“So what’s really stopping you ditching duty for booty?” Dimity Graham asked with her usual let’s-cut-through-the-crap incisiveness, after Kayla filled her in on her dilemma. “We both know you can juggle multiple tasks.”
Zander’s PA was a bitchy WASP with hidden depths. She and Kayla had become friends on tour, which surprised the hell out of both of them. Dimity looked like most of the other beautiful skinny blonds in Tinseltown, but combined brutal honesty with a kind heart.
Suddenly realizing she was cutting her chicken burger into child-size bites, Kayla put down her knife and fork. “Fear,” she said.
It was too hard admitting to Jared she was having a crisis of self-confidence when he’d seen her as the capable one all these years—the tower of strength who was the woman he fell in love with. “Do I really want to re-open that can of worms? I feel as if we’re finally on an even keel.” Even if it wasn’t the glorious sloop their marriage had first set sail on, but a serviceable tug boat. Is that what you’ll settle for?
“You want my opinion?”
“That’s why I’m buying you lunch.”
Jared had shooed her out the door, Rocco balanced on one hip, straight after breakfast. “Go. Do the stuff you need to do…presents, whatever. Then see a movie, get a massage. Have fun. Don’t come home until dinnertime. Adult dinner time. Eight o’clock.”
“Stop being so rabbity about this.” Dimity picked at her salad. “Navigating the rock world is tough, and I know the learning curve for you and Jared has been steep. He let fame go to his head and you’ve been hanging on for dear life, eyes closed, waiting for things to settle down. But you’re trying to apply brakes at the top of the roller coaster.”
“Do I have to state the obvious?” Kayla picked up a burger segment, only to put it down again. “Because I don’t want to fall.”
“So your strategy is to hang upside down for a while? You’ve still got to get down sometime. Open your eyes, release the brakes and start steering the ride. Take control. You’re not a passenger. Stop acting like one.”
Kayla stabbed a fry into some ketchup. “Because I’ve been so good at driving the rock ‘n’ roller coaster so far?”
“You were Miss Hometown something, ran committees for something, and—” Dimity waved vaguely “—ran a high school office, dealing with hormonal teens.” She looked at Kayla’s fries with hungry eyes. “Now you’ve done a few loops you’re smart enough to work it out.”
“I don’t know why that makes me feel better, but it does.” Kayla placed a few fries on Dimity’s plate, ignoring her friend’s token protest.
She and Jared had been so good at navigating failure, they’d never considered success would also require a skill-set. Getting her old life back wasn’t an option. She was in a new world with new rules and new challenges, and digging her heels in and saying, “I’m not playing” would get her nowhere.
“Forget Jared for a moment,” Dimity said, dipping a fry into Kayla’s ketchup. “What do you want?”
If their old life wasn’t available, what could their life be? What would work for her? “Our family life can’t revolve around his career anymore,” she said slowly, letting ideas form. “Maddie starts school next year. We need roots, structure, community. A life that Jared can slot into, not the other way around.” Her amorphous longings starting crystallizing into goals she could work with.
“If we have to live in L.A. I’d like to find a neighborhood where mostly normal people live mostly normal lives. Other mothers who aren’t fixated on womb cleansers and finding a real English nanny because God forbid they raise their own kids.”
Her tone gathered conviction as she thought of some of her new acquaintances. “I refuse to let my days become an endless cycle of dieting, gym, and fucking Brazilians.”
“Nothing wrong with fucking Brazilians,” said Dimity, making her laugh. It was so good having a genuine friend to share things with in L.A. She needed more of them. Another goal.
And Dimity was right. It was time for Kayla to start calling the shots.
“What I find hardest is the loneliness when he’s touring,” she admitted. “Raising the kids by myself.” She’d bottled up her feelings for so long, she had trouble opening up. Letting people in again. Building up to letting Jared in. “I keep telling myself to toughen up. I mean, it’s no different from wives whose husbands are in the military or the merchant navy, husbands who work on fishing boats or oil rigs.”