by Robinne Lee
She was crying now. The tears rushing. Her pain, palpable.
“Promise me, Izz. Please. Promise me.”
“Okay.” She nodded. “Okay.”
But I knew it in my heart: there was no ignoring this.
* * *
Isabelle and I spent Christmas with my parents in Cambridge. Technically it was not my year to have her, but since Daniel was taking her to Maui for the second half of the holiday, he conceded Christmas. Coparenting was a complicated thing.
My mother and father fawned over Isabelle. They adored her and encouraged her in a way that I had not felt they’d done for me. She was free to have her flaws, to be a little too loud, a little too dramatic, a little too American. And I think they found her amusing. Like a piece of Pop Art in a collection of Realists. They’d been much less forgiving with their own daughter.
In my parents’ house there were reminders of my failures. There, in the library, amidst my father’s numerous honors and awards and my mother’s whimsical sketches. My wedding invitation, which my mother had mounted and encased in a shadow box frame with hydrangea petals from my bouquet. “Professor and Mrs. Jérôme Marchand request the honour of your presence at the wedding of their daughter Solène Marie to Mr. Daniel Prentice Ford…” They’d had them printed in French as well. There was my acceptance letter from Harvard. That not so much a failure as a reminder of my father’s disappointment. And the numerous photos of me as a would-be ballerina.
For all these reasons I’d delayed telling them about Hayes. Because I knew there would be judgment. But now that it was out there in the public, I could no longer put it off.
* * *
“I’m going to tell you something, but you have to promise you’ll keep your criticisms to yourself.”
It was twilight, two days before Christmas, and my mother and I were strolling on Newbury Street, awash in its holiday glow. It had been raining on and off, with temperatures in the forties. The chill penetrating my coat, cutting to my bones. I’d lost five pounds since New York. It was not intentional.
“Eh, pffft,” my mother said, making that typically French gesture of disdain. “C’est parfois difficile.”
“It’s not difficult, Mom. Just try it.”
“Okay, alors. Vas-y. What is it?”
“I’m seeing this guy. He’s in a band.” I’d begun to make a concerted effort to no longer refer to Hayes as a “boy.” If not for his dignity, then for mine.
“A band?” she repeated. “Does he do drugs? Does he have tattoos?”
“No.” I smiled. “No drugs. No tattoos.”
“Is he poor?”
“No.” The idea was amusing to me, Hayes struggling. “It’s a fairly successful band. The premiere Isabelle has been talking about was for his group.”
“C’est quoi, leur nom?”
“August Moon.”
She shook her head. “Never ’eard of them.”
I laughed, my breath visible in the air. A car drove by us then, honking its horn. It struck me as a nostalgic sound, gridlock, wheels rolling over cold wet pavement. Winter in the city.
“Is he an idiot?”
“No, Mom. Give me some credit. He’s smart. He’s educated and charming … I think you would like him actually. He’s British. He comes from a good family. He’s kind…”
“So what is the problem then?”
I hesitated for a moment. “Il a vingt ans.”
“Vingt ans?”
I don’t know why I thought telling her his age in French would lessen the blow. Evidently, I was mistaken.
“Vingt ans?!” she repeated. “Oh, Solène … Ce que tu es drôle!”
It was not the response I had been expecting. I humored her? Well, I suppose it was better than disappointing her, disgusting her, disgracing her. All of which she had let me know, in no uncertain terms, that I had done at some point or another. Maybe, in her old age, she was softening.
She was quiet for a moment, stopping to gaze into the window at Longchamp. And then when she resumed walking, she turned to me and said, “Well, this is just sex, right?”
I looked at her, speechless, although I should not have been. This was my mother after all. She was nothing if not blunt.
“You cannot fall in love with him,” she continued. A warning. “Solène? You cannot…”
I said nothing.
Her face fell. “You have already fallen in love with him. Dis-donc!” She shook her head.
Now she was disappointed.
