by Robinne Lee
“What? What happened?”
He covered his face with his hand and sat like that for thirty seconds while I imagined the worst. Finally, he looked up over at me and for an instant I thought he might cry.
“Hayes, what?” I moved in closer to him.
“I love you,” he said, soft. “I’m sorry.”
My heart had begun to race. “What are you sorry about?”
“I’m going to show you something, okay, but you can’t freak out because there are people here.” It was barely a whisper. I may as well have been reading his lips.
“Did someone die?”
“No.”
“Did you get someone pregnant who’s not me?”
He almost smiled then. Almost. “No.”
“Okay,” I said. “I can deal with it, then.”
But I couldn’t.
On his phone, he’d pulled up a celebrity gossip blog, and there in big, bold colors was a photo of the two of us, on the back of the speedboat at Dog Island, and there was no mistaking what was going on.
My stomach lurched. I began to shake, my hands clammy, my head reeling. This was what an anxiety attack felt like, wasn’t it? This terror. I could not breathe.
“Oh my God. Oh my God.”
“Shhhh.” Hayes was holding my arms, his forehead pressed to mine. “I’m sorry, Sol. I’m sorry.”
“Who has it? Where is it?”
“It’s everywhere.”
“Who sent it to you?”
“Graham.”
Graham. Of course. “Is that the only picture?”
He shook his head.
I began to cry. “Isabelle…”
“I know.” He kissed my forehead. “I know.”
But he could not, because he was not a parent. Because he was a celebrity, and in some strange way he’d asked for this. Or at the very least, he was prepared for it. It was not out of the realm of normalcy for him. This intrusion, this parasitic creature that fed off of him and every little thing he did and broadcasted it for the masses. This fandom that leeched.
I wanted to hit him. For being so fucking stupid. For exposing us like that. But what good would it have done? It’s not as if he were solely to blame.
“Who took them?”
“I don’t know. Someone with a really good lens … Do you remember seeing anyone, any boats, following us?”
I thought about it. The catamaran. It had been there at Shoal Bay. It could have been that one. It could have been anyone.
“Does it matter? My life is completely ruined now. My parents are going to disown me. Daniel is going to take Isabelle away. Lulit is going to offer to buy out my share of the gallery. It’s over. My life is over.”
“It’s not over, Solène. Don’t be so dramatic.”
“But you are really, really good at eating pussy, so maybe it was worth it.”
He laughed, kissing my wet cheeks. “I love you. I’m so sorry this happened. I love you.”
“Yeah … That’s what all the boys say.”
“No, they don’t,” he whispered. “No, they don’t.”
aspen
By the time I touched down in L.A., it was, as Hayes had confirmed, everywhere. I was greeted by nineteen new voicemails, thirty-three texts, and forty-two emails when I powered on my iPhone. And without looking at any of them, I powered it down.
Daniel was not scheduled to bring Isabelle back until tomorrow. So I went home, turned off the landline, crawled into my bed, and cried.
And cried.
It wasn’t until eleven the next morning that I turned on my iPhone again and found no fewer than a dozen messages from Hayes awaiting me. I called him immediately in London.
“What the hell, Solène? Where are you? Where the fuck have you been?” He was panicked, incensed. I could not recall ever hearing him so angry.
“I’m here. At home. I had the phone off. What’s wrong?”
“You didn’t think to check in after you landed? You couldn’t send a message or anything?”
I was quiet. My head pounding, my face swollen, my mind scrambled. Had I done something wrong?
“You cannot … Fuck…” His voice was quaking. “You cannot just fall off the face of the fucking earth like that. You can’t. I don’t know if something’s happened to you. I don’t know if you’ve done something. I don’t know if there are fans outside of your house. I don’t know anything. You can’t just fucking disappear.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I just didn’t feel like dealing.”
“Well, you have to deal … with me,” he said, and I realized he was crying. “Look, we’re in this together, and as it is, I feel responsible. And if I can’t reach you, I don’t know if you’ve gone and done something completely stupid or if you’re hurt … You’re six thousand fucking miles away. You got on that plane emotional and then you just … disappeared. You can’t do that to me.”
“I’m sorry.”
He was quiet for a moment, his breath heavy in the receiver. “Call Lulit,” he said finally. “She’s on her way over there. Call her and tell her you’re okay.”
“You called Lulit?”
“Just call her,” he said. “And call me back.”
“Okay … I’m sorry.”
“I love you. Don’t do that again.”
* * *
As much as I’d hoped to, I could not avoid the inevitable. The humiliation, the disgrace awaiting me at what I assumed would be every turn. It started with Lulit, who was relieved but not terribly warm when I reached her on the phone.
“I just want to know that you’re okay.”
“I’m okay. I mean, I haven’t turned on my computer yet or listened to any messages, but I’m okay.”
“Call me if you need anything,” she said.
“I will. And thank you, for getting out of your bed on a Sunday morning to do a wellness check.”
“Your boyfriend was very insistent. I told him you were not the suicidal type, but he would not take no for an answer…” She drifted off, and then: “I think he loves you.”
