“Worse than an actor?” She was leaning against the wall, her long arms crossed before her narrow frame. “What? An artist?”
We both laughed—a shared joke. Artists: dashing, brilliant, crazy. We’d both gone down that road before and vowed never to return.
“Do you remember in the spring when I took Isabelle and her friends to Vegas to the August Moon concert?”
She nodded. I could see her focusing, trying to follow the thread. There was no way she could have predicted the direction in which it would go.
“Well, I kind of met one of the guys…”
“One of which guys?”
“The August Moon guys.”
Her eyes widened. “Theboys? Theboys in the band?” Coming out of her mouth it sounded dirty, wrong, possibly illegal. “I am going to need some wine. I’m going to the kitchen. You stay right here.”
She returned shortly with two glasses and a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc. “Start at the beginning. Don’t leave anything out.”
And so I recounted the story of Hayes. Right up through the thirty-six hours we’d spent locked in the hotel room in Cannes. Only stepping out at dusk on Wednesday to walk the Croisette and dine at La Pizza because I insisted we get some fresh air. But he’d have been just as content to stay in our lair and fuck.
“Is he the cute one?” she asked now.
“Aren’t they all?”
“No, I mean thesexyone.”
I must have made a funny face because she followed that up with “Thereallysexy one.”
“The swagger one?” I smiled.
“Yes! With the dimples?”
“Yes. That’s mine. The swagger one.”
“Holy fuck,” she said, sitting on the floor with the bottle. She rarely cursed. “That is pretty impressive.”
“Thank you.”
“Does he know you could be his mother?”
“Yes,” I said. Lulit was not one for sugarcoating things. “And apparently he’s okay with that.”
“IsIsabelleokay with that?”
I swiped the glass of wine she’d poured and downed a mouthful, Hayes’s watch sliding over my wrist. “Isabelle doesn’t know.”
I still hadn’t told her. Not during the overnight at my parents’ in Boston; not during the nearly three-hour drive up to Denmark, Maine; not when she emptied her backpack and placed the framed photo from the meet-and-greet upon a shelf beside her bunk. And there he was: smiling wide, hugging us both, shaming me from the confines of a five-by-seven.
“Oh my God, you met them! I love them! I saw them at the Garden,” one of Isabelle’s bunkmates, a sporty brunette from Scarsdale, had said. “We were on the floor. Who’s your favorite?”
Isabelle had shrugged, noncommittal. “I don’t really have a favorite.”
Thank God.
“I love Ollie.” The bunkmate’s eyes had gone all googly. “I know people say he’s gay, but I loooove him.”
People said he was gay? This was news to me. Although it might have been my initial impression, I’d rethought it when he mentally undressed me in Vegas. For a split second I considered telling the bunkmate that, but then decided it was best not to engage at all. At that point, I excused myself and stepped outside the cabin.
“I don’t imagine she’s going to take it very well,” Lulit said to me now.
