Usually, you have to wait about two weeks between really big jobs, because they try and get all of the recommended drivers a few big jobs a year, but it was just two days later and I had already received a call for another big job.
This time it was Jennifer Lopez. She had just done a concert in LA and my job was to pick her up and take her all the way to Las Vegas for her next concert. Usually she would take her private jet, but because of the heightened security risk and the fact it was only about 5 hours away they decided to put her in a limo.
I got to the concert a few hours after she was done and there was a huge crowd waiting at the exit. Jennifer walked out when I pulled up; she walked quickly through the crowd not even bothering to sign autographs and came straight to the limo. She was wearing a tight, black, strapless dress that really hugged all of her wonderful curves.
“Hi, your Josh, right?” she asked
I was a bit in awe for a second that she knew my name, “Umm…yeah, nice to meet you.”
“Yes I’m sure it is, now lets get going to Las Vegas.” With that she got into the back of the car before I could even get out to open the door for her and we were on our way.
She didn’t seem too happy for a little while, not saying anything for the first hour of the trip. Finally, we started to make a little bit of small talk and it was seemed to be going pretty well. About 3 hours into the trip I was close to out of gas so I stopped at the nearest gas station to fill up.
When I got back into the car after filling up Jennifer had a huge smile on her face and was trying to hold back a giggle. “What’s so funny?” I asked smiling back.
“Oh, nothing, nothing at all. Just keep on going.” I didn’t think much of it so I started it up and kept heading on the way.
But about 5 minutes later the limo started to make funny noises, and 2 minutes after that it stalled, I had just enough time to pull it over to the side before it made a complete stop. “ What happened?” Jennifer said sounding worried from the backseat.
“I’m not sure,” I responded, after checking under the hood. “I’m not much of a mechanic so I can’t really tell what’s wrong, I’m gonna call Las Vegas and tell them we will be a few hours late. Man, this sucks.”
“Oh, no I couldn’t stand to drive this late anyway, lets just walk back to the gas station, there was a bed & breakfast type place a few miles before that we can have someone give us a ride there and we’ll stay there for the night. I’ll call my agent and tell him to delay the concert for a few hours since we won’t be getting there until later tomorrow.”
One of the first things they tell you when you start to take bigger jobs is to let the celebrity have it their way. Since this seemed like a pretty reasonable plan, and I was damn tired, I figured what the heck, and we started walking back to the gas station.
We got to the gas station and the owner quickly gave us a ride down to the bed & breakfast. I mean it was Jennifer Lopez like he was going to turn us down. It was about 2 in the morning by the time we got there.
The owner of the gas station knew the owner of the place so he went in and explained the situation. The owner of the bed & breakfast quickly came out and said they had the two best rooms they had prepared for us. But to my surprise, Jennifer had other plans.
“Oh, no that’s ok, we don’t want to be that much trouble, we can just take one room.” Everyone looked shocked. Including me, but I definitely was not going to argue. Who would turn down such an offer?