"I've made a decision," Zac said to Sheila in the car on the way to the Barbara Walters interview in mid-January. It turned out to be better than he had planned; since Zac was spending the entire day away from the studio, he and his brothers decided to take a long weekend and spend the rest of the time at home in Tulsa until Monday when they would fly back out to LA. Zac was happy about that. Although as of late they'd been taking a lot more breaks than anticipated, he was happy to go home and spend some time with Ben. Actually, as soon as he was done with his interview he was flying back out to Tulsa. He hadn't told Ben yet because he wanted it to be a surprise.
"And what is that?" Sheila asked.
"If she asks," Zac started, carefully, "I'm going to tell her I'm seeing someone." Sheila shrugged.
"Okay."
"I'm going to tell her I'm seeing a guy."
"So you're going to tell her you're gay?" Sheila asked. Zac nodded. "Are you sure?" Zac nodded again.
"Yes," Zac said. "I've been thinking about this for a while now and I'm really, really tired of not being able to have a normal relationship with Ben. He deserves more than that. I don't know how it's going to affect everything but it's a big part of me now and people should know that." Sheila nodded.
"All right. It's your decision."
"Okay," Zac said. "I'm nervous as all hell now, though." She smiled.
"You never know, she might not even ask."
"I doubt that," Zac said. "It's probably going to be the first question out of her mouth when I get there. People are so interested in this crap. Who cares if I'm dating somebody?" Sheila shrugged.
"It's just weird like that," she said. She pulled in front of a building and the two of them got out. Zac was obviously nervous but Sheila affectionately rubbed his back as they went inside, trying to calm him down. They went upstairs to a room that was pretty much secluded. It was very white; all the furniture was various shades of white. The carpet was beige and there were nice white roses accented with blushing roses on the tables.
"Man, I probably shouldn't have gone white today," Zac said, looking down at himself. He had on khaki pants and a white short-sleeved dress shirt; much similar to what he was wearing the first time he met Ben. "I'm going to blend right in."
"You'll be fine, Zac," Sheila said. They went further inside and Barbara Walters herself got up. Zac smiled. It was the first time he'd met her.
"Zac, hi," she said, shaking his hand. "Nice to meet you."
"You too," Zac said.
"We can start right away if you'd like," Barbara said. Zac nodded. "Great. Now to make this absolutely comfortable for you, we're going to do this alone. The cameramen will focus on us and then leave. It'll just be us."
"Oh, great," Zac said. "That means scram, Sheels." Sheila waved and left. After getting miked up and settled in, everybody left, leaving Barbara and Zac alone. Zac still looked a little nervous.
"Are you nervous?" she asked. He nodded.
"Yeah, a little bit," he told her. "This is my first big time interview, you know? I've never really done anything like this, at least not by myself." She smiled.
"Well, I'll try to make you as comfortable as possible," she said. "Let's get started. First off, thank you so much for agreeing to do this."
"Thank you for having me," Zac said, smiling.
"Lately you've been blowing up all over the place. It's nearly impossible nowadays to turn on the television, or open a magazine, without seeing you there. Did you ever have any idea it was going to turn out this way?" Zac shook his head.
"No," Zac said. "Absolutely not."
"Did you ever want it to be like this?" she asked. "Did you ever want to become this popular over magazine ads?" Zac shook his head again.
"No. I've always said that I was a musician first. Nothing was more important to me than my music. Out of nowhere I was asked to do an ad for Calvin Klein and I didn't even want to do it."
"Why?"
"It's not my thing," Zac said. "This was always something I saw happening to Taylor, you know? He's the tall skinny one and I just wasn't like that. I have broader shoulders, I'm not as tall, and I've always felt a little fat standing next to them. I had no idea they would want me to do anything."
"But you're not fat. You're very built."
"I know," Zac said. "But even though it is all muscle, I'm still wider than my brothers. I'm still bigger than them. I just never saw myself doing this sort of thing, but it happened and hey, it's working. It's selling albums. We needed something like that."
"How do your brothers feel about this?" she asked. Zac sighed.
"To be perfectly honest, they hate it," Zac explained. "They absolutely hate it. We're supposed to be recording an album right now but I'm constantly missing practices and breaking appointments so I can do other things, so I can do ads. What I'm doing isn't with them, and that was something we always said we'd do. We always wanted to be together, but unfortunately it doesn't always work that way."
"Do you get along with your brothers?" Zac nodded.
"Yeah, for the most part," Zac said. "I don't speak to Isaac all that much outside of work. He moved out of the house so he's always off doing his own thing when we're not working. When we are working, we get along just fine. Taylor and I see each other all the time, because although he moved out of the house as well he still comes over all the time."
"Out of all your brothers and sisters, who do you think you have the closest bond with?" she asked. Zac was taken aback at how many questions she was asking about his family. He didn't expect it.
"Wow, I'm not sure," Zac said, and took a moment to think about it. "It used to be Taylor, because I spent most of my time with him, but lately it's actually been my sister Jessica."
"Why is that?" Barbara asked.
"Well she and I have always been close, all of our lives, but lately it's been closer. She's dating one of my best friends so I see her more often." Barbara nodded. He was afraid by saying "dating" Barbara might ask the dreaded question, but she didn't and Zac was little relieved.
"Now I just heard that you're going to be doing a runway show for Calvin Klein at the end of this month," Barbara said. "Have you moved on from simple ads and commercials to a modeling career?"
"I wouldn't call it a career," Zac said, "because I'm just doing it on the side. It's not who I am, it's just a part of what I'm doing. I'm doing the show for Calvin Klein because I want to. I've done a lot of work for him and I like what I'm doing. It's fun. I'm being someone I'm not for a little while."
