The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea

by Elizabeth O'Roark

  I want to know how her day is, I want to know why she looks so troubled at the thought of going on stage. I want to know why I hear her repeating numbers in her sleep every time we’re together. I want to unpeel her, layer by layer, until I get to her heart, and then put everything back together once I know it’s in good shape.

  “Drew,” I repeat, doing my best to look blankly at my mother. “Why would I have heard from her?”

  “You two got along so well by the end of the trip. I just thought…” She stops, shrugging, and for a moment I find that I’m hoping for a reprieve.

  I just thought something might happen with you two, she could say. I just thought that maybe if she wasn’t dating Joel, the two of you might…you know.

  “I hoped she might confide in you,” my mother says instead. “I still think she and Joel will get back together. She could be like the sister you never had.”

  My hands grip the steering wheel. “Mom, I can assure you, that’s not going to happen.”

  I would do almost anything for my mother, but I will not give her this. I just can’t.

  36

  DREW

  I arrive in London on no sleep. It’s the middle of the night back home but here it’s a dreary gray morning and rush hour, and I just don’t feel ready to face the day ahead.

  It’s not entirely the lack of sleep. Yesterday, Josh told me Beth’s cancer is back and that it doesn’t look good, which seems like doctor speak for definitely fatal. I can’t stop going over the trip in my head now, remembering Beth’s determination to do things she wasn’t up to, her tears when Six arrived and her obsession with seeing her sons paired off. It all makes sense now, but her selflessness just makes it hurt more. At a time when anyone else would be thinking about themselves, Beth was thinking of her sons, and she had enough love left over to extend it to me.

  I fish sunglasses out of my purse and put them on, doing my best to surreptitiously wipe away tears before the driver sees.

  Josh wants his mom to die secure in the knowledge that he and Joel still have each other to lean on. I want to give that to her, too, but the weird thing is that Beth is the one I want to talk to about Josh. When she texts to say she saw me on TV, or to wish me luck or to send pictures of their dogs—more than anything, I want to say I’m crazy about Josh. I think he’s the best man I’ve ever known and you did such a good job with him.

  In another life, inexplicably, I think she’d be thrilled.

  I dry my eyes and steel myself as the car pulls up to the Mandarin Oriental. Davis and Ashleigh are the first people I see when I walk inside. I’d prefer they were the last.

  “I’ve got you an appointment with a colorist,” he says. “She’s up in your room.”

  I blink at him. A part of me is ready to concede, the way I always do, but a newer part shouts Who the fuck do you think you are? The news about Beth puts things in perspective a bit. It’s a reminder that there are harder things to live through than Davis’s fury.

  “Then you can tell her to leave,” I reply.

  His jaw locks with rage, and he’s clearly itching to threaten me, but my hair color is not in our contract. There isn’t a doubt in my mind, however, that he’ll find a way to make me pay.

  He is nothing if not consistent. To punish me for the grave sin of wanting my hair to be its natural color, Davis swamps me. He squeezes in extra interviews, an extra meet and greet. My head doesn’t hit the pillow until two in the morning, and at five AM, he’s got hair and wardrobe knocking on my door to ready me for more of the same.

  By the time we get to Paris on the third day, I’m so exhausted I look drunk and I’m acting like it too, stumbling over my answers.

  “How is anyone supposed to think you’re not on drugs,” Davis snaps, “when you don’t recognize the name of your own goddamn album?” He takes out a tiny silver vial and puts it in my hand. “Do a line in the bathroom and pull yourself together.”

  My eyes squeeze tight, so frustrated and despondent I’m on the verge of tears. My entire life seems like an endless cycle of problems Davis has created, which he then fixes in problematic ways.

  But I do the line because right now I need a solution, and I do more before I go on stage that night, because—as always—nothing matters more than the appearance of having my shit together.

  I’m so tired I forget what city I’m in. “Thank you…” I shout at the end of my set. I very nearly say Berlin, but it feels wrong so I leave the words hanging and somehow get myself backstage.

