I had been on the covers of a bunch of teen magazines, and then Nick and I started appearing on magazine covers together. When we got the cover of the very first issue of Teen Vogue, it was a huge deal for us. Herb Ritts shot the cover on the beach in Malibu, and when I heard about the location, I got scared that this was going to be another “let’s show some skin” situation. Herb had shot Janet Jackson’s “Love Will Never Do (Without You)” video, which introduced the world to the abs Tommy Mottola thought I should have, too.
I didn’t need to worry, because Herb immediately put me at ease. They didn’t want me too done up, so there was very little makeup. He was so focused on the light of the sunset on our faces and capturing the real sweetness of two people who were genuinely crazy about each other. I wore J. Crew jeans and a baggy cream sweater from DKNY Jeans; Nick was in a Banana Republic sweater and Dockers khakis. Mall clothes people could see themselves in. I held the sleeves in my fists just like, well, a real girl on a date with her cute boyfriend. I swear, it seemed like he only took ten shots before announcing he had it. He was right. It was one of the first covers that I didn’t pick apart for a flaw.
Condé Nast did a huge media push behind Teen Vogue, mailing their first ever issue to everyone who was subscribed to regular Vogue. This was incredible exposure for us and a chance to establish ourselves outside the teen market. The cover line was “Pop’s New Princess” and then “Jessica Simpson” huge in red. And then beneath, smaller and in black, “& Nick Too.” I was so proud, but I also recognized that I had entered the relationship as Nick’s plus-one. Whenever I felt self-conscious about the increased attention I was getting from the media and how it might affect our relationship, I would tell myself, He sells more records. And he did. 98 Degrees had a single come out that June, “Give Me Just One Night (Una Noche),” which reached number two on the Billboard Hot 100. You were only as big as your last hit, and he’d just had his biggest one yet.
I didn’t want to outshine him, because that just wasn’t what I knew. He seemed so much older than me, my guide in everything. I wanted him to feel like he could show me all that he knew—about the business, about the world.
He was there for so many of my firsts, even my first taste of alcohol when we went to Hawaii. At twenty, I had never had a drink before, and I turned to Nick like a father, asking if it was okay. “You’re on vacation,” he said.
I immediately felt the effect, and Nick thought it was hysterical. I realized I liked the woozy feeling. “If we get in the hot tub,” Nick said, “you’ll feel it more.”
“Oh!” I said. “Then let’s go to the hot tub!”
I pinballed down the hallway, talking to everybody we passed. After I told an elderly woman she was beautiful, I whispered to Nick, “Was that weird?”
“No, just keep going,” he said.
He was right about the hot tub. We kissed, and I stopped worrying about everything. “Okay, so what kind of drink can we have tomorrow?” I asked.
He brought two wine coolers to my room at the hotel, because of course we had separate rooms. These were the starter drinks the kids in my high school drank at the parties I avoided. I drank two, loving the feeling of calm it gave me, the closeness to Nick it gave me. I felt grown up, closer to his age.
“Ohhh, it’s so pretty outside,” I said, getting up to go to the balcony. I walked right into the screen door, knocking it off its hinge. It crashed to the ground, and I laughed because Nick laughed. He called down to the front desk to have it fixed, and I stood behind him when they sent someone up to fix it.
“Relax, baby,” he said. And I did, feeling like maybe I was growing up after all.
We were all changing in my family, and in a real way we were all growing up together. We were having experiences we would have shunned years before. I am not sure when my parents started to drink alcohol, but they took to it. The lines are so blurred in the music industry—there’s a need to be in the mix, and so many meetings and events are at bars and restaurants. They wanted to fit in. There were parts of us that were still so country, but we were all trying on these new lives. We didn’t go to church, and I noticed my dad dropping f-bombs on the phone as he advocated for me.
As we changed, my parents’ marriage had devolved from a friendship to a business arrangement. They fought more than ever, always nitpicking and blaming each other if some plan with my career didn’t work out. When Tom Hicks, who gave us the money to move to California, came to get a return on his investment, my dad didn’t want to pay him.
“It’s pennies to him,” he said, over and over. “He’s a gazillionaire.”
“Dad, you signed a contract,” I said. “We signed a contract.” I had to pay him a huge sum of money, and this was out of my income after taxes. He wasn’t the last person I had to pay off because of a promise my dad made on my behalf. But I didn’t ask questions. I just missed the days when we only had to save up to tithe.
SONY AND COLUMBIA DECIDED TO MAKE A PUSH FOR ME IN THE YOUTH market, so during graduation season, I did Disney Grad Nites in Orlando with Destiny’s Child. Disney World would shut down the park certain nights and only allow high school seniors to attend. We would perform at the end, and I just loved it. It gave me more time to bond with Beyoncé and Kelly Rowland (this was pre-Michelle), and besides having Teresa in common, these were Texas girls who hadn’t forgotten where they came from. Beyoncé and I had similar family dynamics, so I think we understood each other well. Her father had left his business—in his case, Xerox, not Jesus—and her mother, Tina, became the group’s stylist. Our younger sisters, Ashlee and Solange, were both our backup dancers, and they, too, became friends. We shared failure stories to buck each other up. Hers was Star Search, back when the group was known as Girl’s Tyme, mine was the Mickey Mouse Club disaster.
Destiny’s Child were just really nice people, and I was so used to being one of the only girls on a tour with guys that I loved being with them. It was also ironic that here we were, two singers who’d left school to be the family business and never had a graduation day, celebrating all these other kids who did.
On one of the Grad Nites, we were all backstage just before a concert when a security guard came up to me.
“There’s a girl who says her friend is a huge fan,” he said, “and her dream is to meet you.”
“Tell her I will absolutely be hanging around after,” I said.
“Cool, cool,” he said. He started to turn back and then added, “Just so you know, her friend is blind.”
“Go get her now,” I said. He nodded, smiling.
He brought back two girls. “This is Lauren,” said the friend, who led her to me. Lauren was nineteen, my age, and wearing her school’s baggy white Class of 2000 T-shirt.
“Hi, Lauren,” I said, and I asked if I could hold her hands.
She nodded, saying, “You sound like you.”
“Well, I hope so.”
“I’ve listened to your album like a million times,” she said. “I know all the words.” She told me she loved “I Wanna Love You Forever,” but her real favorite was “Your Faith in Me.”