Famous (A Famous novel)

by Jenny Holiday

  What did she expect him to do, though? Pick up and move to Hollywood? It wasn’t like Emerson Fucking Quinn was going to up and move to Iowa. And regardless, he wasn’t about to throw away everything he’d worked for and voluntarily walk back into the media spotlight that he had so vehemently fled after his father’s crimes came to light. No. He and Emmy had been distractions for each other. Lovely, useful distractions, but distractions nonetheless. They had run their course. Whatever was between them, it had never been permanent. It had been designed with an expiration date.

  He glanced at his watch. Three thirty. Was it too early for a beer?

  Hell, who cared. It was the end of summer vacation. His summer class was done, and fall classes were still two weeks off. He popped the cap off a bottle and headed to his living room. The porch was another thing he’d lost since everything had blown up. If he went out there, Mrs. Johansen would descend.

  He picked up his phone, intending to read the newspaper while he drank.

  There was a text from a number he didn’t recognize.

  This is your fault

  Then there was a video, and after that, two more texts.

  Listen to what she’s recording. This is Song 58. Do you know about Song 58?

  This is Tony, btw

  What the hell?

  Beer forgotten, Evan hit play on the video. It wasn’t a video per se—the image was the back of a sofa, but he could quite clearly hear the audio.

  It was her. Of course it was her. What had he been expecting?

  He hadn’t been expecting a full-body meltdown, that’s for damn sure. He’d never had a panic attack, he didn’t think, even back in the courtroom days when reporters had been getting all up in his face while he watched his entire world crumble in slow motion.

  But now. Now, with her voice all around him. He was sweating and cold at the same time, and his lungs felt like they were shrinking. That voice was so familiar, so…beloved? Fuck.

  And worst of all, if Tony was to be believed, she was singing Song 58.

  He listened to the whole thing. Then he sat there in stunned silence.

  Another text arrived.

  She’s recording Song 58 instead of this. This got vetoed.

  The text was accompanied by another video. It took him several tries to get it to play; his fingers had become shaky and clumsy. Once again, there was no meaningful visual. He got the sense Tony had made his recordings without Emmy’s knowledge, but the audio was clear enough.

  Her voice was quiet, but strong. She sang the first line unaccompanied: “It’s all straight lines around here, he said.” It was like a lance to his chest, her voice a thin, lethal, metal edge working its way in under his sternum. After the first line, she started playing an acoustic guitar. The first strum was startling, but also felt inevitable as the song gained momentum.

  The song was about a girl who lived carefree in a castle surrounded by corn. She used fairy-tale imagery, describing a moat surrounded by densely packed crops. The song crescendoed, and it had her signature catchiness, the magic, ineffable ingredient that made even a hermit like him want to get up and dance. But then it turned, gradually becoming overlain with something else. A sadness, maybe, though that didn’t seem like quite the right word. There was a weariness under the happiness. It was like the song was a crystal, and she’d picked it up and tilted it slightly, and suddenly you were forced to look at it in a new way, in new light. Fall came and the moat froze over and the corn died, and the girl had to come down from the castle.

  Listening to the song evoked the feeling of being a kid at the end of summer, when pools and popsicles give way to structure and stiff new jeans.

  Or, you know, the way it feels when the summer ends and you let the best thing that ever happened to you slip through your fingers.

  When you let the woman you were supposed to protect run straight into the wolves’ den.

  Evan had tried, this past summer, to make a space for Emmy to feel safe. Safe to write unaccosted, safe to have sex with no fear, safe to live without constantly looking over her shoulder. To be a “real girl,” to use her phrase.

  But, he suddenly realized, when shit got real, when she’d really, really needed him, he’d failed her. He’d thought their parting was inevitable, that her discovery had merely forced their hand by a couple weeks. But he’d been wrong. So wrong. He should have been working overtime on replanting the the corn, not letting the princess just…walk away.

  He’d thought of her as his muse all those years ago. And maybe she was. Hell, she definitely was. But now that knowledge was joined by a new and utterly astonishing thought: maybe he was also hers. Maybe a muse wasn’t someone you were attracted to, or compelled by, someone who inspired you just by being. Maybe a muse was someone who, somehow, in a way that only that person could do, created space for you to do your thing. Made you safe.

