I did try to talk to her, yes. But she saw me and walked the other way.
Savannah
I told her congrats because I’m not petty. She said, “Thanks, Savannah. That dress is really cute on you.”
But she saidcutereally patronizing. So I said, “Thanks! Yours too,” in the same tone.
She smiled and said, “Thanks,” and then turned to talk to someone else.
Kylie
I ignored Savannah and Helladonna. I was ready togo. It was time for the after-party, and the drinks were already flowing.
Honestly, um ... the rest of the night is kind of fuzzy for me from here on out. If you’d asked me the next day, I would have sworn that Ryan got in the limo with our group on the way to Victor!a’s.
And listen, it’s hard to admit this, but it wasn’t until, like, two days later that I realized that she ... hadn’t.
Yeah.
I still feel guilty about that. It was what helped me get my drinking under control.
Mari
There was so much going on that it’s hard to remember. I’d made a lot of friends and contacts working for Ryan, too, so people were coming up to me and chatting, asking about the album, the after-party. Everyone was still drinking while we waited for the valet. The lobby waspacked.
And then Ryan was trying to say something, leaning down next to my ear—she said, “I have to run back to the hotel first, okay?”
I said, “I’ll go with you.”
“No,” she told me. “Go with Kylie to the after-party, I’ll be right there.”
It was so loud. I should have stopped her. I did ask, “What do you need? Why do you have to go?”
“I just need to work something out quick.”
It was her lingo. She always needed to work out a verse, or a lyric, or pin down some tune that had been playing around in her head. I didn’t question it.
“Okay,” I told her. “Text me when you’re on your way, all right?”
She said she would.
Our limo came, and I made my way with Kylie and the others through the crowd. I remember that I looked back to find Ryan just before I left the lobby.
She was by the stairs, looking back at me.
And that’s the last time I saw her.
Elyse James,author
That was the moment I took my famous photograph of Ryan.
Pausing at the stairs, looking back at Mari, in her blazer of stark, violent blue against the deep red of Radio City Music Hall.
I caught her eye for the briefest moment before she descended to the lower level, not to be seen again.
She did not know me, but she knew of me. I doubt she recognized me in the crowd, but maybe there was something of my brother’s face in mine. Maybe I made her think of him, just before the end.
Wilder was not in attendance at the VMAs in New York City that night, not as far as I know. In fact, I didn’t know where he was.
