Authors: Emma McLaughlin
Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Coming of Age, #Contemporary Women
“No?”
“My pajamas. My big swollen tummy. I might take it in the bath with me later. I’ve never loved anything so much in my whole life.”
“That’s fantastic!” I cheer, her unadulterated joy infectious.
“Oh my god, Kate, we left the kids with my parents and had a romantic weekend in Boston. It was phenomenal—we went for long walks, went to the Isabelle Stewart Gardner Museum, had fantastic meals—we got a couples massage!” She lowers her voice. “And had lots of sex. The big kind.”
“Are we ready to roll?” I hear Jake’s voice coming from behind the flat on my left and try to make my way around the maze.
“Shit, I better go.”
“Yeah, go get ready for your
debut.
We’re watching! We love you!”
“Love you!” Again the boys echo.
“Love you, too!” I click off. “Jake,” I say as I spot him sipping water from a clear plastic cup.
“Shh,” a man admonishes me and I take in the boom he’s holding. I obediently freeze as Jake sets down the cup in the bright lights and his interviewer, a guest VJ for the festivities, some recent one-hit-wonder, nods he’s ready to go.
“We’re here with Jake Sharpe. Hey, Jake, I’m such a huge fan!”
“Thanks, man.” Jake smiles. The guy with the unwarranted arrogance of the newly famous waits for Jake to return the compliment. “Right, so you’ll be rocking us into the New Year in a few short minutes.”
“Looking forward to it.” Jake nods at the camera.
“Yeah, we just kicked it,” he offers Jake another chance.
“Cool.”
“Right. So this has been quite a season of revelations for you. The muse of your hit songs has been revealed to be your high school sweetheart, uh, Katie Hollis, who’ll be onstage with you a little later.” He looks to the camera. “So, stay tuned for that. And on your greatest hits CD, songs from your first album will no longer be credited solely to you…but to, let’s see Samuel Richardson, Todd Rawley, and Benjamin Conchlin.” I feel us share this moment and grin from the sidelines, picturing them all glued to the TV. “So, why now, Jake?” he departs from the teleprompter. “With a new album to promote, why choose this moment to reveal that you didn’t actually write the music that first made you famous.”
Jake blinks at the ignored screen for a quick second as he regroups, “Right, okay.”
“Tell us more about who wrote it.”
“It was a collaboration.” He shifts in his seat. “With some great guys—my best friends.” He looks over and we share a smile as I think it might be possible—not best friends, but amends made, gaps bridged—it’s a start. And I’m proud of him.
“Then where are these other musicians? They ‘collaborated’ on pretty groundbreaking stuff, some argue your best work.” He smirks.
“Yeah, well,” Jake runs his hands over his thighs, “collaboration is an art form, definitely. I’m still pretty fanatical about the talent I surround myself with—hunting for the people who bring out the best in me, like Mirwais, who produced my last album. You know, you want the best backup, the best support, so your talent can fly. What those guys gave me in terms of emotional support while I wrote those songs—” My skin grows hot and I can feel Laura’s face fall as he thumps his fist twice against his breastplate. “—I will never forget it. Never.”
“Asshole.”
Everyone’s eyes fly to me, Jake’s locking with my disgusted expression and I turn before the camera can, pushing against the throngs to find the exit, elbowing my way against the crush trying to make it to the Times Square windows before the ball drops. Reaching the elevator bank, I pound the button, spinning around for the stairwell.
“So what, you’re just gonna leave?” He rounds the corner on my heels, tugging at his mike. “You’re just gonna walk out?”
“Yes.”
I spot the red sign and try to step around him to the door, but he catches me by both elbows. “I told you this was going to be complicated. I have millions of fans who want me to have written those songs. I have a responsibility—I have an
obligation.
”
“You have a
big ego.
”
“Fuck, Kate!” He drops my arms. “That kid was being a dick! You were standing right there, you saw what a dick he was being. They have their money. It’ll be printed in the liner notes.
What’s
your problem?”
“You. You are my problem.” I stop myself. “Were my problem. You were the fucking millstone of my twenties.”
“Yeah, and you were mine and it’s fucking amazing that we found each other and here we are doing this.”
“Doing this. Is that what the last week has been?”
“Yes! We’re doing it. And I love it! I love that we have this crazy insatiable passion and I see you in my apartment, in my life, and we make this crazy love and we bump up against each other and you put me in check with all these fireworks. We have this insane roller coaster—I love this.”
“
This
is being seventeen.” I step aside as a cluster of kids run past blowing cardboard horns. “Or younger. God, they’re all so young. They’re babies. We were just babies, Jake.”
“I’m not a baby.”
I stare at him, epically, cosmically clear. “Jake, I don’t want this. And, just so you know, it’s not your schedule, or your team, even Joss. I could acclimate to all of it—eventually. It’s you, Jake—who you are. Who you grew up to be. Or more precisely, didn’t.” I step closer, continuing in range of his pheromones, no longer potent. “I’m so thankful we did this, because now I can admit to myself that some part of me will
always
be a little in love with you, the seventeen-year-old you. Who you
were.
And that’s okay. It doesn’t mean I’m stuck, or stilted. It just means that for the first time I’ll hear ‘Losing,’ and instead of changing the station, or marching out of the supermarket, I’ll appreciate it. I’ll listen, and smile, because it’s a beautiful song.” I search his eyes. “A beautiful song that lasts exactly three minutes and forty-eight seconds.”
