The Idea of You: A Novel
The Idea of You: west hollywood

“I met someone.”

It was late on Wednesday, the following week, and Lulit and I were winding down our June show. We had the long holiday weekend ahead of us, and the install of July’s joint exhibit, Smoke; and Mirrors. But in that dead period, coming down from the Basel high, the gallery was relatively quiet and I thought it might be the right time to broach the subject of Hayes.

“What? No. Who? When?” Lulit shut the office door. Matt and Josephine had already gone for the day, so I don’t know from whom she was hiding exactly.

“You have to promise me you won’t judge.”

“Judge? Why would I judge? He’s not an actor, is he? Please say no.”

I smiled at that. “No. But possibly worse.”

“Worse than an actor?” She was leaning against the wall, her long arms crossed before her narrow frame. “What? An artist?”

We both laughed—a shared joke. Artists: dashing, brilliant, crazy. We’d both gone down that road before and vowed never to return.

“Do you remember in the spring when I took Isabelle and her friends to Vegas to the August Moon concert?”

She nodded. I could see her focusing, trying to follow the thread. There was no way she could have predicted the direction in which it would go.

“Well, I kind of met one of the guys…”

“One of which guys?”

“The August Moon guys.”

Her eyes widened. “The boys? The boys in the band?” Coming out of her mouth it sounded dirty, wrong, possibly illegal. “I am going to need some wine. I’m going to the kitchen. You stay right here.”

She returned shortly with two glasses and a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc. “Start at the beginning. Don’t leave anything out.”

And so I recounted the story of Hayes. Right up through the thirty-six hours we’d spent locked in the hotel room in Cannes. Only stepping out at dusk on Wednesday to walk the Croisette and dine at La Pizza because I insisted we get some fresh air. But he’d have been just as content to stay in our lair and fuck.

“Is he the cute one?” she asked now.

“Aren’t they all?”

“No, I mean the sexy one.”

I must have made a funny face because she followed that up with “The really sexy one.”

“The swagger one?” I smiled.

“Yes! With the dimples?”

“Yes. That’s mine. The swagger one.”

“Holy fuck,” she said, sitting on the floor with the bottle. She rarely cursed. “That is pretty impressive.”

“Thank you.”

“Does he know you could be his mother?”

“Yes,” I said. Lulit was not one for sugarcoating things. “And apparently he’s okay with that.”

“Is Isabelle okay with that?”

I swiped the glass of wine she’d poured and downed a mouthful, Hayes’s watch sliding over my wrist. “Isabelle doesn’t know.”

I still hadn’t told her. Not during the overnight at my parents’ in Boston; not during the nearly three-hour drive up to Denmark, Maine; not when she emptied her backpack and placed the framed photo from the meet-and-greet upon a shelf beside her bunk. And there he was: smiling wide, hugging us both, shaming me from the confines of a five-by-seven.

“Oh my God, you met them! I love them! I saw them at the Garden,” one of Isabelle’s bunkmates, a sporty brunette from Scarsdale, had said. “We were on the floor. Who’s your favorite?”

Isabelle had shrugged, noncommittal. “I don’t really have a favorite.”

Thank God.

“I love Ollie.” The bunkmate’s eyes had gone all googly. “I know people say he’s gay, but I loooove him.”

People said he was gay? This was news to me. Although it might have been my initial impression, I’d rethought it when he mentally undressed me in Vegas. For a split second I considered telling the bunkmate that, but then decided it was best not to engage at all. At that point, I excused myself and stepped outside the cabin.

“I don’t imagine she’s going to take it very well,” Lulit said to me now.

“I was waiting until I knew what it was that I was telling her.”

“That you’ve made an arrangement to meet Swagger Spice in various cities around the world and have sex with him.” She’d said it with a wry smile, but the reality of it deflated me.

“I’m going to need a better explanation than that.”

She was quiet for a moment, contemplating. “Is he kind?”

“Kind? Yes.”

“And you like him? Not all the hoopla that accompanies him.” She waved her arms in the air—her gesture for “hoopla,” I gathered. “But him.”

I nodded.

“And he makes you happy?”

“Very.”

