The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea

by Elizabeth O'Roark

  The camp siren goes off for the third time in as many days. “Sorry, Mom, I have to go.” I end the call to report to the hospital. We’ll probably be on lockdown again all night, my life is likely at risk, and I’m so depressed after the call from my mother that I barely even care.

  47

  DREW

  For the next two weeks, I do what I have to do.

  I get through the interviews and get my dress fitted for the premiere and go to the studio, putting in the motions of bringing the demos to life. My performance is so lackluster that Davis finally explodes and tells me to take a few days off and pull my shit together.

  I don’t feel sad. I simply feel numb. LA is still sunlit and busy and I feel like a ghost as I float over its streets. I have no purpose anymore. Ben is still on me about the forensic accountant and I can’t commit to that either. I don’t know how my life can be so empty yet feel unbearably heavy at the same time.

  Someone has uploaded a video of me performing my new song that last night in Oahu, having finally realized who I was. The comments are equally divided between That’s way better than Naked and Tell her to stick with what she knows. It hurts to watch. There was so much love in my eyes as I sang to Josh. I had so much faith in him, and it’s never coming back.

  The only bright spot, the only bearable moment, is when I visit Tali and the baby each day. They’re at their house in Hollywood Hills, as—to Tali’s chagrin—Hayes is temporarily refusing to leave LA.

  “Just in case Audrey needs, you know, emergency brain surgery at UCLA,” Tali explains with a laugh, pulling the baby to her shoulder and burping her like an old pro. “He’s insane.”

  “It’s sweet, though,” I tell her, watching as she offers a pinky to Audrey, who grasps it. That’s the thing with mothers, I’m finding—they can’t seem to stop seeking contact, even when the child no longer needs it. Even when, as in my mother’s case, they sometimes do more harm than good.

  Tali looks up at me and sees something on my face. “Have you spoken to Josh?”

  I swallow. “I told you. I blocked his calls. The whole thing was pointless. It was just going to drag on forever.”

  She gives me a sad smile. “Not everything that drags on forever necessarily hurts forever, though,” she says.

  I swallow in polite disagreement. In her life, things work out okay. In mine, even the good things go to hell, eventually.

  On the day of the premiere, I reluctantly rise and prepare for a day I could hardly be less interested in. Getting ready for something like this is a lot like getting ready for a wedding, if that wedding was taking place at three PM and involved millions of people discussing your weight, pores and love life afterward. An entire day wasted in hair and makeup, then a red carpet, then a movie I don’t want to watch followed by a party I don’t want to attend. A thousand women would kill to trade places with me and there’s nothing wrong with that. There’s also nothing wrong with the fact that I’d kill to trade places with a woman staying home. I’m tired of pretending to be excited and grateful all the time.

  I’m in a suite at the Beverly Hills Hotel because my cottage wasn’t large enough for all the people it will take to make me presentable. By nine in the morning the facialist is there, complaining about broken capillaries and blackheads I can’t even see. And then the rest of the crew moves in—manicurist, hairdresser, makeup artist, stylist.

  Stephanie and Davis are in rooms nearby with friends and family, who pop in sporadically to gawk. The atmosphere is celebratory. There is cheering and laughter and champagne corks popping and the entire time I feel sick, wound so tight that even smiling is a struggle. There’s a huge spread on the table and I’m too nauseous to eat.

  “Don’t be nervous, hon,” says the hairstylist. “You’re going to look beautiful. That guy you were dating is going to explode when he sees you with Luke Powell.”

  I want to laugh and cry at the same time. By that guy you were dating he means Six, not his brother, which is who actually concerns me. How long will it take for the news to make its way to Somalia? How long do I have before Josh sees pictures of me on the arm of another man, thinking I’ve moved on? How long ‘til he starts dating the pretty nurse, if he isn’t already? Not long. The speed of light, really. There are thousands of gossip sites, thousands of places those pictures will post. It just takes one staff member there checking TMZ before Josh knows too. Sabine probably has an alert set, waiting for this moment to swoop in.

