The Idea of You: A Novel

By the time I touched down in L.A., it was, as Hayes had confirmed, everywhere. I was greeted by nineteen new voicemails, thirty-three texts, and forty-two emails when I powered on my iPhone. And without looking at any of them, I powered it down.

Daniel was not scheduled to bring Isabelle back until tomorrow. So I went home, turned off the landline, crawled into my bed, and cried.

And cried.

It wasn’t until eleven the next morning that I turned on my iPhone again and found no fewer than a dozen messages from Hayes awaiting me. I called him immediately in London.

“What the hell, Solène? Where are you? Where the fuck have you been?” He was panicked, incensed. I could not recall ever hearing him so angry.

“I’m here. At home. I had the phone off. What’s wrong?”

“You didn’t think to check in after you landed? You couldn’t send a message or anything?”

I was quiet. My head pounding, my face swollen, my mind scrambled. Had I done something wrong?

“You cannot … Fuck…” His voice was quaking. “You cannot just fall off the face of the fucking earth like that. You can’t. I don’t know if something’s happened to you. I don’t know if you’ve done something. I don’t know if there are fans outside of your house. I don’t know anything. You can’t just fucking disappear.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I just didn’t feel like dealing.”

“Well, you have to deal … with me,” he said, and I realized he was crying. “Look, we’re in this together, and as it is, I feel responsible. And if I can’t reach you, I don’t know if you’ve gone and done something completely stupid or if you’re hurt … You’re six thousand fucking miles away. You got on that plane emotional and then you just … disappeared. You can’t do that to me.”

“I’m sorry.”

He was quiet for a moment, his breath heavy in the receiver. “Call Lulit,” he said finally. “She’s on her way over there. Call her and tell her you’re okay.”

“You called Lulit?”

“Just call her,” he said. “And call me back.”

“Okay … I’m sorry.”

“I love you. Don’t do that again.”

*   *   *

As much as I’d hoped to, I could not avoid the inevitable. The humiliation, the disgrace awaiting me at what I assumed would be every turn. It started with Lulit, who was relieved but not terribly warm when I reached her on the phone.

“I just want to know that you’re okay.”

“I’m okay. I mean, I haven’t turned on my computer yet or listened to any messages, but I’m okay.”

“Call me if you need anything,” she said.

“I will. And thank you, for getting out of your bed on a Sunday morning to do a wellness check.”

“Your boyfriend was very insistent. I told him you were not the suicidal type, but he would not take no for an answer…” She drifted off, and then: “I think he loves you.”

“I know,” I said. I imagined she wanted to ask what my plan was, what I was thinking, how much longer could I let this go on. But she bit her tongue. And that, for Lulit, was no small thing.

*   *   *

My mother, who could not hold her tongue, lectured me in rapid-fire French. She used words I’d never heard from her mouth, and I’d heard quite a bit. She closed her tirade with her customary “Je t’adore avec tout mon cœur.” But telling your daughter “I love you with all my heart” is much less effective after just having called her “une pute.”

*   *   *

Amara checked in to make certain I was not falling apart. To assure me the photos were not that bad. “They’re blurry. You can’t see your face. You can’t really see his. You can’t see any detail.” And then, finally, to make me laugh: “It could have been so much worse, Solène. You could have been the one going down, and he could have been the president.”

*   *   *

The brief levity she had brought to the situation died the second Daniel and Isabelle arrived. My daughter could barely look at me. She walked in tan and taller and beautiful, and she would not look at me. Worse yet, she would not mention it.

“Was Hawaii amazing?”

She nodded, fiddling with her backpack. We were in the entry, Daniel still retrieving bags from the car.

“Was Eva’s dress nice?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you do your hair yourself?” I reached out to tuck a wayward lock behind her ear, and she tensed.

“They did it at the Four Seasons. I’m going to my room.”

“Okay … Okay.”

Daniel summoned me outside once he’d brought in the luggage. And we stood there, beside the BMW, the relentless California sun glaring, mocking, like a joke. Just once I wanted the weather here to not be perfect. Just once I wanted it to mirror my mood.

“Congratulations,” I said.

He nodded, slow. “Thanks.” His hair was lighter, almost blond, the lines around his blue eyes soft. He looked rested.

“So you’re married again?”

“I’m married again.” He was twisting the shiny platinum band on his finger with his left thumb. It was narrower than the one I’d placed there. The moment still clear. The invitation mounted in a frame.