His face twists. “You’re scared shitless. You know that we’re soul mates and you’re terrified—”
“No, actually, Jake, I’m embarrassed. I was about to dismiss the last thirteen years of my life for the shot of adrenaline you give me for three minutes and forty-eight seconds. Three minutes and forty-eight seconds! At seventeen that was a lifetime. At thirty…it’s just a song.”
“Jake!” Jocelyn flaps down the emptied hall. “What the fuck? Those were
not
your sound bites. And, Kate, thanks to your outburst I’ll be spending the weekend fellating every major network. Now, move—you guys’re on!”
He gives me one last agonized look as I reach for the door, pushing into the stairwell—“Take care, Jake”—leaving him to go where he’s told.
Downstairs I press against the revolving glass, the suctioning swish propelling me out onto the cleared red carpet just as the ball starts to drop. I raise my hands overhead, my eyes catching on the sapphire ring. I go to slip it off, but stop. Thirteen birthday presents, thirteen Christmas presents, three graduation gifts…all totaling one fully earned royalty check. Filling my lungs with the brisk air I look up at the six-story screen across Broadway, the live studio feed lighting the crowd below; Jake sings his heart out to the hysterical adulation of his juvenile fans. If his world has just ended, you would never know it.
Making my New Year’s wish I smile deeply, blinking up as the liberated confetti falls from the sky and, finally inured to the cold, I walk away.
“Katie?”
At the sound of Laura’s voice I lift my cheek from the bathroom floor. Holding my robe closed, I pull myself up to sitting with the edge of the tub and look through my hair to see her crouching in the doorway. “I’m so sorry.” I drop my cheeks into my hands.
She reaches to hold my arm, her brand-new wedding band ballasting the sparkle of her engagement ring. “We all had way too much to drink. The look on Sam’s face at the church, your face, it was too awful. Have you been in here all night?” She takes my chin, gently lifting my gaze. I nod.
“Yes. But it’s not…” I shake my head, my heart starting to pound again. “I just…can’t…catch my breath. My chest is so…tight…I feel like someone’s…standing on it.”
Her face contorts with concern. “I’m getting your mom.”
“No.” I wave my hand weakly. “Please.”
“Okay…well, let’s get out of the bathroom, at least.” She helps me up and we shuffle back into my bedroom, settling down in unison on the quilt. “Let’s breathe together, okay?”
I nod. She inhales dramatically, pressing my hand to follow. I do, in and out. In and out. “This is going to be forever—”
“Breathe,” she reprimands sternly. We do. A few more before I squeeze her hand and let go.
“I don’t know how to end this. Every time I try there’s another song—” I wring my hands together tightly. “This is the rest of my life.”
“Hey.” She grips my shoulders.
“What?” My words blur with tears.
“We have to have more control than this. Don’t we?”
I shake my head, collapsing forward.
“Hey!” She lifts my face to her. “You listen to me, Elizabeth Kathryn…” I stare up at her.
For the first time I see that she is in a skirt suit. “God, you’re on your way to the airport. Please, you have to go. I can’t bear to ruin your honeymoon, too.”
She holds her hand up to silence me. “
You
did not ruin anything.” Her eyes land on the clothes draped over my desk chair and she hops up off the bed. “You brought these for the weekend, didn’t you?”
I nod.
“You brought them to finish this, right?”
I nod again, wiping my nose.
She lifts the butterfly dresses and lingerie with both arms and drops it all on the bed. “So you’re ready.”
“I can’t if he’s not—”
“Here.” She swipes the collapsed duffel bag off the floor and tosses it onto the quilt, followed by the heels.
I grip the clothes to me. “I don’t…”
She slides the top dress from my grasp and gingerly folds it into the bag. “You already packed it. To get on with your life, right?” She cocks her head, “Right?”
“Yes.”
She slides the next dress from my hands. “Yes. So, you will repack this bag and put it away and someday, somehow, he will come home.”
“But what if—”
“He will have to. He will come home and I will be here and I will call you.” She puts her hand over both of mine, still clutching the platform heels. “I promise you, Katie, I swear it on us, I will call you.”
We deeply thank Suzanne Gluck, Alicia Gordon, Sara Bottfeld, Eugenie Furniss, Suzanne O’Neill, Judith Curr, Ken Weinrib, Eric Brown, Addie Szabo, Larry Heilweil, and everyone at Burton Goldstein & Co. for their continued support, encouragement and guidance. We could not ask for a better team.
Emma wishes to thank her family for the giggles they abundantly share to accompany her on the ride, Shannon and Sara for the same, Christine Ranck, whose invaluable work makes the past feel inspirational, Sarah M., Minnie M. and Ashley E. for being the best Lauras a girl could have hoped for, and D.B.H. for being perfect.
Nicki wishes to thank her family for their unflagging enthusiasm, Mary Herzog for her wisdom, insight and care, Stephanie Urdang for her wonderful energy, Kevin Jennings, a brilliant man, for always getting me revved up when I’ve gotten bogged down, Kristi Molinaro, my inspiration, for always making it fun, Patricia Moreno, guru of joy, and Dr. Szulc, the master.