“I know,” I said. I imagined she wanted to ask what my plan was, what I was thinking, how much longer could I let this go on. But she bit her tongue. And that, for Lulit, was no small thing.
* * *
My mother, who could not hold her tongue, lectured me in rapid-fire French. She used words I’d never heard from her mouth, and I’d heard quite a bit. She closed her tirade with her customary “Je t’adore avec tout mon cœur.” But telling your daughter “I love you with all my heart” is much less effective after just having called her “une pute.”
* * *
Amara checked in to make certain I was not falling apart. To assure me the photos were not that bad. “They’re blurry. You can’t see your face. You can’t really see his. You can’t see any detail.” And then, finally, to make me laugh: “It could have been so much worse, Solène. You could have been the one going down, and he could have been the president.”
* * *
The brief levity she had brought to the situation died the second Daniel and Isabelle arrived. My daughter could barely look at me. She walked in tan and taller and beautiful, and she would not look at me. Worse yet, she would not mention it.
“Was Hawaii amazing?”
She nodded, fiddling with her backpack. We were in the entry, Daniel still retrieving bags from the car.
“Was Eva’s dress nice?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you do your hair yourself?” I reached out to tuck a wayward lock behind her ear, and she tensed.
“They did it at the Four Seasons. I’m going to my room.”
“Okay … Okay.”
Daniel summoned me outside once he’d brought in the luggage. And we stood there, beside the BMW, the relentless California sun glaring, mocking, like a joke. Just once I wanted the weather here to not be perfect. Just once I wanted it to mirror my mood.
“Congratulations,” I said.
He nodd
ed, slow. “Thanks.” His hair was lighter, almost blond, the lines around his blue eyes soft. He looked rested.
“So you’re married again?”
“I’m married again.” He was twisting the shiny platinum band on his finger with his left thumb. It was narrower than the one I’d placed there. The moment still clear. The invitation mounted in a frame.
“I didn’t bring you out here to discuss this—”
“I know you didn’t.”
“This is appalling, Solène. This is so … fucked up. I don’t think you realize how big a deal this is—”
“I do.”
“I know it’s not my place to tell you how to live your life, but I’m still Isabelle’s father. And when you do dumb shit like this, it has consequences.”
“‘Dumb shit’? Is that what it is?”
I watched him stew for a second. His thumb flicking his ring.
It grated on me. That no one would question him moving on. Him marrying and impregnating someone more than ten years his junior. Because that’s what divorced men in their forties did. His stock was still rising. His power still intact.
Daniel had become more desirable, and I somehow less so. As if time were paced differently for each of us.
“Do you really think this is in the best interest of Isabelle?” He’d put it out there. Best interest. It was a legal term, and there was no mistaking his use of it.
“Are you threatening me?”
“I’m not threatening you, I’m just saying…”
“What exactly are you saying?”
“I think she’s been through enough.”
“And you’re pinning that all on me. You’re pinning the divorce on me. You’re pinning Eva and your baby and your marriage on me.”
“None of this would have happened, Solène, if—”
“If what? If I’d just stayed home and been happy? Fuck you, Daniel.”
For a moment he did not say anything, just stood there, staring out toward the street, the hikers in the distance. “I’m sorry I wasn’t enough for you. I’m sorry our family wasn’t enough.” It hit. Hard.
“Figure out what you’re going to do about this guy, before it destroys your relationship with your daughter.”
* * *
It was a miserable week. I tried to focus all my energy on the Ulla Finnsdottir show that was opening on Saturday, but it was not easy. Not with the barrage of social media. The 423 new friend requests on Facebook from people I did not know, many of whom appeared to be twenty-something boys. The numerous vile messages on Twitter:
Why r u still around bitch? I thought you’d be gone by now. It’s January.
skanky whore cunt. Aren’t you someone’s mother? Act like it.
Why don’t you just kill yourself and save us the hassle?
Stop fucking with Simon’s boyfriend.
Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die.
The lengthy missives on Instagram: the questioning of my worthiness; the intra-group fighting among Augies; the damaged, the deranged. “Famewhore. You’re only after his money. You’re not even that pretty.” “Be nice to her. If she makes Hayes happy, shouldn’t that be what matters?” “I’m angry okay. I’m angry that I’ve been supporting him for 3 fucking years and then a fucking old bitch comes and ruins everything…” “Step off hayes” “Every time I cut myself I think of you. Hope your happy.”
And even those that were written with the best of intentions scared me, scarred me. “Just remember when you hold his hand, you are holding the entire universe. Please don’t break him.”
In the end, I froze all my accounts.
* * *
We hired security for the opening on Hayes’s suggestion. It was a larger turnout than we’d ever had previously. There were myriad girls crowded on the sidewalk in front of the gallery and a handful of paparazzi, who I’m guessing were disappointed to learn that my boyfriend was on the other side of the Atlantic. It was a huge nuisance, but we sold out the show in record time. And Lulit could not complain about that.
On Sunday, Georgia came over to hang out with Isabelle. They locked themselves in her room, and I could hear them laughing, and it sounded to me so sweet, so rare. And I wondered what it was Georgia had said or done to finally bring my daughter around.
