"Well, management thought I should try it," Joey said. "To be, you know, original and different. The new, *mature* Joey Fatone."
"You," Kelly said. "Mature?" She laughed quietly. "I think you’d have to do a lot more than change your hair color."
Joey tried to look serious, for a moment, before he began laughing,
too.
--
They were sitting next to each other on the couch, the lights dimmed, a movie neither of them were really watching on the television screen, when Kelly spoke.
"Joey? I have, um." She swallowed. Loudly. "I have something to ask you."
"Uh huh," Joey said. He scooted a few inches away from Kelly. "It sounds like you’re being serious."
Kelly nodded and clasped her hands in her lap.
"Hit me, doll. What do you want to ask?"
Kelly sighed. "I. I want kids, Joey."
"I know that." Joey took one of Kelly’s hands out of her lap and began to massage it gently with the pad of his thumb. "You’ll meet the right guy soon, I’m sure.
"I feel like I’m getting old," Kelly said. "That I’m not going to meet someone in the next few years, and by the time I do meet someone? Then I’ll be too old."
"Yeah?" Joey’s voice was cautious. His thumb slowed down.
"We’ve been friends a long time, Joey," Kelly said.
"Yeah," Joey said again. He spoke the word slowly.
"I don’t think I’ve ever had a better friend," Kelly continued. She looked up at Joey with large eyes. "I trust you."
Joey remained silent. The speed of his heart beat quickened.
"I really want a kid," Kelly said again as she looked down at their interwoven fingers. "And I want you to be the father."
Joey withdrew his hand completely from Kelly’s. "You what?"
Kelly repeated herself: "I want you to be the father."
Joey stood up and looked down at the woman on the couch. He opened his mouth a few times, closing it each time. Then he shook his head, as if to clear it, and managed to speak. "Why?"
"You’re a good man," Kelly said. "A kid could do a lot worse than to have you for a father."
"But—" Joey trailed off.
"Will you at least think about it?" Kelly asked. She blinked widely. "Just. Just think, okay?"
Joey ran his fingers through his hair and nodded. He walked to the window of the apartment and stared out at the lights of the city. He stood there a long time before he swallowed harshly.
"I’ll do it," he said. His voice cracked as he said the words.
"You will?" Kelly asked. "Really?"
When Joey turned back towards her, he saw tears streaming down her face. He nodded and tried to smile. His muscles felt stiff.
"Oh, Joey," Kelly said. "How can I thank. You don’t know how much this means to me. If there’s ever anything--"
Joey blinked. "Well," he said. "There is one thing."
--
"You’re what?" JC asked. He stared at Joey.
"I’m going to be a father." Joey had a stupid grin on his face.
JC blinked once, then again, three, four times. He was silent for several long moments.
"But," JC said finally.
"I know it sounds like a stupid thing to do, but," Joey said. "I love Kelly and she wants this really badly. And, you know, it would be *my* kid."
"She wants another Joey in the world?" JC asked.
Joey lifted his middle finger and showed the back of it to JC.
Part 4: Carl
Carl ran his fingers—thin and nearly translucent—through the thick white fur of the dog curled up next to him. With a slow, deliberate touch, he moved his fingers down to the edge of the cast that covered the dog’s leg.
You’re lucky you got her here this quickly, the doctor had said as he was bent over Fluffy. She has internal bleeding, he’d said. But it seemed that there was still a chance.
And the bleeding had been stopped and that was the reason Fluffy was curled up next to Carl now. All because Evelyn had driven them to the vet with all possible haste.
Carl would have done anything within his means for Evelyn and he’d offered as much, but she’d refused. She’d told him to help three other people instead, in some major way. Pay it forward, she’d said.
He looked down at himself, at his fragile body, and then back at the
dog next to him. He didn’t know how he was going to help anyone with anything,
but he sure as heck was going to try.
--
The bookstore, Petunia’s Place, had been his wife’s also--her other pride and joy. They had run it together, by themselves. It had been quaint, with a good selection of books for older women and men. It had done pretty well for an independent store. Of course, they hadn’t needed the money, so it hadn’t mattered, really, how well it had done.
After his wife’s death, however, he’d closed the bookstore. He hadn’t been able to run it himself and there was no one he wanted to entrust it to. No one would have kept it the way it had been—and he’d forever wanted it to remain Petunia’s Place. So, one day, he’d paid some local kids to box up the books and stick them in the back room, and he’d just turned the lights off, locked the door, and walked out.
That had been it. In his will he’d said that the building should be sold and the profits donated to their church, but he hadn’t been back.
Today, though, he stood outside the dusty windows, looked at the weather-aged sign—chipped red letters on a white background—and felt something give inside of him.
"Help three other people," he said softly to himself.
He tugged at the edge of his black felt beret, and continued walking
down the street.
