Don, the Adonis, is here and Blaire, my old roomie. All four of us from the final shows. We’re singing the Donna Summers song we’d done as a group the night of the finale. Then, Kolton and I are singing, “Stay” the song we’d sung together after we’d slept together and the world found out.
Kolton leans toward me. “I have to take this call,” he says. I nod and he walks into the hallway.
“Hey,” says a voice from behind me and I turn to see Blaire standing there.
“Hey,” I say. Blaire was my very honest roommate when I first started on The Stage. She told me I dressed bad. I think she said I dressed ‘boring,’ actually. But she’s the only person who ever saw me get out of Kolton’s car outside the back entrance to the hotel. She never said a word, and I’ll always be grateful she kept my secret.
“It’s good to see you back. I didn’t know if you’d come…after what happened,” she says, and looks at her black nails. She doesn’t change her expression. She’s obviously still bold and says whatever she feels like.
“I’m ready. I don’t want to let this keep me from doing what I love, ya know?” It feels a little too chipper and motivational speaker-ish after I’ve said it.
“Well, you have balls,” she blurts.
“Why?”
“Have you been living under a rock?” she asks.
“Sort of,” I admit, shrugging my shoulders. “Kolton’s kept me away from the media, the TV. Everything, basically. It’s been nice. Healing, even.”
“Nice?” she says, sarcastically. “What did you think about the autopsy report?” she pushes and my heart starts to pound.
“Huh?” I ask, knowing full well she’s talking about Katharina Inez.
“The video?” she asks. I feel a blank stare as my only expression. I didn’t know anything about the video from the fire being released.
“Mia, you don’t know what happened, do you?” she asks, in disbelief. I shake my head ‘no’. She bites her bottom lip, her arm draped over the couch. I have a moment of weakness.
I lean in toward her. “What happened?” I whisper. Her eyes dart up, and I feel him, his presence in the room. When I look up, I see the death stare he’s giving Blaire. She squares her shoulders and uncrosses her legs.
“Talk to you later,” she says, in an overly fake voice meant for Kolton to hear as he walks back toward me.
He looks pissed, his jaw tight, his eyes honed on me. “Mia,” he warns. “Not today. Today is about taking back something you’ve earned.”
“I know,” I say, meaning it, as I lower my eyes. I want to know what she was going to say next, though. The truth is, I’m a few clicks away from finding out whatever she knows via the good old Google search.
There’s a reason I haven’t looked, haven’t read a single article besides Kolton asking me not to. I haven’t even talked to Gina DeYoung, my publicist, since right after the incident. I have a feeling that whatever happened, Kolton is afraid for me to know. Maybe it’s too bad, and we’re not strong enough yet to endure it.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
A Long Way To Go
The first song ends, and I’m relieved. Breathless, happy. My limbs are tingling. Our breath comes out like puffs. New York is cold—especially at night.
One song down, one to go. As we’re taking a bow and waving to the crowd, I know it was better that I started with the song that had me performing with the other three finalists. I didn’t feel like I was being judged alone. Not that being with Kolton would be like being alone, but we’re kind of in the same being-judged boat. The crowd was into it, and I had real fun—not just “acting fun” for the camera. My smile is so big it hurts a little.
As we go to commercial break, the host, Chuck Faraday, the same host I’d worked with on The Stage, shoots the feed to his co-host Fiona Winters, who I hear through the feed saying, “And when we come back, we’ll chat with Jessie Law and Mia Phoenix from The Stage.”
“What?” I ask, leaning in toward Jessie as we’re ushered off stage by several staff members. Where’s Devon and Manny? “I didn’t agree to an interview,” I say, but no one seems to hear me. I feel like I have no choice but to go forward, as if I’m one section of a human centipede.
I clutch my white coat and move with the troop up to some scaffolding that looks down over the crowd. Jessie grabs my hand and we climb. My boots have thin heels and they keep getting stuck in the tiny holes in the make-shift steps. I’m looking around for Kolton.