To my mother, falling in love was a bad thing. Not because I could get hurt, but because, to her, I was giving up my power. What a bizarre notion that was. That I could not completely open my heart and still be strong. That I was no longer in control of the relationship if I wasn’t in control of my feelings. And as if any of that actually mattered.
“Vingt ans,” she repeated, sighing. We were passing the Church of the Covenant as we neared Berkeley Street. “Eh bien … Well, maybe you are more French than I thought.”
And then I saw it, at the right corner of her mouth … the hint of a smile.
* * *
Anguilla was a magical place. A tiny slip of an island in the Lesser Antilles. Sleepy, subtle, even in its peak season. Hayes—or, more accurately, his assistant, Rana—had found us a secluded villa on the south shore with breathtaking views of Saint-Martin. Limestone, teak, exquisitely appointed. We had staff, we had security, and we had four bedrooms and seven days to ourselves.
“Do you like it?” he said. We were in the great room with its retractable glass doors opening to the terrace, the infinity pool, and a majestic panorama of the Caribbean.
“It’ll do.”
He smiled, squeezing me from behind. “Are you happy?”
“I am very happy.”
We stood like that for some time, his body pressed up against mine, his nose buried in my hair, soaking in the moment, the tropical breeze, the seascape, serenity.
“Come,” he said eventually. “Let’s see the rest of the place.”
We wandered through the various wings of the villa to see the additional bedrooms and their en suite baths, each with its own remarkable view. Outdoor showers and bathtubs perched on balconies, and Hayes took it in with the eagerness of a child.
“I assume we’re going to christen these all. Is that the plan?”
He laughed, nodding. “You know me far too well.”
“Well, I didn’t think we were coming here for the golf.”
When we entered the third bedroom, with its cool stone floors and its walls of glass, I noticed, set up along the south wall, an easel and, accompanying it, pencils, paper, a pack of newly purchased Holbein watercolors, and Kolinsky brushes.
“What is this? Did you see these? Hayes…”
He was standing in the doorway, still. And then I understood. He’d arranged for it.
“The light is incredible here,” he said. “I thought you might want to capture it.”
I turned to him, enveloping him, my heart full.
“You.”
“Me?”
“You like me.”
He paused for a moment, upsetting our usual back-and-forth.
“I love you,” he said. Without qualifiers, without conditions. He allowed it to sit there and wash over me. Warm, like the Caribbean sun.
“You don’t have to say anything,” he said; apparently, I hadn’t. “Just know that I do.”
* * *
On Monday, having sufficiently christened all the rooms in the house, we ventured out to explore the island. And sitting beside him, in our rented jeep, the wind in our hair, his arms bronzed and beautiful maneuvering the stick shift, driving on the left side of the road, felt like some kind of teenage fantasy realized. The boyfriend I never had in high school. And as trite as it sounded, I was content to live in that moment. Me, with my middle-aged self.
We spent the afternoon at a small whisper of a beach called Mimi’s Bay on the east end of the island. We’d whiled awa
y an hour at the Anguilla Heritage Museum earlier, and Mimi’s was a stone’s throw away. It was secluded and required a drive up a barely navigable dirt road and a hike through brush to get there. Our entire MO on this trip was to not be identified. And when we arrived on the strip of white sand and found ourselves alone, Hayes high-fived me. Who knew he’d find such joy in escaping his celebrity?
* * *
“Remember the first time I was at your place and you told me not to do the baby-fantasy thing with you?”
It came out of nowhere. After swimming and sunning and downing the picnic lunch Hyacinth, our cook, had prepared, we were prostrate on our blanket, soaking up the late-afternoon sun, and he brought it up. The baby-fantasy thing. He’d managed to remember the exact phrasing.
“Did you just not want me to talk about it? Or did you not want me to imagine it at all?” he continued.
“Both.”
He turned to face me then, taking my hand. “Why does it scare you?”
I could not answer him. I could not tell him that still, even with my heart wedged open and him burrowing inside, even with him professing his love, still there could be no happy ending. That this teenage fantasy I was living out in my head was just that.