“I didn’t bring you out here to discuss this—”

“I know you didn’t.”

“This is appalling, Solène. This is so … fucked up. I don’t think you realize how big a deal this is—”

“I do.”

“I know it’s not my place to tell you how to live your life, but I’m still Isabelle’s father. And when you do dumb shit like this, it has consequences.”

“‘Dumb shit’? Is that what it is?”

I watched him stew for a second. His thumb flicking his ring.

It grated on me. That no one would question him moving on. Him marrying and impregnating someone more than ten years his junior. Because that’s what divorced men in their forties did. His stock was still rising. His power still intact.

Daniel had become more desirable, and I somehow less so. As if time were paced differently for each of us.

“Do you really think this is in the best interest of Isabelle?” He’d put it out there. Best interest. It was a legal term, and there was no mistaking his use of it.

“Are you threatening me?”

“I’m not threatening you, I’m just saying…”

“What exactly are you saying?”

“I think she’s been through enough.”

“And you’re pinning that all on me. You’re pinning the divorce on me. You’re pinning Eva and your baby and your marriage on me.”

“None of this would have happened, Solène, if—”

“If what? If I’d just stayed home and been happy? Fuck you, Daniel.”

For a moment he did not say anything, just stood there, staring out toward the street, the hikers in the distance. “I’m sorry I wasn’t enough for you. I’m sorry our family wasn’t enough.” It hit. Hard.

“Figure out what you’re going to do about this guy, before it destroys your relationship with your daughter.”

*   *   *

It was a miserable week. I tried to focus all my energy on the Ulla Finnsdottir show that was opening on Saturday, but it was not easy. Not with the barrage of social media. The 423 new friend requests on Facebook from people I did not know, many of whom appeared to be twenty-something boys. The numerous vile messages on Twitter:

Why r u still around bitch? I thought you’d be gone by now. It’s January.

skanky whore cunt. Aren’t you someone’s mother? Act like it.

Why don’t you just kill yourself and save us the hassle?

Stop fucking with Simon’s boyfriend.

Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die.

The lengthy missives on Instagram: the questioning of my worthiness; the intra-group fighting among Augies; the damaged, the deranged. “Famewhore. You’re only after his money. You’re not even that pretty.” “Be nice to her. If she makes Hayes happy, shouldn’t that be what matters?” “I’m angry okay. I’m angry that I’ve been supporting him for 3 fucking years and then a fucking old bitch comes and ruins everything…” “Step off hayes” “Every time I cut myself I think of you. Hope your happy.”

And even those that were written with the best of intentions scared me, scarred me. “Just remember when you hold his hand, you are holding the entire universe. Please don’t break him.”

In the end, I froze all my accounts.

*   *   *

We hired security for the opening on Hayes’s suggestion. It was a larger turnout than we’d ever had previously. There were myriad girls crowded on the sidewalk in front of the gallery and a handful of paparazzi, who I’m guessing were disappointed to learn that my boyfriend was on the other side of the Atlantic. It was a huge nuisance, but we sold out the show in record time. And Lulit could not complain about that.

On Sunday, Georgia came over to hang out with Isabelle. They locked themselves in her room, and I could hear them laughing, and it sounded to me so sweet, so rare. And I wondered what it was Georgia had said or done to finally bring my daughter around.

Earlier in the week, I’d approached her. When the photos, albeit somewhat sanitized, ran in Us Weekly and People and the others, I could no longer just pretend it was not happening. I could not imagine the toll it was taking on her at school.

“I need to talk to you about what’s going on,” I’d said, sitting on one of her Moroccan poufs.

“I don’t want to talk about it…”

“I know you don’t, Izz. But it’s kind of a big deal and I don’t want you to have all these emotions bottled up inside. I can only imagine what’s going through your head.”

She looked over to me from her perch on her bed, beneath the “Keep Calm and Carry On” poster, and beside the nightstand where our meet-and-greet photo used to lie. She’d shredded it back in November.

“You’re an adult,” she said. “He’s an adult. You can do whatever you want, right? It’s not my business.”

It was not the response I was expecting. She sounded so mature, so altered. My little bird.

“I’m sorry it’s so public, Izz. I’m sorry it’s everywhere. That was never my intention.”

She shrugged. “He’s famous. That’s what happens when you’re famous.”

