The Idea of You

by Robinne Lee

“That’s not fair.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “You’re not jealous…”

  “I’m not jealous.”

  “I like you.”

  “I don’t doubt that…”

  “I’m here with you.”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “What’s the point, then? I’m confused.”

  “Never mind,” I said, because I wasn’t sure. And the point may have very well been that I wasn’t sure about anything. That I wasn’t sure about us. That the idea that this would continue to happen, always, might have been more than I signed up for. That I wasn’t ready to exert the energy in comparing and competing, and maybe, just maybe, I’d made a mistake.

  “Perhaps I hadn’t thought this through,” I said.

  “What does that mean? Why are you saying that?”

  “I know you want me to think of you as just Hayes, but every time we step outside, you are also Hayes Campbell. And that comes with a lot of baggage, and some of it is harder to carry than others.”

  He stood there, watching me, the vast Atlantic behind him. “Are you saying you don’t want to do this?”

  “I’m saying when we’re alone in our little cocoon, it’s perfect.”

  “And when we’re not?”

  “And when we’re not, it’s less so.”

  I could see him growing angry, frustrated. “What are you doing, Solène? Are you trying to push me away?”

  “I’m not trying to push you away.”

  “Well, then, what are you doing? None of this should come as a surprise to you,” he said. “You knew what I did. What I do. You knew getting into this.”

  “I know that.”

  “It’s complicated, yes. There’s baggage. But there’s a lot on your end, too. And I’ve accepted that … and I’m half your age.” He let that sit there. Stinging. “I’m going for a walk,” he stated, terse.

  He seemed to have taken the air out of the room with him, because suddenly I could not breathe. His absence, stifling.

  I knew I was wrong. My way of coping. To distance myself before the inevitable. In some ways, I had done the same to Daniel. I had pushed. And now he was getting married and fathering someone else’s child. And that could not be undone.

  It would cost me nothing to push Hayes away. To not have to think about random women in hotel lobbies. And reptilian models. And the numerous fans who would have eagerly taken my place. To be rid of all of that. His fame, cumbersome, like a fucking steamship. I wondered then who he would have been without it.

  The door flew open, and Hayes came charging in. It had been minutes.

  “I can’t even go for a fucking walk!” His eyes were wet, his voice quaking. “I forgot my sunglasses and I haven’t a hat and I can’t even go for a fucking walk!”

  He hadn’t a hat.

  I would have smiled at him if I did not think it would upset him more.

  “I fucking hate this,” he said before I could speak. And I wasn’t sure if he was referencing our spat or his inability to walk out on it without being recognized.

  “I know what you’re doing, and I’m not just going to stand here and let you push me away. You’re trying to push me away.”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “You’re a rock star—”

  “I’m a person. First and foremost. And I have feelings. And I know this career comes with a lot of baggage, but don’t write me off just because I’m in a fucking band. It’s what I do, it’s not who I am. It doesn’t—what is it you say?—it doesn’t define me.

  “What happened?” he asked. “It was going well.”

  “It stopped being just sex.”

  “It hasn’t been just sex in a long time, Solène.” His words hung there, heavy like the Miami air.

  “Where are we going with this, Hayes?”

  “Where do you want to go with this?”

  “Where do you want to go with this?”

  “I want to go all the way.” In that moment he sounded so sure of himself, despite his tears. So certain of the possibility of us.

  I was still. Quiet.

  “You afraid?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “So am I. But I’m all right with that. If I get hurt, I get hurt. It happens, right? Someone always gets hurt. But I don’t want to miss out on us because I was afraid.”

  new york, ii

  It started off small.

  Rose’s parents would not let her come to New York for the boys’ premiere. Her father argued that she’d be missing two days of school, which was true. But I’d seen them pull her out a full week before spring break so they could make the most of their Kenyan safari, and I knew it had less to do with their concern of her being truant than my current relationship status.

