by Mamrie Hart
We decided to head back to our room, passing through the decorated door gallery on the way. “Look who it is!” Joselyn hissed as she stood frozen in front of a door covered in photos. My eyes started darting everywhere. It felt like that scene in A Beautiful Mind when Jennifer Connelly discovers Russell Crowe’s secret wall of newspaper clippings and schizophrenic scribbles.
There before us was the door of none other than Nick’s Chick. All of the meet-and-greet photos from the hashtag were taped up, along with cut-out hearts. This girl had photos dating back to the days when AJ would unironically wear a fuzzy leopard-print cowboy hat and Howie had shoulder-length hair with a middle part. But we’d seen those photos; that’s not what had us standing there, mouths agape. On either side of the door were posters that she had custom made. These were full on 24” x 36” posters complete with clouds and hearts surrounding them. Must’ve cost a fortune at Kinko’s.
“We have to find Kevin’s Angel and Miss’terious,” I said, still in shock. “We’re clearly not gonna get close to Kevin, so this is our new mission.” We crawled into our tiny beds and drifted off as the boat charged toward Cannes, France, the first stop on the trip.*
When we arrived, the city was madness because we just so happened to dock during the film festival. Rather than be part of the paparazzi madness, Joselyn and I splurged on a guided tour of a hundred-year-old perfume factory outside the city. We loaded onto a charter bus full of other cruise-goers and started winding up the mountains. It was majestic. Once there, we were ushered through an old factory as a woman with the most exquisite French accent showed us how they would press hundreds and hundreds of jasmine flowers into animal fat to extract the scent. The whole process was fascinating; particularly how hot the dudes were who manned the soap-cutting station. They’d be models back in the States, but here they were just humble factory workers who always smelled good? JESUS.
Of course, no touristy tour is complete without them trying to gouge you at the gift shop at the end. But this gift shop wasn’t cheesy T-shirts and key chains—it was a full-on QVC-level demonstration of all the different scents that we could buy. Imagine a group of twenty women, most clad in Backstreet paraphernalia, passing around strips of paper to sniff, nodding their heads and deciding on their favorite. It was quite a scene. As I turned to my left to grab a swatch of their signature jasmine scent, I was met face-first with Kevin’s face!
Not the real one, mind you. A tattoo of Kevin’s face. I looked up to meet the smile of a woman who was at least six-three, rocking overalls, a sleeveless tank top, and a crew cut. Could this be Kevin’s Angel? I thought to myself. Only one way to find out. I coyly moved to her other side and, sure enough, the other biceps had David Boreanaz circa Buffy plastered across it. I glanced over to Joselyn, whose face resembled mine during the jalapeño debacle. God bless her, Jos is so sensitive to smells that this was her hell. Her Smell Hell. She finally looked in my direction as I mouthed, It’s Kevin’s Angel.
“What?” Joselyn said loudly. I shushed her, which caused our tattooed conquest to look down at me. I smiled at her like a Fraggle caught by a Gorg. She smiled back and then continued listening to our tour guide, who was now offering package deals. I motioned Joselyn to come over and pointed at the tat. Her grin spread, and she silently lifted her hand for a high five. Two down, one to go.
Back on the ship, it was the “Casino Royale” themed party, so we draped our shoulders in our Party City feather boas, only to be met with a cruise ship full of women in floor-length ball gowns. After about thirty minutes of freezing out on the deck and watching the guys be twelve-people-deep for selfies in their Bond-style tuxes, we called it a night. The dream of meeting the Boys was becoming more and more futile. In the world of Bond, we were feeling like the two zeros in 007.*
The next day, we docked in Italy. Joselyn and I decided to forgo a planned trip with a bunch of people trying to sell us stuff and ventured out on our own instead. We knew that Pisa was only an hour’s train ride away, so we figured we’d head there for lunch. Easy enough, right? WRONG. The town we docked in had no Ubers or cabs, so we walked three miles to the train station. By the time we made it to take the iconic picture in front of the leaning tower, I was such a hangry bitch that I almost just knocked the tower over with the sheer force of my mind. But we got that pic!
