But I’m not angry at the fan, or the phantom paps, either. Today, my anger is directed only at two people.
I walk toward the first-class security line, fingering my passport, proof of my British citizenship, my family name. Lord Edward of Exeter, son of a duke, brother of a future duchess.
Sonof, brotherof; who am I alone?
Someone taps me on the back, shaking me from my mental fog. I think back to last night, lying in the snow, when Harper’s phone call roused me. I might have gone on lying there forever had the phone not rung.
I turn, expecting to meet a stranger who’s recognized me. Perhaps the girl taking fake selfies crossed the terminal to meet me. But an older man in a wrinkled suit simply asks, “Excuse me, but are you in line?”
I look at the security line in front of me, metal detectors and bored TSA agents. Beyond that, shops with row after row of magazines, tabloids filled with stories about people like me.
I imagine my face splashed across a cover, the headline reading:Lord Edward’s Untold Story.
Much to my surprise, the idea doesn’t fill me with shame. At once, I understand that I wanted to conceal the truth not because of my actual injury, but because of how it happened. I was ashamed of what I’d done.
But it turns out I didn’t do it at all.
“Excuse me,” the businessman prompts.
I move out of the man’s way and pull my phone from my pocket, my fingers hovering over Harper’s new number. I may not have been the one driving that night, but that doesn’t mean I’m blameless.
Before I can make a call, my phone buzzes in my hand, once, twice, three times. I brace myself for a series of texts from Anne outlining her latest strategy to handle the press.
But the texts aren’t from Anne. They’re from Amelia.
I need some fresh air, so I pocket my phone and walk with my new lopsided gait toward the sliding glass door into the cold. There’s so much noise: cab drivers vying for space, families saying hello or goodbye to their loved ones. Amelia told me once that she loves the airport because everyone there has somewhere they need to be, some mission they’re undertaking.
I take a long breath. I’ve waited long enough. It’s time for me to go home.
71Amelia Blue
Somewhere over Middle America, I hold my mother’s notebook tightly. My muscles are sore, my body aching, as though I ran a marathon last night. I gaze out the window, studying the cloud cover like I’m going to be tested on it later.
My mother’s file is probably already back in place alongside the others in the cabinets beside the gym like it’s nothing special, as if she’s no different from any of the center’s other patients. For all Andrew knows, I went straight to the local police station this morning. He surely realized that a misplaced file would be suspicious. Easier to say (should the police come asking questions) what he said last night: Plenty of addicts lose their sobriety after rehab. He is, after all, an expert in the subject.
Perhaps he spent the night on the floor in his office, woke up bleary-eyed, his head sore where Edward hit it with a bat. Maybe his mother offered him an ice pack, but he shoved it away because he didn’t want Evelyn taking care of him, her teeth stained with red wine, her eyes bloodshot with a hangover.
I agree with Andrew about one thing: The word of his impaired mother and Georgia’s mentally ill daughter probably isn’t enough to make the police open an investigation after all these years. At least leaving Andrew and Evelyn together on that island feels like some kind of punishment, though it’s certainly not the justice Georgia deserves.
I shift in my narrow seat, twisting one leg over the other. I don’t wish I’d taken Georgia’s file. Edward was right. There was nothing for me in Evelyn’s notes. They didn’t have miraculous answers, only a flawed woman’s rather mundane observations.
Moreover, I’m through listening to what other people said about my mother. The press claimed to be experts, and they lied. That place, that wassupposed to save her, killed her. I want, for the first time in my life, to hear whatshehad to say.
So I open Georgia’s notebook, focusing on the familiar quirks in her handwriting. For years, I thought (I knew) she was too messed up to concentrate on anything beyond her next high, but she never stopped songwriting.
There is so much I don’t know.
I reach into my bag, digging past the packs of gum and cigarettes, and pull out my phone, log on to the plane’s Wi-Fi, and pull up Sonja’s profile. I want to learn about the Georgiasheknows.
Sonja’s most recent post is dated last night. After she read the police report showing that Georgia was sober when she attacked Joni Jewell, sick of the rumors and lies that had dogged my mother’s career and determined to remind fans that Georgia was the reason Shocking Pink had any success to begin with, Sonja pretended to be in need of a digital detox and booked a stay at Rush’s Recovery. She dyed her hair blond and had a fur coat custom made to look nearly identical to the one Georgia had been wearing the night she disappeared. Last night, Sonja hitchhiked to the Shelter Shack, the last place the public saw Georgia. At the time, witnesses said Georgia had her guitar with her, like she’d been planning to perform.
Sonja interviewed the bartender. She tracked down the woman, a teenager at the time, who picked up my hitchhiking mother and her guitar.
Andrew thought Sonja wanted to experience what my mother did, amacabre pilgrimage: stay in Georgia’s cottage, have her rooms cleaned by the same housekeeper, hitchhike into town just like Georgia had years before. He thought Sonja was no different from people who lay flowers outside the Dakota to honor John Lennon, or who visit Jim Morrison’s grave at Père-Lachaise.
But Sonja wasn’t simply following in my mother’s footsteps. In the face of Shocking Pink’s so-called reunion tour, Sonja wanted to remind the world that Georgia Blue ached to perform for her fans right up until the moment she died. She risked her life for it, Sonja says, sneaking out of rehab for one more chance to sing.
The truth this time.