I nodded, slow. Who had she become? Wise and jaded.

“Hayes is really special to me, Isabelle. He makes me happy. And those people out there, the media and fans and whoever … they’re going to make it sound ugly. And what Hayes and I have is not ugly. I need you to understand that.”

She nodded then. “I’m trying, Mom. I’m trying.”

*   *   *

Leah came to pick Georgia up at the end of the girls’ playdate. She arrived with a bottle of Sancerre and chocolaty chocolate-chunk cookies from the Farmshop. “Let’s go admire your view,” she said.

We sat out on the patio, wrapped in blankets, watching the sun dip. I wanted to believe the bearing of sugar and alcohol was a friendly gesture, but I feared that as a former attorney and now president of Windwood’s parent association, she might have different intentions.

“So … are they asking us to leave the school?”

She smiled. “No.”

“Are they giving me a slap on the wrist and saying ‘Please don’t engage in sex acts with almost-minors in public places’?”

Leah laughed. She had warm nut-brown skin, her daughter’s curls. “Solène, you were on a private boat in the middle of the Caribbean. That hardly counts as a public place. In fact, I’m pretty sure that’s what the Caribbean was made for. Guys in the music industry have been having sex on boats in the Caribbean since the dawn of time. Mick Jagger, Tommy Lee, Diddy, Jay Z…”

I smiled. “You just assembled that list yourself?”

“Yes. And now, Hayes Campbell…” She grew serious then. “No one is talking about it.”

“You’re lying to me.”

“I’m telling you the truth. No one is talking about it. And if they are, they won’t be for long. In the ranking of scandals at L.A. private schools, yours rates pretty low. There are parents sleeping with other parents, and tenth graders going to rehab for porn addiction. There are eighth graders sexting and English teachers behaving inappropriately with underage girls and toxic crumb rubber on elementary school soccer fields. This is nothing. It’s cunnilingus on a boat. It’s not murder.”

I smiled at that. But as light as Leah made it sound, I knew things were not as breezy for my daughter.

“Has Georgia mentioned it to you at all? What’s going on at school … what Isabelle might be going through…”

“Barely. You know this age: secretive…”

I nodded, my eyes fixed on the water. “I want to know what the other kids are saying. To her. I assume they’re saying something.”

“Have you asked her?”

“She doesn’t want to talk about it.”

Leah nodded, picking at her cookie. “Does she have someone else she can talk to? Professionally?”

She’d said it tentatively, but I bristled at the implication. I did not want Isabelle to have to return to therapy because of this. Because of me. Because that would mean I’d failed her. And I would end it before it came to that.

“No,” I said. “I’m not ready to go there. Yet.”

*   *   *

Hayes came into town the last week of January. The guys had a bunch of press and meetings leading up to the Grammys and then they were heading to South America to embark on the Wise or Naked world tour. And there seemed to be no way to stop it. Time.

On Thursday night we celebrated his birthday with a festive dinner at Bestia. The restaurant was in an industrial space in the Arts District downtown. A converted warehouse turned foodie mecca. We were tucked away at the back of the patio. Hayes and I, the rest of the band, Raj, Desmond, Fergus, and a pretty redhead who answered to the name of Jemma and clung to Liam’s arm.

It was a fun evening: the cocktails, potent; the lights, low; the food, divine. The boys were loud and happy, and after so many phone calls fraught with tension, it was lovely to see Hayes once again at peace and comfortable in his skin.

He did not let go of me, his hand touching some part of my being throughout the night. I turned to him at one point when his thumb was tracing the inside of my wrist.

“You missed me,” I said, low. My face at his collarbone, inhaling his scent.

“I missed you. Is it obvious?”

I nodded. “You’re very touchy-feely. Even for you.”

He tipped my chin up to his face then and kissed me. As if we weren’t in a crowded restaurant. As if we didn’t already stand out as the table with the current most visible band in the world. As if we were not just in every tabloid on six continents blasted for our public display of affection. He kissed me as if none of that mattered.

“Don’t leave me…” he said.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“… ever.”

When I didn’t say anything, he kissed me again and repeated it: “Ever.”

“Okay,” I said. And at that point I could not be certain as to who was more intoxicated.

*   *   *

Late in the night I slipped away to the restroom, and on exiting I encountered Oliver in the adjacent vestibule. We had until that point exchanged very few words.

