by Robinne Lee
Marchand Raphel was many things, but flashy was not one of them. And I knew then that she’d gone and Googled me, and my boyfriend, and based her decision on that.
* * *
“Solène.” Lulit cornered me as I was leaving the office that evening.
“I know what you’re going to say,” I said, “and I’m sorry—”
“No, you don’t,” she cut me off. “What I was going to say is: I like Cecilia, a lot. I think she would have been great for us. I think we would have been great for her. But I like you more. And I want you to be happy.”
Her tone, her voice, her expression were all so sincere, in that moment I remembered everything I loved about my best friend, and I began to cry. “It’s tearing me apart. I love him so much. And it’s tearing me apart.”
“I know it is,” she said, wrapping her arms around me. “I know it is. It’s okay. We’ll figure it out. We’ll make it work.”
But again, I could not imagine what that would look like.
* * *
I was still hurting when I arrived at Isabelle’s school to pick her up after her rehearsal that evening. But I did not want her to see it, so I covered, as I usually did, and pulled up to the carpool area with a smile.
She was standing far off to the side when I approached. There was a cluster of older girls to one side of the entrance, laughing and texting. And I was happy she was not with them.
Isabelle climbed into the car and slammed the door before I’d even shifted into park. “Drive.”
“Hey, peanut. How was your day?”
“Drive, Mom. Just drive.”
“Oh-kay … No ‘Hello’? What happened?” I looked back over toward the older students as we peeled out. “Do you know those girls?”
“I do now.”
“What happened, Izz?”
“Nothing, Mom. Just a bunch of girls from the Upper School who wanted me to ask you if you could get a picture of Hayes Campbell’s penis for them. You know, typical teenage stuff.”
My stomach lurched. “They said that?”
“No, actually, they said ‘dick,’ but I thought I would edit it for you to be polite.”
I pulled the car over then, frazzled. “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry.”
“But as long as you’re happy…” She began to cry.
“Oh, Izz…”
“Please keep driving. Please don’t stop here. Please don’t stop until we get home.”
“Okay,” I said. “Okay. Okay.”
It wasn’t until we got on the 10 that she added: “And remember that guy Avi, the one I think is really cute? Well, he finally spoke to me today…”
I nodded, my mind elsewhere.
“He came up to me in the hall just as I was going into Life Skills, and said, ‘Tell your mom I turn eighteen next month.’ So yeah, that’s how my day was.”
“Izz…” I could barely find my voice. “I’m so sorry…”
She was shaking, the tears streaming down her face. Everything she had held back for so long, released.
“We can talk to the head of school.”
“And say what? What are you going to say? What is she going to do? Send out a school-wide email warning against teasing Isabelle Ford about her mother’s indiscretions? What is she going to do, Mom?”
I had the sensation that I might vomit. There, in the car. The bile rising, my knuckles white against the wheel. I’d begun to sweat. There was no place to pull over.
“How long has this been going on, Izz? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Since January. Since those stupid pictures from Anguilla. But I know you’re happy and I know you love him. And he’s really nice, and you deserve to be happy. Because Daddy’s happy. And I don’t want you to be alone.”
“Oh, Isabelle.” My heart was wrenching. These were the thoughts that had consumed my daughter. “We can change schools,” I said. “You don’t have to go back there.”
“But I like my school,” she cried. “I like my school. And where would I go? Where would I go to school with other thirteen-year-old girls who don’t know Hayes Campbell? Zimbabwe?”
Traffic had come to a standstill on the PCH. Construction. The sun was setting over the Pacific, purple and perfect. And once again I cursed California for having weather that did not mirror my mood.
I leaned over the divider to hug her, my own tears falling. “I’m sorry, Izz. I’m so sorry.”
“I know you told me to just ignore it, and I’ve been trying, I have. But I can’t. I can’t, Mommy. I can’t.”
I held her, and sobbed with her, and breathed in her hair until the traffic started to move. And I knew.
I knew.
And all the other things, they did not matter.
* * *
That night, after I made Isabelle a bowl of hot chocolate and she calmed down enough to fall asleep, I called Hayes in Australia. It was three in the afternoon and they’d just arrived in Adelaide. And the second I heard his familiar gravelly voice I began to cry.
“What happened?” he asked.
“I can’t do this. I can’t do this to her.”
“What happened?”
I told him. About Cecilia first, and then Isabelle. And for a long time he did not say anything.
“Are you there?”
“I’m here.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
His breath was heavy. “Can we not discuss this right now? Can we not … Can we not make any decisions right now? Can we just deal with this when we get to Japan?”
“Are you not listening to me? Have you not heard anything I’ve said?”
“I heard you. What do you want me to tell you? ‘It’s fine, let’s just end it’? I’m not going to say that. I love you, Solène. I’m not just going to give you up without a fight.”
I was quiet then.
“And I’m like eight thousand miles away from you. I can’t do anything from here. I can’t … Fuck. Fuck. You promised me you’d come to Japan.”
“I know I did.”
“You promised.” His voice was quaking.
“I know.”
“Please just come, and we can figure it out then. Please. Please.”