She smiled then, easy, her brown eyes squinting. “Then I don’t think it’s a bad thing. You deserve to be happy, Solène. Go get your rock star.”

“Thank you.” I did not need Lulit’s approval, per se. I’d already decided that I would not be thwarted regardless of her opinion. But it was nice to know I had it.

“You’re welcome,” she said, rising from the floor. And then as she was heading back into the gallery, she added, “I assume there are others.”

“What?”

“Other women…” She had said it offhandedly, but boy, did it land.

I had not assumed so. I assumed there were several before. I assumed there would be several after. But I had not allowed myself to imagine that there were others concurrently. And the realization that I had not even considered it made me suddenly ill. When? How? Where was it happening? Was he flying them to the cities that I’d declined? What was it: Seattle, Phoenix, Houston? And who, who were they?

“Did that not cross your mind?” Lulit’s voice jarred me. “Solène, he’s twenty. He’s in a boy band. There is like pussy falling from the sky. And every time he steps outside, it’s raining.”

My forehead suddenly felt clammy, my throat dry. The walls had begun to bend.

“I think I’m going to be sick.” I pushed past her, rushing to the toilets in the rear of the gallery, where I promptly threw up my Sauvignon Blanc and the salad from lunch.

“Are you okay?” She was standing at the bathroom door, a concerned look on her face.

“No.”

“You’re not pregnant?”

“God, no.” I was laughing even as the tears were running down my face.

She stood watching me while I washed my hands, rinsed my mouth, and made myself presentable. And then, when I could, I faced her again. “Fuck. I like him.”

Lulit began to laugh.

“It’s not funny.”

“Oh, sweetie.” She embraced me. “This is good. You haven’t liked anyone since Daniel. And you haven’t liked Daniel in years.”

“That’s true,” I laughed.

“I think Hayes could be a nice distraction for you. Just don’t mistake it for more than it is…” She sounded so levelheaded, like my mother. “And use a condom … always.”

*   *   *

The following week, Hayes came to town for a series of meetings. He arrived late on Wednesday, but I would not see him until the following night. “I have an early dinner, but I’ll rush,” he’d said on the phone. “I can come to your place.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I’d said. I was still perturbed about the conversation I’d had with Lulit: the possibility that I was one of many.

“You don’t want me to see where you live? What are you hiding over there? Another boy band?”

“Yes. You’ve found me out. I’ve got the Backstreet Boys in the attic.”

He paused for a second and then began to laugh. “The Backstreet Boys? How old are you again?”

“Shut up, Hayes.”

“You sure you don’t have the Monkees over there as well?”

“I’m hanging up.”

“Chateau Marmont. Tomorrow. Nine o’clock. I’ll leave a key for you at the desk.”

*   *   *

On Thursday, I met Daniel for lunch at Soho House. I dreaded the place. For all its aesthetic appeal, I couldn’t help but be aware of everyone checking everyone else out, calculating one another’s box office, posing, judging. The air of self-importance. Daniel had joined when it first opened despite my many pleas, and conducted almost as much business there as he did at his firm in Century City. He called it a necessary evil of being an entertainment lawyer. But I knew that deep down he enjoyed it.

I was already planning my escape as I made my way down the narrow corridor to the rooftop restaurant. The walls famously covered with black-and-white Polaroids from the club’s photo booth, various members having immortalized themselves for posterity. Many of them drunk.

Daniel had birthday gifts for Isabelle that he wanted me to deliver Parents’ Weekend. I was okay with the handover, but I feared he was going to use this opportunity to inform me about him and Eva. It was just like him to choose someplace public and impersonal where he could avoid any show of emotion.

I spotted him immediately, staked out at his favorite table in the southeast corner of the room. It really was a beautiful space: wicker lanterns dotting mature olive trees, potted herbs and floor-to-ceiling windows offering up the best of West Hollywood and the Sunset Strip. And my ex-husband.

He was buried in a New York Times. It was one of the things I still liked about him. That he hadn’t given over completely to the digital age, that he didn’t have to fill his silences with an iPhone.