  He hadn’t felt safe for so long. Maybe ever, actually, if you considered the fact that what he had thought of as safety before, back when he was younger and living with his family, had actually been an illusion, a mirage. A lie.

  He didn’t lie to himself in this life that he had so painstakingly created. That was the promise he’d made to himself when he’d packed his shit up and driven a U-Haul across the country. If he didn’t get tenure, if everyone he knew forsook him, if something happened that was worse than what his father had done, that was the one thing he could count on: he would always be honest with himself.

  So what the fucking hell had he been doing since Emmy left?

  The song ended, and there was a momentary pause before a man’s voice he didn’t recognize started talking. “Well, that was cute, Emerson.”

  Cute? That wasn’t cute. It was fucking genius.

  “A bit of a departure, though, don’t you think?” said a second voice, a female one. “Maybe too big of one?”

  “Well, I don’t know, I—”

  The recording ended there.

  Hell, no.

  He sat up, almost knocking the phone to the floor. His panic coalesced into focused certainty.

  No more lying.

  “Thank you all for coming on such short notice and so early,” said Claudia at eight the next morning as Emmy’s team assembled in the boardroom at the offices of her record label. Wow, Claudia really had gotten everyone. Brian was there, of course, and Tony, and Martin as well as her A&R rep from the label. They’d been joined by a stylist Emmy often used, and a couple of social media people and publicists from the management company.

  “I have some amazing news,” Claudia said. “I didn’t want to say anything before I was sure, but I just got confirmation.” She pressed her hands against the table and stood, like she was preparing to deliver a sermon. “I got us the opening slot on the MTV Video Music Awards. We’ll debut the new song.” She flashed a self-satisfied smile. “They’ve bumped Bieber.”

  “But the MTV awards are…” Emmy had lost track of time, what with the all-consuming work of putting one foot in front of the other.

  “In four days,” Tony said flatly.

  “Right,” said Claudia. “Which means we’re going to have to get our shit together. Martin, we need a band, and we need them rehearsed. Emerson can join them after they’ve learned the song.”

  “Done,” said the producer.

  Wait. What?

  Claudia turned to the stylist. “And we need a dress.”

  “Hold on,” said Tony. “If Emerson is going to open the MTV Awards, I think she should do ‘September,’” Tony said, naming her fairy-tale song about Iowa. It was her favorite of the songs she’d written over the summer.

  The room went silent for a long moment, then Claudia said, “We don’t even know if that song is going to be on the album.”

  “We don’t?” Tony turned to Emmy with an exaggerated expression of incredulity.

  “Well,” she hedged, “I’m not sure we know any of the songs that are going to be on the next album.”

  “Except Son
g 58,” said Brian.

  “Which is now called ‘Walk Away,’” Claudia said. “Even if ‘September’ makes the new album, it isn’t a show opener. You don’t open the MTV Awards with a quiet song like that, Tony.”

  “Why not?” Tony said. “Is it against the law?”

  Claudia pursed her lips. Brian did this subtle “I’m rolling my eyes but I’m not rolling my eyes” thing that only he could do. Then they looked at each other for a beat before Brian said, “Anyway, it’s moot because we’ve recorded ‘Walk Away.’ We’ll need to get whatever she plays wrapped and up on iTunes as soon as humanly possible after the show.”

  He looked at Martin, who said, “I’ll do my best.”

  Then Brian continued, “So, realistically, ‘Walk Away’ is the only option.”

  Everyone looked at Emmy. When she didn’t say anything, Claudia started talking again. “I know this is happening fast, but this is a huge opportunity. After your…disappearance and all the accompanying drama, it’s a chance to normalize things.”

  “She can normalize things—whatever that even means—with ‘September,’” Tony said. “You can spin it as the product of her summer hiatus. That will make a great story.”

  “It’s not recorded yet,” Claudia said with exaggerated patience, as if she was talking to a child.

