I could see Hayes across the room, whispering something in Simon’s ear, laughing. His hand dwarfing the mouth of his glass. He’d managed to get himself something besides water, Graham be damned. What were they discussing? I wondered.
My attention turned back to Ian. “Was that your real room number, 4722?”
Hayes’s father smiled, then swilled from his glass. “I’m not going to answer that question.”
“Yes,” I said, “that’s probably for the best.”
*
Toward the end of the night, when Amara had parted and the girls had returned to the hotel under the supervision of Liam’s parents, Hayes and I sat together in one of the booths. We were alone, but it felt false. The velvet rope, Desmond standing a few feet away with his back to us. Like exotic animals in a cage.
“You know tonight changes everything, right?”
“Because I’ve met your parents?”
“No.” He smiled. “Because there are people with cameras here. And press. People are going to talk. And it’s going to be more than a blind item.”
“I know that.”
“And it’s going to be more than one or two fans calling your name outside of a hotel. It’s going to feel really different. I’m just warning you.”
“Are you trying to say it’s too late to turn back?”
He laughed, kissed me. “It’s definitely too late to turn back.” His hand had found its way to my knee beneath the table. “Jane and Alistair are giving me dirty looks from across the room.”
“Are they?”
Hayes inclined his head to the ballroom floor, where, sure enough, his managers, a commanding couple, were in conversation with some record people but clearly staring daggers in our direction. Hayes put on one of his megawatt smiles and waved. “Hello, Jane and Alistair, I know I’m going against your boy band playbook by consorting with someone completely age inappropriate in a public setting and we’re going to lose a bunch of young fans in the Bible Belt. Sorry.”
I laughed, grabbing his waving hand. “Stop that.”
“Do you think they can read my lips?”
“I think they can read your cheeky attitude.”
He turned to me then. “I like you.”
“I know you do.”
“Thank you for coming. It really meant a lot to me that you were here.” He smiled slowly, his hand reaching to stroke the side of my face. “I more than like you. You know that, right? I’m not going to say it right now … but I do.”
We sat there for a bit, disappearing in each other.
I spoke first. “I’m really proud of you…”
“For putting on a suit and showing up?”
“For all of this. None of this would have happened if it weren’t for you, and your idea.”
He squeezed my hand and smiled. “It might have been a wee selfish on my part. Plus, it’s not exactly rocket science, is it?”
“It’s art. And it makes people happy. And that’s a very good thing. We have this problem in our culture. We take art that appeals to women—film, books, music—and we undervalue it. We assume it can’t be high art. Especially if it’s not dark and tortured and wailing. And it follows that much of that art is created by other women, and so we undervalue them as well. We wrap it up in a pretty pink package and resist calling it art.”
Hayes was quiet, processing.
“That’s part of why I do what I do … to push back on that, to combat it. And that’s why you should be a little more proud of what you do…”
I could see him searching for a response. The start of a smile playing over his lips. “Remind me again. How did I find you?”
“My ex-husband bought you in an auction.”
He laughed, his head angling back. His jaw. “We probably should thank him then.”
“We probably should … Let’s go back to the hotel. We can thank him properly there.”
“Yes.” He smiled. “Let’s.”
anguilla
They were eloping. Daniel and Eva. They’d made plans to do it in Maui the week after Christmas. Evidently Daniel liked his women pregnant in Hawaii. At least he’d had the decency to choose a different island.
He’d informed me the Saturday after we returned from New York. Straight, no chaser. “It’s going to be a tiny ceremony, and I’d like Isabelle to be there.”
“Of course,” I said, attempting to hide all emotion.
We were in the kitchen. He, standing with his arms across his chest, looking ever awkward. His eyes roaming the space, the unfamiliar postcards and photos tacked to the fridge. This was no longer his home.
“She says she had a great time in New York…”
“She did.”
“Did you have a good time?”
I paused at my spot before the stove where I’d been stirring risotto. Was he trying to parse out information about Hayes and me? Or was he genuinely interested in my happiness? “I did. Thank you.”
“So … this is really a thing?”
“This is really a thing.”
He nodded, leaning back on the island, stroking his chin, watching me.
“What, Daniel? What do you want to say?”
“I want to know how you see this playing out. Even if she says she’s okay with it, I want to know how having a boyfriend that famous is not going to fuck up our daughter. And when he ends it and breaks your heart, and is photographed with some nineteen-year-old model on the cover of Us, I want to know what you think it’s going to do to Isabelle to watch you go through that.”
The risotto was boiling. There was nothing to say.
“I want you to be happy, Solène. I do. But not at the expense of our daughter.”
*
By Sunday, four days after the premiere, things had begun to change. Drastically. I logged on to Twitter for the first time since New York and found I had 4,563 followers. Up from my previous high of 242. I thought perhaps it was an accident until I saw my notifications, which were too many to count, too much to process. I began to scroll through them, against my better judgment and Hayes’s advice, and was shocked by what lay within.
Fuck u, u fucking bitch.
You’re pretty but you’re old af.
wtf is all this shit about you and hayes can you just confirm something so i can go on with my life, thanks When he cums does he scream “Mommy”?
u r so pathetic. I’d be so embarrassed if you were my mom. I bet your daughter hates your guts Don’t listen to all those bitches, Solne, they’re just jealous. You seem nice.
hi December girlfriend
What does he see in you? I can’t imagine your old ass is worth it. What are you, 50?
Holi is real. Holi is real. Holi is real. Holi is real.
Instagram was no better. Whoever held the account @Holiwater had returned to comment on every one of my photos of the past two and a half years with her signature inquiry: “Hayes?” Another, @hayesismynigga, had written “bitch,” “salope,” “connasse” over and over and over again. And yet another, @himon96, took the opportunity to write in all caps on at least a dozen photos “VINTAGE VAGINA.”
When Hayes called from his place in Shoreditch that night, the sprawling loft that I had yet to see with the Nira Ramaswami and the Tobias James gracing the walls, I tried not to let him hear the anxiety in my voice. The band was both dropping the album and premiering the movie in London on Monday, and I knew he was already overwhelmed. But immediately he sensed something was off.
“What’s wrong?”
“Twitter.”
“I’m sorry, Sol. I’m sorry.”