He repositioned himself, placing his head on my chest. “Are you just not going to discuss this with me? Are you just going to leave me wondering?”
“I’m forty, Hayes…”
“I know how old you are, Solène. And I imagine I know what’s running through your head…”
“You’re so young.” My hand was in his hair. His thick, beautiful hair. “You have your whole life ahead of you. Don’t rush it.”
He was quiet for a second, staring up at the sky. “Would you ever have another baby?”
“I don’t know … It would have to be the right circumstances. And it would have to happen pretty soon…”
“Did you and Daniel ever want another one?”
“At one point, yeah … but I also wanted to work. And he didn’t want me to do both.”
He took hold of my hand, squeezing it. “I would let you do both.”
It tickled me. That he was so infatuated he was incapable of thinking straight. That he just wanted to make me happy.
I loved him.
I had yet to say it, but I loved him.
* * *
On Wednesday, New Year’s Eve day, we chartered a fifty-two-foot speedboat to go island-hopping. Hayes nixed St. Barth and Saint-Martin because he wanted to avoid the paparazzi at all costs, so we kept it to a tour of Anguilla and its surrounding islands. We had lobster, we had champagne, we had each other, and we were happy. At some point in the afternoon, our captain, Craig, moored our boat just off the coast of Dog Island, and Hayes and I swam in to explore. It was an uninhabited islet that was so serene and raw in its beauty, we did not want to leave. The sand like talcum, the water an unfathomable blue.
“Let’s buy this place and live here and grow old together,” Hayes said. We were lying on the beach staring out at the sea.
“Like The Blue Lagoon?”
“The what?”
I laughed. That he did not get my pop culture references.
“What? Why are you laughing? Was that a movie?”
“Forget it.”
“Am I too young?”
“You’re not too young,” I said. “You’re perfect.”
* * *
Later, when we’d swum back out to the boat and were lying on the sun pads in the back, our captain otherwise engaged, Hayes was taking liberties. There were a handful of other boats that had anchored near us, including the sleek catamaran that we’d spotted earlier in the day at Shoal Bay, but none were close enough to detect him tracing the triangles of my bikini top with his finger. His touch at once faint and deliberate.
“Why are your bones all sticking out? You haven’t been doing some crazy juicing thing?”
I watched his hands descend over my ribs. Drops of water from his hair falling and pooling between my breasts. “No. But it might have something to do with the fact that your fans are calling me at work.”
“Are they?” He stopped. “I’m sorry. Are you talking to them?”
I shook my head. “They’re just leaving messages. Letting me know how they feel about me.”
“I’m sorry,” he repeated. “I can’t imagine Lulit’s happy.”
“No. Lulit is very much not happy.”
“You should talk to them. Tell them I say hi. Tell them I send my love. Tell them, ‘Hayes says, “All the love,”’” he snickered, his fingers moving once again, traversing my belly, dipping in my navel.
“Are you just trying to make me laugh?”
“I’m trying to make you laugh. I’m sorry. I know you didn’t sign up for this…”
“I signed up for lunch.”
“Lunch, and some polite fingering?”
I laughed. “I thought that’s what lunch was.”
“It’s code, actually.”
“It’s boy band speak?”
“Not all boy bands. Just ours.” He repositioned himself, maneuvering on top of me, spreading my legs. “Dinner is something completely different.”
“Dinner is anal?”
“No, that’s dessert.”
I smiled, my hands exploring his back. Smooth, broad, firm. “I’m too old for this.”
“You keep saying that, but clearly you’re not.”
He lowered his head then to my hip bone and undid the string of my bikini bottom with his teeth.
“You. And your mouth.”
“You like my mouth…”
“… so fucking much.”
He undid the second string. And I remembered we were not alone on the boat.
“Can you see Captain Craig?”
He was pushing aside the fabric, his fingers unclosing me. “This isn’t Captain Craig’s first boat ride. He’s not coming back here. I can assure you.”