  I’d have set one, too, so I can’t really blame her.

  Good, I think. Let me ruin everything. It was going to be ruined eventually anyway. But my stomach continues to churn.

  My hair is blown out, meticulously straightened, and then re-curled. When I check my phone afterward, I see two missed calls from an unknown number that begins with the Somali country code. Is it Josh, calling from a different number because I blocked his?

  It’s 1:30 in the morning there. Why would he be calling me so late? I squeeze my eyes shut and take a deep breath, trying to stay calm. I blew off all his claims about the dangers of that camp, but the terrible possibility that he was right makes me feel like I’ve taken a hit to the chest. I can’t listen to the voicemail fast enough.

  For a moment, the line is silent, as if someone didn’t know it was recording. And then I hear his voice and my world stops. “Hey.” It’s a whisper. He pauses. “Hey, I know—”

  The line goes dead, leaving open every possibility. Why did he just hang up like that? Did something go wrong, or did he just decide that whatever he was going to say was pointless?

  I call the number back, but there’s no answer. He doesn’t answer his cell either. My hands press to my stomach. Maybe he just wanted to talk, then changed his mind and went to bed. Or maybe something terrible has happened. He was evacuated last summer. I guess things do go wrong there.

  “You need a drink,” says the makeup artist. “It’s not like you to be so nervous.”

  I shake my head, forcing a smile. “No, I’m fine.” If I have even one hair less self-control than I have at the moment, I will cause a scene that will make falling off the stage in Amsterdam look like child’s play.

  I continue to be painted and sprayed and fussed over, fighting myself the entire time not to call Beth. Yes, she’d be the first person contacted if something bad happened, but the last thing she needs is to be needlessly alarmed by me. And how would I explain the fact that the wrong son called me in the middle of the night?

  By three PM, I’m nearly ready. I stand in nothing but Spanx while the stylist and her assistant pull the dress over my head—there is no such thing as modesty when you’re trying to keep makeup off a borrowed Christian Siriano.

  The dress is a sample size two. “Was it this tight before?” I ask as they zip me up.

  The stylist laughs. “It’s supposed to be tight. If you can breathe easily, that’s when I know we have a problem.”

  Except I wasn’t breathing easily before the dress was on.

  My phone starts to bleat while the safe with the jewels on loan is opened.

  “Ashleigh,” I call. “Who is it?”

  “Someone named Beth?” she asks in response, but she’s already setting the phone back on the table. No one named Beth could possibly be important, she thinks.

  “I need it,” I gasp.

  Ashleigh crosses the room. I grab it on the last ring.

  “Drew?” Beth cries. There is panic in her voice. Beth, who shrugged off her son being held in a foreign jail and everything else that occurred in Hawaii, is hysterical. “I’m trying to locate Joel. Is he with you?”

  “Me?” I reply. “No. Why? Is everything okay?”

  She releases a choked sob. “It’s Josh,” she says, and Jim takes the phone from her.

  “We’re trying to locate Joel,” he says, his voice even but tense. “There was an attack on the refugee camp about an hour ago. We don’t know what’s happened, but we don’t want Joel to hear it from the press first.”r />
  I sink to the floor. There’s a collective gasp from the room and I don’t care. The stylist rushes toward me and I hold up a hand to ward him off. “What else do you know? Is someone trying to get them out?”

  “They’re not telling us anything,” he says. “Sloane made some calls…it sounds like the medical personnel were being evacuated when the attack began and two doctors stayed behind. They think Josh was one of them.”

  My breath stops. He called me. He called me when it was happening. Maybe because he thought he was going to die.

  “What does that mean?” I ask. My hands shake, my lungs can’t get enough air. “For him. What does that mean?”

  I’m making no sense. Jim somehow understands the question. “It means they probably took him hostage…or worse,” he says quietly. “We’re trying to get ahold of the embassy in Ethiopia since that’s where they went the last time they were evacuated.”