I’d begun snaking my way in Daniel’s direction when a large table near the koi pond in the center caught my eye. There were eight of them, loud. I did not recognize the faces in my line of sight, but the back of one head struck me as familiar. And then I heard the laugh.

My chest tightened. I had ceased to breathe, inching around the perimeter of the table. And as I arrived on the opposite side he raised his head, his eyes meeting mine. The two of us, paralyzed.

“Hi.”

“Hi.” Hayes’s lips curled into a wide smile. “What are you doing here?”

“Meeting … I’m meeting … someone…” I was tripping over my words. I could not even register the others at the table. It was just him and me. In this space. And yet I was painfully aware that I could not touch him. That people would talk, that people would judge.

He stood, pushing his chair back.

“No, don’t get up…”

“Where are you sitting?”

I gestured vaguely toward the corner.

“I’ll come say hi.”

I nodded, and then remembered the rest of the table. “Excuse me. Sorry to interrupt.”

There were two women, three men I did not recognize, one who looked familiar, and seated beside Hayes was Oliver, whom I had somehow managed to overlook.

“Hi.”

“Solène.” He smiled. I’d last seen him when we got off the boat in Antibes, when I was smelling of salt and sun and high on champagne and the promise of what was to come. A world away.

I excused myself and made my way over to Daniel, but from that moment on, my mind was elsewhere. We talked about the necessary things: Isabelle, the weather. My back was to Hayes. I was out of his earshot, but I could feel him. And just knowing he was there put me on edge. Especially in the presence of my ex.

“Are you okay? You seem distracted,” Daniel said, sometime after we’d put in our order. He was, as usual, impeccably groomed—smooth skin, chiseled jaw, not a hair out of place—the years had been good to him.

“I’m fine.”

“Work?”

“Work is fine. We have a show going up Saturday.”

“Which artist?”

It was nice of him to ask because I didn’t think he cared.

“It’s a joint exhibit. Tobias James and Ailynne Cho.”

“Well, that should be good. Oh, before I forget…” He reached down and handed over two tiny shopping bags: one from Barneys, the other from Tiffany. “For the birthday girl.”

“Two fancy gifts? Wow.”

“Thirteen is a big year,” he said, sipping from his Evian. And then: “One of them is from Eva.”

He had my attention then. “Which one?”

“Barneys.”

Which begged the question: “Why is Eva buying Isabelle a gift from Barneys?”

“It’s not that big a deal, Sol.”

“It is.”

“It’s like a little ring. It’s not a big deal.”

“A little ring from Barneys can be a very big deal, Daniel.”

He sighed, turning to look out the window, the southern view. “Let’s not do this here. Okay?”

Our food arrived then, and we dropped the subject. He asked about my parents, Isabelle’s bunkmates, what I thought of the conflict that had just erupted in Gaza. There was a time when this was not so hard, finding things to say. When we were young, and kind to each other.

That first spring in New York when we were in love and we whiled away hours in Central Park, studying in Sheep’s Meadow and drinking in the lilacs in the Conservatory Garden. He was so tall and brilliant and sure of himself, and he quoted Sartre and Descartes and that was all I needed.

I had just finished my kale salad when Hayes strode up to our table. Suave and gallant in full swagger mode. A printed white shirt, top three buttons undone, skinny black jeans, roguish hair. The polar opposite of Daniel in his gray Zegna suit and a tie I did not recognize but I assumed Eva had something to do with.

“Fancy seeing you here.” He smiled.

“Yes. Imagine that.”

“Hello, I’m Hayes.” He reached over the table to shake Daniel’s hand.

“Daniel, this is Hayes. Hayes, this is Daniel.”

“Daniel. The Daniel?”

“The Daniel, yes,” I laughed nervously, and Daniel threw me a peculiar look.

“Daniel, Hayes is … um … Hayes is…”

“Hayes is a novice art collector who is very impressed with this woman’s knowledge of Fauvism,” he said, dimples shining.

I sat there for a second, drinking in the deliciousness of the moment. Daniel, trying to figure it out.

“All right, I’m going to let you get back to your … meeting. And we’ll touch base later.”

“Sounds good.” I smiled, casual.

I watched as Daniel watched Hayes make his way across the room. Heads turning, members murmuring, par for the course.

