“I miss you, peanut. I miss you a ton.”
“I miss you, too,” she said.
“How’s Daddy?”
“He’s good. He’s here. Do you want to talk to him?”
“No. Does he want to talk to me?”
“Probably not.”
“Okay,” I laughed. “I love you. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay.”
“Love you, too. I hope you’re having fun.Bisous.”
It was the way she said it. I could not help but feel guilty. “Bisous.”
I returned to the bathroom to watch Hayes dry his hair and brush his teeth and do all the little Hayes things that I’d come to know so well.
“What?” he asked after several moments had passed. “Why do you look like that?”
“What am I doing here?”
He wiped his face and placed his towel on the edge of the sink before turning toward me. “You’re keeping me company. Come here.”
I made my way into his arms.
“You’re missing your daughter?”
“I’m missing my life.”
He didn’t say anything then. He buried his face in the top of my head and kissed me. But he didn’t say anything.
That night, we had a late dinner in one of the hotel’s restaurants, along with Rory, Simon, Raj, and Andrew, the group’s new tour manager, a tall, striking thirty-something Brit with smooth, dark skin and piercing cheekbones.
“God, where do you find these people?” I’d said to Hayes upon first meeting him.
Hayes had laughed. “Beverly, our wardrobe person, calls him Idris.”
“To his face?”
“No, not to his face. But it’s caught on, and now all the women on tour refer to him as Idris.”
Afterwards, when we were all at minimum two caipirinhas in, the guys decided they wanted to check out a club in the Itaim Bibi neighborhood. With a population of eleven million, São Paulo was massive and the only city I could recall visiting where the skyline seemed to stretch the entire length of the horizon. I did not pretend to know where we were or where we were going. I resisted atfirst, because I took it to be a fishing expedition for Rory and Simon, who’d been talking about Brazilian models for at least two countries now. But when Petra, the group’s hair and makeup artist, arranged to come with us, I acquiesced.
And once again it was the coordinating of security and scheduling of a caravan and I suddenly understood what it must be like every time Obama decided to go for a burger.
Fuchsia lights, house music, and beautiful wealthy people reigned at the club Provocateur, where the crowd parted like the Red Sea and they escorted us to a sectioned-off area and the alcohol flowed like water. Raj immediately ordered three bottles of Cristal, and the servers delivered them with sparklers, as if we needed more attention. It took no time for a bevy of pretty young things to flock to our area and Rory and Simon were in their element and I was old and someone’s mother and six thousand miles from home.
“What are you thinking?” Hayes said. We were seated in our booth, his hand between my knees.
“Nothing.”
“You’re lying to me. I know you far too well. Let’s dance for a bit, and then, if you want, we can go.”
“We just got here.”
“I want you to be happy,” he said.
