“We know,” they both agreed.
Surveying them in disbelief, I asked, “At least, did either of you read it before you burned it?”
They both shook their heads no.
“But it was thick. It was a long letter,” Jillian said, looking awfully pale.
“Oh God.” I sank my head into my hands. Whew. They were certifiably insane, that was clear, but I guess I’d known that already. “You’re both crazy, you know that?” I had to tell them.
“OK, but promise me you won’t wear that dress to the awards show,” Liv exclaimed. “It has sleeves! You might as well wrap yourself in a blanket!”
“You can’t wear that,” Jillian agreed. “It’s way too short and tight. What if you drop something? How would you bend over and pick it up?”
“OK, thanks, guys.” At least I knew what I was wearing to the awards show. Now if only I knew what had been in that freaking letter.
Because apparently Ash had written me a letter. Four months ago. It had been a long four months. I supposed I should feel like I was getting over him by now, like I didn’t remember exactly how it fel
t when he held me or kissed me. By now I should have completely forgotten about the way he laughed over something silly I said or made me spaghetti or marveled over my playing piano or made love to me like I was the most sexy, amazing woman in the world.
I hadn’t been getting over him. And it wasn’t just the fact that I heard his voice yearning for me from every street corner. That didn’t help, of course, but it was more than that. My attachment to Ash was like one of those tricky weeds that drove my dad crazy in our lawn. You’d think you’d removed it all, but somehow it kept springing up, robust and new, withstanding any and all attempts at eradication. The roots were deep and stubborn.
And now I was about to see him again. My parents and I flew out to L.A. tomorrow. I knew back when Ash and I had been together, I’d been full of doubts. We lived in different worlds, he ran with a fast crowd, I liked to knit, etc. etc. It all seemed stupid now. My heart felt like it had been broken in two. If he felt the same way, if we were two parts of a matching whole, then what the hell were we doing apart from each other?
I didn’t know what the future had in store for us. But I did know I was going to plunge headlong into it, fly there and find him and get to the bottom of this. Wearing a gorgeous, glittering dress—yes short and tight, Jillian, and yes with sleeves, Liv—to a live, televised awards show where I would get all the answers I desperately needed.
30
Ash
After Ana left me, I went into hibernation. I literally turned into a bear. OK, I didn’t literally turn into one. I’m not a shape-shifter. But I think I came as close to becoming a bear as a normal, full-blooded human can.
I went off the grid. I’m not talking a Mammoth cabin with a caretaker hooking you up with L.A. gourmet dinners in the freezer. I’m talking a hardcore, can’t find a trace of you off-the-grid cabin. The kind my brother, Heath, knows all about.
Heath went off the grid sometime before his graduation from college. It had about killed our father. I think he’d been two credits shy of earning his diploma, whatever credits were. I didn’t know the details, but I got the picture. My younger brother had been about to graduate and instead of donning the cap and gown and posing for photos he’d help up his middle finger and gone Off The Grid.
I knew all about holding up my middle finger. But I needed Heath to help me disappear. Lucky for me, he answered my call and set me up in a cabin near his in Vermont. When I say near his, it was probably about 30 miles away but I think there were maybe only two houses in between us. I’m exaggerating, like the bear thing. But the essence is true. In the cold and snow in a basic, rustic cabin I felt completely alone.
Which was exactly what I wanted. I’d never felt that way before. I’d always sought out a constant hum of activity. Now, I understood the other path my younger brother had taken. Stripped down, there were no distractions. No cell phone, no internet, no fans, no cameras. There was no bullshit. Just you and the elements.
And a piano. I knew that maybe was a little L.A. of me to insist on having a piano, but it wasn’t like I was demanding that roadies remove all the green M&Ms from the backstage dishes. Not that I’d ever done that, just for the record. But I needed a piano. I knew I had something I needed to work on, to finish up.
And I did, with the wind howling that the snow piling up outside, I let it all out into that song. Undone. I wrote it all for Ana, about Ana, with what was left of me after Ana had walked away.
I’d already written a lot of what I said in the song in a letter to her. Before I took off for the cabin, I wrote a long letter, the kind men used to write women when they used quills instead of pens. Or at least I hoped it was that kind of a letter. I was shit at writing. She probably couldn’t even read my handwriting. But I didn’t care, I wanted to write her exactly how I felt without worrying about how dumb I sounded or what she might think of me. I stayed up all night telling her exactly how much she meant to me, how she’d changed everything in my life and I never wanted to be without her. I loved her. I sealed it and stamped it and brought it down to the post office like a regular citizen and off it went.
I never heard back from her. Not even a cursory “thanks for the note!” Nothing. I guess I hadn’t really expected her to hop on the next flight back to California and run into my arms, but it would have been nice.