* * *
Windwood’s spring break was for two weeks at the end of March. Georgia’s family had invited Isabelle to join them on their annual ski trip to Deer Valley. I let her go. That it happened to coincide with the Japan tour dates did wonders for alleviating my guilt.
* * *
On Saturday afternoon, after Isabelle had safely departed, Daniel came by the house to sign the school’s annual tuition contract. He did not bring up Hayes and we managed not to argue.
“Make sure you email me your itinerary,” he said. We were standing in the driveway: he, leaning against his car; me, pulling letters out of the mailbox.
“I will. As soon as—” I froze. There in my hand was a large manila envelope. No return address. Postmark: Texas.
I dropped it, shaking.
“What’s wrong? What is it, Solène?”
I could not speak.
“What is this?” Daniel picked up the package from the ground. I could see the phallic outline in his hand, taunting.
“Don’t open it.”
“What is it, Solène?” He tore open the envelope and looked inside. “Did you order this?”
“Yes. Yes, I typically order dildos and then cry when they arrive.”
His tone shifted, the realization settling in. “Did someone send this to you? What the hell? Solène? Did someone send this?”
I did not respond. He reached into the envelope, withdrew the note enclosed, and read it. “What the fuck? Solène, who sent this?”
“A fan.”
“A fan? What kind of fucking fan sends this? I thought they were all sweet little girls like Isabelle.”
“Most of them are. Some of them are not.”
“How long has this been going on?”
I told him.
&
nbsp; His face fell. “Why didn’t you say anything? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want to bother you. I didn’t want your judgment. It’s okay, I’m taking care of it.”
“You didn’t want my judgment? Solène. I care about you. I’m always going to care about you. Something like this happens, it’s serious. You need to tell me. Fuck my judgment.”
I stood there, wiping away the tears with the back of my hand. I did not want him to see me suffering. I anticipated it: the great big “I told you so.”
But instead, he wrapped his arms around me and held me close. It had been so long. I found myself searching for something familiar.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
When he got into the BMW, he still had the envelope in hand.
“I have to give that to the detective.”
“I’ll hold on to it. I don’t want this reminder in your house. It’s disturbing as hell.” And with that, he flung the package into the backseat and pulled out of the driveway.
* * *
I arrived in Osaka Monday evening. I did not have a plan other than to love him as profoundly as I could. And then let him go. It seemed to me my only true option.
We lay in bed that first night in our suite at the Imperial Hotel. Close, clinging, postcoital, my fingers tracing his face. We were not talking about it. Us.
“So this is the new nose…”
“It’s the old nose. Just 2.0.” He smiled.
I held his chin in my hand, tipping his face in one direction, and then the other.
“Well?”
“It’s pretty perfect.”
“Botticelli?”
“Botticelli.” I smiled.
“He actually made it one percent more symmetrical than it was before. He could have gone for a whole three percent, but we weren’t sure if it would visibly affect the symmetry of the rest of my features.”
“You realize how ridiculous this conversation sounds, don’t you?”
He smiled, his lips curling, his hands at my waist pulling me on top of him. “You mean when there are still girls missing in Nigeria? Yes, I absolutely do. But you yourself said it was art, so…”
I kissed the tip of it, delicately. “It’s art. All of you is art.”
“That’s why you love me,” he said, soft. As if he were reminding me.
“That’s why I love you.”
* * *
Tuesday afternoon following the boys’ sound check at the Osaka Kyocera Dome, Hayes and I slipped out of a service entrance at the back of our hotel with Desmond in tow, and strolled through the adjacent Kema Sakuranomiya Park. Whoever scheduled the Wise or Naked tour was brilliant enough to coordinate their Japanese dates with peak cherry blossom season, and our hotel happened to abut the Okawa River and the blossom-laden promenade that lined it.
We walked hand in hand, with Desmond a few paces ahead of us. Feigning normalcy. Hayes in a gray fedora and Wayfarers, almost unrecognizable.
“So there are a few big producers who are interested in meeting with me,” he said after we’d been walking for several minutes, drinking in the scenery, the canopies of pink. “To discuss potentially collaborating. Partially because of the Grammy nom, but also the TAG Heuer campaign.”
“That’s great. Who?”
“Jim Abbiss, who’s done a ton of brilliant stuff. Paul Epworth, who’s tremendous. Both have worked with Adele. And Pharrell…”
“Seriously? That’s huge. And you’re just telling me now?”
“Well, they didn’t specify meeting with August Moon. Just me. Which is a little awkward.”
“Hayes.” I stopped walking then. “That’s a big deal.”
“I know,” he said. I could see it in his eyes, the excitement.
“Are those guys less pop?”
He smiled, bright. “They’re less safe.”
* * *
Wednesday morning, when the guys were whisked off to do a radio show, I went for a long run on the promenade. I returned to the hotel through the riverside entrance, and en route to the elevators I passed Oliver in the airy lounge. Evidently, the guys had finished early. He was seated at a table beside the wall of glass, his back to me, deep in conversation with a woman I did not recognize: Japanese, early thirties, smartly dressed, refined. Her body language read slightly stiff, but Oliver seemed unusually comfortable, and as I rounded the bend I could see his face. He looked, to me, happy.