“Who is that?”

“A client.”

“Looks familiar. Is he an actor?”

“No.” I did not elaborate further.

“Ford!”

My interrogation was cut short by the approach of Daniel’s longtime friend, fellow entertainment attorney Noah Feldman. Noah was magnetic, kind, sincere, a rarity among Hollywood types. I’d lost him and his lovely wife in the divorce. Along with their three kids. It hurt.

“Feldman!” Daniel greeted him.

“Solène. This is a nice surprise. How are you guys?”

“Good. How are you? How’s Amy?”

“Fine, great. She got a writing gig.” His eyes lit up.

“I know. I saw on Facebook.”

“It’s a pretty big deal. I mean we don’t see her anymore,” he laughed, “but she’s happy. And I’m happy that she’s happy.”

I smiled. Of course he was. What a novel idea: a husband supportive of his wife’s work. A wife that did not fit in a box.

“See those Transformers numbers?” Noah directed at Daniel.

“Fucking Michael Bay…”

“Fucking Michael Bay…”

My phone buzzed then on the table. The guys continued talking shop, and I took the opportunity to glance at the incoming text.

Daniel?????????!!!!!

I snatched the phone and hid it in my lap to respond.

Fauvism???

Shot in the dark.

Meet me in the lavvy in 5 min?

Ha!

Absolutely not.

Fuck.

I looked up. Daniel and Noah were still talking.

“I don’t think that deal’s going to close,” Noah was saying. “Ryan’s got one foot out the door.”

“Where’d you hear that?”

“Weinstein.”

I returned to my texting:

Later …

☺

You look beautiful, btw.

Ditto.

*   *   *

Hayes was still winding up his lunch meeting when I left. We locked eyes as I crossed the room, and the moment was so intense I almost reconsidered his lavatory proposal. But in this clubby place where everyone knew everyone, it was far too risky. He inclined his head and smiled. It was enough.

I was making my way back through the dark, narrow corridor when Noah came up behind me on his way out.

“So…” he said, low, “Hayes Campbell. Nice.”

“What?” I turned to look at him in the shadows.

He smiled. “Your husband might be oblivious, but I’m guessing that’s how he lost you in the first place.”

I stopped, under the gaze of a thousand Polaroids. Stunned. What had he seen? Heard? Fucking Soho House.

“Don’t worry,” he said, “your secret’s safe with me.”

*   *   *

Hayes was late. He’d texted no fewer than half a dozen times from his dinner, apologizing. I’d had instructions to go to the front desk at the Chateau Marmont and ask for an envelope that the general manager, Phil, would have put aside for me under the name Scooby Doo, which was apparently Hayes’s alias.

“Scooby Doo? Is that a joke?” I’d asked when he first told me via phone. “Scooby?”

“Hey, it’s Mr. Doo to you.”

But forty minutes later, when I was still alone in the somber suite, I was becoming restless. I’d already itemized his closet: two pairs of boots, one pair of sneakers, six dress shirts, two suits, four pairs of black jeans. All high-end (Saint Laurent, Alexander McQueen, Tom Ford, Lanvin) and smelling faintly like Hayes. That woodsy, amber, citrus scent that he owed to Voyage d’Hermès. The fragrance I’d learned during our romp in Cannes. I did not open his drawers, or riffle through his bags, or his toiletries, or the leather journal he’d left on the night table. Because that, I thought, would be crossing the line. But the closet—in which I had hung tomorrow’s dress and placed my shoes—the closet was fair game.

He arrived shortly before ten. Ravishing and apologetic. He was wearing a dark suit, white shirt partially unbuttoned, no tie, and just the sight of him filling up the doorway was enough. I wanted him. And even though I’d spent the past week doubting him, and being angry with myself for not clarifying the boundaries of this arrangement, the moment he stepped over that threshold none of that seemed to matter. I had come there for a reason, lest I forget.

“Hi,” he said, making his way across the room to me.

“Hi, yourself.”

He stooped before where I was lying on the couch, took my head in both his hands, and kissed me. Like I’d wanted to be kissed. His lips were cool and his breath was sweet and his mouth was wonderfully familiar. And he was twenty. And I didn’t give a damn.