  “If we bust our asses the next few days—”

  “Stop.” Emmy shot Tony a quelling look. It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate his loyalty, but he needed to lay off. They were right. It would be stupid to pass up an opportunity to open the MTV Awards. And she should play the song that was the most ready. The sure thing. She’d be foolish to do anything else. And really, so what? Song 58 was a fine song. It wasn’t like having it on the next album would be a terrible mistake. “Where are the awards being held this year? Madison Square Garden?”

  “Microsoft Theater,” said Brian, naming an L.A. venue.

  “Perfect,” she said.

  “Perfect,” Tony echoed in a tone that suggested it was anything but.

  Emmy glared at him again. She didn’t need Tony aggravating the powers that be right now. They were already telling her in private that they thought he was overstepping, hinting that maybe she should consider getting a new assistant. Emmy always defended Tony, but it was all so…exhausting.

  “Okay, onto the dress,” said Claudia, turning to the stylist. “What can you get on short notice?”

  “For Emerson Quinn? Whatever you want. I saw a Stella McCartney the other day that would be perfect.”

  “Fine.” Claudia waved a hand in the air dismissively. “But make sure it’s not too stuffy. Nothing like that Valentino from the Grammys last year.”

  “We are trying to skew older,” Brian said.

  “But you don’t want her to look like she’s trying to skew older,” said Claudia.

  “Point taken.”

  Emmy was listening, but she was staring at the walls of the conference room, which were hung with her awards, so she didn’t notice at first that they’d all turned to her. She was a few beats behind, which pretty much summed up the last few days. It was like everyone else was in real time, and she was in slow motion. Or like she was looking at everything through glasses with an out-of-date prescription. Everything was fuzzy and muffled.

  But that was fine with her, because she didn’t really want everything to be crisp and clear. She had a hunch that her evening weeping-with-poetry sessions were a preview of what would happen all the time if she could really see and hear and feel everything in real time, at full intensity.

  “What do you think, Emerson?” Claudia asked.

  She didn’t know what she thought. She turned to the stylist, a beautiful, effortlessly stunning woman. “You choose. I trust you.”

  “Great! So that’s settled.” Claudia looked down at her agenda. “I think that’s all for today. I’ll email everyone their marching orders. Let’s meet again tomorrow morning to check in.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  One day later

  “I’m not sure why you were so hesitant. These are amazing. I would be honored to show your work.”

  Evan would have liked to pretend that the gallery owner’s words didn’t thrill him to his core. He had prepared himself for rejection, even as he had gone through the motions of contacting one of his former painting teachers and asking for some introductions to galleries in Los Angeles.

  He had told himself, as he started with his teacher’s first recommendation, to the Riel Gallery, one of the city’s most exclusive, that he would be dismissed out of hand once he said his name. He would have been okay with that. He was prepared to move down the list, facing as many rejections as he needed to. Hell, he would have rented a storage space and mounted the show himself if it had come to that. After watching Emmy put on the community center show in Dane, he even kind of knew what he was doing.

  He hadn’t been prepared for Jean-Claude Riel, one of the art world’s most famous dealers, to say, “I would be honored to show your work.”

  “I just…” He cleared his throat. It was important to project confidence, even if he didn’t feel any. “I assumed that my father’s crimes would reflect poorly on me.”

  “I admit that I was a bit taken aback when you called.” Jean-Claude furrowed his brow. “But if I recall the coverage correctly, and your testimony at the trial, you weren’t involved in any of it.”

  “I wasn’t involved, but I benefited from it.”

  “As did I from my wealthy upbringing,” Jean-Claude said calmly.

  Evan took a deep breath. “How quickly can we get this show together? Because there’s something else I need to tell you.”

  Three days later

  Evan hadn’t worked this hard since his grad school years, when he’d go to classes all day, work in the evenings, and then paint all night, subsisting on junk food and fumes.

  He was exhausted, but, as he looked around the space that Jean-Claude had rented for the show and took in the finished tableaux, he was suffused with a sense of hope. The art dealer had fallen for Evan’s tale of woe, and instead of making him wait until a show could be properly mounted at the main gallery, had rented a dedicated space for it. And then they’d gotten to work. And work, and work, and work. He was exhausted.

