“I’m sorry it’s so public, Izz. I’m sorry it’s everywhere. That was never my intention.”
She shrugged. “He’s famous. That’s what happens when you’re famous.”
I nodded, slow. Who had she become? Wise and jaded.
“Hayes is really special to me, Isabelle. He makes me happy. And those people out there, the media and fans and whoever… they’re going to make it sound ugly. And what Hayes and I have is not ugly. I need you to understand that.”
She nodded then. “I’m trying, Mom. I’m trying.”
Leah came to pick Georgia up at the end of the girls’ playdate. She arrived with a bottle of Sancerre and chocolaty chocolate-chunk cookies from the Farmshop. “Let’s go admire your view,” she said.
We sat out on the patio, wrapped in blankets, watching the sun dip. I wanted to believe the bearing of sugar and alcohol was a friendly gesture, but I feared that as a former attorney and nowpresident of Windwood’s parent association, she might have different intentions.
“So… are they asking us to leave the school?”
She smiled. “No.”
“Are they giving me a slap on the wrist and saying ‘Please don’t engage in sex acts with almost-minors in public places’?”
Leah laughed. She had warm nut-brown skin, her daughter’s curls. “Solène, you were on a private boat in the middle of the Caribbean. That hardly counts as a public place. In fact, I’m pretty sure that’s what the Caribbean was made for. Guys in the music industry have been having sex on boats in the Caribbean since the dawn of time. Mick Jagger, Tommy Lee, Diddy, Jay Z…”
I smiled. “You just assembled that list yourself?”
“Yes. And now, Hayes Campbell…” She grew serious then. “No one is talking about it.”
“You’re lying to me.”
“I’m telling you the truth. No one is talking about it. And if they are, they won’t be for long. In the ranking of scandals at L.A. private schools, yours rates pretty low. There are parents sleeping with other parents, and tenth graders going to rehab for porn addiction. There are eighth graders sexting and English teachers behaving inappropriately with underage girls and toxic crumb rubber on elementary school soccer fields. This is nothing. It’s cunnilingus on a boat. It’s not murder.”
I smiled at that. But as light as Leah made it sound, I knew things were not as breezy for my daughter.
“Has Georgia mentioned it to you at all? What’s going on at school… what Isabelle might be going through…”
“Barely. You know this age: secretive…”
I nodded, my eyes fixed on the water. “I want to know what the other kids are saying. To her. I assume they’re saying something.”
“Have you asked her?”
“She doesn’t want to talk about it.”
Leah nodded, picking at her cookie. “Does she have someone else she can talk to? Professionally?”
She’d said it tentatively, but I bristled at the implication. I did not want Isabelle to have to return to therapy because of this. Because ofme. Because that would mean I’d failed her. And I would end it before it came to that.
“No,” I said. “I’m not ready to go there. Yet.”
Hayes came into town the last week of January. The guys had a bunch of press and meetings leading up to the Grammys and then they were heading to South America to embark on theWise or Nakedworld tour. And there seemed to be no way to stop it. Time.
On Thursday night we celebrated his birthday with a festive dinner at Bestia. The restaurant was in an industrial space in the Arts District downtown. A converted warehouse turned foodie mecca. We were tucked away at the back of the patio. Hayes and I, the rest of the band, Raj, Desmond, Fergus, and a pretty redhead who answered to the name of Jemma and clung to Liam’s arm.
It was a fun evening: the cocktails, potent; the lights, low; the food, divine. The boys were loud and happy, and after so many phone calls fraught with tension, it was lovely to see Hayes once again at peace and comfortable in his skin.
He did not let go of me, his hand touching some part of my being throughout the night. I turned to him at one point when his thumb was tracing the inside of my wrist.
“You missed me,” I said, low. My face at his collarbone, inhaling his scent.
“I missed you. Is it obvious?”