  On Twitter, I gained eleven new followers, none of whom I personally knew and all with anonymous handles like @Hayes_curls17 and @MarryMeCampbell. There was one random message in my notifications from an @NakedAugustBoyz that read: “Are you the one?” And for some reason, that simple question seemed terribly intrusive, personal. As if she’d reached out from wherever she was, and touched me.

  And then, on my Instagram, beneath a photo I’d posted from Miami, of one of Glen Wilson’s pieces, someone with the peculiar handle @Holiwater had posted: “Hayes?” And nothing else.

  Hayes had once explained how a certain subgroup of their fandom had fantasized all these perverse relationships between the guys. “They ‘ship’ us,” he’d said. “Like they think I’m having a relationship with Oliver or Liam or Simon, and they combine our names and they invent all these scenarios, and it’s very entertaining but it’s also quite crass.” And so I knew any handle with the name “Holi” in it was a “shipper” of Hayes and Oliver.

  “That’s the most insane thing I’ve ever heard,” I’d said when he’d informed me. “Why would teenage girls fantasize about you having sex with your friends?”

  “Absolutely no idea,” he’d said.

  But I was still clueless as to how any of his fans might have identified me, and then I made the mistake of revisiting the blind item. And to compound it, I read the comments. All 128 of them. The majority of which had accurately named Hayes. There were no fewer than a dozen posters who had recalled his photo at Joanna Garel’s opening and inferred that it had to have been someone at Marchand Raphel. The rest was cake.

  * * *

  We arrived in New York late Tuesday night. The boys had shot The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon earlier in the day after a handful of interviews, their PR in overdrive in anticipation of the movie and album release. Hayes was exhausted but putting on a brave face.

  “Text me when you’re close to the hotel,” he said, on the phone, shortly after we’d landed. “There are a slew of fans out front and I’m going to send someone down to meet you and the girls.”

  “What’s a ‘slew’ exactly?”

  He laughed. “A little less than all of them. But you’ll be okay, I promise.”

  He was not exaggerating. There were easily over a hundred and fifty girls outside of the Mandarin Oriental, at eleven p.m., on a school night, in December. Where were their mothers?

  “Oh my God.” Georgia’s face lit up on seeing the swarm. “How cool is this?”

  Isabelle turned to me, and I could see the panic in her eyes. “Are we going to walk through that? Do they know who you are?”

  “Yes, we’re going to walk through it. No, they don’t know who I am. We’ll be fine.” I tried to say it as convincingly as possible.

  Then, like clockwork, as the car pulled up in front of the entrance on Sixtieth, I spotted Fergus exiting the building with a bellhop in tow. I’d never been so happy to see a familiar bald head.

  “Well, hello there,” he greeted us, opening the car door.

  The fans were barricaded on either sides of the entrance, but the hum of their excitement and squeals of “Who’s that?” and stomping of their feet and singing of “Sorrowed
Talk” en masse was still unsettling.

  We had almost made it safely to the entrance when a voice off to the side called “Solène,” and I turned to see whom I might have known who was also staying at the Mandarin Oriental. And then it dawned on me: I knew no one.

  Someone yelled, “That’s her!” and there was a collective gasp and flashes were going off, and I realized in that moment that my life as I knew it was over.

  * * *

  The girls would not sleep.

  Hayes had booked us adjoining rooms on the forty-sixth floor and then came by to make certain we were settling in. Two hours later, they were still on a high, giggling and plotting and cooing over their good fortune, and I could not effectively slip out of my room to meet him in his suite on the floor below.

  “I’m knackered. Just wake me,” he’d texted. “Just crawl into my bed and do things…”

  * * *

  It was almost two when I finally made it to his room, and at that point I would have been happy to have him just hold me, and inhale him while he slept. But Hayes evidently had other plans.

  “Hiiii.”

  “I thought you were knackered.”

  “I’m knackered, I’m not dead,” he said, wriggling out of his underpants.

  “They ID’d me.”

  “Who ID’d you?”

  “Your fans.”