  But it was worth it. She was worth it. To have a chance to make things right meant everything. Because he wasn’t going to blow this. A person didn’t let Emerson Quinn go and then show up on her doorstep with mere words. And he didn’t mean Emerson Quinn the pop star—he didn’t care about that—he meant Emmy. His bridesmaid. His muse. His love.

  Evan’s first solo art show was to open tomorrow in a converted industrial space in Echo Park that Jean-Claude was calling Riel Annex, which tickled Evan because his last show had been at Jerry’s barn, aka the Community Center Annex. Evan did a quick mental double check of everything. The paintings Mrs. Johansen had couriered from Iowa were hung, the postcards were printed and distributed, Jean-Claude had arranged staff.

  It was all ready to go. Everything was perfectly set up for his Hail Mary pass. Which meant shit was about to get real.

  He got out his phone and pulled up the contact he’d created for Tony. His finger hovered over the call button.

  Please let this work.

  “Hello?”

  “Tony? This is Evan Winslow.”

  There was a long silence on the line, so long that Evan feared Tony had hung up on him.

  “I’m here,” he added. “In town.”

  Tony let out a slow breath. “And why are you in town?”

  “I’m in town because I made a mistake and I want to make it right.”

  “Bullshit,” Tony said. “If you can’t say it to me, how are you going to say it to her? Try it again. Why are you in town?”

  He didn’t even hesitate. “I’m in town because I love Emmy, and I have to tell her. Because that song was amazing, and she should be recording it, not Song 58.”

  “Do you know wh
at day it is, Evan?”

  He had no idea what day it was. The past few days—and nights—had blurred together as he’d worked frantically to put things in order for the show. “Tuesday?” he guessed.

  “It’s the MTV Video Music Awards,” Tony said, exasperation in his voice.

  “Okay,” said Evan. “I’m not very up on this kind of stuff, I guess. Does that mean—”

  “It means you’re too late, you jerk. She’s going to debut Song 58, and Song 58, my friend, is not your song.”

  “My song?” He’d known, of course, when he’d heard the song back in his living room, but to hear Tony say it like that made his breath catch.

  “Yes, you idiot. Your song. Which is decidedly not the song she’s opening the show with in thirty minutes.”

  Too late. The implications of those words sank in. Evan didn’t give a fuck about which song opened the MTV Video Music Awards, but he did care that Emmy was about to step back into what she had once called her golden cage. Maybe he even cared about that more than whether she forgave him, whether she wanted him.

  But maybe they were one and the same thing, all hopelessly tangled together.

  “No,” he said. “It’s not too late. I don’t accept that. Tell me what I have to do.”

  Tony paused for an uncomfortably long time, but then he said, “Meet me at the corner of Pico Boulevard and Flower Street. Now.”

  Emmy was glad she was opening the show because it gave her an excuse not to walk the red carpet. Normally she was fine at these kinds of things, but today she was relieved not to have to smile and twirl and talk to reporters about “who you’re wearing.”

  Instead, she could chill out backstage for a bit, confident that the last rehearsal and sound check had gone flawlessly, and do her usual pre-show routine. Except where was Tony? She looked around the room. Actually, where was everything? She didn’t generally have a lot of diva-esque demands. Her rider was full of food items her touring band liked, and she never made anyone pick out the yellow M&Ms or anything crazy like that. But Tony always made sure she had a new puzzle at hand before a big performance. He knew puzzles calmed her nerves. They had an ongoing joke, in fact, where he tried to find the most obnoxious puzzle he could—puzzles featuring TV shows she hated, or inspirational quotes and frazzled-looking kittens—and they’d work on it together. On tour, he’d get big ones, and they’d do them on a big board, which would make its way from city to city with them. For one-off shows like this, he usually got her a small one, and she always looked forward to seeing what he’d come up with. And if she was wearing a gown, like tonight, he always had some kind of standing table set up so she wouldn’t rumple herself.