“I’m sorry I’m late.” His thumb was rubbing over my lips. “Are you hungry? Thirsty? Did you order room service?”

“I’m good.”

“You sure?”

I nodded, watching as he peeled off his suit jacket, and pulled off his boots, and removed the various accoutrements from his pockets: iPhone, wallet, lip balm, gum. Now all recognizable as Hayes paraphernalia.

“How was dinner?” I asked.

“Long.”

“And your day?”

“Long,” he grunted. “We’re doing a movie. Like a hybrid between a documentary and a bunch of tour footage. A rockumentary, if you will. Or a popumentary”—he smiled—“because it’s us. Anyway, just a lot of meetings about when they’re releasing it and all the promos they have to do and when they want to be able to release the new album and then schedule our next world tour. And it’s all happening sooner than you would think possible. And I’m fucking tired. I’m really fucking tired.” He sat down beside me on the sofa, reclining his head.

“I’m sorry,” I said, reaching for his hand.

“I hate complaining about it, because it feels like I’m being unappreciative and I’m not. I know how lucky we are, how lucky I am … I know that I’m living this dream life and I don’t want to be this bastard who’s like whining, but we could all use a couple of months of just doing nothing. And if they continue to stuff us down these fans’ throats, they’re bound to lose interest. Right?” He looked to me then, sincere.

“I don’t know. I kind of like having you stuffed down my throat.”

His eyes grew wide. “You’re naughty. Come here.” He pulled me into him, my head on his shoulder, legs over his lap. “Wherever did I find you?”

“Vegas.” I smiled. “So is there nothing in your contract that addresses vacation time?”

“Vacation time. What a quaint idea. Most groups get months of downtime with the natural ebb and flow of putting out an album and supporting it, touring, and then the time it takes to gear up to do another one. We just don’t have that luxury.”

“So you’re just beholden to the record company?”

“We’re beholden to our management first, and they run a very tight ship.” His hand was in my hair, comfortable. “Oh, Graham says hello, by the way.”

“Who’s Graham?”

“Graham, with our management company. He was at lunch today. You met him in New York.”

It clicked then, the nattily dressed laptop fellow from the Four Seasons. The one who could not have been more dismissive. I’m sure he was surprised to find me still in the picture.

“Speaking of lunch…” Hayes raised his head up from the couch. “Daniel!”

“Daniel. Yes. So that’s Daniel.”

“Wow. So lunch with Daniel?” There was more than a hint of suspicion.

I laughed at that: the idea that I would entertain anything with my ex-husband ever again. “Trust me, it was just lunch.”

“I’ve seen your ‘just lunch.’ I’ve been on the receiving end of your ‘just lunch.’” He smiled. “It’s not always ‘just lunch.’”

“With Daniel, it’s just lunch,” I said definitively. “I’m going up for Parents’ Weekend at Isabelle’s camp at the end of the month and he wanted to pass on a couple of gifts for her birthday.”

He let that sit there for a moment, and then, satisfied: “How is Isabelle?”

“She’s fine.”

“What did she say when you told her about us?” His hand was on my knee, beneath the hem of my linen skirt. It had started.

“I didn’t…”

“You haven’t told her?” His eyes widened, huge blue-green pools. “What are you waiting for?”

“The right time. I was dropping her off in the wilderness for seven weeks. I didn’t think it was appropriate to lay that at her feet before heading out the gate. ‘By the way, I’m fucking one of the guys from your favorite band. Have a great summer!’”

He was quiet for a minute, thoughtful. “‘Fucking’? Is that what we’re doing?”

I paused. “Well, not right this moment. But I’m guessing soon, yeah.”

He nodded his head, slow. “And what about the in-between times? When we’re not having sex and we’re just enjoying each other’s company. Like now. What do you call that?”

It felt like a test. “Friendship?”

“Friendship,” he repeated. “So we’re just friends?”

“I don’t know. That depends.”

“Depends on what?”

“On how many friends you have…”

He nodded again, weighing his response. “I have a lot of friends,” he said slowly. “Most of them I’m not fucking.”

I didn’t say anything.