--
Carl had seen the woman sitting on the corner of 37th and Walnut every day for at least a month. She always held the same cardboard sign: "Will work to feed my kids."
Every time he saw her, she was thinner than the time before. Every time he saw her he gave her a five-dollar bill and told her to buy herself something. That was all he ever said to her.
She smiled as Carl walked up to her, his gait unsteady.
"Hello." He smiled.
"Hi," she said. Her voice was weather-raw.
Carl tipped his head just slightly to the side. "What’s your name?" he asked.
"LuAnn," the woman said. She shivered as a wind blew down the street.
"You need a job, LuAnn?" Carl asked.
LuAnn nodded. "Is there something I can do for you?" The sign dropped from her red fingers.
"And you’d work hard?" Carl asked.
"’Course," LuAnn said. "I got my kids to feed. Two of ‘em. Growing boys."
"Do you like books?"
LuAnn got a hungry look in her eye. "I don’ have time to read much."
"Then I think I have a job for you," Carl said. "If you want it."
LuAnn struggled to stand up. She smoothed out the wrinkles of what once must have been a nice skirt. "I’ll do anything, sir," she said. "What is this job?"
Carl held out his arm for LuAnn to take and proceeded to tell her about his wife as they walked down the street.
"And this is her store," Carl said. His eyes crinkled up lovingly as he stared at the building.
LuAnn’s mouth was open, just slightly. Her breath hissed through her cracked lips.
"I want it back to the way it was," Carl said. "I want the store to live on in my wife’s memory."
"But what can I do?" LuAnn asked.
"I want you to run it." Carl dropped LuAnn’s arm and turned to look at her.
Her mouth dropped all the way open showing stained teeth. "I don’ know anything about running a bookstore, though," she said.
"I don’t need the money," Carl said. "I’ll pay you to run it now, turn it back into Petunia’s Place, and then when I die, it’s yours."
LuAnns’ eyes narrowed. "What’s the catch."
"No catch," Carl said. He spread his arms out, trying to illustrate that he wasn’t hiding anything.
"You’d just give me a store?" LuAnn asked.
"Someone did me a large favor," Carl said. "They helped to save the life of the one thing I hold dearest in this world now, and they told me to pass the favor along to three people. So, now, if you accept my offer, I ask that you’d do the same thing. Pass a big favor along to three other people."
"You just want me to pass the favor along?" LuAnn asked.
Carl nodded. "Do you want the store?"
Slowly, awed, LuAnn nodded. "Can we go inside?"
Part 5: Lance
At first none of them had noticed that anything was wrong with Lance. He probably hadn’t even noticed it himself, really. He’d been tired, that much they all knew, but with their hectic daily schedules—and Lance’s more hectic than any of theirs—they all got tired.
Then he got paler, lost some weight.
"Stress," Lance said with a wan smile on his face, "it’s the perfect diet, you know?"
His legs started swelling, though, just slightly.
"It’s the heat," Lance said. "Makes your legs swell up." He looked down at his ankles. "Maybe I’m pregnant."
They all tried to laugh, but none of them were very successful.
But then he got paler, thinner, and all around sicklier. One day he didn’t make it out of bed—just curled up into a ball and fell back asleep.
That was when they all knew something was very wrong, because Lance never, ever, *ever* stayed in bed. Not unless he was sick enough to be in the hospital.
And so they took him to the hospital. He hardly even protested when Chris and JC dragged him into the lobby with Justin and Joey pushing from behind. Normally, Lance kicked out at them the entire way, even if he knew it was in his best interest.
This time, though, he didn’t, and that, perhaps, worried the other four guys more than any of the other symptoms he’d shown that something wasn’t right.
It was even worse than they imagined.
"Kidney failure," the doctor said. He said it again, more slowly. "His kidneys are failing."
The four other men blinked, silently.
Part 6: Kelly
Kelly’s tummy was rounded, filling out the sleeveless sundress she wore. She rested her hands on top of the bulge, as had become her habit. Just doing that made her smile.
She looked around the quiet park, paying special attention to the playground situated not far from the bench where she sat. The laughter from the children playing on the structure filled her ears.
Her smile grew wider and her fingers splayed apart, covering more of her stomach.
She pulled out a book from her large, relatively full purse, and opened it to the middle, unfolding the corner of the page that had been marking her place. She started reading, very quickly loosing herself in the words and the images that they created in her mind.
Kelly was startled out of her reading induced daze, though, when she heard a scream that was not filled with laughter and mirth. Quickly, curls bouncing, she looked up.
She saw a blonde woman about her own age staring wide-mouthed—possibly still screaming—at a man with light brown hair running away from her. The man had a purse clutched in his hand.
He was running straight towards Kelly.