I stopped breathing in that moment that he lowered his head. Anticipating his arrival. Knowing how quickly he could make me come.
He did not disappoint. His lips wrapping around my clit, so wonderfully precise. That sucking thing he did. “Hiiii.”
“Hi. So is this dinner, then?”
“No.” He shook his head, letting me feel his tongue. “This is tea.”
I laughed, my hands in his hair, the sun beating down on us, the water lapping at the sides of the boat. His mouth.
Far into the future, when I thought of Anguilla, this was the moment I would think of. Whether I wanted to or not.
* * *
We stayed in on New Year’s Eve, forgoing celebrations at the Viceroy and Cap Juluca, to avoid the crowds, the madness, the cameras. “I just want it to be the two of us,” he’d expressed on the boat ride back into port. “I just want to be with you. Always.”
* * *
Late Thursday, I’d installed myself before my easel on the wraparound balcony outside of our suite, capturing magic hour and the mountains of Saint-Martin, indigo spires against a salmon sky. Hayes was in the bedroom going over his tour itinerary. They were heading to South America in a month’s time, and he wanted me to join them.
“At least Brazil. And Argentina,” he said, stepping out onto the balcony. “We have days off in between and we can explore.” He wrapped his arms around my waist, nuzzling my neck. “I’m sure that’s your dream holiday, right? Buenos Aires with me and the lads.”
I laughed at that, the idea of me and the five of them. And then I paused, setting down my brush. “I don’t trust your friend, Hayes.”
“Who? Rory?”
“No, Rory is harmless. Despite being the least gay.” I smiled. “Should I not trust Rory?”
“I wouldn’t say he’s harmless…”
“I don’t have a problem with Rory,” I said.
He pulled back then, turning me to face him. He knew. “What did Oliver do?”
I told him. Most of it.
“Why didn’t you tell me?
Why didn’t you tell me when it happened, Solène?”
“Because I didn’t want to make it a bigger deal than it was … than it is.”
He sighed, wrapping me in his arms. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m okay. I can take care of myself.”
“Oliver is smart. Oliver is one of the smartest blokes I know. But he can also be a prick and that’s not always the best combination.
“He’s like … the closest thing I have to a brother…” he continued.
“I know…”
“… and all that entails.”
“I know,” I repeated.
“He’s competitive, and he’ll push. But he’s not dangerous. He’s not going to hurt you.”
I paused, taking him in, his eyes changing colors in the setting sun. “But he would hurt you…”
Hayes nodded, slow. “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe he would.”
* * *
On Friday, our last full day on the island, we spent the day by the pool, me reading, Hayes penning lyrics in his leather journal. His expression intense, focused; one hand pulling at his lip, mind elsewhere. The staff all disappeared directly after lunch, and we skinny-dipped before making love on the pool stairs and cuddling on one of the lounges. Bob Marley serenading us. He fell asleep in my arms, and in that moment he looked so lovely that I disentangled myself and went to fetch my sketch pad and pencils from inside.
I drew him, naked, lying on his stomach, a peaceful expression painted on his boyish face. His beauty was so exquisite it was unnerving. And I knew, even then, that I was capturing something unspoiled and consummate. And that youth was fleeting and in the blink of an eye Hayes would no longer look like this. He would lose his hair or grow hair in places I’d rather him not, his muscles would atrophy, his skin would lose its suppleness, its flawlessness, its glow … He would no longer be the Hayes I fell in love with.
But in that moment in time, he was still perfect. And he was mine.
* * *
We were changing planes Saturday in San Juan when the spell was broken. Hayes had arranged for an airport handler to meet us and usher us through customs before we had to separate for our respective flights. We’d just rechecked our bags and were killing time in the priority lounge when it happened.
“Fuck,” he said, louder than he normally would in a public setting. I looked across to where he was seated tucked away in a corner. His eyes were on his phone, a pained expression on his face. “Fuck.”