I hear someone say into my earpiece, “Two minutes.” When the crowd parts, I’m standing with Jessie on the scaffolding, and Fiona Winters is leaning down, listing to her earpiece. My hands are shaking. My nose is cold and I sniffle, a nervous twitch. It feels like an ambush.
I turn around toward the stage we’ve just performed on but I don’t see Kolton anywhere. I haven’t been prepped for an interview. A man in my ear starts counting down.
“Eight, seven, six, five…” and then a woman standing next to the camera motions for the rest of the numbers. I’m blank, stunned.
“What an amazing rendition of that song, guys!” Fiona says in her chipper, over-the-crowd-yelling voice. Jessie thanks her as I force a smile to crack through my frozen façade. “You’re starting the tour soon. It sounds amazing! Are you looking forward to it?”
“This tour is going to be so fun,” Jessie says. “I can’t wait to get on the road, meet our fans, and start singing again!” The wind blows and she grabs her hat, keeping it from blowing away.
“How ’bout you, Mia? Ready to leave Mr. Kolton Royce behind for a little while?” My heart thuds. I hear the wind; feel the breeze as it passes across the skin of my nose and lips. Every second seems like a frozen moment in time. Her eyebrows raise and she brings the mic up to my face.
“It’s going to be crazy difficult to leave him,” I say, giggling. It feels fake. I think they all know it.
“You know what they say. Absence makes the heart grow fonder,” she says. I nod and hug myself, feeling colder than I’ve ever been. “Well, we can’t wait to see you out on the road, ladies! Back to you, Chuck.”
Okay. Okay. I’m out of the woods. That wasn’t so bad. She didn’t even ask me about Katharina. As I start coming down the stairs, Kolton is waiting for me at the bottom. There’s a gaggle of women reaching for him, squealing like stuck pigs. His eyes squint—definitely not a happy face.
He takes my arm as soon as my left foot touches the asphalt. “I didn’t know about the interview,” I say.
“I told them no interviews,” he grumbles, walking me toward the edge of the stage.
“What are you angry about?” I ask. “I did fine. She didn’t ask me anything about the fire.”
“What would you have done if she had?”
“I would have said I’m grateful to be alive. Grateful Riley is alive, and that I thank you for sacrificing for us that day.”
“Fuck! Fuck, Mia!” he yells, and I try to shush him with my hand outstretched and worthless. But then I look around. The people who make up the crowd are holding signs, jumping around, yelling. I mean, why not yell, too? This whole place is one big yell.
“What are you afraid of?” I yell back, dropping my arm and feeling both gloved hands ball up into angry fists.
“You don’t want to know. I wish I didn’t fucking know. Fuck!” he yells again, his eyes look wild and tormented. He puts his hands up to his head and starts pacing back and forth.
I’m helpless. There’s nothing I can do. Everyone here inside and outside of the caged-in performance area knows what happened in the apartment except me. And why do I feel like this argument is my fault? I didn’t try to be in on that interview. I didn’t ask to be up in that apartment, either.
I didn’t ask for any of this. But then again, neither did he.
* * *
Why does the damn piano sound like doom?
He keeps his head down, playing the keys as I sing my part. It’s “Stay” by Rhianna. And when I ask him to “tell m
e” in the song, I only half mean it.
Because if knowing looks the way he does now, then why do I want to be tortured, too? He raises his head and pours his pain out into the mic. It feels like remorse, like scars, and fiery stairways. Like sitting on the grass watching your parents’ room fill with fire. Like losing someone you love. I know that kind of pain, just like he does.
His rises as if he’s reaching out of the water as it threatens to drown him, and he doesn’t want to take me down with it. But I go to him, anyway, and we finish the song together, with me leaning on the piano so we’re face to face. His hard edges soften some. The remaining lyrics, as they’re sung, are laced with heart. Laced with a need for truth, mixed with the need for more time to deliver it. It’s all unsaid. It’s like a script I can read in the creases of his forehead and the irises of his eyes.
I’ll wait. Because when he’s ready to share this, I have to be ready to live with it, too.