  He smiled then, pulling off my T-shirt, pushing my hair out of my face. He was not completely awake. “It’s okay. You’re safe here. You’re safe here in my bed.”

  “And when I leave?”

  “And when you leave … if I’ve done my job … you’ll be happy.”

  * * *

  In the morning, Isabelle and Georgia went for a swim in the hotel pool while I ducked out for a long run. I bundled up, donned a set of headphones, and timed my departure with a group of German tourists, and none of the fandom seemed the wiser. And that hour or so alone was heaven. Up Central Park West, cutting in at Eighty-sixth Street, twice around the reservoir, and home. The air cold, crisp, perfect. I’d missed this. New York.

  In the thirty-fifth-floor sky lobby, while waiting for an elevator post-run, I encountered a guest at the front desk who was having problems with his room key.

  “This key card is a bit dodgy. Could you perhaps switch it for me?”

  I smiled on hearing his accent: British, posh, desirable.

  He ended up riding in the elevator with me. He was tall, rakish, a thick head of salt-and-pepper hair. Maybe fifty, if that.

  “Good run?” he asked once we’d pressed our respective buttons.

  “Very. Yes.”

  “Where did you go?”

  I told him.

  “You did all that? This morning? Bloody hell, that shows dedication. Perhaps if you’d given me a wake-up call, I would have come with you.”

  I laughed at that. He had kind eyes, an inviting smile.

  “I didn’t get the wake-up call, I’m afraid.”

  “Tomorrow…” I teased.

  “Tomorrow,” he chuckled. “Room 4722. I’ll be waiting.”

  “All right.”

  “If my wife answers, just hang up.”

  “Okay,” I laughed. “Will do.” We’d reached the forty-sixth floor. The doors were opening.

  “You’re beautiful,” he said suddenly, as if he could not help himself.

  “Thank you.”

  “You have a lovely day.”

  “You, too.”

  I was still smiling when I got to my room. The idea that I could be pouring sweat and still attractive/attracted to middle-aged businessmen in hotel elevators. Perhaps it was the Lululemon.

  I’d barely gotten my sneakers off when the girls came barging in, hysterical. They were yelping and jumping and speaking over each other. Apparently, they’d had the distinct pleasure of bumping into one Simon Ludlow and his personal trainer at the pool. And after they chatted him up and explained who they were, Simon had invited them to join him for a quick jaunt to the Apple Store and lunch before he had to begin prepping for this evening’s premiere. And could they pretty please, with icing on top, go?

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Mom, his bodyguard is going to be there.”

  “I don’t care, Isabelle. Simon is twenty-one years old. Why is he inviting you to lunch?”

  “It’s just pizza.”

  “Actually, he turned twenty-two last month,” Georgia added, as if that would somehow help their case.

  “No. No.”

  “Mom, please. He only invited us after I told him you were my mom. He was just trying to be nice. Please.”

  “He’s like the sweetest one,” Georgia said, and at that point I realized they were wearing makeup. What the hell?

  “He might even be gay,” Isabelle added. Her attempt to soften the blow?

  Georgia threw her a look. “He is not gay. Simon is like the least gay.”

  “He’s not the least gay.”

  “There’s a least gay? Who’s the least gay?”

  “Rory,” they said in unison.

  “Okay, I can’t deal with this right now. I’m going to have a shower and think about it and then I’ll let you know. But don’t get your hopes up. And take off that makeup. No one is going anywhere with makeup.”

  “Okay,” Isabelle said. “But we’re supposed to meet him in the lobby at eleven-fifteen. So could you kind of shower fast?”

  I was trying to remember everything I knew about Simon. Whether he’d struck me as a potential rapist, child molester, predator. But the only image I had of him was as a jocular blond who liked age-appropriate models. Regardless, I texted Hayes.

  Simon invited the girls on an outing to the Apple Store. Please advise.

  Totally safe.

  Really?

  Really.

  Also, did you know there was a LEAST gay guy in your band?

  Lol.

  Rory.