Kelly pushed herself up off of the bench and squeezed a hand right above her hipbone as a cramp spasmed in her back.
"Stop!" she yelled at the man running towards her.
He looked at Kelly and she saw a flash of blue-ice eyes. His lips had curled into a sneer.
"Stop," she said again. She instinctively clutched her purse in her right hand.
The man turned away.
With a steady movement, Kelly raised her purse and swung it. She didn’t care that her compact fell out, or that a small glass vial of perfume dropped onto the hard cement and shattered. What she did care about was that her bag made solid, hard contact with the back of the man’s head.
There was a loud thud, and a snap of cloth straps being pulled to their limit. There was the sound of the man cursing. He grabbed at his head and the purse—the stolen one—dropped to the ground.
Kelly stepped towards him, still wielding her own bag, and the man kept running, leaving the other purse still sitting on the dirty concrete.
It was then that Kelly smelled the strong odor of the perfume that spilled all over the ground. She bent down, spreading her legs out at awkward angles, to grab the purse that had started the whole mess to begin with.
At that moment the blonde woman came running up to her.
"Thank you," she said breathlessly. Her cheeks were red and her eyes shiny. "Oh my god, thank you."
Kelly nodded and struggled to stand up straight again.
The woman immediately reached out to help her. "I don’t know how to thank you," she said as she helped Kelly sit back down on the bench. "My mother’s necklace was in here—I’d just taken it out of the safe-deposit box this afternoon to give to my daughter—and I don’t know what I would have done if I’d lost it."
"You don’t have to thank me," Kelly said. She blushed slightly and rested her hands on top of her stomach again.
"Surely there has got to be some way," the woman said.
Kelly looked down at her hands and remembered Joey’s words to her the
day he’d agreed to father her child. She looked back up at the woman standing
in front of her, scrunched one cheek up, and nodded. "You can pass it on,"
she said.
Part 7: Joey
Joey stared at the television in front of him and then looked over at Lance. The blond man was lying flat on his back on the quilt-covered bed.
"I thought it would make a difference," Joey said.
Lance blinked tiredly. "You thought what would make a difference?"
"You know how I told that woman to pass it on?"
Lance nodded. He yawned. "What about her?"
"I thought it would make a difference," Joey said. "If she’s helped three people and they’ve helped three people and they’ve—shouldn’t the world be just a little bit nicer by now?" He sighed. "I bet she didn’t even pass it on. She probably thought I was some psychotic lune."
"You can’t just do big miracles every day," Lance said. He rolled over on his side and looked at Joey.
"But you can!" Joey sat up straight. His eyes flashed. "There is so much that needs to be done out there. There is so much that—People don’t even realize, you know. It doesn’t have to be something big. Something little you do can absolutely make someone’s life."
"But you’ve helped people," Lance said. "That counts for something."
"Only two," Joey said. He slumped down again. "I was going to help one more, but why should I even bother?"
Lance was silent for so long that finally Joey looked over at him.
Lance was asleep. There was a frown on his face.
Part 8: LuAnn
LuAnn took the silver teapot off of the heating coil she kept on the back counter of the bookstore. She turned a flowered teacup right side up and poured the woman in front of her a cup of tea.
"This is just a marvelous place," the woman said. She looked around the store. "It just feels so homey."
"That’s the way Petunia had it," LuAnn said. "It’s the way it’ll be forever."
The woman turned away, fingers linked through the handle of the cup, and began browsing the shelves of books: gardening, cooking, golf.
LuAnn smiled and smoothed her favorite skirt over the front of her thighs. It was long and black with tiny flowers scattered across the fabric. She poured a cup of tea for herself, picked up a cookie, and nibbled at it daintily.
When the bell signaling a new customer jingled, LuAnn smiled easily
and poured a new cup of tea so that it would be waiting for them when they
reached the counter.
--
Her life had changed drastically in the last year, LuAnn thought as she walked down the street outside of the bookshop. A white, fluffy dog on a blue nylon leash walked slowly beside her. It limped just slightly.
The shop was hers now, for Carl had passed away just four months after picking her off the street to run his store. He’d told her that she was welcome to sell it after he was gone, but she couldn’t. She didn’t want to. The store just as much a part of her life now as it had been a part of Carl and Petunia’s.
She walked past the corner of 37th and Walnut every day on her way home from work. It had had a new inhabitant for the last month—a boy in his mid-teens. His face was dirty and his nails that showed in front of the sign he held tightly were cracked and broken.
Every day, in honor of Carl’s memory, she gave the boy five dollars and told him to buy something for herself.
Today, though—possibly because she was feeling sentimental, possibly because Carl was watching from above and reminding her of the promise she’d made—she stopped.
"What is your name?" LuAnn asked.
"Ben," the boy said.
"You need a job, Ben?"
The boy nodded.
