Chapter One
These tours always seem to go far too quickly for my liking.
I mean, my friends and I are privileged to take our songs and our show on the road, perform to sold-out audiences around the globe, and we get paid real good money to have a good time. Who else really gets to do something like this? We kill ourselves during filming of Glee. 5am call times, dance rehearsals, recording studio sessions, memorizing lines so we can shoot the scenes, and very often late nights – all of this, six days a week to produce one episode. One 42-minute episode. Our families think we're crazy for subjecting ourselves to such crazy work schedules and hectic lifestyles, but the rewards far outweigh the sacrifices. Sure, I haven't been able to sleep for more than four hours during the night, but I guess that's why they give us comfortable beds in the back of our trailers on the lot, for our quick little catnaps when we can fit them in. But the feeling of going on tour and singing the songs and dancing the well-rehearsed steps night after night has been nothing short of exhilarating. When we film, our crew members don't give us any kind of feedback. When you take the songs and dance moves to a stage in front of 40,000 people, it just makes you feel like all your work and all the shit that you went through is worth every second.
And the people that I'm doing this whole thing with aren't so bad either. When we first started this show in 2009, these people were just close friends and co-workers. But now, they're my entire family. I can't imagine going through this experience without them; no one can make me smile, laugh, think, sing, and feel like these people. Dianna and Jenna have become sisters to me. We really share our lives with each other, and we all know far too much about each other. In fact, those two are the only two that know about my love for my leading male in my life, Cory. They don't like to make it easy for me either – they always make sure that we get paired for solos, dance moves, photoshoots, interviews, red carpet walks… you name it, they always find a way to stick me with Cory. And don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining in the slightest. I could literally spend every minute of my day next to him and not get tired of all of his talk about hockey, his drumming on whatever objects are around him, his obsession with Angry Birds, or his humming of whatever song is stuck in his head for the week. Call me lame, call me head over heels, call me ridiculous… I don't really give a shit. Let me be in love with the man I have had a twinkle in my eye for for the past two and a half years.
I felt a heavy hand press down on my shoulder from behind as the airplane landed on the runway, the same heavy hand that always finds its way to my shoulder every time the plane lands. I bit my lip and smiled as I turned my head to see Cory's hand resting where it always does. He always knows how happy I get when the plane lands – I admit that I have the biggest fear of flying, which is inconvenient when you're a celebrity. In the air, I am the biggest ball of nerves, but once the airplane touches land and we have reached our destination, Cory always places his hand firmly down on my shoulder to congratulate me on making it through a tear-free flight. (Did I mention that I sometimes cry when I fly?) It's become our thing, that shoulder press. And even if I do happen to cry during a flight, like if there's too much turbulence or if we're flying over water and the plane turns and all you can see out of the window are the ripples and waves of the ocean, I just cover my eyes with my big oversized bug-eye sunglasses and he never has to know.
"Last one of the tour," he tells me in my ear, sending a small shiver down my spine. He doesn't look happy, instead, he looks saddened and disappointed that the Glee Live 2011 tour has ended.
I nod my head and pout my bottom lip. "Don't remind me," I mutter as I reach up and rub the top of his hand with mine. "Who am I going to sing to tonight when I get back to my apartment?"
"We should just Face Time and sing to each other."
You know what, it wasn't that crazy of an idea. It almost made me want to reach for my iPhone that second to start a call to start the sing-a-long.
Instead, I just chuckled and moved my hand off of his, and with this movement, he released his hold of my shoulder. I let out a heavy sigh as I looked out of the window of our small private aircraft. Sure enough, there were the California palm trees and sunshine. We were home. Well, I wasn't. My real home is in New York City, but for the duration of this job, I have to claim Los Angeles as my home base. Instead of going to my real home, we had all decided that we would spend one week together in a rented beach house in La Jolla to recover from the tour and to relax for the last few days before filming for Season 3 begins, starting tomorrow morning when the sun rises. There was no doubt that we were all looking forward to this vacation. Could you just imagine the 12 of us in one house for a week? Shit's going to get crazy. But you know what? This could be the most amazing crazy shit ever.