I nodded, watching him process. His poker face failing him.
“Is that his story or yours? Never mind. Sorry. None of my business. Get home safe,” he said, tapping the side of the Range Rover.
I’d already started the car and was adjusting my belt when he turned back and indicated for me to roll down the window.
“That’s not entirely true.” His expression was stern. “I’m going to take your word for it. But on the off chance you’re lying, I want to point out that your having any kind of relationship with this kid would likely kill Isabelle.”
“Duly noted,” I said, and closed the window.
*
Hayes arrived at my doorstep that Friday. In the weeks that had lapsed since our Hamptons tryst, August Moon had completed recording their album in New York. They’d taped a bunch of footage for their upcoming documentary in London. They’d performed on a popular TV show in Germany and accepted an MTV Video Music Award via satellite because they were tied up recording a charity single at home for the BBC. But Isabelle’s return from camp and the start of the new school year made it so I could not join him for any of the above. And so when Hayes booked a ticket to visit his first free weekend, I was thrilled. That it coincided with the opening of our September show made it all the more satisfying. Hayes had come to L.A. for me.
I hugged him for a very long time. And the feeling I had in his arms—protected, safe—was one I could not remember having felt in a while.
“One would think that you’d missed me,” he laughed, his face buried in my hair.
“Just a little.”
“Are you going to invite me in? Or are the Backstreet Boys still here?”
“Actually, the Monkees,” I laughed, leading him inside.
Isabelle was at school, and then fencing. We were alone.
“So, this is home?”
“This is home.” It was strange to have him in my space, his large frame filling the threshold. I had a flash of me and Isabelle dragging in our Christmas tree the previous winter and fretting it would not fit through the door.
Hayes made his way through the entry into the great room and its walls of glass. The Palisades, the Pacific, and points south dominating the view. Catalina rising like a purple phoenix at the horizon. “Bloody hell. I am truly speechless. You live here? You wake up to this every day?”
“Every day.”
“How do you manage to leave this paradise?” His eyes were green in the light. Oh, pretty, pretty boy.
“It isn’t easy.”
“No, I don’t imagine it is.” He turned his attention to the interiors, surveying the space: the Finn Juhl coffee table and Herman Miller Tuxedo sofa in the living room, the Arne Vodder table and Hans Wegner credenza in the dining area off to the left. “Is this your midcentury furniture?”
I nodded. “You know midcentury furniture?”
“I know you like it.”
“How do you know that?”
“You told me”—he smiled—“in Las Vegas.”
“You remember that?”
“I remember everything … especially the things you like.”
I might have blushed then.
“Did you paint all these?” His attention had turned to the myriad watercolors I had mounted and framed salon-style on the far wall.
“Most. A couple are Isabelle’s.”
He made his way across the room to better inspect them. A mélange of landscapes and figures and still lifes. Moments I thought worth capturing. “These are beautiful, Solène. Truly.”
“Thank you.”
“I want one. Have you sold any?”
“No,” I laughed. “It’s just a hobby. I don’t sell them.”
“I still want one. Make me one.”
“Make you a watercolor? I don’t take commissions, Hayes. I do it for myself.”
He did not seem altogether satisfied with that response, but he let it go and we continued on our tour. Down the corridor with the collection of mounted family photos. Most of Isabelle, a few of younger versions of me. We’d had to rearrange them all when we removed the ones with Daniel. It was not a painless process.
Hayes stopped before a black-and-white self-portrait I’d taken my senior year at Buckingham Browne & Nichols, when I was morphing from would-be ballerina to artsy Euro prep stage. An interesting phase, to be sure: long thick hair, oversized leather jacket, angst.
He reached out to touch the frame. “How old are you here?”
“Seventeen.”
“Seventeen,” he repeated, his finger tracing over the glass. “This. Fucking. Mouth.”
I smiled up at him.
“I dream about your mouth.”
“I dream about your dick. We’re even.”
He laughed, throwing back his head. “You can’t just say things like that to me. And then … Okay, hurry up and show me the rest of the house.”
We proceeded down the corridor, Hayes pausing at a photograph of me dancing with the Boston Ballet School, back when classes six days a week did not seem so insane. “How old?”
“Fifteen.”
“Wow.”
And then coming to a complete standstill before a shot of me, seven months pregnant with Isabelle, on the beach in Kona. He was silent as he pulled me into him, my back against his chest, his chin on my shoulder. We remained like that for a few moments, neither of us speaking, until he moved his hand over my belly, holding it there.
“You are so beautiful.”
“Don’t.” I pushed his hand away. “Don’t do that.”
“Oh-kay … What … what am I doing?”
“Don’t do the baby-fantasy thing with me.”
“Is that what I was doing?” He sounded so confused I almost felt sorry for him.
“That’s where it was heading.”
“Oh-kay,” he repeated. “I’m sorry.”
He dropped it, which was wise. Because if I allowed myself to entertain any of the numerous paths I thought he might be taking in his head, I most likely would have asked him to leave and not ever come back. I could not stomach the weight of that just yet. The idea that with us there could be no happy ending.
Our tour continued: my office, the guest room, Isabelle’s bedroom. My daughter was going through a Hollywood Regency phase with her fuzzy throw pillows and ornate lighting fixtures. It was all white lacquer and fuchsia with metallic accents and Moroccan poufs.
“I know this is surprising, but I haven’t been in many thirteen-year-old girls’ rooms,” Hayes said, nosing around.
“That’s probably a good thing.”
Isabelle had a couple of framed graphic prints on her wall, pretty pink posters that read “For Like Ever” and “Keep Calm and Carry On.” But above her desk, tacked up to the busy bulletin board, were no fewer than half a dozen pics of August Moon and the band’s calendar. Her photo from the meet-and-greet was sitting on her night table.
Hayes spotted it, exhaling deeply.
“Weird, right?”
He nodded and then turned to me. “We’ve fucked up royally, haven’t we?”
“Yeah. So now you know what I’m dealing with.”
“I’m sorry. It’s slightly different from this perspective.”
“You think?”
“Yeah.” He plopped himself down on the bed and lay back, his head on the fuzzy pink pillows. “Fuck. This is going to be ugly.”
“Yes, it is.”