* * *
Thursday found us in Tokyo at the Ritz-Carlton. I watched the band’s press conference from the back of a full room. Yearning to see Hayes as the rest of the world did. In addition to their publicist, whom I had met briefly backstage in Osaka, there were two other women who accompanied them, dressed chicly in head-to-toe black, clinging to their note cards and microphones. And as the questions began I realized two things: these women were August Moon’s translators, and one of them was the woman from the lounge at the Imperial Hotel.
There was a sense of pride I felt watching the guys. For all their competitive boyishness behind closed doors and boisterous antics onstage, they were surprisingly poised. They were witty and charming and gracious. I tried to remember what impression I had of them that first night at the meet-and-greet. How skilled they were at engaging their fans. How at ease in their bodies. So damn likable. And none of that was lost in translation.
In between the “konnichiwas” and the “o-genki desu kas” and the “arigatos,” there was the adaptable “ganbatte,” which Hayes and Rory had taken a particular liking to, and which, I learned, translated to the sentiment of “do your best, try hard, good luck.” An encouraging greeting, if ever there was one.
* * *
Hayes and I ducked out to visit the Mori Art Museum and explore the Roppongi district under Desmond’s watch later that afternoon and returned unscathed. I considered it a blessing.
In the hotel’s sky lobby on the forty-fifth floor, we bumped into Oliver and Reiko, the translator. They appeared to have either just finished cocktails or were meeting up—it was not entirely clear. But what was clear was that they were heading out together at the same time. We stood by the elevator bank with them making small talk. I don’t know why I assumed they’d be going down, but when the up elevator arrived, the two of them stepped in behind us, and Hayes and I gave each other looks like teenagers who had happened upon some delicious piece of gossip. We rode together in silence, and when the elevator slowed as we approached the fiftieth floor, Oliver’s stop, Hayes leaned forward, put his hand on Ol’s shoulder, and said loud enough for us all to hear: “Ganbatte.”
“Wow. Is that a thing?” We were giggling once the doors closed.
“It will be in about five minutes.”
“Did you know about this? How long has it been going on?”
“In Ol’s head, about three years. This is the first time she’s responded.”
I was amused. Good for Oliver. “Your friend … is very, very complex.”
“No.” Hayes smiled. “He’s complicated.”
We arrived at the fifty-first floor and acknowledged the security detail on our way to the corner suite. Hayes was futzing with the key card.
“You nervous?”
He smiled, pulling me into him and pressing me up against the door. “Does that feel nervous to you?”
He kissed me, and then he grew serious. “You can’t fucking leave me. You can’t fucking leave me, Solène.”
It jarred me. That he’d been carrying it with him, just below the surface. Beneath all that pop star charm and charisma, he was hurting.
“Let’s go inside,” I said.
But inside was no better. Even with our breathtaking view, the lights coming on all over Tokyo and Mount Fuji on the horizon, we were trapped in some surreal world where everything looked perfect and yet still we could not make it work.
“I don’t want this to end,” he said.
“I don’t want it to end either.”
“You’re letti
ng them win. You’re letting them end us.”
I didn’t say anything.
“I promised myself I would never let them do this. I would never let them dictate my happiness. And you’re allowing them to do this to us…”
“Hayes, it’s not just about us anymore.”
“I know. I know … it’s Isabelle. I’m sorry.” The tears were falling. He wiped his face. “Fuck. I’m fucking crying like a little girl. Okay. I’m going to be okay. I’m going to have a shower. And you’re going to join me. And we’re going to have sex. And then I’m going to be okay.”
I smiled at that. Through tears, I smiled. “Okay.”
* * *
On Friday night, August Moon played the first of four shows at the Saitama Super Arena to a sold-out audience of thirty thousand. It seemed there was no end to the amount of fans who would fork over all their allowances and babysitting money and Bat Mitzvah loot to see the guys perform over and over again. Hayes had once told me that five hundred dollars was not out of the ordinary for floor seats. It boggled the mind.
We left the arena as we always did, running at a decent clip to get everyone into the vans or buses and out of the lot before the fans exited the stadium. The girls would still be singing “That’s What She Said” or “Tip of My Tongue,” one of the encore numbers, long after the guys had cleared the stage. Their voices traveling through the night, bright, blissful. It was a lot of fucking power. I tried to imagine what it would take to give that up. But I did not have the gall to ask him.
* * *
Late Saturday, after the show, the lot of us congregated in the Ritz lobby. The guys wanted to go out clubbing with what seemed a third of their entourage. It was a big bunch and they were loud, and while Raj was coordinating with drivers and security, Hayes and I decided to bow out.
When they departed, Hayes made his way from the bar over to the baby grand in the corner. I followed, sitting beside him on the narrow bench.
He began to play, his fingers moving over the keys, fluid. A melody I had not heard before. It was at once delicate and haunting, raw. And I felt it almost immediately, my insides seizing. It was personal.