  My brain is spinning. I can’t focus. “We have to go to Ethiopia,” I tell him. “We need to—”

  I stop and press my hand over my face because I have no idea what we need to do. I have no idea who to pressure to find him. The one person I want to lean on in this moment is Josh. With that thought, I burst into tears.

  “I’ll call you back,” I whisper.

  I would give up my entire fortune for this not to be happening, to be back where we were the day before when he was safe and I was merely heartbroken.

  Davis and Stephanie come barreling in, summoned by Ashleigh, no doubt.

  “What’s the problem?” barks Davis.

  “We may need to iron the dress,” says the stylist as I push myself off the floor. “How much time do we have?”

  “No,” I say quietly. “I’m not going.”

  “Not going?” Davis yells. “The hell you’re not going. You’re supposed to perform. You can’t just choose not to go.”

  I look at him and feel utterly clear for the first time. “Of course I can,” I reply. “Ashleigh, I need a private plane out of LA. One that can go a long distance. Now.”

  She looks at Davis and does nothing. My laughter borders on hysteria. “Ashleigh, are you serious? I’m the one who’s paying you.”

  “I—” She looks from me to Davis. “You have to be on stage in two hours.”

  And again, it’s so clear. It was always clear. I was just scared I’d make things worse, but there’s nothing these people could ever do to match the terror I feel right now.

  “You’re fired,” I reply, turning for the bedroom. Davis grabs my dress so hard it tears from the back. Everyone in the room gasps in unison.

  “You are not going anywhere,” he says, gripping my arm. “This is breach of contract. They can sue you and so can I.”

  I look at his hand on my arm. “You just tore my dress and grabbed me inappropriately. There are fifteen witnesses. I’m pretty sure I can sue you right back.”

  I pull away and march into my room, reaching for my inhaler as I wrench the dress off. And then I call Ben. “Pull the trigger. On all of it. Also, do you know how I can get a plane?”

  From the car, I call Beth and Jim and tell them I’ve got a plane ready to go. We’ll leave for Ethiopia in ninety minutes, sooner if we get there faster and the pilot does too. I’m calling everyone I know to make sure this is being taken seriously.

  “This is so kind of you,” Beth says. “You really don’t have to go there. I know you’re busy.”

  She still thinks I’ve done all this simply because I dated Six. It kills me that I can’t tell them, but maybe it’s for the best. Because if they knew, I’d have to tell them he tried to call me, and the fact that he got cut off doesn’t seem good.

  “It might help to have me there,” I tell her. “There might be people I can call.”

  “You’re right,” she says, and then she’s crying again. “This is so kind of you. I’ll never forget it. I’m still trying to reach Joel. Hopefully he can come with us.”

  Normally, I’d think Six’s presence would make a bad situation worse. Except this situation can’t get worse. It might already be over and we don’t even know.

  I go online and look up kidnappings in Somalia, and I wish I hadn’t. Josh wasn’t exaggerating about the dangers. Kidnappings are routine there. Kidnapping of doctors is routine. An optimist would see that at least half of them survive. A pessimist, me, sees that of the other half, many die, and many are held for years before they are rescued. I close Wikipedia. I don’t want to know any more.

  The plane is ready to go by the time Beth and Jim reach the airport. “I reached Joel,” Beth says, squeezing my hand. “He’s flying out tonight.”

  She looks so hopeful about us. I feel all the blood drain from my face but I say nothing. It doesn’t matter. Nothing at all matters as long as Josh is okay.

  I let Jim and Beth take the actual bedroom at the back of the plane. I’m sleeping fitfully in one of the reclining seats when she takes the chair beside me. Her face is drawn.

  “We just heard from Sloane,” she says, tears rolling down her face. “They’ve been found, but several people are injured and an American is dead.”

  The tight knot in my stomach becomes a hole and I feel as if I’m falling right through it. There were other Americans there, but the bulk of the staff was French. And I know how little good hoping for the best does at times like this. Beth begins to sob and I join her, my face in my hands, my shoulders shaking.

  “What are they doing with the survivors?” I ask when I can finally get the words out. “When will we know?”

  “They’ll be flown to Ethiopia once they’re medically stable,” she says. “The rest of the staff is already on their way there.”