* * *
I cling to him under the scaffolding, shaking like secrets huddled in corners, scared of the dark. The crowd counts down as one collective entity. Why does it always feel like it will be so different on the other end of midnight? Like a fresh start, a time clock on reset. I want to use my time wisely.
As the Times Square ball slides down in all of its magnificence, its glowing lights are almost too bright to look at with the naked eye. There’s so much noise that my ears go blank and numb. He leans down and tilts my chin up. The look in his eyes is the stuff memories are made of. He kisses me. His lips are slightly cold but soft. I kiss him back, and press my hand up to his heart where he’s placed a tattoo of a phoenix rising from the ashes. Just above the phoenix is a cut, still slightly red, but mostly healed.
I wish souls healed as fast as skin. Sadly, though, as I look up at him and his worried face, I know we have a long way to go.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Lady Liberty
“But we’re here, in New York. I want Riley to see the Statue of Liberty,” I say. The dining room is so soft and plush. It feels safe and sterile but out of the window, I see the city, and I want to go into New York like the natives do. Feel my feet tap along the streets, eat the food, and hear the conversations. We’ve been locked away in Kolton’s parents’ house for so long and we’ll be going right back there.
He looks at me sideways, puts his napkin down on the table, and nods toward Devon. Manny shakes his head as Deloris grabs Riley’s hand. “Let’s go make you pretty. Want some ponytails?”
“A braid,” she says. I smile at Kolton, and he half smiles back.
“Tie yours back, too. You’ll need a hat and sunglasses,” he says, his voice firm, but emotionless. “I’m going to send for a coat different than the one you wore last night,” he says, standing and making his way toward the phone on the desk.
In the other room, I hear Devon on the phone making reservations for the platform and then to go up to the Statue of Liberty’s crown.
* * *
We take a yellow water taxi. The sun is bright, and I’m grateful for the sunglasses and hat. Riley and Deloris are pointing out toward Manhattan as the recorded voice tells us about the new building in honor of the Twin Towers. I wonder if the recording was going on September 11th, and if there was a group of people on a yellow water taxi watching the towers fall at the same time they were hearing about how significant they were.
I’m drawn back to my own memories of the towers falling, as we experienced it as a family of three. I was at school, fifth grade with Mrs. Larney. The principal came in to talk to her while she was drilling us on the times tables. We were doing 12s—remember because I hated them. I liked 5s. So much easier.
Mrs. Larney’s face fell as if all the muscles gave out at once. She told us to go outside for an early recess. We were so happy. I remember running out to the swing and jumping on, using my legs to pump myself higher. My stomach dropped every time I came racing down toward the red bark.
This kid, Ryan, pushed another kid, Simon. He fell, but there was no yard duty to separate them, so they started to fight. Other kids gathered around them and they kept punching each other until they got tired. Both of them were lying on the ground panting. Ryan had a bloody nose.
This little girl, Mouse, as we called her, ran to the office and told. The vice principal, Mrs. Valenzuela, came out in her beige matching skirt and blazer and took the boys inside. We were sent to the other fifth grade classrooms. Mouse and I ended up in Mr. Z’s classroom. I was scared of Mr. Z, which was short for Zwanzigger. He’d picked up a kid’s desk two years before and dumped the contents on the floor—or so they said. Apparently, the kid was messy and he’d gotten sick of it.
But he was nice to us that day. He showed us Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. One by one, kids were picked up from class by weary, jittery parents.
I asked Mr. Z what happened, why we couldn’t go back to Mrs. Larney. Was she okay? He said my parents would talk to me about it later.
Soon, my dad picked me up from school. I remember his face looked like Mrs. Larney’s had, and, when we got home, he turned on the news. That’s when I saw the towers fall over and over. I heard the woman screaming as she watched it from a window. The people were covered in ash, and some were jumping out of the top windows, spending their last moments flying down eighty stories before hitting the ground.
“Are we going to war, Daddy?” I asked. He turned to me as if I were a ghost he could only sense and couldn’t really hear.
