We didn’t do much in London, just a performance and a short interview for a magazine. So we set off to New York, so they could do their Rosie show and we could go home.
I sat backstage at the set, helping Diana make sure the kids didn’t run onto stage. They knew the drill, sit backstage and watch the monitor while their brothers performed and got interviewed.
The performance went well, everything went really well until the commercial. Mackie was being an animal. He didn’t like being in the plane for that long. On the trip over there he was asleep so it didn’t matter. During the break he ran out on the stage, and I had to go after him.
"Bring him over here, we have time," Rosie said. Slightly embarrassed, I let Mackie bring me over to the stage. "What’s your name?" she asked me.
"Tini."
"Why hello Tini, I’m Rosie." She shook my hand. "What’s your job?"
"To keep this sucker from running out on stage, but he’s being an animal." Mackie gave me a look. "Well you are."
"No I’m not."
"Yes you are." He just folded his arms across his chest and pouted. I shook my head, and he went over to Zac.
"Zac, am I being an animal?" he asked.
"To tell you the truth, kid, you are." He tried it with Taylor and Isaac, and got the same answer, yes.
"O.K., you have to go back now," Rosie said. "Nice meeting you, Tini."
"You too." I picked up Mackie and went backstage again.
The interview went well, I was surprised Taylor was immediately able to act like a perfect human being. He seemed so nice and funny, no wonder so many people were in love with him.
After the show, Rosie decided to come up to me, ask me a few questions. "So how are they really like?" she asked. "Without the cameras, at home."
"Zac’s pretty much the same, he’s not as wild as he is on camera, though. Ike's quieter." I stopped there.
"And what about Taylor? I noticed him giving you a bad look. Are you two on bad terms?"
"Very bad terms. He doesn’t like me at all. When I first met them and everything he was really nice and stuff, but lately he’s just hated me. I don’t mind, I can’t change that. I just stay out of his way and we’re all fine."
"Well at least you’re coping with it. And he seems like such a nice boy. Do you like staying with them?" I nodded.
"Yeah, the little kids like me and Diana is really nice to me. My mother is the math tutor, so I pretty much have to like it."
She asked a few more and I answered. It was fun having my own little interview with Rosie, even if it was off camera. After my discussion with her we left, and we went home.
Once we got home, I went back to my house with my mother, and turned on the television. The news. I almost turned the channel when I heard a strangely familiar voice.
I glanced at the TV and screamed.
There was the two girls that I had brought up with me to show what Taylor was really like. They were being interviewed. Shaking, I turned up the volume.
"Well, this girl came up to us and told us that she knew the Hansons, and that they weren’t all cracked up as we thought them to be. She brought us to Taylor’s room and he was just so nasty to her," one said.
"And I brought a tape recorder with me, so I taped the whole thing," the other one said. The tape was played, with the words coming across the screen as each line was said.
I put my hands over my mouth, not being able to breath anymore. Everything was spinning around me, and I fell.
I came to as I heard pounding on the front door. Where was my mother? "Tini!" I heard Taylor scream. Oh no, it was Taylor!! I didn’t want to answer the door, but it opened and in came Taylor.
He ran over to me, fuming. "You little bitch! Do you have any idea what you did?" he asked. I sat up and scooted back, shaking my head. "You just killed us, Tini!" He had tears in his eyes. "You just killed Hanson."
His tears remained in his eyes, but mine fell. I was afraid of him. I was afraid of what he’d do to me. I didn’t notice Zac had come in the house.
"Tay I didn’t know…" he wouldn’t let me finish. Taylor slapped me, and was about to again when Zac grabbed his arm and flipped him around.
"Don’t you hit her! What she did was wrong but you can’t hit her! She didn’t kill us, you did Taylor! She wouldn’t of done it if she wasn’t mad at you for being the way you are. People would of found out sooner or later and I’m glad they did!"
Taylor was shocked, and he left. Zac watched as he left, and once he was gone, he turned back to me. "You disgust me," Zac said. Now I was shocked. "I stood up for you only because I wanted to rip on you myself. What the hell is wrong with you, Tini? What was going through your mind at that time? I’m sure you knew that these girls were going to tell people."
"Yeah but I didn’t expect anything to happen from it…"
"Shut up!! Tini, you took away everything that matters to me. Everything I’ve lived for is what I do for a living, it’s what I want to do for the rest of my life. I hoped that this would last much longer but of course, once I fall in love with someone my whole world is messed up! I’ve read those fan fiction stories on the Internet and how in them they make me able to just give this up for someone. I’m not like that. I wouldn’t give this up for the world!! I wouldn’t give this up for you but you took it from me! Did I not give you enough happiness or something? Did I do something wrong that possessed you to do this?"
"No, you were perfect. Taylor was wrong."
"Well then you could of taken it away from Taylor! You could of taken it away from him for all I care!! But you had to take it away from me, and Ike, and my family. And you took it away from all the fans out there! All these people who help make me the way I am right now had this image that we were perfect. I know we’re far from it but it was O.K. for them to imagine it. At least then they would be fans, they would come to our shows, they would buy our CDs, they would make us Hanson, but now that they found out the truth we’re dead. We’re nothing but average people now. I’ll never be able to go on TV again, I’ll never be able to do a concert again, I’ll never be able to have people adore me. I enjoyed that, that was great. I loved it, and you just took it from me. It’s all your fault, Tini."
"I’m sorry."
