Clay Aiken, who came in second to Ruben "the Velvet Teddy Bear'' Studdard in the most recent American Idol contest on Fox, has been keeping a few things to himself. During the months he tenored his way up the competition's ranks -- he missed winning by a mere 134,400 votes out of 24 million, a margin of one half of one percent -- he didn't reveal much more than that he was a good-natured, Baptist-churchgoing twenty-four-year-old with a goofy grin, mudflap ears, penguin-size feet and a pure crooner's voice that at one point, while working through his rendition of "Solitaire," brought guest judge Neil Sedaka almost to tears. Aiken was viewed as a kind of genial innocent, largely untouched by the vagaries of life, with a scant biography that nonetheless went far in enlarging his voting bloc. "Refreshingly normal,'' Newsweek called him. He loved kids, loved working with kids as a veteran YMCA camp counselor in his hometown of Raleigh, North Carolina, especially kids with autism, and was a senior at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, majoring in special ed. He gave every indication of having been raised among saints.

But the show is over now, and he's walked away with a recording contract of his own, from RCA Records. So certain things he may have felt it wise to hold close before, he no longer does. He's scared of water, detests house cats, vastly prefers instant grits to real and bites his toenails: All this he can freely admit to, in that cheerful silky-twangy Southern accent of his. And then one day, he seems to surprise even himself -- "I can't believe I'm talking about this!'' -- by saying a few words about his father, one Vernon Grissom, whose last name he had until four years ago, when he legally replaced it with Aiken, his mother's maiden name.

He says these things at an outdoor restaurant in Los Angeles, on Sunset Boulevard, where he'd just ordered a bowl of spaghetti Bolognese. He was sitting with his retinue (two publicists and a bodyguard who he half-suspects even tastes his food, for poison) and trying not to notice all the other patrons gazing in his direction. "I'm really not that special,'' he said. "Really, I'm not. I was on a big TV show, but it was just a TV show. I've even had waiters give me their head shot. Like, why? What can I do?'' He seemed honestly perplexed by his new celebrity status and not happy with some of it. When one of his publicists began gawking at another celebrity -- "I think he was on Magnum, P.I.,'' she said -- Aiken glowered and said, "You know what? Please don't stare at people. You should go sit with those people over there. They like to stare at people, too.'' After that, he chatted pleasantly about his morning pedicure and manicure; about how before American Idol the show he really wanted to be on was Amazing Race; about meeting Britney Spears; about how somebody offered his mom, Faye Parker, $16,000 for his 1999 Honda Accord with 88,000 miles on it, if only he'd autograph the dashboard.