“What is it, Solène? What is it you don’t want to ask me?”

“I want to know if there are others.”

Hayes took his time responding. “Right now?”

I nodded.

He shook his head. “There are no others.”

“What does ‘right now’ mean to you exactly? Today? This evening? This week? What does that mean?”

He took a moment too long to formulate his answer.

“You know what? Never mind. I don’t want to do this to you. I don’t even know that I want to know.”

“Okay,” he said, slow, careful.

“You’re trying not to hurt me.”

He nodded, biting his lip.

“Fuck.”

“I’m trying not to mislead you,” he said, soft, his hand moving in my hair. “I just want to make certain we’re on the same page.”

“Hayes, I haven’t done this in a while. I don’t even know what the page looks like.”

He chuckled at that, kissing the top of my head. “It looks like this, Solène. We get together when we can, and we really, really, really enjoy each other’s company. And I wouldn’t say we were just fucking.”

I took a moment to process that. “Are you doing that with anyone else?”

“That? Right now? No.”

“Right now this week?”

“Right now this month. Does that work for you?”

I nodded. “If it changes, will you let me know? I’m not going to lose my mind, I just want to know.”

“If it changes, I will let you know.”

He kissed my head again, and I could feel him breathing me in. So much lay in what we were not saying.

“What’d you do while I was gone?” he asked. His hand had found its way back to my knees, rings cool against my skin.

“Went through all your stuff. I sold your underwear for ten thousand dollars on eBay.”

“Only ten?”

“Turns out fourteen-year-old girls don’t have that much money.”

“They do in Dubai.” He smiled, his fingers traveling farther up my skirt, prying open my thighs. “Are you splitting the proceeds with me?”

“I wasn’t planning on it.”

He laughed then. “Somehow that doesn’t seem fair.”

“Life isn’t fair.”

“It’s not.” He’d arrived at my underwear, the tips of his fingers tracing over damp cotton. “You know how I know that? Because tonight I get to have you … and no one else does.”

“You’d better earn it. Hayes Campbell.”

“I always do.”

*   *   *

It might have been the ghosts of the Chateau Marmont, and the feeling that wild things had happened there. It might have been the fact that we’d been separated for two weeks. It might have been my sudden determination not to be replaced. But that night, although Hayes might have had another word for it, we fucked like rock stars.

He was thorough and intense and insatiable. And the third time he handed me a new condom package to open, while he simultaneously disposed of another, I paused.

“Do you never need recovery time? Ever?”

He smiled, shaking his beautiful head. “I’m twenty.”

I tried to remember what sex with Daniel was like in the beginning, and sex with my two boyfriends in college, and sex with the boy from Saint-Raphaël, all who were in the realm of twenty, and while I could remember the appetite, I did not recall this level of stamina. But maybe that was just me getting older.

“You tired?” he asked, taking the condom from me and slowly rolling it on. Just watching him do that was a turn-on. Hayes, with his dick in his hands.

“Yes. But don’t let that stop you.”

He laughed. “Do you want to stop? We can stop, Solène.” Even as he was saying it, he was lifting me by the hips, hoisting me above him, determined. Round four.

He took his time guiding it in. Eyes peeled to mine, teeth sinking into his bottom lip, hips rising. “Just say the word and we can stop.”

“Really?” I smiled.

“Really.” His hands moved up over my hips and around to my ass. “Although, I’m no expert, but … it feels to me like you don’t want to stop.”

“Is that what your dick is telling you?”

“Fu-uck.” He started to laugh. “I think I might love you.”

“Don’t say that.”

“I’m just putting it out there as a possibility.”

I stopped moving then, folding into him, close. “Not even as a joke.”

“Okay,” he said, serious.

“You’re trying not to mislead me, remember?

“I like you.” I kissed him, deep. “A lot. But as long as you’re fucking other people, you’re not allowed to make jokes about being in love with me.”

“I’m sorry.” His hands had moved to my hair, holding it out of my face.

Neither of us spoke for a moment. And then: “Are you angry with me?”

I shook my head, rising up off his chest, moving on top of him again, not wanting to lose this precious thickness. His gift that kept giving. “Does it feel like I’m angry?”