"Well sorry isn’t going to make things better. You say you’re sorry when you drop something, or when you make a mistake. This is more than a mistake, this is a choice. Well Tini you made a really bad choice."
Zac gave me a disgusted look and left.
Well it’s been a week. Hanson are officially dead. They’re not on the radio, they don’t do concerts because people won’t come, they can’t even give away tickets because people won’t take them.
They won’t talk to me. Taylor’s ready to kill me, Zac won’t even look at me, Ike is just blankly there. My mother was fired yesterday. So really we’ll be going home soon. We’ll leave Tulsa.
The little kids aren’t allowed to talk to me. I plead for forgiveness but I won’t get anything. Taylor’s even hit me a few more times. I don’t mind, I deserve it.
Everything that’s been so good before is so bad now.
Diana won’t talk to me. They won’t take my calls. I try and try but they’re just ignoring me. They’re trying to adjust to a normal life now. I’m out of the picture now. I was part of Hanson, the world-wide famous band.
Well they’re dead now so I might as well drop off the face of the earth.
I’m referred to as the nineties Yoko Ono. I broke up Hanson, just like she broke up the Beatles. But she was better, she got to marry one of them. I’m just excluded.
"Mom, I don’t want to take my pill today," I said, sitting in the kitchen. My mother had inquired if I had taken my pill yet, like she did every day.
"Tini, if you don’t take your pill you’ll die," she said.
"That’s the point."
"You’re not going to kill yourself over this." I looked up to her from my cup of tea.
"They want me dead, every single Hanson fan on the face of the earth wants me dead, why don’t I just do them all a favor?"
"You’re my daughter, Tini. I love you more than anything. You are not going to kill yourself because one big-headed asshole family thinks you broke up their multi-million dollar business. Well you just did what they deserved and if they think you should die for it then they’re going straight to hell."
I smiled. My mother had a way of making me change my mind.
"And by the way I think Zac is the scum of this earth for doing what he did to you. He should of given that speech to Taylor, cause I know it and they know it, honey. Taylor is the reason Hanson broke up."
I got up and went over to the cabinet, took out a pill from my very large bottle, and swallowed it. "Tini," my mother said, "I want you walk down that street with a smile on your face. Just pass by their house with confidence, and see what happens."
She had confused me. I didn’t know what she was talking about, but she told me to do it anyway. So I walked out of my house that was going to be up for sale soon, and walked down the street with a smile on my face, and my body filled with confidence.
As I approached the house I didn’t falter, I just walked by with a big smile, and happiness. And once I had the house cleared, I let out a sigh of relief.
"Tini!"
I won.
"Tini! Wait up!"
I won!
Zac stopped in front of me, blocking my path. I don’t know why, but he couldn’t ever stay mad at me for long. I went around him, though. It was as if I didn’t care anymore. "Tini I’m sorry." I stopped and turned around.
"You say you’re sorry when you drop something, Zac. When you make mistakes. You made a choice."
"Well I am, Tini. I don’t know about the rest of them, but I want you back."
"Isn’t that an ‘NSync song?" I asked.
"Tini please." Again with the eyes. Dammit, they made me falter.
"Fine," I whispered. He smiled and jumped on me. We fell to the ground. "I thought you weren’t going to use those eyes on me again, Zac."
"But I really need you, Tini," he said, helping me off the ground. "That whole house is going nuts. Nobody knows how to handle each other anymore. Nobody can adjust back to the way things used to be."
"I’m sure y’all should of thought of that before Taylor decided to become an asshole."
"Well we can’t exactly kick him out of the family, Tini," Zac said. "I wish we could, but we can’t. Everything’s so odd. I went with my mom to the store the other day and no one even noticed me. No one cared."
"Welcome to the normal life Zac. Where people don’t care."
"Some do." I knew automatically he was talking about me. "I care about you. Do you care about me?"
"Yes, I do."
"Then how could you do this to me?" I sighed, and he took my hand. "You did this to us, Tini. The whole age thing wasn’t a matter a long time ago and it isn’t now, but now it’s the fact that my family absolutely hates you."
"Well I guess it’s their fault, now isn’t it? I don’t care about it, I’m just happy we’re going home."
"Home? Why?"
"My mom got fired, Zac. You’re going to a public school now. I think right after Thanksgiving. Y’all don’t need me anymore, so I’m going home. Even though I really don’t have anyone to go back to. Except for the doctors."
"Then why don’t you stay here?"
"Because my mom is going back to her old job. They said they would take her back if she got fired from here because she’s worked there a while and she works hard."
"So really, after Thanksgiving I’ll never see you again."
"Unless your family relents and lets you visit me. I seriously doubt they’ll let me come here."
"You never know."
"Well it seems that…car."
"What?" Zac asked. I turned him around and there was a car coming, and we were standing in the middle of the street. So quickly we ran to the sidewalk and sat down.
"It seems that Taylor is just about ready to kill me."
"Don’t be so pessimist, Tini. I think the last thing he would do was try and kill you." I shrugged.
"Well then it seems that Taylor is just about ready to hit me again, and I don’t need anymore abuse. I can’t handle being called Yoko Ono for the rest of my life." I looked down, feeling horrible.
"You’re not Yoko Ono. It wasn’t your fault. You did a good thing, now that I really had time to think about it. Sooner or later it would all die. We figured we were ready, and we are. It’s just awkward not being recognized, or not cared about. It’s just awkward being home for so long, and not having anywhere to go."
"Tell that to Taylor. I know you’ve forgiven me, but the rest of your family sure hasn’t."
"They will."