Shetskedme. “Jayd. This is not a court of law, honey. There is no pleading the fifth. You have a highly public career—”
“I know.”
“Well, then,actlike you know,” she snapped. “You want the public to buy your albums and attend your concerts, right? You wanted to be famous? Now you are. And with that comes curiosity.”
Except I wasn’t well-known. None of them knew the real me at all. And I’d never realized how isolating it could be to have people “know” you without knowing you until it had happened to me.
It was the kind of thing I couldn’t talk about without sounding like a giant whiner—go cry into your piles of money, why don’t you, Jayd?—and I hated that. But it was alsotrue, and I hated that more.
“They all want a piece of me, and I get that. But they can’t havethispiece, Debbie. Not this one.”
“Jayd,” Debbie said, more patiently this time. “Listen to me. I know that you’re upset over the picture in the tabloids. I know it’s embarrassing. And I know it’s even worse because the whole thing was a setup, and the photographer pushed that guy into your lap. But this is not the end of your life. It’s not even the end of your career! You being gay is not the story here. Youhidingbeing gay is the story. And if you stop, if you give them a sound bite, then they’ll stop hounding you. Trust me.”
“Will they? Can you guarantee that?” I laughed without humor. “Can you promise they won’t be writing crap tomorrow linking me to Chris Evans instead of Olivia Merry? Or trying to dig up stuff from my past to figure out what all my lyrics werereallyabout? No,” I answered myself before she could. “You can’t. And there are some things I just don’t want people speculating about.”
“Jayd—”
“Debbie, I said no.”
Her sigh was so gusty, I was pretty sure I could feel the breeze from half a continent away. “The record company isn’t going to like this. It’s going to make it very difficult for them to publicize the next album. Speaking of which… Do you have an update I can offer them?”
“Sure. Yeah. Things are going really well. I have half the album done. The other half is, you know, coming along nicely. In its own time.”
This was a euphemism for “I have half an album in the can, and I hate every single note of every song. Nursery rhymes are more complex than the shit I’ve been dredging up. Oh, and I haven’t even attempted to write a song in weeks, because every time I open my mouth, I make a noise like an Edvard Munch painting.”
I was pretty sure Debbie read this truth between the lines, because she sighed again. “Jayd Rollins, you are one of the most talented musicians I’ve ever worked with. You have serious songwriting ability, and your voice is heavenly. Soon enough, you’ll be able to write your own ticket. Headlining arenas, collaborations people would kill for. I even heard rumors about you getting invited to Iron Pipes this year. But you have to learn to play the game, honey. You have to control the narrative and not let it control you.”
I rolled my eyes. “I wasalmostconvinced you were sincere until you got to Iron Pipes. That was just a touch too far.”
My platform wasn’t nearly big enough for an invitation to the biggest music festival of the summer.Constellationswas my only album, and after the tabloid photos had gone up, I’d canceled all my remaining tour dates for the summer due to what Debbie’s people were calling “exhaustion,” which was not a total lie and was also not the kind of thing Iron Pipes’ organizers wanted to bring into the fold.
“I’m being serious!”
“Okay.”
She snorted. “Honest to God. Sometimes it shocks me that you wrote this lovely album about sunshine and simple love, when deep down, you’re a giant jaded cynic.”
I didn’t use to be. I used to believe in love emphatically. I used to believe it could happen to me. And then I’d gotten a phone call three years ago.
“Aim, I can’t hear you! I’m about to go onstage. Can I call you—?”
“I said, Rafe and I are getting married!” Her excited laughter filtered through the phone line and sucked all the air out of the little bar in Pittsburgh. “The day after tomorrow! You need to come to Whispering Key ASAP.”
“But, wait. Rafe? You meanmyR—? I mean.” My lungs forgot how to perform their primary function. My eyes hyperfocused on the safety posters in the bar’s backroom. “I just talked to Rafe this morning.” He’d teased me. I’d laughed. I’d told him Debbie wanted me to do my very first tour, a nationwide tour of tiny venues, but if I said yes, I wouldn’t make it to the Key all summer, so I was thinking to push back and get a couple of free weeks at least. I needed to see him at least that much. “He… he never mentioned it… you… it. H-how is that… possible?”
“Surprise! I guess these things just happen! Love is unpredictable like that. But gosh, he’s just the nicest, most wonderful guy, Jay. How could anyone help but love him?”
I wasn’t sure. I certainly hadn’t been able to help it.
I still couldn’t, despite all the hurt we’d dished out to each other since then.
“Jayded. It’s right in my name,” I told Debbie now, and she laughed. She’d been the one who came up with Jayd as my stage name three years ago, since it was “sexy and different,” an upgrade from plain old Jay. I had been more than ready for that upgrade.
Now there was hardly anyone on the planet who didn’t call me Jayd, even people I’d known for years. People assumed I preferred it, I guess… and mostly Idid. Jay Rollins was a roiling mass of insecurity, overthinking, and bad decisions. Jayd, on the other hand, was a badass who hung out with Grammy winners. Which would you rather put in your Contacts list?
“Alright, here’s what we’re going to do,” she said. “I’m sending a car for you at twelve. We’ll have lunch atMaman. Give the tabloids proof of life—”
“Debbie, I’m not in the city.”