It had taken so long to get there that by the time we snapped a few photos and made fun of everyone else doing the exact same thing (it was somehow dumber when they did it), we only had time to grab a quick lunch before heading back. GUYS. I am not exaggerating when I say we ate the most delicious pasta of our lives during this quick trip. I knew the pasta would probably be better because we were in Italy, and maybe it was a combination of the surroundings and the fact that we had been eating cruise ship food for three days, but this bucatini with fried sage in a creamy sauce that I’m assuming was made of reduced angel tears was one of the best meals I’ve ever had.
You can almost see me screaming, “Did you get the fucking shot?!” through my clamped-teeth smile.
It was wrong to leave something we had just found that gave us such pleasure. It was like finding the one person who could make you reach orgasm, and then they jump off a cliff. I wanted to move to Italy just to be with this pasta. I wanted to become the first woman on Earth to marry a plate of food. But, alas, we still had one box left unchecked in our mission. We needed to find Miss’terious. Sure, we had only seen pictures of her with her face modified, but that wasn’t going to stop us. So I definitely picked up and licked the plate with zero shame, and we headed back to the boat. I left a Pisa my heart in Italy that day.
That evening’s party brought us a “Night at the Cinema.” But rather than waste a free hand that could be better used to double fist, we left our fake Oscars in the room and headed to the deck in our normal clothes. Everyone else had really brought their A game that night. There were Marilyn Monroes, Chucky and his Bride, Beetlejuice, Superwoman. It looked like a convention for knockoff characters from Times Square—if everyone was there to make their ex jealous. And, yes, I do mean even that Chucky Doll costume was a li’l bit slutty.
We slammed a few drinks out of the gate to warm us up, or as I prefer to term it, we put on our “liquor ponchos.” The Boys came out and did their lip-synching-and-selfie routine again as Jos and I stood there, observing a Minion bent over and backed up on a fellow Minion like they were re-creating Rihanna’s “Work” video.
“You know what’s a bummer?” I said to Joselyn as I watched a Shrek and a Donkey grind.
“That we’ll never get to eat that pasta again?”
“Yes, to that. But also that it’s been so goddamn cold that we haven’t gotten in the pool once.” I looked over to the empty pool and hot tub.
“Fuck it, let’s get in the jacuzzzz!” Jos squealed. “I don’t care what any of these people think. Let’s suit up!”
And we were off! We ran down the decorated halls to our room, high-fiving Nick’s Chick’s poster on the wall, put on our bikinis, threw our dresses on top, and beelined it to the hot tub. By the time we got to the edge, I was amped on adrenaline, screaming, “Cannonbaaaaall!” as I started my approach. But the shadow of something made me stop myself from launching in at the last second.
“Oh, hello,” I said to a figure in the hot tub. Upon closer look, it was the silhouette of a woman dressed as Ariel from The Little Mermaid, her face hidden in the darkness. “Sorry, we didn’t see that anyone was in here.”
“That’s okay,” she said quietly, emerging into the night. She had really gone all out. Mermaid tail, shell bra, red wig.
I stared at her. Something about her was so familiar. Then it hit me. I started imagining her normal eyes replaced with massive baby-doll ones and her regular mouth with huge fake lips. Her labret piercing switched with . . . HOLY SHIT. It was Miss’terious! Joselyn and I realized this at the same exact moment as evidenced by us grabbing
each other’s hands like Thelma and Louise before they drive over the cliff.
We slowly backed away as she retreated to her shadows. “Have a great night, Miss’terious,” I said before we took off. As soon as we reached our rooms, we cracked open a bottle of red to toast. Screw that deck party; we were just fine whooping it up in our sardine can.
The next morning, the sun peeked through the blinds as the ship continued through the windy seas. It was our last full day and night on the cruise, and there was no port stop, just another full twenty-four hours on this island of BSB-yatches. We decided to skip out on such riveting activities as taking a cooking class with Brian and his wife (brilliantly named “Cooking with the Littrells”*), instead choosing to get a little day-drunk at the bar and then take a nap. We had the acoustic performance to look forward to that night, but we were prepared to sleep through everything else.
