I laughed at that. “I’d like to see you do that.”
“I’d like toshowyou.” He smiled, bold. “Come on. You’ll want something to commemorate our wild night in Vegas.”
“Well, when you make it so appealing…”
The first photo I have of myself with Hayes is of the nine of us, in the basement of the Mandalay Bay. He has one arm draped around me and the other around Isabelle. I’d ordered two copies. In time Isabelle would destroy hers.
“I’m impressed you flew out here just for us.” The guys were in full conversation with my brood, making the most of our ninetyseconds. Liam was asking Rose about our trek to Sin City, and Simon was touching Georgia’s hair.
“I love these curls.”
“Do you?” Georgia gave as good as she got. She’d benefitted from an older sister.
“That’s quite an indulgence, flying in for the day.” Hayes was engaging Isabelle, leaning on her shoulder like a big brother. Like he’d known her all her life. I knew inside she was dying.
“Two days,” she clarified.
“It was a gift from her father,” I volunteered.
“‘Her father’?” He looked over to me. There was that raised eyebrow again. “Notyour husband?”
“Hewasmy husband. Now he’s just her father.”
“Well…” He paused. “That’s serendipitous, isn’t it?”
I laughed. “What does that mean?”
“I don’t know. You tell me.”
There was something about him in that moment. His ease. His accent. His cocksure smile. Disarming.
“Next!” Our time was up.
He humored us again at the end of the meet-and-greet. When everyone had taken their requisite photos and the group was signing autographs, we filtered over to him amidst a sea of moving bodies. Fish swimming upstream. All around us there was collective squealing and swaying and “Hayes, can I touch your hair?” But my group was holding it together. It might have been that jaded L.A. thing: that they were used to seeing the likes of the Beckham boys at the local park, or “Spider-Man” in the carpool lane at drop-off. It took a bit more to faze them. They were, despite all their exuberant canvassing of the resort that afternoon, surprisingly poised.
“I’m really loving thePetty Desiresalbum. It’s deep on so many levels,” Georgia gushed.
“Yes,” Rose chimed in. “Such clever lyrics. I love ‘Seven Minutes.’”
“You like it, do you?” He glanced up from where he was signing a T-shirt.
“It’s like… you’ve really tapped into our generation. You speak for all of us.” Isabelle flipped her hair, an attempt at flirting, but the awkward pursed-lipped smile belied her youth. There were braces under there. Oh, sweet girl, in time…
She had my face. Large almond-shaped eyes, pouty French lips, a fair olive complexion. Her hair thick, brown, almost black.
I watched Hayes take the girls in. His eyes moving from one to another, amused. I imagined he was used to this. Finally, he landed on me.
“Where are you ladies sitting?”
The girls rattled off our seat numbers.
“Come backstage after the show. I’m going to have someone come and get you on the floor. Don’t leave.” He looked to me then. Piercing blue-green eyes and a mass of dark curls. He couldn’t have been more than nineteen. “All right?”
I nodded. “All right.”
There was something mind-bending about emerging from an intimate conversation with a member of the biggest boy band of the last decade and being thrust into an arena with twelve thousand of his shrieking fans. There was a shift of equilibrium, a disconnect. For a moment I lost sense of where I was, how I’d gotten there, what my role was supposed to be. The girls were buzzing with excitement and rushing to find our floor seats, and I was spiraling. I was not prepared for the onslaught: the roar, the pitch, the energy level of so many adolescent girls at the peak of arousal. That this, all of this, could be for the boys we’d just left in the basement seemed inconceivable. They were bewitching, yes, but still flesh and blood.
The screamfest started before the guys hit the stage and continued without pause for the next two and a half hours. Lulit had been right. It was at a decibel level that was near impossible to get used to. Particularly for a woman pushing forty.