  I blow right past the crew members and waiting fans and head for my dressing room with Ashleigh at my heels. She feels more like a minder these days than an assistant, but as long as she got a brioche from my favorite place over on the Champs-Élysées—the one thing I’ve asked of her all day long—we’re good.

  I missed dinner, I missed lunch, and I’ve been running since early this morning with no break, but if I can get these shoes off my feet and a little brioche in my mouth, I’ll make it to the finish line.

  I enter the room backstage, ready to collapse on the long black leather couch at the far wall, but come to a dead stop when I only see a bottle of water waiting on the table.

  “Where’s my brioche?” I ask, unstrapping a heel.

  “Oh,” she says, unable to meet my eye, “Davis said not to get it for you.”

  It’s such a minor thing but I feel like I’m going to burst into tears. “Did he say why?” I ask between my teeth. I’m barely holding it together.

  “He thinks you gained weight in Hawaii,” she says. “No pastries, no sugar until we get through this.” Her words are hesitant, but it’s clear who’s in charge here and it isn’t me.

  Anger burns in my gut. I pinch my lips together, clenching my jaw. Tears threaten to fall, but I squeeze my eyes shut and push them back. I should no longer be surprised, but I am. Is there really nothing about my life I’m allowed to decide for myself?

  I take off the other heel and sink onto the couch, pressing my face into my hands and trying to hold it together. I know I’m just tired, and exhaustion makes anything seem worse than it is. But I just don’t have it in me to snap out of it tonight.

  Ashleigh’s gathering stuff around the room. She glances over at me as if surprised I’m still seated. “Are you ready for the party?” she asks. “The car’s outside.”

  “No one ever said anything about a party.”

  She sighs. She’s probably thinking I’m just too careless to have listened before and she might be right. “Someone high up at LVP is throwing it,” she says. “It’s a big deal.”

  Except it’s always a big deal. And I’ll be expected to smile and pose and try to stay awake for hours just like I am every night. I’m done. And there’s only one person in the world I want to talk to right now.

  I pick up my phone.

  Can you talk? Are you free? I text Josh.

  Josh: For you, absolutely.

  Me: Give me ten minutes.

  Maybe I’m leaning on him a little, but how much harm can it do? He leaves for Somalia in a day. It’s not as if I’ll suddenly decide it can be more than this.

  I turn to Ashleigh. “I’ll meet you in front in a minute.”

  “We’ve really got to go—” she begins and then sees the look on my face and shrugs. “I’ll wait outside.”

  I give her a thirty-second head start before I grab my phone and my purse and start walking, and then running, the other way.

  I exit through the back with my heels in hand, run across the street and jump in a cab. Ten minutes later I’m entering my hotel room, dialing his number.

  His voice, his quiet exhale—they’re like a warm bath I could soak in for hours. I can’t explain why just the sound of his breathing on the other end of the line is enough to make my ridiculous anger about the brioche crack open. I finally let the tears I’ve been holding in fall.

  “Are you alright?” he asks, as if he already knows I’m not.

  “Yeah,” I reply, but my voice
has that rasp it gets when I’m upset.

  My feet dig into the plush carpet as if gripping it for balance. I’m here now, alone at last, and I have no idea why I called him. Maybe I shouldn’t have.

  “You’re exhausted,” he says. His tone indicates that denying it isn’t an option, and I don’t think I could anyway, not to him. Everything just feels like too much, and I don’t even know what everything is. I can’t seriously be this upset about a pastry. “Are you crying?”

  “No,” I whisper. I drop the heels on the floor. “I don’t cry.”

  “Of course not.” He laughs, but it’s a gentle laugh and for some reason that makes the tears drip faster. “Tell me why you’re not crying.”

  I swallow and turn the lock on the door behind me. “I don’t know. I’m just tired. It was nonstop today, and then I had to perform, and I just…didn’t want to.”

  “Okay,” he says. “Except that’s every day for you. Why are you not crying this time?”

