Winning the Trip
“Bria! Bria!” Janie Webster fairly screamed when she saw her cousin come up the walk.
Entering the house, Brianne Collins hugged her small cousin. Despite the fact Janie had Down’s Syndrome and was seventeen years her senior, Brianne has always been close to Janie.
“Now what was so important I had to drive up here on a weeknight?”
Janie lived more than an hour’s drive from Brianne—and since Brianne was a teacher Sunday through Thursday, she preferred staying home of an evening.
“*N-NSYNC!” Janie crowed.
“What about them?” Brianne knew the hot “boy band” was her cousin’s favorite group.
“We’re going!”
“Going where?”
“*NSYNC!”
Marian Webster came in and handed Brianne a letter. “Remember that letter you wrote for Janie about New Years?
Brianne nodded and perused the letter. It seemed Janie and one other person were being flown to Orlando to spend a day with the guys from *NSYNC.
“My sister Chloe lives there. She said she’d put us up,” Marian was saying.
“What’s this got to do with me?” Brianne asked.
“You wrote the letter.”
“Janie told me what to say.”
“You didn’t write it verbatim. I’m willing to place a large bet on that.”
Well, Brianne had added her own observations.
Marian pointed to one of the last lines.
“We look forward to meeting you and your cousin Brianne.” Then it was signed by the group members.
“I got to talk to Joey,” Janie gushed. “He called.”
Marian nodded. “I told them Carl and I would fly Janie to Orlando, but we hoped you would be the one to accompany her.”
“Me?”
“It would mean so much to Janie. We would never keep up like you can.”
Since Janie had been a change of life baby and now forty-two, Marian Webster was in her eighties. Still spry, she could hardly derive much enjoyment from the music her daughter and Brianne danced and sang to.
“Please, Bria? Lance and Joey are mine. You have JC,” Janie reminded her.
Brianne smiled at that. When Janie and her roommate at her group home divided up *NSYNC, no one wanted JC Chasez. So, he had be “given” to Brianne. She vaguely wondered how he’d feel about that!
“Well?” Janie demanded anxiously.
“Well, it looks like we’re going to Orland to meet *NSYNC.”
Janie jumped up and down, clapping.
Marian hugged her late sister’s granddaughter. “Thank you, Brianne.”
“My kids would kill to get an opportunity like that,” Denise Russell announced. Denise was a fellow teacher at the center where she worked with Brianne.
“Can you cover?”
“So can you fly to Orlando for five days and be with five hot looking guys? Have all that sun and fun without me? You betcha, girl! It’s about time for you to cut loose.”
“I’m going with my elderly aunt and uncle,” Brianne reminded her. “Cutting loose? I doubt it.”
“I dare you.” Denise knew a dare was hard for Brianne to resist – being a younger sister to a loving though over-bearing brother.
“Dare me to do what?”
At the moment, Colleen the office manager came in. “Hey, Colleen what shall we dare Bree to do in Orlando?”
Red-headed Colleen grinned, “Go to one of those grinding dance clubs.”
“Great! That’s it! We dare you to go to a dance club and dance at least one dance with a stranger.”
“Me?” Brianne squeaked. She wasn’t the club type.
“You haven’t even dated since that loser Nick,” Denise pointed out.
She was over Nick, Brianne thought, but he had left some pretty deep wounds.
“What better place to get your groove back? Some place you are totally anonymous,” Colleen added.
“One dance?” Brianne confirmed.
“And dress the part, not like a frump,” Denise put another stipulation on the bet. “Something that’ll knock men’s eyes out.”
“I don’t dress that way.”
“Maybe you should once in a while.” Denise held her hand out. “Bet?”
Brianne nodded her head as she shook Denise's hand. “Bet."