Stephanie and Davis are in rooms nearby with friends and family, who pop in sporadically to gawk. The atmosphere is celebratory. There is cheering and laughter and champagne corks popping and the entire time I feel sick, wound so tight that even smiling is a struggle. There’s a huge spread on the table and I’m too nauseous to eat.
“Don’t be nervous, hon,” says the hairstylist. “You’re going to look beautiful. That guy you were dating is going to explode when he sees you with Luke Powell.”
I want to laugh and cry at the same time. By that guy you were dating he means Six, not his brother, which is who actually concerns me. How long will it take for the news to make its way to Somalia? How long do I have before Josh sees pictures of me on the arm of another man, thinking I’ve moved on? How long ‘til he starts dating the pretty nurse, if he isn’t already? Not long. The speed of light, really. There are thousands of gossip sites, thousands of places those pictures will post. It just takes one staff member there checking TMZ before Josh knows too. Sabine probably has an alert set, waiting for this moment to swoop in.
I’d have set one, too, so I can’t really blame her.
Good, I think. Let me ruin everything. It was going to be ruined eventually anyway. But my stomach continues to churn.
My hair is blown out, meticulously straightened, and then re-curled. When I check my phone afterward, I see two missed calls from an unknown number that begins with the Somali country code. Is it Josh, calling from a different number because I blocked his?
It’s 1:30 in the morning there. Why would he be calling me so late? I squeeze my eyes shut and take a deep breath, trying to stay calm. I blew off all his claims about the dangers of that camp, but the terrible possibility that he was right makes me feel like I’ve taken a hit to the chest. I can’t listen to the voicemail fast enough.
For a moment, the line is silent, as if someone didn’t know it was recording. And then I hear his voice and my world stops. “Hey.” It’s a whisper. He pauses. “Hey, I know—”
The line goes dead, leaving open every possibility. Why did he just hang up like that? Did something go wrong, or did he just decide that whatever he was going to say was pointless?
I call the number back, but there’s no answer. He doesn’t answer his cell either. My hands press to my stomach. Maybe he just wanted to talk, then changed his mind and went to bed. Or maybe something terrible has happened. He was evacuated last summer. I guess things do go wrong there.
“You need a drink,” says the makeup artist. “It’s not like you to be so nervous.”
I shake my head, forcing a smile. “No, I’m fine.” If I have even one hair less self-control than I have at the moment, I will cause a scene that will make falling off the stage in Amsterdam look like child’s play.
I continue to be painted and sprayed and fussed over, fighting myself the entire time not to call Beth. Yes, she’d be the first person contacted if something bad happened, but the last thing she needs is to be needlessly alarmed by me. And how would I explain the fact that the wrong son called me in the middle of the night?
By three PM, I’m nearly ready. I stand in nothing but Spanx while the stylist and her assistant pull the dress over my head—there is no such thing as modesty when you’re trying to keep makeup off a borrowed Christian Siriano.
The dress is a sample size two. “Was it this tight before?” I ask as they zip me up.
The stylist laughs. “It’s supposed to be tight. If you can breathe easily, that’s when I know we have a problem.”
Except I wasn’t breathing easily before the dress was on.
My phone starts to bleat while the safe with the jewels on loan is opened.
“Ashleigh,” I call. “Who is it?”
“Someone named Beth?” she asks in response, but she’s already setting the phone back on the table. No one named Beth could possibly be important, she thinks.
“I need it,” I gasp.
Ashleigh crosses the room. I grab it on the last ring.
“Drew?” Beth cries. There is panic in her voice. Beth, who shrugged off her son being held in a foreign jail and everything else that occurred in Hawaii, is hysterical. “I’m trying to locate Joel. Is he with you?”
“Me?” I reply. “No. Why? Is everything okay?”
She releases a choked sob. “It’s Josh,” she says, and Jim takes the phone from her.
“We’re trying to locate Joel,” he says, his voice even but tense. “There was an attack on the refugee camp about an hour ago. We don’t know what’s happened, but we don’t want Joel to hear it from the press first.”
I sink to the floor. There’s a collective gasp from the room and I don’t care. The stylist rushes toward me and I hold up a hand to ward him off. “What else do you know? Is someone trying to get them out?”
“They’re not telling us anything,” he says. “Sloane made some calls…it sounds like the medical personnel were being evacuated when the attack began and two doctors stayed behind. They think Josh was one of them.”
My breath stops. He called me. He called me when it was happening. Maybe because he thought he was going to die.
“What does that mean?” I ask. My hands shake, my lungs can’t get enough air. “For him. What does that mean?”
I’m making no sense. Jim somehow understands the question. “It means they probably took him hostage…or worse,” he says quietly. “We’re trying to get ahold of the embassy in Ethiopia since that’s where they went the last time they were evacuated.”
My brain is spinning. I can’t focus. “We have to go to Ethiopia,” I tell him. “We need to—”
I stop and press my hand over my face because I have no idea what we need to do. I have no idea who to pressure to find him. The one person I want to lean on in this moment is Josh. With that thought, I burst into tears.
“I’ll call you back,” I whisper.
I would give up my entire fortune for this not to be happening, to be back where we were the day before when he was safe and I was merely heartbroken.
Davis and Stephanie come barreling in, summoned by Ashleigh, no doubt.
“What’s the problem?” barks Davis.
“We may need to iron the dress,” says the stylist as I push myself off the floor. “How much time do we have?”
“No,” I say quietly. “I’m not going.”
“Not going?” Davis yells. “The hell you’re not going. You’re supposed to perform. You can’t just choose not to go.”
I look at him and feel utterly clear for the first time. “Of course I can,” I reply. “Ashleigh, I need a private plane out of LA. One that can go a long distance. Now.”
She looks at Davis and does nothing. My laughter borders on hysteria. “Ashleigh, are you serious? I’m the one who’s paying you.”
“I—” She looks from me to Davis. “You have to be on stage in two hours.”
And again, it’s so clear. It was always clear. I was just scared I’d make things worse, but there’s nothing these people could ever do to match the terror I feel right now.