  I give a strangled laugh. “I’m crying over a fucking brioche. There’s this place here, Brioche Dorée, which is like the 7-Eleven of pastry shops.” It’s so stupid that I’m crying over a pastry. With everything that’s happened to me, this shouldn’t even make a dent. That it does makes me feel crazy. “And I told my assistant to get one for me and Davis told her not to because I’d gained weight in Hawaii and—”

  “He said that?” Josh asks. His rage cuts through the phone line like a knife. “Tell me he did not make that about your weight. Jesus Christ.”

  His outrage makes me cry harder because I am seeing how insane it is that I’m in this position at all. How utterly fucked up must I be to have let this whole situation evolve? I’m so untethered without Josh. I had no idea I felt so alone until that trip to Hawaii, and now I can’t stop feeling it.

  “I haven’t slept,” I tell him. “Davis kept giving me coke just to keep me awake today and I—”

  “Get on a plane,” he whispers. “Just come back.”

  And I’ll take care of you. He doesn’t say it aloud, but I hear it anyway.

  “Come back where?” I ask. “I don’t even have a home.”

  “Come to me.”

  “I can’t,” I whisper. “You have no idea how badly I wish I could, but I can’t. There’s another press call tomorrow, and a charity thing tomorrow night, and then I leave for Berlin. And you’re leaving anyway.”

  He sighs. “Where are you now?”

  “In my hotel room,” I tell him. “And I’m supposed to be at some party, and Davis is going to be such a dick about this tomorrow and make my life so much harder to punish me.”

  “Get undressed. Keep me on the phone.”

  I laugh through my tears. “This is taking an unexpected turn.”

  “I’m not taking advantage of your exhaustion to have phone sex, I promise. Get undressed and climb into bed.”

  I still have all my makeup on and my hair is like a shellac helmet on my head, but I’m so tired and…fuck it. I’m here for whatever he’s about to suggest, the makeup and hair be damned. I unzip the side of the dress and exhale in relief when it’s off. The strapless bra that’s been digging into my rib cage for hours soundlessly follows.

  “Put me on speaker,” he says, “and turn out the lights.”

  I pad across the carpeted floor, flicking out lights as I go, and then climb into the bed at last. They’re the smoothest sheets I’ve ever felt in my life.

  “Oh my god, it’s such a comfy bed, Josh. I wish you were here.”

  “I wish I were too,” he says.

  I smile suggestively in the dark. “What would you do?”

  “Given that you’re still crying, I wouldn’t do anything especially exciting,” he says with a quiet laugh. “I’d lay down with you, and I’d pull your back to my chest, and I’d wrap my arms around you and stay just like that until you fell asleep.”

  Does anyone but me know how sweet he is? How much goodness lies under that cranky exterior? I lay the phone on my pillow and roll to face it, as if it’s him there beside me.

  “You would totally get a boner,” I reply. “I’m naked.”

  “I’d think about amputations to prevent it, if necessary.”

  I grin. “I always wanted a guy who’d think about amputations when I’m naked next to him.”

  “Then apparently I’m your prince,” he says with another small laugh. “Okay. You’re in bed? The lights are off? Close your eyes.”

  His voice and this soft bed are lulling me to sleep, but I’m not ready to go yet. I feel like I just got him.

  “I don’t want to stop talking to you,” I whisper.

  “I’m going to be right here, just like I would be there.”

  It’s afternoon in California. I guess he’s packing to leave for Somalia and once he’s there, whatever this is with us will be over.

  “I wish we had that whole two weeks back, from Hawaii. I wish it had been different.”

  “I do too,” he says, “but it was pretty perfect in its own way.”

  I smile. “You mean the little replica of the Washington Monument in my back during the camping trip? The moment I realized you kind of liked me?”

  “I don’t love the fact that you’re calling it little, baby.”

  I laugh, but my heart warms at the endearment. I doubt it’s one Josh gives out lightly. And then I fall silent and sleep is overtaking me, whether I want it to or not.