"It's hard to define who you are though, Zac," she said. She opened her folder and pulled out a picture. "This is what most of America knew you as before you started doing these ads." Zac recognized a photo of him at eleven, gap-toothed, golden haired and always smiling and laughing. "Now it's this." She held up his underwear ad. "It's a big difference. You went from selling bubblegum to selling underwear."
"I grew up," Zac said. "I'm eighteen now. I'm not a little kid anymore. It's been seven years since I started this and it's just not who I am anymore. I wouldn't say I walk around all day in my underwear, but it's what they wanted me to do. I like it. You can't see the fun parts." Barbara laughed. "Well, almost."
"Do you think you'll continue modeling for as long as you do music?" she asked, putting the pictures away.
"Probably not," Zac said. "I plan on doing music the rest of my life. Eventually my looks are going to go. One of these days I'm just going to get lazy and I'll stop doing a million sit-ups a day, or however many I do now."
"Do you work out a lot?"
"Yeah," Zac said. "I try to do it every day but frankly I'm too busy to do it every day. I run a lot, and I'm at the gym as much as I can be, and I try to eat right. I'm not perfect."
"But you're definitely close to it," Barbara said. Zac shook his head.
"You're very kind�maybe a little bit too kind."
"So you say you've very busy. How does that affect your personal life?" Zac gripped the arm of the chair with his left hand, his only indication that he didn't like where the interview was heading.
"I don't get to see my friends as often as I would like," Zac said. "I only get to see them every once in a while and it sucks, but I knew what I was getting into when I started in this business, and so did they. We get by."
"Do you have a girlfriend?" His hand gripped the chair tighter.
"No," Zac said, shaking his head, a small smile on his face.
"So you're not seeing anyone?" Zac paused.
"Well�" he said, trailing off.
"So you do have a girlfriend?" Zac shook his head again.
"No. I'm seeing someone, but I don't have a girlfriend," he said. She looked at him carefully, knowing what he meant. She looked just as shocked as he expected her to as she went on. He tried very hard to keep a pleasant look on his face.
"Are you gay?" she asked.
"Yes." Her shocked expression intensified.
"I had no idea." Zac shrugged.
"Neither did I."
"When did you realize that you were gay?" she asked. It was so much easier to talk to her about this than anybody else, and that was surprising to him, considering he was very aware he had a camera pointed at his face.
"It was, uh, almost six months ago," Zac said. "I went home for the first time in about a month and a half and my friends had picked up this guy who just moved to Tulsa. I talked to him, and found out he was gay. It wasn't until much later when he and I were talking and he actually said it. He said 'You're gay, and you're afraid of that.' I'd been so uncomfortable around him but I didn't know why until he told me that. And it was true."
"So you have a boyfriend?" she asked. Zac nodded.
"Yes. It's him, actually. He probably doesn't want me to say this, but his name is Ben," Zac said. "We've been dating, well, pretty much the entire time I've been out. Nearly six months."
"Are you in love with him?" Zac smiled.
"Yeah," he said. "Very much so."
"How did you family handle it when you told them?" she asked. Zac smiled.
"I told them in stages. Taylor found out first, when Ben and I had been dating for about a month. I was really afraid of how everybody was going to react because nobody had any idea. I had no idea. Taylor was really shocked at first, but then he eventually got used to it. Then I came out to my friends and they were fine with it. I didn't tell my parents until Thanksgiving, when I'd been out for almost four months. Taylor and I were talking about it and my mother kind of walked in on the conversation. I didn't want her to find out that way, but that's how it happened."
"How'd she take it?"
"Terrible, at first," Zac explained. "My parents are very strict Christians. They believe homosexuality is a sin, it's wrong, I'm going to hell, blah, blah, blah�but then I talked to her about it, broadening her horizons a little bit, and she accepted it. It's still hard for my parents to deal with it, but it's better. They're getting used to it in stages. They're finally okay seeing Ben and me together now, although they don't necessarily like it."
"Do you think this will affect your career?" Barbara asked. He shrugged.
"I have no idea," he told her. "I mean it's still me. I'm still the same person, only I'm gay. It doesn't make a difference to me. It all depends on how superficial my fans are. If something like this gets in the way then that's their problem. If anything I hope it'll just make my gay fan base much larger."
"Are you happy?" she asked. He smiled.
"Yes," he said. "Very much so."
And the interview ended very shortly after that. After the stunning announcement of Zac's newfound sexuality, it was nearly impossible to ask a question that didn't pale in comparison. Zac was so happy. All of his nervous tension was gone and he was so at ease for the first time in months. He was gay and he let everybody who would watch the show on Friday to know it. By Monday everybody would know. It would be in the papers and in the magazines, and he didn't care.
Sheila was waiting outside for him to finish. He gave her a smile as he walked out of the room, confident with a completely different air about him. She noticed immediately. "So you told her, didn't you?" she asked. Zac nodded.
"Yes I did."
"Aren't you the least bit afraid of what this is going to bring?" she asked. He nodded.
"I am absolutely petrified of what this is going to bring," Zac said. "But I'm happy. This is exactly how I want it to feel." She nodded and stood up. "So, are we going?"
"Yes we are," Sheila said. "Time to go home." He nodded and followed her out of the building. "Did you mention Ben or was it just 'I'm gay?' "
"No, I talked about him a little it," Zac said. "I just said Ben, I didn't give his last name or anything else about him." She nodded. "You have no idea how good that felt, Sheila. It was never that easy to talk to somebody about something that huge in my entire life."
"Well, Barbara has that affect on people," she said. "Come on, we don't want to miss your flight."