He smiled, even as his breath was quickening, his hands cupping my breasts. “I’m not sure. I can’t read you.”

I didn’t respond, but the thought went through my head that maybe it was better that way.

When it was over and I lay on top of him, feeling the layer of sweat between us and drinking in his four-times-over postcoital scent, he held me, tighter than he ever had, and said nothing.

*   *   *

In the morning Hayes blew off an appointment with his trainer and chose to come with me to the gallery instead. “I want to see what you do when I’m not with you,” he’d said at some point during our debauched night. He’d uttered it at a moment in which its meaning could have been taken in a variety of ways. But when we awoke, he made himself clear. “So it’s Take Your Lover to Work Day, right?”

I had an unexpected surge of nerves driving down La Cienega with him in the front seat of the Range Rover. The idea that I had his life in my hands, this irreplaceable commodity, and that should anything happen to him on my watch I would be forever culpable. It was like driving with Isabelle as a newborn all over again: the pressure, the fear.

It is likely I had never seen Lulit’s eyes as wide as when I walked into the gallery with Swagger Spice. I had not warned her or the others. It was the day before our July opening, and I knew they’d be swamped with detailing the show. I did not want to give her something else to think about until he was already there.

Her jaw dropped and she moved to fix her hair, which was in a perfectly messy topknot. She was in jeans and no makeup and she was still flawless. Her enviable brown skin that would not age.

“You’ve brought … company.”

“I have.” I smiled, wide. A whole conversation transpired between us then without a word spoken. “Hayes, this is my partner, Lulit Raphel. Lulit, Hayes.”

“So this is the famous Lulit. It’s a pleasure. I’ve heard plenty about you.” Hayes’s voice sounded particularly deep in the cavernous space. Gravelly. As if he’d been up eating pussy until four in the morning. Which, indeed, he had.

“Lovely to meet you, Hayes.”

“God, this space is brilliant.” He began walking around, admiring the layout, the art. The juxtaposition of Cho’s atmospheric images and James’s emotional landscapes. Both abstract, more metaphoric than literal. Smoke and mirrors.

“You want a guided tour, or you want to wander on your own?”

“I want to wander first.”

“Okay, I’ll be in the office. It’s toward the back, off to the right.”

Matt popped his head out from his office in the rear, and Josephine exited the kitchen as I was approaching.

“Who is that?” Matt raised a wily eyebrow. “Client? This early?” It was not quite ten.

“Potentially,” I said.

Josephine headed out toward the reception desk, sipping from her mug of green tea, and then very quickly turned around and headed back to us. “Holy shit, is that Hayes Campbell? Is he a client now?” Josephine was twenty-four.

“Who’s Hayes Campbell?”

“Only like the hottest guy in the hottest band. In the world. Where have you been?”

“In my thirties, clearly.” Matt smirked. “What band, now?”

“August Moon,” Josephine whispered. “Holy shit.”

“The boy band? Those adorable posh boys from Eton…”

“Only one went to Eton,” Josephine said matter-of-factly.

“Who went to Eton?” I asked.

“Liam.”

“He did?” This was news to me.

“Yes. And the others all went to a posh school in London. Except for Rory, he’s the bad boy.”

“You know all their names?” Matt asked. Sᴇaʀch Thᴇ FɪndNøvel.ɴet website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

“All whose names?” Lulit joined us in the kitchen and made a beeline to the espresso machine.

“August Moon. Our newest client is from August Moon.”

Lulit threw me a seemingly casual look, and I shrugged in response. She understood: she was not to say a word.

“Well, I’m going to offer our boy band visitor some Pellegrino,” Matt said, grabbing a small bottle from the fridge. “We’re being rude here.”

“Forget it, you’re not his type.” Josephine swiped the bottle from him.

Matt was stocky, sardonic, Korean-American, male. I doubted highly he was Hayes’s type.

“He only dates older women. Don’t you watch Access Hollywood?” She started out of the kitchen and then suddenly stopped, swiveling around, her eyes landing on me. “How do you know him exactly?”

Lulit pressed the button on the espresso machine just then, filling the space with a welcome roar.

“He’s a client.”