  “I miss you,” I tell him. “I wish you were here.”

  “Me too,” he sighs. “You have no idea.”

  When I wake in the morning, the hotel phone is ringing and my cell is dead. I wonder if he’d still be on the line if it wasn’t.

  I shower and am hustled into hair and makeup. When my phone is charged, I text Josh to thank him, but he doesn’t reply. He’s on his way to Somalia by now, so that makes sense, but it leaves me feeling exposed. As if I gave away something last night, asked for too much, leaned too hard.

  I find myself blanking out, again and again, throughout the day. I’m an adult now, cossetted and sought after. But whenever my eyes close, I’m eleven years old, riding on a bus that’s getting farther and farther from home with no idea how I’ll ever get back.

  The performance in the evening is relatively easy. I’m one of several acts, thank God, so I put my five songs in and then I’m led to some room where I’m stripped of one tiny dress and clad in another, pushed into a limo—an umbrella overhead to protect my hair from the fat snowflakes descending over the city—and delivered to a charity event in a plush hotel ballroom.

  The event is packed with wealthy adults in cocktail attire, people who are here to meet me but older and unlikely to be fans. I’m simply the lure to get them through the door, the modern-day equivalent of a bearded lady or a twelve-inch man, the thing they’ll pay good money to ogle and discuss later.

  I’m hugged and grasped and grabbed and tugged. My dress is too small, my heels are too high. I smile, smile, smile and all the while I’m wondering how I allowed this to happen. Not simply tonight, but everything. I’ve turned into something less than human and I don’t even know why. To earn my mother's respect? To vindicate my father? If those were my goals, they haven’t worked. They were never going to work. How did I not see that until now? My reasons for putting up with all of this now seem so juvenile and pointless. My chest aches and I rub it, trying to get it to stop.

  I sign one photo after another and let overdressed strangers wrap their arms around me, but inside I’m feeling colder and colder.

  I picture Josh on his flight—wearing his khakis, pecking away on his laptop. So very boring. I have no idea why such a boring thought has me looking at the clock on the wall, wishing he’d text.

  Which he won’t—because he’s on a flight but also because this is over. I know this and yet, as I am being shepherded from one group of people to another, I pull out my phone for the hundredth time anyway to see if he replied.

  He did. And all it says is, I
’m outside.

  I’m almost scared to take it literally but my heart is leaping, ready to thump right out of my chest. Josh is here. For me.

  Two seconds ago, I was empty and despondent and now it's as if fireworks are igniting in my veins, hot and cold at the same time, so thrilling it almost hurts.

  “I need a minute," I tell the girl assigned to me. Her eyes open wide—apparently me needing a minute is not on her schedule. "And I have a friend at the door, Josh. Can you please have the doorman send him back?"

  "You still have donors who want to meet you," she says.

  I'm doing this whole thing out of the goodness of my heart, or whatever I have in place of a heart, and I have put in two hours. I don't know what was promised to all these people, but is there really no limit to it?

  "I need a break," I repeat, more firmly, “and until I get it and have seen Josh, I am not meeting anyone else.”

  "So I can tell everyone you'll be back in five minutes?" she asks.

  "You can tell them whatever you want," I reply. She looks satisfied by this, not realizing what I'm really saying is I don't give a shit what you tell them because I am going to do what I want right now and what I want, more than anything in the entire world, is to lay eyes on Joshua Bailey.

  I'm back in the green room for less than thirty seconds when there's a knock on the door and he walks in wearing a heavy coat, snow still melting in his hair, looking like the most delicious thing I have ever seen in my life. I’m already shaking with the desire for him to touch me. “I was in the neighborhood,” he says. He hands me a small white bag and his mouth curves upward. “I heard you wanted brioche.”

  I stare at him for a moment, blinking back tears. I’ve been given crazy gifts. I’ve been given diamonds and designer dresses. I was once given a car. But I’ve never loved anything as much as I do this brioche in a white paper bag.