Her eyes finally find mine and we both laugh. Something feels like it’s shifting. Things aren’t perfect and they never will be, but maybe I can learn to live in the gray area just a little.
41
DREW
Ben, after much prodding and a few threats, finally receives the requested documents. They arrive so woefully incomplete he thinks I need a forensic accountant to figure out what’s gone on.
I’m back in Europe finishing the last few dates of the tour when he calls to discuss it. I have to go shut myself in the bathroom to talk. “If they’re being this cagey about a routine document request, there’s almost no chance they’re not hiding something major,” he says.
I perch on the counter as my stomach tightens into a knot. “Davis will go ballistic.”
“He will,” Ben says, “and wouldn’t Davis going ballistic over something that in no way involves him set off some alarm bells for you? Because they were buzzing for me the moment you said he’d hired everyone in your circle and that you don’t even have copies of all this stuff. And when he tried to cut me out of this by handling your bank loan himself…that was all the alarms at once, right there. What exactly do you think he can do to you?”
“He knows stuff, Ben,” I whisper. “Stuff I’d rather not have made public. I want out of everything, but if I come after him, he’ll come after me too.” Davis knows I have panic attacks and he knows how my father died. None of it is such a big deal, but I don’t want to discuss it in every interview and I don’t want to read about it every time I see my name online. Mostly, I just don’t want to make an enemy of Davis because he’s already terrible when he’s on my side.
There is disapproval in the half-second of silence before Ben speaks. But he likes to fight, and it’s not his life we’re discussing. “Then you need to decide how much you want to keep it all to yourself,” he finally says. “Just know that the way you’re living now—where you’re answering to him for everything and miserable—that situation is permanent until you do something about it.”
And if this situation is permanent, it means Davis shoves another three-record contract with the label under my face, full of stipulations about world tours and promo. Am I really willing to sign away the next ten years the way I have the last five?
I tell him I’ll let him know, but there’s a weight on my chest when I hang up the phone. There’s only one person I want to discuss this with and before I think too much about the fact that maybe I’m leaning on Josh and what a bad sign it is, I video call him.
He answers on the third ring. “Drew?” he asks, looking concerned. He’s in a massive tent, the kind you might hold a wedding in, and it’s the middle of the day because I’ve messed up the time. There aren’t even curtains dividing most of the people. There are just bodies lying on gurneys and it looks like chaos.
"I'm sorry," I tell him. "I didn't realize you’d still be at work. With the time change my hours are all messed up. I can call back."
He smiles and the thing in my chest eases. "I've got a second," he says. "Where are you?"
Before I can answer, a woman approaches him, also in scrubs. She’s pretty—high cheekbones, jet black hair. She speaks to him in French and I have no clue what she’s said but she sounds elegant and smart, the kind of woman he should be with, probably.
He replies to her in French and it makes me ache. First, because it's so goddamn hot, him and his perfect French accent, and second, because he is just so much. So smart, so accomplished, so much more of everything than I am.
"Who was that?” I ask. Does he hear this tiny bite of worry in my voice?
He looks over his shoulder for a moment as if he cannot even remember who he just spoke to. "That was Sabine. One of the nurses. I have to go in a minute, but tell me why you were calling.”
I can't. Now that I see a room full of people behind him, I cannot possibly sit here in the comfort of the Canalejas suite at the Four Seasons Madrid and tell him how trapped I feel by my terrible life of travel and designer clothes and adulation, how I’m scared to have Ben help me get out of it. "It was nothing," I reply. “I just wanted to talk.”
He looks at me hard, that assessing look of his, the one I used to misinterpret. I know he's trying to find the truth in my lies, but this isn't the time to let him succeed because I feel like I'm about to cry. "Someone's at the door," I lie, "I'd better go."
"I miss you, Drew," he says and then the line goes dead before I even have a chance to say it back.
"I miss you too," I reply to no one at all.
And maybe it’s hearing him say he misses me or maybe it’s just straight-up jealousy of pretty French nurses, but I decide it’s time to pull the trigger.
That night after the show I tell Davis I need a week off. We are supposed to be returning to California in two days. I’m sure there are things planned but I’m just done. I need a break.
A break I plan to enjoy in Somalia.
His face barely moves as he shakes his head no, like a father ignoring an unreasonable toddler. “You’ve got interviews.”
“I really need some time off,” I reply.
“Yeah,” he says, “so do we all. That’s life. And I’ve booked the studio to start work on the next album after the interviews, so deal with it.”
“The next album? We don’t have a single decent song.”
“That’s part of what you’ll do in the studio. Play with those demos I sent you. Make them your own.”
“So let me get this straight,” I reply, channeling Josh. “You’ve got me booked for interviews I never agreed to, followed by studio time on demos I didn’t agree to.”
He rolls his eyes. “If I was going to wait for you to lead the way, you’d still be serving burgers to tourists at Planet Hollywood, Drew. I’m not sure how long it’s going to take for you to realize a little hustle is necessary to stay afloat in this industry. And a few hard decisions, also.”
“Well, here’s a hard decision for you, Davis,” I reply, “figure out what happens when I don’t show up, because I’m not showing up.”
He’s still yelling about breach of contract when I walk out the door.
42
DREW
Two days later, I leave Dubai for Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia. I have the best armed guards money can buy, a tourist visa that required a small fortune in bribes, and a backpack that holds a few changes of clothes—and lingerie.
I know Josh won’t have a ton of time for me, but I’ve already allowed my imagination to run wild. He’ll perform dramatic surgeries all day and I’ll find some way to make myself useful. Given my stunning lack of skills—I doubt they need a great deal of singing or posing—I have no idea what I’ll do, but there must be something. I can hold babies. I can play with children. I can apply a Band-Aid over a scrape, as long as the scrape is small and not super gross. I’ll find a way to stay out of his hair, but the nights will be ours, and we will, I’m sure, make the most of them. Especially once he sees the La Perla bustier I bought in NYC.