When we got back to our room, we were adequately tipsy and ready to conk out. Before I could swan dive into my bed, though, I noticed that our phone was blinking. “That’s weird; we have a voice mail,” I said, pushing the button and holding my breath. What a nightmare it would be if there was an emergency back home and we were stuck at sea, I thought to myself. I started flipping through a Rolodex of possible disaster scenarios, then hit Play to put myself out of my misery.
“Hi, this is [insert name here], calling for Marmie Hart.” Honestly, after thirty-something years of having my name mispronounced, this didn’t even elicit an eye roll. “Hi, Marmie. This is kind of random, but I work with the Backstreet Boys, and Kevin’s bodyguard, Keith, is also his best friend since childhood. Anyway, Keith’s daughter saw that you are on this cruise and is a big fan. We were wondering if you could meet with him to sign an autograph? Call me back when you have a sec!”
I hung up the phone slowly and looked at Joselyn, shaking my head. “Oh my god, what?! Is everything okay?!” I sat on the edge of my tiny bed. I could hear her own disaster Rolodex flipping at lightning speed. “Mamrie?! What is it?!”
I took a deep breath, raised my head to meet her eyes, and smiled. “We’re one step closer to Kevvy Kev.”
Within five minutes of chatting with the lady who left the voice mail, Jos and I were walking to the piano bar to meet this Keith so I could help a dad grab some street cred for his, no doubt, angsty teen with great taste in YouTube content.
“You’re Mamrie?” he asked, with a bit of disbelief in his voice. I think he was expecting another Miss’terious or Kevin’s Angel, not two normally dressed chicks who had an air of being over it.
“You know it,” I said before grabbing his phone to record a video for his daughter, letting her know how cool her dad was.
“I can’t thank you enough. She’s gonna freak out. Hey, you should come to the after-party tonight.”
Jos and I shot each other a look. “To be honest, Keith, we haven’t loved the parties. It’s kind of a shit show.” I couldn’t help but be truthful to his sweet, good ol’ boy Kentucky face.
“Oh, I know. The fans can get a little . . . let’s just say ‘intense.’” We chatted for a bit, and he got my number so he could text me his daughter’s reaction. Joselyn and I said good-bye and headed back to the room, disappointed. We had gotten one degree closer to Kevin, but no cigar.
Laying on our tiny beds that afternoon, we decided we’d go to the show and then call it an early night. We needed to be fresh for Madrid. The show itself was totally excellent and worth putting up with the screaming throng of women around us. Truly, you haven’t lived until you have watched the Backstreet Boys sit on stools, singing acoustic versions of “I Want It That Way” and “Backstreet’s Back.” Was it cheesy? Yes. But like a finely aged parmigiano reggiano lightly dusted over the best GODDAMN PASTA YOU’VE EVER EATEN.
After their fifth encore, we pushed ourselves through the throngs of formal dresses* and went back to our room, ready to call it a night.
All of a sudden, my phone dinged like a text was coming through. “That’s crazy,” I said, picking up my phone. “Nothing has come through since we left Italy. Watch this be AT&T to tell me I’ve got roaming charges from the sea the whole time.”
Girl, where you at? Come hang! I want you to meet Kevin!—Keith
I dropped my phone and looked at Joselyn. “Mamrie, I swear to God, that face! Unless someone died this time, that face is not okay,” she said.
“Oh, you’s about to die,” I said, handing her my phone. She read the text to herself, locked eyes with me, and then we both crashed through the door at high speed, getting stuck like we were Lucy and Ethel.
We ran through the boat. Everyone had gotten out of their rhinestone prom attire to get decked out for the final theme: “50 Shades of Backstreet.” For those of you over thirty, it looked like a lost segment from the show Real Sex that used to be on HBO in the nineties. It wasn’t the type of crew you were used to seeing decked out with a leather crop; it was more like walking in on your fifth grade social studies teacher in a sex dungeon. We pushed our way through the pleather and up to the front lounge of the boat to find Keith.
