*
We had made tentative lunch plans. I was to meet him at the Four Seasons after spending the morning up at Frieze. He’d warned me it might be hectic, but nothing could have prepared me for the onslaught of fans surrounding the entrance of the hotel. It appeared to be some three hundred of them, swarming, swooning, waiting for a glimpse of their idols. Augies clutching photos and cell phones. Paparazzi convened and at the ready. There were barricades erected on both sides of the main entrance and the opposite side of the street. At least a dozen of the band’s security milled about, dressed in black with identifiable lanyards. Another seven or so guards in suits blocked the hotel’s entrance. And half a dozen or so of New York’s Finest. My heart was racing as I exited the Uber car. As if I’d somehow caught the girls’ excitement by my proximity. These fans were older than Isabelle and her brood. More impassioned, more determined. And being near them left me with a feeling I could not quite articulate. Along with the rush and the nerves, there was a sensation not unlike fear.
I had no problem walking into the hotel. Hayes had said I wouldn’t. That hotel security would assume I was a guest and not question my being there. I was the right age and socioeconomic background, and I imagined most groupies did not wear The Row. Regardless, he’d had one of the band’s detail meet me in the lobby: Desmond, a stocky redhead who greeted me with a little bow before escorting me to the elevators and up to the thirty-second floor. I could only imagine what he thought my visit might entail, but if he assumed anything improper, he did not let on.
There were two additional security detail on Hayes’s floor, strolling the corridors. Perhaps this was what it felt like to have an audience with a head of state. Or clearance at the Pentagon. I’d begun to sweat.
At the end of the hall, Desmond withdrew a key card and opened the door to Hayes’s suite. I was not prepared for the commotion within. The room was cluttered with floral arrangements and fruit platters and mini-bottles of Pellegrino, although no one seemed to be eating. There was a young South Asian guy, all business, wheeling and dealing on his cell phone; two PR-type women congregated on a sofa, texting madly; a wardrobe lady holding suit jackets in both hands and giving orders to her assistant in a British-by-way-of-Jamaica accent; the aforementioned assistant traipsing back and forth to the bedroom with numerous shopping bags; a nattily dressed fellow plunking away on a laptop at the desk; and in the midst of it all: Hayes. His eyes met mine from the far side of the living room where he stood, arms outstretched, Jesus-like, while the wardrobe woman wrestled him into one of the jackets.
“Hi,” he mouthed. His lips parting into that megawatt smile.
“Hi,” I mouthed back.
Heads turned then, the entourage not so furtively checking me out. I was trying to read their looks without being read. No easy feat.
“Everyone, this is my friend Solène. Solène, everyone,” Hayes announced.
There were genuine smiles from the stylists and a nod from the guy on the phone, but there ended the hospitality. The laptop fellow was dismissive, and the sofa women were surprisingly cold. The fact that my role there had already been assessed and discredited was startling. This was precisely what I had dreaded.
It struck me then that I could not have looked like a typical groupie, and for them to dismiss me so summarily, it was quite possible that Hayes Campbell had a “type.”
“I’m sorry, it’s just going to be a few minutes more,” he said.
“No problem.”
“I don’t like this shirt, pet. Maggie, check the Prada bag in the bedroom and see what shirts they sent over.”
“What’s wrong with this shirt?” Hayes made a face. “Beverly doesn’t like my shirt.”
“I’m not crazy about the fit.” Beverly pulled at the extra material on his sides, drawing the shirt tight across Hayes’s abdomen, revealing his narrow waist. “See all this. You don’t need all this. I can take it in, but let’s see if something else fits better.”
“We have a fancy dinner tonight,” Hayes explained, “at the British Consulate General’s residence. That’s all, right?” He turned toward the women on the sofa.
“That’s all.” The blonder of the two smiled. “I’m emailing you the itinerary now. Along with your notes about Alistair’s charity.”
I was right: they were PR girls. Well-dressed, well-accessorized thirty-something women with matching Drybar blowouts. This was how I suppose Max Steinberg saw me. Perhaps he had not gotten the memo about Hayes’s type.
“I like the cut of this suit on you, but not the shirt,” Beverly mused. “Maggie!”
The wardrobe assistant emerged from the bedroom holding two dress shirts. Beverly looked them over quickly, grabbed the one on the right, and instructed Hayes to remove his clothes.
Hayes peeled off the trim suit jacket and unbuttoned his shirt before grabbing option no. 2. For a prolonged moment he was there, shirtless, in the middle of the living room. The others were consumed with whatever it was they were doing, but I could not resist the temptation to ogle. He was a vision: smooth, creamy skin; broad shoulders; taut abs; sculpted arms. Flawless. So this was what twenty looked like. That sweet spot between adolescence and the moment things begin to unravel.
“Perfect,” Beverly announced when he was done buttoning the replacement shirt. “You need to stick with the Italians, pet. They cut for a slimmer build. Maggie, be a love and get me the skinny tie on the bed.”
I watched Beverly as she fussed with her muse. Arranging his collar, smoothing his lapels, tying his tie. Like a mom … if Hayes were to have a forty-something Jamaican mom.
“All right. I’m happy with this. I’m leaving a pair of dress shoes for you in the bedroom.”
“Can’t I just wear my boots?”
“No,” Beverly, Maggie, and the nattily dressed fellow on the laptop said in unison.
“Absolutely not,” one of the PR women added.
Hayes laughed, and then his eyes narrowed, sly. “I’m wearing my boots.”
Beverly made some disapproving clucking sound with her mouth as she and Maggie began assembling their various wardrobe and shopping bags. “Leave the things hanging in your closet and I’ll make sure to press them before tonight. I’ll send someone up later to polish your boots.”
“Thank you, Bev. Ooh, whose suit is that?”
“That one is for Oliver.”
“How come Ol gets all the dandy suits? Maybe I want to be a dandy. Is he wearing a bow tie? I want a bow tie.”
“You want a bow tie now?”
“Maybe.”
“Lawd Jeezum.” Beverly’s Jamaican was coming out.