*   *   *

I barely had the time to process all that Josephine had said—who knew she was such a wealth of boy band information?—before Hayes came looking for me. I could hear them in the hall: Lulit making introductions, Hayes’s not-enough-sleep voice, Matt and Josephine sounding not at all like themselves.

He popped his head into the office eventually. “Hi. I’m looking for the boss lady.”

“There are two of us here.”

“I’m looking for the one I came with.” He smiled, sly, sliding the door shut behind him. “This is a cool space.”

Lulit and I shared the oversized box. White walls, cement floors, like the rest of the gallery, except the lighting here was warmer and there were personal touches throughout.

“Is that Isabelle?” He came up behind me, admiring the photos on my desk. Two of Isabelle: one as a toddler, dressed as a ladybug for Halloween; the other at age seven, a snapshot taken on the Vineyard, my little bird. And a black-and-white of me, captured by Deborah Jaffe, one of our photographers, at her opening earlier that year. Close up, in profile. I’m laughing and my hair is still long.

“I like this.” Hayes lifted it from the desk. “Solène Marchand,” he said softly.

“We are not having sex.”

“I … wasn’t expecting us to…”

“No, I don’t mean now, I mean in general. They cannot know that we are having sex.” I pointed to the door.

Hayes’s expression was contrite. “But Lulit knows, right?”

“Lulit knows. The others do not. And we’re keeping it that way. And later you can tell me why you only date older women.”

“Who said that?”

“Access Hollywood apparently.”

*   *   *

Hayes followed me around the gallery while I gave him a brief overview of the exhibit. The work of the two artists, how they were similar, how they were not. How Ailynne worked with film and created ethereal nature stills by experimenting with depths of field and focus. And how Tobias’s prints were done digitally, playing with shutter speed and then further manipulated in post. How his captures managed to look like the world flying by at sixty miles per hour. Both artists’ works: blurred, evocative.

He was quiet for the most part, attentive, like a young student. His hands clasped behind his back, his face open. I imagined this was what he looked like at his posh school. Minus the skinny jeans, of course.

“How do you find them? Your artists?”

“Different ways. Some we plucked straight from grad school and have been with us since we first started. Tobias was at CalArts. Ailynne came over recently from a smaller gallery.”

“I really like this one,” he said, pausing in front of a large James print. A moody seascape, at once peaceful and aggressive.

“It’s very masculine.”

“Is it?” Hayes cocked his head. “What makes it masculine?”

“The energy, the mood, the colors. It’s just a feeling I get.”

“I thought water was feminine.”

“I think art can be whatever you want it to be.” I reached out to grab his hand and then remembered where we were and who he was, and so quickly retreated, crossing my arms.

He laughed softly. “What are you so afraid of? You ashamed of me?”

“I’m not ashamed of you.”

“You don’t want your friends to know about us.”

“I don’t want my employees to know about us.”

He leaned into me, suggestive. “They’re going to figure it out. And then you’re going to have to admit that you like me. And then maybe you’ll realize that’s not such a bad thing. Boy band and all. I want this. I’m going to buy it.”

He pulled away from me, stepping to the middle of the room for perspective, while I pondered what he’d said.

“They’ll ship it to London?”

“They will.”

“Do you like it?”

“I do.”

“Do you love it?”

“I like it a lot.”

“Is there anything here that you love?”

I nodded. “In the front room, in Gallery 1.”

“Show me.”

He followed me to the Cho piece that I most coveted. An image so blown out it appeared almost translucent. Sunlight in a garden, and the vague silhouette of a woman, nude, her features blurred and indeterminate, lying in the grass, bleeding into the atmosphere behind her. A faded anemone, the one certainty in the foreground. Unclose Me, it was titled.

“This…” he said, tugging on his lip, pensive. “This is what you love?”

“This is what I love.”

He nodded, slow. “What do you feel when you look at it?”

“Everything.”

His eyes caught mine then, and he held my gaze and smiled. “Yeah.”

*   *   *

He did not stay for long. He had meetings starting at twelve and scheduled throughout the afternoon, and that evening he boarded a plane to London. I would not see him for a few more weeks. And each day was agony.

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