  Great. I want to ask where you fall on that list, but maybe I don’t really want to know …

  ?????

  You haven’t been complaining.

  Stop getting ur intel from 13 yr olds.

  * * *

  By ten after eleven we’d all congregated in the sky lobby, with its sweeping view of Columbus Circle, the park, midtown. The girls were near jumping out of their skin, and at the same time trying to keep their cool. And I had still not made up my mind.

  “Please, Mom.”

  “Do you not trust me?” Simon smiled, all broad shoulders, cleft chin, and blond chiseled perfection. Did they just make them like this in England? How was it they all found one another? “Your girlfriend doesn’t trust me, Campbell.”

  His candor threw me. I was not yet in the habit of referring to myself as Hayes’s “girlfriend,” especially in front of Isabelle.

  “I made a promise to Georgia’s mom,” I said.

  This was true. Earlier in the week, when I’d swung by Georgia’s house to pick up her bags, her mother, Leah, had asked about Hayes. I told her the truth. She high-fived me, and I laughed, but vowed to keep her daughter under lock and key.

  “She’ll be fine,” Simon said. “Trevor will be with us the entire time.”

  I looked over to see Trevor standing watch near the elevator bank. Tall, all-powerful Krav Maga Trevor. Ready to take on the tsunami of fans below.

  There were a group of girls congregating in the sunken lounge not far from us. Fans who’d somehow figured out the boys’ schedule and booked rooms at the hotel. Security detail was keeping them at bay, but I could see them in my peripheral vision, whispering and giggling and capturing everything on their camera phones. Later, our exchange, inaudible from a distance, would end up on YouTube.

  “They’ll be okay, Solène,” Hayes said, reassuringly, his hand at the base of my spine.

  But they weren’t his kids.

  My eyes moved from Hayes to the girls to Simon and back again.

  “Trevor,” Desmond called over to him. He’d been surveying the ac
tivity in the lounge, never more than twenty feet from Hayes. “I’ll go with them. You stay here. You all right with that, Solène?”

  I nodded, touched by the kindness of his gesture.

  “Thank you!” Isabelle hugged me. “You’re the best mom ever!” The girls were near exploding as they headed with Simon toward the elevators. I imagined what they were going to tell their friends in L.A. Poor Rose and her judgmental parents. Missing out.

  “Thank you,” I said, wrapping my arms around Desmond. I could not recall ever having hugged him before.

  “No problem,” he said. And then: “Don’t break him.” He gestured toward Hayes.

  “Just his heart.” I smiled.

  “Not even that.”

  I watched him take a few paces toward the group near the elevators before I called him back. “Des, they’re thirteen.”

  “Got it.”

  “Treat them as if they were your own daughters.”

  “Absolutely,” he said.

  It wasn’t until they had parted that Hayes threw me a bemused look. “What precisely do you think is going to happen at the Apple Store?” he laughed. “What kind of animals do you think we are?”

  “They’re virgins, Hayes. I’ve seen you in action. I know how persuasive you can be.”

  “Really?” He took my hand, leading us to the elevators that went up to the rooms. He seemed to not care that we were being watched, recorded. “Well, for one, I’m pretty sure you weren’t thirteen when I met you. Nor a virgin. And still…”

  “And still?” An elevator arrived and we waited for the passengers to exit before stepping into the empty lift. The doors closed. Alone.

  “… and still I was very respectful. I did not force you to do anything you were not comfortable doing. Not once. And now you’re like: ‘Anal? Sure.’”

  I laughed, uneasy.

  This was something new. The “when in Miami” that I thought was going to stay in Miami, but apparently not. And evidently something that once required a year of marriage and much coaxing could be negotiated with two glasses of Scotch and an “I promise I’ll be gentle.” Fucking millennials. Fucking millennials.

  “There are cameras in here,” I whispered.

  “The cameras don’t have mics,” he said, completely assured.

  I thought about it: Solange Knowles pummeling Jay Z, and that football player knocking out his fiancée, and I realized, indeed he was right. No mics.