That’s how he looked at me most of the time after that, too. Especially after he lost his job.
I shake my head as we’re coming up to the island. Riley and Deloris want to go to the platform so we do that first, taking the elevator inside. But after that, Kolton and I set up a picnic for Deloris, Riley and Manny on the grass and embark on the climb toward the crown with Devon. “344 steps,” the sign says.
It’s dark inside, cold, and smells of metal and old rust. We’re all panting. I walk in front of him, and feel his gaze on my ass. I take off my hat and he grunts, so I put it back on, but put the sunglasses in my pocket.
Part way up, I ask to rest. I sit down on one of the steps while Kolton and Devon lean against the metal inside. The only light is coming from the stairs; the only sound is our collective breathing.
We start to climb again and make it to a tiny spiraled staircase that leads into the crown. Kolton pushes me up the last step and I feel the world spin, so I lean my hand on the metal between two of the windows.
There’s a man inside, a guide, wearing a brown uniform. “Is this your first time?” he asks.
I hear the wind, sounding like coffee brewing in a coffee pot. I find my feet again and come up to one of the dirty windows. They’re pushed open from the bottom, so you can look straight down. But when I do, my feet tingle and the world spins. I close my eyes and feel the breeze, hear it once more. I feel Kolton come up behind me and with him here to support me, I’m able to open my eyes.
Out in the distance is the island of Manhattan and, behind me, Kolton takes my hips and leans in until we’re touching. I feel his warm breath on the back of my neck and the side of my cheek. He reaches around and takes my hand. It reminds me of one night when Kolton texted me part of a song. It was about holding my hand and making me his. It said, I wish I could take you places and hold your hand, and you’d be mine in some time.
“It’s spectacular, Mia,” he says, sounding happy. I turn to see his face and he’s smiling—he got his wish. His cheeks are a healthy bright pink and his beard isn’t as wild. They’d groomed him before the performance last night; I almost miss the scruffiness he had going on before. “I’ve never been up here before,” he whispers, and I turn back toward the window. I feel a shiver go up and down my spine, settling in my stomach.
A few other people come up into the crown with us and he stiffens. “Are you ready to go back down?” I ask.
“Did you want a picture taken?” the guide asks and I nudge him with my el
bow.
“Yeah, thanks,” Kolton says, handing him his phone. We pose for two shots, but I wonder if anyone will even believe it’s us in our disguises. Hats and sunglasses.
“Some people like to get a picture of her arm and part of her crown. Right here,” the guide motions toward the window nearest him. But we’ll have to walk by the other people who are now taking selfies. We slide against the railing and stand next to the guide. Kolton puts his arm out the window, as the guide helps him. From where I stand, her arm is just in view. She looks like pieces of metal bolted in place.
When he pulls his arm back in, he shows me the picture. “Riley is gonna love this,” I say, feeling his arm reach around my back so he can hold me close.
“Next time, she’ll be tall enough,” he adds. I look over at the other group, and they’re busy comparing the view from the various windows. Devon is standing guard near the staircase.
“Did you see, Devon?” I ask and he shakes his head. His teeth are clenched, and his eyes look steely and detached. He’s on duty. It’s probably nerve wracking to be up here with us when that group could recognize us and freak out. “Let’s go show this to Riley,” I coax Kolton.
He nods and looks at Devon. Something silent passes between them. Kolton takes my hand and positions himself in front of me before he takes a step down. Then Devon follows behind me. I realize they’ve sandwiched me in. In fact, on the way up, Devon was in front of me and Kolton was behind. They’re both protecting me.
I feel a smile transforming my face. The steps down are a lot easier than the steps up. I trip once, but catch myself on the rails. Devon’s breathing behind me is a little worrisome. He is an older man and without a gym to workout in for these last weeks since the fire, it has been a tough work out for all of us.
In fact, I think I’ve put on some weight. My hips feel rounder, my ass a little bigger. Sitting around the house will do that to you.
The Tour Page 12