Guys, I’m not going to go into all the details of the night because they are both surreal and super blurry. But let’s just say that within thirty minutes, Joselyn and I were sitting in a private room with Keith and KEVVY KEV, drinking a bottle of Pappy Van Winkle and laughing our asses off. Kevin was wearing lace across his eyes for the night’s theme, and I believe I told him it looked like he had “ratchet panties” on his face. At one point, I looked over and Joselyn was telling him all about how we came on the cruise because we loved him in the doc. It was weird, and perfect, and sadly totally innocent because he is a married man.
I think my face says it all. Let it be known that Jos and I both have ZERO recollection of what we talked to him about for several hours.
We somehow made it back to our room and passed out happy for what felt like about five minutes before someone was banging on our door. “No thank you,” Joselyn mumbled, thinking it was housekeeping. But they wouldn’t stop knocking. I looked at the clock on my phone. It was seven thirty A.M. Mind you, we hadn’t even gone to sleep till five thirty. I only knew this from checking my Snapchat.*
I dragged myself to the door only to discover a very stern-looking captain—I’m talking full-on An Officer and a Gentleman white suit. “You gotta be out! This boat is leaving!”
“We’ll be out in five,” I croaked.
Joselyn and I were zombies. The blasting of the cruise ship’s horn felt like a personal attack on our irresponsibility of oversleeping and our hangovers. But it didn’t matter. We zipped up our ramshackle suitcases, pulled up the handles, and high-fived without saying a word.
We came. We saw. We Kevvy Kev’d. Ratchet panties and all.
Pity Party
BY THE TIME summer officially started, I was exhausted. Between Paris and Amsterdam and the cruise, I had spent more time abroad than I had in my new house. Not that I was complaining! This globe-trotting was exactly what I had needed to distract me from life. It had felt good to get out of LA, away from memories and responsibilities, and just let loose. That spring had been one giant spring cleaning to deal with the breakup. And, wouldn’t ya know it, it worked! Everything from losing my shit in Paris to being stoned and crying to the Dixie Chicks singing “Landslide” while being the cream to my friends’ Oreo had gotten everything out of my system. It was like I had been a sponge, filled with guilt and sadness and just plain grieving. Those trips wrung out that sponge, and now I was ready to enjoy my clean brain . . . not to mention absorb some new love along the way.
Part of me believed that once word of my newly single status got out, there would be a proverbial running of the bulls, with me in a red cocktail dress hauling ass from an onslaught of men. I was equally terrified that there would be radio silence, that I would go, “Hey, everybody! Guess who’s single?!” into an abyss, check my watch, and then
after five minutes, a male voice would finally echo back, “No one cares!”
My friends assured me that my dating skills would come back like second nature. I am here to tell you that sadly it was not as easy as they claimed. While I was cozy in my relationship, all of these “advancements” in dating had happened. I felt like I had been thawed out after being cryogenically frozen for a decade, or like I was Kimmy Schmidt emerging from the bomb shelter, saying weirdo dated phrases like “talk to the hand.” Texting, DMs, sexy Snapchats? None of this had existed when I was last single. I met my ex in 2006. Back then, if someone said “dating app,” they were probably referencing the mozzarella sticks they got at Chili’s during their last date. Texting was just a way to communicate where you were going to meet, and that was the end of it—none of this flirting via text and waiting to text back for a certain amount of (extremely anxiety-producing) time. The word “emoji” didn’t even exist, and forget about sending a sassy, over-the-shoulder butt shot. The quality on flip phones was so bad, your ass would’ve been in 8-bit.
Despite my apprehension, I was determined to polar-bear plunge back into the scene and finally go on a date—my first first date since 2006. I started asking my friends to hook me up with someone, figuring that a friend-of-a-friend approach would be a safe way to get back into it. Their response was inevitably, “What’s your type?”
“Hmmm,” I would say, tapping my chin. “I would say my ideal type is like a Courier New or Times New Roman.” Once they finished rolling their eyes (turns out not a lot of people are fans of font jokes), they would still be waiting for an answer that I didn’t have. My previous boyfriends from high school on were all very blond, blue-eyed, almost Nordic-looking dudes. But I wouldn’t say that was my “type.” Maybe I wanted to date a dark-haired, bearded guy. Or a guy covered in tats. Or a Spanish guy. Or an Indian guy. I was ready for my dating life to be an Epcot of possibilities.
