He arrived from London Tuesday evening, hours after I did, having just returned from four days in the Dolomites, where the guys were shooting the music video for “Sorrowed Talk,” their planned first release fromWise or Naked.
“I’ve missed you, I’ve missed you, I’ve missed you,” he gushed. He was lying beside me, postcoital, propped up on one elbow, his fingers tracing my cheekbone.
And to me, it was clear: he was falling.
“I can’t do these long breaks. I think you’re going to have to quit your job, sell your gallery, and just travel around with me for the next few years.”
I laughed at that. “And what am I supposed to do with my daughter?”
He shrugged, smiling. “Daniel? Boarding school? I suppose we could always get her a room, hire her a proper tutor…”
“Yes, that sounds doable.”
“Truly. What thirteen-year-old girl wouldn’t want to come on tour with August Moon?”
“What mother in her right mind would allow her thirteen-year-old girl to go on tour with August Moon?”
“Hmm … Point taken.”
I saw Isabelle’s face clearly then as she bade me farewell the previous morning. Her wide blue eyes, her sweet smile. Clueless. She’d made me a card: “Have the Happiest Birthday ever!”
And I knew, no matter how delicately the news was delivered, it was going to shatter her.
Iwas going to shatter her.
Hayes was smiling, his fingers outlining my lips. “So plan A, then… Daniel? That’s not an option, I take it?”
“That’s not an option.”
“What if I quit the band?”
His voice was soft, so soft I was afraid to acknowledge it. For a moment, the two of us lay there in silence. The question hanging in the air. And then, without saying more, he rolled into me, kissing the corners of my mouth, his hand at my neck, my throat.
“I need more of you.”
“I don’t know that there’s more of me to give.”
“That’s not a good enough answer.”
I smiled, my legs wrapping around his waist, my hands in his hair. “What is it you want from me, then?”
He positioned himself. We’d become lax with the condoms. “Everything.”
I spent all Wednesday with Lulit on the second floor of the Grand Palais, where our booth was situated for the Foire Internationale d’Art Contemporain. The VIP viewings began at ten a.m., and from that moment on our day was jammed with esteemed collectors and dignitaries, the crème de la crème of the art world. Each visitor slightly more fabulous and well-heeled than the next, speaking myriad languages, all slightly high in the presence of art. And once again I was reminded why I loved what I did. Because to be surrounded by such varied, intriguing types—to be a part of a community where it was admired for bending, nay,expectedto bend the rules—was, for me, to be at home.
Hayes spent his day in a studio shooting portraits with a watch.
On day two of the fair, the first day it was open to the public and no fewer than 18,000 visitors filed through, Hayes’s shoot ended early, and he surprised me by dropping by the Grand Palais shortly after five. In a world of iPhones and texts, it was such a shock to see him pop into our booth unannounced, it took a full three seconds to register who this handsome stranger was, and it made me wonder how others saw him. His notable height, his hair, his eyes, his jaw, his broad mouth; black jeans, black boots, and a three-quarter-length dark suede coat. Even if he weren’t famous,he’d be difficult to overlook. And the fact that for this moment he was mine…
“What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to see what you do when I’m not with you… And I thought perhaps you might like some macarons.” He smiled, proffering a Ladurée bag.
I hugged him then. Tightly. And in that brief moment I did not care who saw us. Or what they might have thought. “You know, you’re acting suspiciously like a boyfriend.”
He laughed at that. “As opposed to…?”
“As opposed to someone who just ‘really, really,really’ enjoys my company.”
