I’m about to tell Clarence that I’m not sure I can do this when I catch sight of Kevin behind us. He’s talking with someone, his curly-haired head bowed down low to the other man’s height. When he straightens up a second later, I see who his companion is: Martin Dowde, Femme Fatale’s manager.
“Is that…?” I begin with a nod in their direction.
“Martin Dowde,” Clarence confirms. “Kevin’s guest of honour.”
“But … Isn’t Femme Fatale about to go on tour?”
“According toRhythm & Newsthey fly out of JFK in two days.”
“So, they’re here … in New York? Right now?”
Clarence shrugs, his gaze fixed on the curtain that is starting to open. I hadn’t even heard the announcement for us.
“I guess so,” he says with a smile, and then he nods at the stage, at my microphone waiting for me. “Let’s go give them what they want.”
After the quickest glance back at Kevin and Martin, I move forward, following Clarence into the stage lights. The crowd’s noise increases, and I don’t know if it’s for me or for Stephan and Vik who are also walking centre-stage, arms around each other’s shoulders.
But I’m not thinking about them. I’m not even thinking about the crowd who continue to applaud and cheer. And I’m not thinking about how I’m going to survive this, because I’ve found the way. I know how I’m going to get through this show and maybe every single one after this.
I’m going to imagine Pia is out there tonight. I’m going to sing every single song to her.
The show is a success. Not because we perform well – although we do – and not because the boys stay sober enough that we even manage an encore, but because I enjoy myself. Because I’m not alone in my mental musical sanctuary; I have Pia with me.
But still, when it’s done, so am I. Exhaustion weighs down my bones, and all I want to do is go back to my hotel room and collapse in bed. But I force myself to sit through Kevin’s debrief, to toast the night with the boys (with my plastic bottle of mineral water getting crushed by their champagne bottles), to agree to go over a few songs with Clarence in the morning, and I am admittedly grateful when hair and make-up help me get changed and make-up free.
And yet, when I am finally in my hotel bed, I don’t drop off immediately. Instead, I lie in the dark and replay the night, imagining again that Pia was there.
I’m somewhere between sleep and consciousness when the banging begins. Loud, irregular thumps. Heavy, determined. But not rushed or rapid.
It’s that rhythm that has me thinking, rather than a crazed fan who discovered my room number, it’s Stephan trying his luck again. He thinks because I performed so well on stage tonight that I’m already in a place to pick up where we left off.
Well, no way. Absolutely not.
This has me charging out of bed, grabbing my robe and wrapping it around my nightgown. It takes a moment to unlock the door, but that gives me plenty of time to come up with the words I want to shout at him so he knows exactly what I think about him.
But when I swing the door open, it’s not Stephan I see.
It’s Pia.
Pia with torn and blood-spattered clothes. Pia with a black eye. Pia panting like she’s just run up all sixteen floors. Pia looking at me like she’s about to burst into tears.
“What … What are you doing here?” I whisper.
“I didn’t know where else to go.”
“But … Pia…Who did this to you?” I ask as I bring my fingertips to the swollen bruise on her cheekbone. She flinches.
“You, Cassie, you did.” She wipes her nose with the back of her hand.
“Pia, I don’t understand,” I say, so very, very confused.
“Fuck, Cassie.” She leans against the doorframe like her life depends on it. “That’s not true. You didn’t do this.”
“I know,” I say. “So what really happened? Who did?”
“Me.” She sighs as she blinks slowly and painfully. Then she holds my eye contact with the narrow slit of her bashed-up eye. “I did this to myself.”
CHAPTER 19