  My eyes squeeze shut. Even if Josh isn’t the one who died, that still doesn’t mean he’s okay. And if he is okay, if he did survive, I need to know this can never happen again. Beth goes back to the bedroom and I pick up my phone.

  “Hey, Ben,” I say to his voicemail, “when you’re drawing all this up, can you do one more thing? I want to give fifteen million dollars to this refugee camp in Somalia.” I know I’ve got that much liquid right now and I’ll send more later. “And half of it has to be earmarked for security.”

  I’m somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean right now—groundless, without a manager, without a record deal or an assistant, and soon to be without most of my money. None of it matters. Josh is the one thing, of all the things I had, that I wish was still mine.

  It’s early evening when we arrive in Ethiopia. The air is sweltering, Beth seems exhausted, and just as I’m kicking myself for not arranging transportation, I see a driver holding a sign with the names Bailey/Andreyev on it. Ben has taken care of everything.

  Beth’s been told that some of the survivors of the shooting are already on the plane to Ethiopia, so we go straight to the hospital. The first person I see when we enter the emergency room is Sabine. Her eyes go wide and then she launches herself at me, as if I’m family. “Thank you for coming,” she says and she starts crying. “They won’t tell us anything. Please. Do you have news? Please.”

  That small, terrified voice inside me thinks: She doesn’t sound like a friend or a colleague. But this is about Josh, and I just want him to be happy, even if it’s not with me. “I don’t know anything.”

  She buries her face in her hands. “I should have stayed with him,” she says and she starts to cry. Her friends console her and I walk away with Beth.

  “Who was that?” Beth asks. “Is she his girlfriend?”

  My stomach sinks. Even Beth thinks there was something there. “I don’t know,” I reply, my heart so heavy it hurts. It doesn’t matter. “She’s someone he works with, I think.”

  I know Six has arrived when I hear Jim’s disgusted exhale. I resent him for it, but I understand it as well—even from a distance it’s clear Six is worse for wear. He’s wearing sunglasses inside and I can smell his pot-and-beer odor from five feet away. He hugs his mother, then me.

  “Th
anks for helping my parents,” he says against my ear. “Can we talk later, once we know the deal with Josh?”

  “There is absolutely nothing to discuss,” I reply, detaching myself. “I didn’t do this for you.”

  There’s a commotion at the door before he can even react. A gurney is coming in, led by two guys in flight suits. The patient is on oxygen, has lines going everywhere. I clutch Beth’s arm until the guy’s face comes into view.

  “It’s not him,” I whisper, relieved and devastated at once. I don’t want Josh to have been badly hurt, but I’d take that over other alternatives. Suddenly, Beth’s legs start to give out. I catch her and Jim sprints across the room to help me get her into a chair.

  “I’m sorry,” she cries with her face in her hands. “I was so scared and then it wasn’t him and now I wish it was. He’s still my baby.” Jim places a hand on her back and my eyes tear up yet again. I’ve only known Josh a fraction of the time they have and I’m devastated. I can’t imagine what this must be like for them.

  The next time the doors open, I brace myself. It won’t be him. Don’t get your hopes up.

  And then I stand to get a better look and clutch the plastic waiting room chair beside me to stay upright, covering my mouth to hide the strangled sob that leaves my throat.

  Josh.

  He’s bare-chested and there’s a makeshift bandage around his shoulder that’s soaked in blood. He’s being pushed through the doors in a wheelchair, but he’s alive. Tears roll down my face at the sight of him, pale and exhausted, barefoot, covered in dirt. But alive. Thank God.

  His family surges forward while I stay behind, watching as he rises from the wheelchair—ignoring the outcry from the soldier pushing him. He hugs his mom, his father, even Six. Sabine and the other two nurses have rushed toward him as well.

  I want to stand here and stare at him until I’ve had my fill. I want more than that, but I’d settle simply for the sight of him. Except, my part in this is done. I wanted to know he was safe, and that will have to be enough. I’m not going to make an awkward situation worse.