"Do you like books?" LuAnn asked.
Again, Ben nodded.
LuAnn smiled. She opened her purse up and pulled out a pad of paper. She wrote down the address of the bookstore and handed it to the boy sitting on the sidewalk.
"Show up here tomorrow morning and I’ll give you a job," LuAnn said. She clarified: "Shelving stuff."
Ben nodded again, an awed look on his face.
LuAnn started to walk away. Then she turned around again.
"Do you have a place to stay?" she asked.
Ben shook his head.
"Come with me, then." LuAnn held out her hand to Ben, almost like Carl had done for her a year before, and pulled him up. "We’ll get you cleaned up in no time."
Together they walked down the street.
"Let me tell you about a man named Carl," LuAnn said, "and what he did
for me."
Part 9: Lance
Lance’s sister Stacy had willingly offered Lance one of her own kidneys because it was said that kidneys from family members were more likely to take better than ones from complete strangers.
It hadn’t taken, though.
They’d thought it had, because Lance seemed to be doing better after they’d stopped administering the immunosuppressants, but then his body began rejecting the kidney.
They all cried a lot, then, because they would have to wait for a donor who would be considered a suitable match for Lance. And if his own sister’s kidney didn’t take, then how likely was it that a stranger’s kidney was going to take?
The guys kept touring and Lance traveled with them, even if he didn’t feel well enough to get up on the stage most of the time. And then, even if he didn’t leave the hotel.
All five of them became somber, distracted. It wasn’t fun anymore.
So, on a sunny day in June, they said their thank yous and their goodbyes to their fans, and then they went home.
Every day Lance would stare at his phone—praying for a call that said they’d found a suitable donor. Every day he felt weaker and he could feel a little bit more of his hope dying.
Every day the other guys stared at their phones, waiting for a call from Lance saying that they’d found a kidney and that he was going to be okay again.
One day Lance gave up hope. The next day the phone rang.
"Mr. Bass," the doctor said. "We have found a donor that we think will be compatible with your body."
Lance sighed loudly, relieved. "Oh, thank god," he said.
"Can you come to Texas?" the doctor asked. "That’s where the donor is. He’s just waiting for the word to go into surgery."
Lance blinked. "He’s alive?"
"Yes, sir," the doctor said. "He came in here and said that he had one kidney, he certainly didn’t need two when some people had none at all, so he’d like to donate one. You were the most suitable match."
Lance couldn’t think of anything to say.
Part 10: Joey
While all of Lance’s family flew down to Texas with him, the members of ‘N SYNC stayed at their respective homes waiting for any news.
Joey stared at the telephone sitting on the table next to him. It sat in his jacket pocket when he went out to dinner with Kelly and Brianna. It was tucked under his pillow when he went to sleep that night.
At 8:32 the next morning the phone rang.
"Hello?" Joey asked.
"Joe." The voice on the other end of the phone was deep: Lance’s.
All sleepiness left Joey’s body and he sat up straight. "Lance! Man! How you doing?"
"Good," Lance said. "I have a good feeling about this one."
"So do I," Joey said. "I didn’t expect you to be the one to call me, though."
"I shouldn’t be," Lance said. He yawned. "They seem to want me to rest. But I have a story to tell you and it can’t wait."
"Okay," Joey said.
"The guy who gave me the kidney," Lance said. "He was perfectly healthy. I told you that, right?"
Joey nodded, not bothering to speak because Lance kept talking.
"I told you that he just woke up one day and decided to donate a kidney out of the kindness of his heart."
"Yeah," Joey said.
"I thanked him before we went into surgery," Lance said. "And you know what he told me when I said I didn’t know how to repay him?"
"What?" Joey asked. His muscles were tense.
"He told me I didn’t have to," Lance said. "He told me to pay it forward. To do something big for three other people." He paused. "Does that sound familiar?"
Joey’s breath caught.
"He said someone had given him a car after he crashed his during a freak lightening storm. That person had had his son rescued from a burning building by a stranger who just happened to be walking by. That person had been served a free lunch every day for a month when her welfare got mistakenly cancelled. That person—" Lance stopped talking.
Joey sniffled.
"It happened, Joe," Lance said. "Just like you hoped it would."
"So I guess I’d better get out and help someone else," Joey said, laughing as tears streamed down his face.
"You already have," Lance said. "Me. By starting this thing. ‘Cause how else would I have gotten this kidney?"
"So what are you going to do?" Joey asked.
"What else?" His voice had a smile embedded in it. "I’m going to help three other people."
When Joey hung up the phone with Lance, he lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. He raised his voice to a falsetto. "And what can I do to repay you, kind sir?" He dropped his voice down to an octave below his normal range. "Why nothing, ma’am. All I ask is that you pay it forward."
He fell asleep with a smile on his face.
-the end-