We were meandering back through the sultry lobby when I spotted her: a striking brunette, with olive skin and exquisite bones. She looked to be early thirties, slender, sexy. Not the kind of person you could overlook, and yet Hayes did not seem to see her. He was doing that thing that celebrities sometimes do, purposefully avoiding eye contact with strangers so they wouldn’t assume they had permission to start a conversation. I’d seen him do it before, in crowds, in public spaces. Shutting out the world. This time, his iPhone was the distraction.
But I noticed her right away. I saw her see us, see Hayes, and then I watched as a million emotions washed over her face. She looked away quickly and then turned back, as if drawn against her will. Her eyes scanning, scrutinizing, looking away again. And then I understood. She was too old to be a fan. She knew him. She knew him.
“Do you know this woman who’s riveted by you?”
He looked up, his eyes landing on her just as she glanced over. I watched it register on his face. The recognition, the history. He’d slept with her. He might have even loved her. Whether or not he would call it that.
“Fee,” he said. “Yeah.”
She smiled faintly, and he, we, made our way in her direction.
“Hey,” he greeted her, slightly flustered, leaning in to kiss her cheek. “Fee.”
“Hayes.” She said it slowly, the hint of an accent.
“How are you?”
“Good. I’m good.”
“That’s good.” He was tugging at his hair, uncomfortable. “Um, Solène, this is Filipa. Fee, this is my friend Solène.”
She smiled at me, her eyes missing nothing. And likewise, I found myself assessing her, wondering, reading between the lines. Whatever it was going back and forth between them, it was intense.
Is this how it would be, were I to randomly bump into him years from now when at least one of us had moved on? Would he be anxious and awkward and pulling at his hair? Would my eyes betray both my desire and contempt? I saw my face in hers and it scared me.
“Are you here in town for a while?” she asked.
“Just a few days.”
“Work?”
He shook his head. It was painful to watch.
“Um, I need to check in with Matt,” I said, excusing myself. I wanted to give them a moment alone.
But even from my perch a few yards away, where I was scanning aimlessly through emails, I could feel the weight of their conversation. Of them. And it struck me, how much she looked like me. How he had a type. How perhaps we were all versions of this Hayes Campbell ideal. Yasmin, too.
Eventually, they parted and Hayes collected me to head up to the room.
He didn’t speak until we were in the elevator. “Sorry about that. That was…”
“Yeah, it was kind of obvious what that was.”
He sighed, and then reached for my hand, squeezing it.
When we got to the suite, Hayes made his way out onto the balcony, where he stood staring at the ocean for a good ten minutes before finding his way back inside to me.
“So, Fee…” he said, clearing his throat.
“I don’t need to know,” I said.
“I need you to know … Full disclosure: I kind of fucked up her marriage.”
I looked over from where I was standing near the bedroom entrance. “You kind of fucked up her marriage? Either you did or you didn’t.”
He paused, tugging at his lower lip. We were back to that. “I did.”
“I thought you said those were just rumors.”
“Most of them are. That one wasn’t.”
I took my time processing. “Just so I’m aware, are we going to continue to bump into people who you’ve fucked … up?”
“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