“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.
But, it turned out, people loved it. It was a huge commercial hit, one of the biggest successes I’d ever had. Critics were calling it the best song of the 2000s, revealing a new depth to my maturation as a recording artist. Whatever that meant.
I wasn’t what you’d call an introspective man, but even I realized a lot had changed for me over the past year. Ana had certainly been the catalyst, but right before I’d met her something else big had happened. My father had died. I’d spent so long defying him, proving my own worth in opposition to all of his values. In all that rebellion, I’d almost forgotten what I wanted. Now, he wasn’t there to fight with anymore. I wasn’t saying it was a good thing that my father had passed away. I was simply realizing that since he’d been gone, I’d felt a shift. I’d always had his brick wall to rail against. Now, without it, maybe I didn’t have to fight so hard? Maybe I could let go and admit what I really wanted?
What I really wanted was Ana. I sent her a note along with the packet Lola put together. Honestly, songwriters didn’t get award party invites. There wasn’t even a BMA category for best songwriter. A lot of artists didn’t write their own songs and they didn’t exactly want to broadcast—literally—their lack of musical ability. But Ana deserved to be there. The song was hers. She’d heard the scratch of an idea from me and she’d blossomed it, grown it into the haunting tune that now played across the world. Lola knew everybody, so when I asked her to ask someone as a favor to Ash Black, not only had Ana received an invitation but I’d been able to slip my own note into the packet along with it.
I got nothing back from her, though. I guessed I could have said more in my note. I’d kept it short. But I’d said it all in the letter I’d written her back in January, and then again in the song she had to have heard a million times by now. Another long, pleading note might seem like overkill.
But what did Ana think of the song? Our song. I’d created the lyrics and I suppose a case could be made that I’d come up with the original melody. A whole team of lawyers from the label had tried to talk me out of giving Ana songwriting credit, or at least they advocated for co-credit. But my lawyer, Nelson, had stuck by me. He’d insisted. It was his client’s wish. And what Nelson insisted upon, Nelson got.
I didn’t have anything to prove to anyone. I didn’t need to prove I could write a song like that. It was Ana’s song. Now I just needed to know what she thought of it. And, more importantly, what she thought of us.
§
The night of the awards show, I flew solo. It felt strange to be there without my band mates. Strange but good.
Walking into the pre-party, I was completely sober. How’s that for crazy? Rock god Ash Black sober. At night. At a party. What were the chances?
Stylists put me all in white. A little cheesy, I’ll admit, but sure, I went with it. I cut off most of my hair, too. It felt cleaner, like a fresh start.
Pit Bull came over and gave me some shit about stealing his look. We both wore all white and rocked mirrored aviator shades. I wasn’t saying anything, but I had about a foot of height on the guy. He was pretty cool, though.
I still didn’t know if Ana was coming or not. She’d RSVP’d yes, I got that out of Lola. But sometimes people said they’d show and then didn’t. I didn’t want to get my hopes up too much.
Even if I did see her, who knew if she’d want to talk to me? She’d closed up shop after that night in the cabin. I didn’t even know exactly what she’d overheard me and Connor talking about. I’d been pretty drunk. I remembered Connor telling me that his sister was in the hospital from an overdose. And I remembered giving him a lot of reassurances that nothing was going to change. Everything was going to stay the same.
It must have been some of that talk she overhead. So, I honestly couldn’t deny whatever stupid things she’d heard me say. I could blame it on the alcohol, or blame it on my 14 years of friendship with Connor translating into pressure and guilt.
But, really, I had to be honest. Back then, I’d had some doubts. I’d been recognizing my feelings for her, but I hadn’t been man enough to tell her. I’d let myself get spooked by it. Mayb
e a small part of me had wanted things to go back like they had been.
Once she’d left me? All shadow of doubt vanished. I wanted Ana. I needed Ana. Nothing else mattered. And if she gave me an opening at this awards show, I’d take it and tell her myself.
Nervous, I sipped some water and surveyed the room. People came over, said a word or two, but I was looking for one woman and one woman only. These parties were a lot easier when I’d been drunk, or had an easy lay at my side. One I was interested in, at least. I still had the easy lays all around. A woman standing eagerly in front of me gave me a sultry smile and not-so-subtly plumped up her ample breasts. It wasn’t her fault I didn’t find her attractive. Last year, I would have been all over that. Now? She wasn’t Ana and I wasn’t interested.
I was talking with a guy I didn’t know too well when she arrived. He was about my age, a Brit, and I liked his music. He had an original voice and a down-to-earth way about him. He’d only just broken out in the past year or two and didn’t seem like he’d become much of a wanker. Yet. I hoped he stayed that way.
Funny thing, we hadn’t spoken a word about Ana, not at the party or any time before then, but all of a sudden he leaned in and said under his breath, “She’s here.”
I tensed up. How did he know I was waiting to see Ana? But I guessed it was common knowledge, our romance, every step recorded and broadcast.