So, instead of burying myself in Ana like I wanted to, I did the next best thing. I took off for the wilds of Vermont and wrote a song unlike any I’d ever written before. I figured that was a good thing. If I wanted to make big changes in my life, why not start with the core of what I did, making music? I had it finished by the time the Super Bowl rolled around, and I brought a crappy digital recording with me to play for my studio.
Lola and Joel just about crapped their pants in joy over my re-emergence. Sorry to be crass, but that about summed up the moment. I meant it when I said I’d gone off the grid. No one had been able to contact me for weeks leading up to the show. Not Connor, no one. And Ana, the one person I wanted to contact me, hadn’t.
I wondered if I was the first celebrity they’d had to hose down and shave so I could appear for a pre-game interview. I think I’d been wearing the same clothes for about a week by the time I showed up for rehearsals. Connor wasn’t looking too hot, either, though he looked more zombie than bear. I’d found him passed out in Johnny’s hotel room with two naked girls on his chest. As usual.
The thing about Connor was he never wanted to be alone. Even when we were in S.F. where we all had homes, he never seemed to want to be at his own place, always crashing over my place or Johnny’s or trying to book us into hotel suites. Once I got home, the last place I wanted to be was another goddamned hotel. Not so for Connor.
He looked peaceful lying there asleep, but I had something I wanted to talk about with him.
“Get up, mate.” I kicked his foot with my boot. He could rally with the best of them, and five minutes later we were walking down a sidewalk.
“Want one?” He offered me a cigarette.
“You know I quit.”
“I keep waiting for you to come to your senses.” We paused a moment while he protected the flame from his lighter and lit up. “Where the fuck’ve you been?” he asked after he’d taken a long drag. “Lola said New Hampshire?”
“Vermont.” He nodded like they were the same place.
“With your librarian?”
“No. She left me.”
He nodded, smoking as we walked. “Best for everyone.”
“Is it?” I looked at him, wondering why he looked so damn happy. I was really not happy. That didn’t seem to cross his radar.
“Listen, I’ve been wanting to ask you something.” I could see him tense up. “Ana said something, before she left. About you being the date-rape king. Do you know what she was talking about?”
“Beats me.” He shrugged, nonchalant. But I could hear an edge to his voice. I’d known him too long.
“You know she was drugged on New Year’s Eve?” I didn’t know exactly what I was getting at. I wasn’t 100 percent ready to accuse Connor, but I did feel like I needed to ask about it. She’d wanted me to.
Connor ran a frustrated hand through his unruly red hair. “So, you disappear for a month. You show up looking like a fucking bear. And now you’re on me about drugging some girl?”
“I didn’t say you drugged her—”
“That girl’s a fucking tease, that’s what she is. She’s got a stick up her ass and she needs something to help her loosen up.”
“Don’t talk like that about her!” Hot anger flooded through me and I stopped dead in my tracks.
“When did you become such a fucking boy scout?”
“Did you drug her?”
The way he avoided my eyes told me everything I needed to know. Again, that was the good and the bad thing about knowing someone so well. You could read them easily. He had drugged her. With a sickening lurch, I remembered how I’d found them, Ana passed out cold and him about to slip out the door with her
over his shoulder. I’d thought he’d found her like that and was bringing her to safety.
“You’re an asshole,” I realized. I didn’t know if he always had been, but he sure was now.
“You’re a nasty little prig. No one even likes being around you anymore, Ash. You’re a killjoy.”
I punched him hard, so hard he fell down onto the sidewalk in a heap. I wanted to keep on going, beating him within an inch of my life, but after a few more choice words I pulled myself up and walked away. He belonged down in the gutter where I left him, but I didn’t belong down there, too. He’d dragged me down enough times in my life already.
The makeup artist before the Super Bowl show did a great job of covering up the bruise along Connor’s jaw. For the TV cameras, he looked good to go under a heavy cake of foundation. But our friendship was going to take more than makeup to make it better. An apology from him would be a start, but it didn’t look like that was coming any time soon. He sulked and avoided me and after the show I took off again, not back to Vermont but to my home in S.F.
I honestly had no idea how the Super Bowl halftime specular show went. I wasn’t interested. We didn’t make any official announcements, but The Blacklist was on hiatus. Indefinitely. I couldn’t imagine wanting to make music with Connor, or re-enter that whole crazy carnival any time soon if at all.
My label got behind the idea once they heard my single “Undone.” I didn’t lie to them. That was the only song I had, no album to follow. But they felt it was strong enough they wanted to rush it to release. A few L.A. studio sessions later and the song started hitting the airwaves.
I wasn’t even thinking about whether it would be a success. What I was wondering was whether Ana would hear it, and, if she did, what she’d think of it. I’d written it for her, after all.
But she already knew every word. I’d written it all to her in my letter, my love for her, how her leaving me left me undone. I did wonder if people might call it melodramatic. If you’d never felt that low before, you might. The lyrics were the kinds of words I’d never written before. I’d never let myself feel that vulnerable, that raw. It was a big risk.