Earlier in the week, I’d approached her. When the photos, albeit somewhat sanitized, ran in Us Weekly and People and the others, I could no longer just pretend it was not happening. I could not imagine the toll it was taking on her at school.
“I need to talk to you about what’s going on,” I’d said, sitting on one of her Moroccan poufs.
“I don’t want to talk about it…”
“I know you don’t, Izz. But it’s kind of a big deal and I don’t want you to have all these emotions bottled up inside. I can only imagine what’s going through your head.”
She looked over to me from her perch on her bed, beneath the “Keep Calm and Carry On” poster, and beside the nightstand where our meet-and-greet photo used to lie. She’d shredded it back in November.
“You’re an adult,” she said. “He’s an adult. You can do whatever you want, right? It’s not my business.”
It was not the response I was expecting. She sounded so mature, so altered. My little bird.
“I’m sorry it’s so public, Izz. I’m sorry it’s everywhere. That was never my intention.”
She shrugged. “He’s famous. That’s what happens when you’re famous.”
I nodded, slow. Who had she become? Wise and jaded.
“Hayes is really special to me, Isabelle. He makes me happy. And those people out there, the media and fans and whoever … they’re going to make it sound ugly. And what Hayes and I have is not ugly. I need you to understand that.”
She nodded then. “I’m trying, Mom. I’m trying.”
* * *
Leah came to pick Georgia up at the end of the girls’ playdate. She arrived with a bottle of Sancerre and chocolaty chocolate-chunk cookies from the Farmshop. “Let’s go admire your view,” she said.
We sat out on the patio, wrapped in blankets, watching the sun dip. I wanted to believe the bearing of sugar and alcohol was a friendly gesture, but I feared that as a former attorney and now president of Windwood’s parent association, she might have different intentions.
“So … are they asking us to leave the school?”
She smiled. “No.”
“Are they giving me a slap on the wrist and saying ‘Please don’t engage in sex acts with almost-minors in public places’?”
Leah laughed. She had warm nut-brown skin, her daughter’s curls. “Solène, you were on a private boat in the middle of the Caribbean. That hardly counts as a public place. In fact, I’m pretty sure that’s what the Caribbean was made for. Guys in the music industry have been having sex on boats in the Caribbean since the dawn of time. Mick Jagger, Tommy Lee, Diddy, Jay Z…”
I smiled. “You just assembled that list yourself?”
“Yes. And now, Hayes Campbell…” She grew serious then. “No one is talking about it.”
“You’re lying to me.”
“I’m telling you the truth. No one is talking about it. And if they are, they won’t be for long. In the ranking of scandals at L.A. private schools, yours rates pretty low. There are parents sleeping with other parents, and tenth graders going to rehab for porn addiction. There are eighth graders sexting and English teachers behaving inappropriately with underage girls and toxic crumb rubber on elementary school soccer fields. This is nothing. It’s cunnilingus on a boat. It’s not murder.”
I smiled at that. But as light as Leah made it sound, I knew things were not as breezy for my daughter.
“Has Georgia mentioned it to you at all? What’s going on at school … what Isabelle might be going through…”
“Barely. You know this age: secretive…”
I nodded, my eyes fixed on the water. “I want to know what the other kids are saying. To her. I assume they’re saying somethi
ng.”
“Have you asked her?”
“She doesn’t want to talk about it.”
Leah nodded, picking at her cookie. “Does she have someone else she can talk to? Professionally?”
She’d said it tentatively, but I bristled at the implication. I did not want Isabelle to have to return to therapy because of this. Because of me. Because that would mean I’d failed her. And I would end it before it came to that.
“No,” I said. “I’m not ready to go there. Yet.”
* * *
Hayes came into town the last week of January. The guys had a bunch of press and meetings leading up to the Grammys and then they were heading to South America to embark on the Wise or Naked world tour. And there seemed to be no way to stop it. Time.
On Thursday night we celebrated his birthday with a festive dinner at Bestia. The restaurant was in an industrial space in the Arts District downtown. A converted warehouse turned foodie mecca. We were tucked away at the back of the patio. Hayes and I, the rest of the band, Raj, Desmond, Fergus, and a pretty redhead who answered to the name of Jemma and clung to Liam’s arm.
It was a fun evening: the cocktails, potent; the lights, low; the food, divine. The boys were loud and happy, and after so many phone calls fraught with tension, it was lovely to see Hayes once again at peace and comfortable in his skin.
He did not let go of me, his hand touching some part of my being throughout the night. I turned to him at one point when his thumb was tracing the inside of my wrist.
“You missed me,” I said, low. My face at his collarbone, inhaling his scent.
“I missed you. Is it obvious?”
I nodded. “You’re very touchy-feely. Even for you.”
He tipped my chin up to his face then and kissed me. As if we weren’t in a crowded restaurant. As if we didn’t already stand out as the table with the current most visible band in the world. As if we were not just in every tabloid on six continents blasted for our public display of affection. He kissed me as if none of that mattered.
“Don’t leave me…” he said.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“… ever.”