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That stopped me. Because she couldn’t promise that. That was the tricky part, wasn’t it? That was Ethan’s point. Danny had been able to hack me because I’d lied about who I was. But he was also able to do it because I’d put everything out there. I’d told the story about myself that I thought needed to be told. Until it had taken me so far away from myself that I couldn’t even find it anymore. The truth. My truth. However large or small, however unimportant. However click-worthy.
Maybe that was all we had to hold on to. Our truth. Our thing. The thing that made us who we were. So the entire world wasn’t suddenly for sale.
“Are you still there?” Julie said.
“I am,” I said. “But I’m going to pass.”
“No.” She was firm. “Really?”
I almost didn’t believe it myself. “Apparently.”
“Come on. Why would you do that?”
It was a fair question. “I don’t think it’s right for me.”
“Who knows what’s right for them? Some days I want to move to Mexico, other days I’m scared of Zika. Do you get what I’m saying? I mean, you don’t want to be a waitress forever.”
“I’m on trash.”
“I’m getting a headache.”
“I think I just need a private life right now.”
“Is the husband back?”
“No. I just don’t want to put myself out there. At least until I know again what I’m putting out there.”
“I’m not sure what that means. Though I hope you’ll call me when you come to your senses.”
Maybe I would. But I didn’t think so. “Thank you for thinking it was a good idea.”
“I’m thinking a little less so now,” she said.
51
There is another thing you should know about “Moonlight Mile”—it was what I was trying to remember, what I was trying to hold on to again. The reason why Mick Jagger wrote the lyrics. The reason it spoke so eloquently to Mick Taylor. It was one of the few songs Jagger had written that showed his weariness of living life on the road, the pressure of keeping up appearances.
Jagger had always kept his public persona and his private feelings separate. So it was startling and incredible to hear him open up about his loneliness. To expose himself in that way.
As soon as I got off the phone with Julie, I turned on the song and—now that she didn’t care anymore—I figured out a better answer to why I felt like I had to turn her down. I realized: It couldn’t have happened that way today for Jagger, could it? If Jagger were coming up today, instead of listening to the most honest rock song ever written, we would see on his Facebook feed that life on the road was draining him. We would see on his Twitter, a few hours later, an apology for sounding ungrateful that life on the road was draining him. The world eager to chime right in with their judgments.
Was his apology sincere? Was it sincere enough?
And, really, it wasn’t even about being famous—or famous in your corner of the world, like I’d been, for a moment.
I was still trying to figure out what we all lost in broadcasting our lives for everyone else’s consumption. Before we took the time, you know, to figure out what we wanted our lives to add up to.
Something important, it seemed to me. Something like the chance to write the song.
52
That night, I told Chef I needed to talk with him.
I was still reeling a little from telling Julie no. I was reeling and trying to focus in on working things out with Z.
We were going over the trash, which was composed mainly of the whipped lardo and seaweed butter he served with the bread. It depended on the day of the week whether that rich, gooey lardo and the salty butter were spooned up or left behind. Saturdays, people drowned their fresh farm bread in both types of fat. But Sundays, they seemed to leave the lardo behind. Chef Z wasn’t particularly interested—not in the bread, and not really in what I had to say.
Before I got a word out, he raised h
