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The garage looked more like an airplane hangar. The house itself seemed to sprawl on as far as I could see. It was a mix of dark wood, steel, and glass, like a cabin crossed with a supermodern house—but somehow it worked. It was, above all, impressive. The kind of house that was designed, even though there was nothing gaudy about it, to let you know just how wealthy and important the owner was.
Russell walked toward the front door, still not waiting for me or looking to see if I was behind him. I hurried to keep pace—but then stopped short and just blinked at what was before me. There was a Jeff Koons balloon dog on the lawn. Fifteen feet high, purple, and reflecting the moonlight and the lights that lined the driveway.
The Broad museum in downtown LA had put on a Koons exhibit last year, and my dad and I had gone. We’d both loved the balloon dogs the best, but I had never seen his work outside of a museum. Until this moment, it hadn’t occurred to me that you could own something like this. Art that was also in museums, the stuff that everyone else only got to look at for a few moments. But some people got to have it and see it whenever they wanted.
For just a second, I thought about our house in Raven Rock. The way that I could see the neighbors from my bedroom window, the way that my dad and I would sit on the front steps in the morning and wave to all the dog walkers and runners passing by. The creaky stairs and uneven floors. The slightly peeling paint my dad kept promising to get touched up but never actually did. Nobody was ever going to put it on the cover of a magazine. And the closest we’d ever come to having lawn art was when we put out Boney, our Halloween skeleton.
And as I tore my gaze away from the priceless art and climbed the front steps to stand next to Russell—but not too close—I was getting angry and embarrassed all over again. I’d talked to him about loans and trouble paying for college, assuming we were somewhat on the same page. Standing on the threshold of a mansion, I felt just how stupid I’d been.
Russell reached out and knocked on the door. “I went to Silverspun with my dad,” he explained after a moment. “So I don’t have my keys.”
“That was the friend you went with?” Russell gave a short nod, and I realized the fight he’d mentioned must have been with his dad. But I wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of asking any follow-ups.
Russell sighed and knocked again, harder this time. “Come on,” he muttered.
“Isn’t that a doorbell?” I asked, nodding toward it, trying to move things along. After all, this house was huge, and the door was probably made of three-feet-thick reclaimed oak or whatever.
“Yeah. It’s—embarrassing.” He winced, then pressed the doorbell—and the first verse of “Darcy” started playing—Darcy, tell me why / a love song ain’t nothing but a lie. It was much louder than normal doorbells.
“Wow.”
“Yep.”
Only a little while ago, I would have made a joke about how it was playing my song. But that moment was over. So I just looked straight ahead and made my plan. Surely Kendrick or Bella or someone would answer the door, and I’d grab my stuff and leave. If I was lucky, I could be heading for the Vegas bus station in under ten minutes. And then this night—and everything I’d gone through—would finally be over. It could move to the past tense, as opposed to something I was still in the middle of, struggling to get my bearings.
I took a breath, about to suggest Russell ring the bell again, when the door was flung open.
“So.”
I blinked at the man who’d opened the door. He was barefoot and dressed all in black—black jeans, black leather belt, black cashmere Henley. He had on a huge, chunky silver watch, and rings on four of his fingers. He had long silver hair and was taller than I’d expected.
Wylie Sanders was standing in front of me.
CHAPTER 10 Sunday
10:30 P.M.
I stared at him.
It was like it took my brain a minute to click into gear. I’d seen images of this man my whole life—on album covers and magazines, in retrospective documentaries and music videos. I’d seen him on TV, at awards shows, and at the halftime show at the Super Bowl. I’d seen him hours ago—how was that possible?—onstage at Silverspun.
But until this moment, I’d never been just feet away from him—with him looking back at me.
Katy had gone down a bit of a rabbit hole last fall when she was working on a project for AP Psych about how our brains aren’t wired for celebrities. She’d explained that, for most of human history, if you saw someone a lot, it meant they were in your village or tribe or whatever, and you knew them. And that in our brains, frequency builds affection. So that when we’ve seen pictures of celebrities for years and years, our brains code them as someone we know. As a friend. When, in actuality, they’re total strangers.
I was feeling that now in real time, standing on the doorstep, as my mind tried to grapple with seeing Wylie Sanders close-up. In person, he looked older than I was expecting. Which made sense, since I was pretty sure he was in his sixties. Part of me—the part that Katy had talked about—was like, Oh! You know him! And the other, more rational part, was like, Holy fuck, that’s Wylie Sanders.
We all just stood there for a moment, and then—Wylie? Mr. Sanders?—reached out and pulled Russell into a tight hug.
“I was so mad!” Wylie Sanders said while hugging his son. I could see that Russell was hugging him back. He tugged on the back of Russell’s hair and then they stepped apart. “Don’t do that again! You can’t just leave like that! We were losing our minds—but I’m so glad you’re okay.” He smiled at his son, but this only lasted a second before it morphed into a frown. “But then you’re getting arrested? And now I’m mad all over again!” He cupped Russell’s face in his hands, kissed his cheek, then shook his head and sighed.
I looked between them, trying to process this—the warmth and worry and love that were as plain as anything on Wylie’s impossibly famous face. This was not the Wylie Sanders I’d been expecting to see.
Wylie slung an arm around Russell’s shoulders. “We’re going to have a talk, kiddo.”
Russell looked at his sneakers. A storm of emotions was crossing over his face—relief, anger, embarrassment. I didn’t know what had happened with his dad—what their fight was about, or how Russell had even ended up in a bus station in the first place. But whatever was going on, I knew my being there to see it was making things worse.
Then Wylie Sanders turned to me and smiled, and it was like I could practically feel a charm offensive coming at me. Like stage lights were clicking on one by one, bathing me in warmth. “And you must be… Darcy.” He seemed to twinkle when he said my name, and touched a hand to his heart in faux humility. “After my song, I presume.” He said this like he was setting up a punch line, like he expected me to say, No, it was from my grandmother, or I was named because of Pride and Prejudice, or My parents just liked it.
