The pain won’t.
11Florence
Joni Jewell’s lyrics pound like a headache while Evelyn gives me the grand tour, as if this place is an art gallery.
Now all he wants is to get her back.
Just you wait, I’m gonna get her back.
But he’s never gonna get me back, get me back, get me back.
Joni repeats the refrainget her backmore than thirty times in a two-minute song. People on the internet praised Joni for her double entendre as though no one had ever done that before.
I could’ve done better. But the villain can’t write her own revenge song.
“This is your housekeeper,” Evelyn says, gesturing to a woman in a uniform: gray pants, gray top, her (graying) hair pulled into a sleek ponytail without a single flyaway out of place. “Sascha. And this is your chef, Andrew.”
Andrew stands behind the kitchen counter. He’s wearing the same uniform as Sascha, but with a black hoodie over the top, its sleeves pushed halfway up his muscled forearms. His dark-brown hair is cropped close to his scalp, and his cheeks are dotted with stubble, a five o’clock shadow a few hours early.
“Can I get you anything?” he offers, the slightest hint of a Southern accent sneaking its way between the syllables. Next to Evelyn’s crisp diction, the roundness of Andrew’s words is practically exotic. Without waiting for an answer, he reaches into a cabinet and offers up a white ceramic platter. I expect to see an arrangement of fresh fruit—strawberries sliced into bleeding hearts, kiwis cut into tiny stars—but instead the plate is covered in candy: Twizzlers, SweeTarts, Sour Patch Kids. I laugh out loud.
“Guess my tastes don’t really challenge your culinary skills.”
Evelyn answers before Andrew can. “Your manager told us that you prefer sour candy when you’re—” She pauses.
“When I’m what?” I prompt, then shake my head. “I’m not going through withdrawal.” Heroin addicts notoriously crave candy. “And I’m not here for rehab,” I add. Callie was supposed to tell them that. She didn’t even pretend she was sending me away to get clean. Included in the care package she gave me at the airport were a few joints, cleverly disguised in a cigarette carton, but I left them behind on the plane.
I don’t like going into hiding,I’d whined when Callie announced she was sending me here.It feels like admitting I did something wrong.
Didn’t you do something wrong?she’d quipped in return.
Didn’t he?I asked, but what I really wanted to say wasDidn’tshe?I was about to launch a solo tour when Joni Jewell cast me as the wicked queen to her perfect princess.
The song takes aim at both of you.
Yeah, but did Elizabeth Taylor disappear after Eddie Fisher left Debbie Reynolds for her? Did Camilla Parker Bowles disappear after Prince Charles cheated on Diana?
Callie bit her tongue before she could point out that I’m neither Hollywood nor actual royalty. Instead she said,They both listened to their publicists.
You’re not my publicist.
No one else is.
The truth is, Callie is my everything: manager, agent, publicist, assistant. I can hardly remember which she was first anymore.
What about Nick?Joni Jewell’s boyfriend, the ho-hum sex on the roof of the Roosevelt that caused this mess.
He’s “retreated to the studio to work on his music.”Callie used air quotes to show it was part of an official statement.
Why can’t I do that?
Maybe you could’ve, if you hadn’t attacked her.
I rolled my eyes. I couldn’t believe how seriously everyone was taking a backstage scuffle.
It’s not like I tried to kill her,I whined.
You threatened to.