“Well, you seem to be hanging in there.” He smiled, coy.

“Excuse me?”

“I just assumed you’d leave our boy after those photos.”

I paused. It was the way he’d phrased it. “Well, you assumed incorrectly.”

“Clearly.”

The vestibule was narrow, dimly lit. I could smell the gin on him.

“Where’s Charlotte?”

“It’s over. We’re through.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Yes, well … She ended it.”

“Can you blame her?”

He laughed. “Oh, Solène…” He was drunk. “Did Hayes ever tell you what he said when he first saw you in Las Vegas? Did he?”

I didn’t respond. Somehow I knew where this was going.

“‘I just want to fuck her mouth.’” He said it slow, soft. “Did he tell you that? ‘Did you see that mum? I just want to fuck her mouth.’”

I stood there, not moving. Feeling his closeness in the tight space.

“What’s wrong, Oliver? Do you just not want him to be happy?”

He shook his head then, and there was something in his eyes that seemed to me sad. “You have no fucking idea, do you?”

“No,” I said. “I don’t.”

But I’d begun to wonder.

*   *   *

On Friday morning Hayes and I flew to Aspen for four days to celebrate his birthday. I’d booked us a luxury suite at the Little Nell, a swank resort at the bottom of Ajax Mountain. The property was elegant, serene. Our suite decorated in soothing grays with multiple fireplaces and cozy throws and pristine views. The perfect winter hideaway.

In the late afternoon, after massages and lovemaking and a walk around town, Hayes decided that he wanted a “proper tea.” He rang up room service, and I listened as he requested a “spot of Earl Grey and something sweet like scones or digestive biscuits, if you have any,” and my heart ached. My sweet, sweet boy, so far from home.

“Well, that was a first,” he said, hanging up the phone. We were in the living room, peeling off our layers. Snow falling outside on the terrace.

“What was a first?”

“He just called me Mr. Marchand.”

I started to laugh. “You didn’t correct him? You didn’t say, ‘It’s Mr. Doo to you’?”

He smiled, pulling me into him, his hands and nose still icy. His cheeks, red. “No, I quite liked it. ‘Mr. Marchand.’ It’s rather sophisticated.” The last bit he stressed with an upper-crust accent, mocking his own people, as it were.

“Think I’ll try it out for a few days, see if I like it enough to make it a permanent thing. You know, in case we get married.” He kissed me. “I’m going to go warm up in the shower. Don’t hesitate to join me.”

I watched him make his way back into the bedroom. His broad shoulders in flannel, his jeans clinging to his ass. How the fuck had I gotten so lucky? How, in this great world, had we found each other? And how, I wondered, when the time came, was I going to let him go?

I made my way eventually to the master bath. Hayes was in the steam shower. I could smell his soap, his grapefruit body wash. He traveled with his own toiletries because he said he spent so much time in hotels, it was his way of holding on to his identity. Of remembering who he was.

He turned when I opened the glass door, his eyes brightening. I’d removed everything. “Hiiii.”

“Hi yourself.” I stood there, drinking him in. All of him.

And feeling everything.

And then I said it. “I love you.”

Hayes froze, a confused look on his face, water streaming down his long torso. “Are you saying that because I’m naked?”

“No.”

“Are you saying that because it’s my birthday?”

“I’m saying it because I love you.”

He was quiet, weighing the moment. And then he smiled, wide. “What took you so long?”

I laughed. “I was just making sure it was you, and not the idea of you.”

“Come here,” he said, pulling me under the stream of water. His hands pushing my hair from my face, his mouth on mine, his penis stirring against my groin. “Would you mind saying that again so I know I didn’t imagine it?”

“I love you.”

“Yeah.” He smiled, all dimples. “That’s what I thought you said.”

*   *   *

On Saturday morning, Hayes awoke early to go to the gym before we hit the slopes, his body still on Greenwich Mean Time. I watched him dress from the comfort of the bed: his shorts, his girlish headband holding his hair off his pretty face, his #BlackLivesMatter T-shirt.

“Hayes Campbell, political activist?”

He smiled, grabbing his headphones from the dresser. It was still dark out. “Hayes Campbell, concerned citizen of the world. Your country, as much as I adore it, can be a bit fucked up when it comes to race…”

“You don’t say?”

“I do. That’s one of the things I love about you: that you’re giving these artists a voice.

“I read an interesting piece in The New York Times this week on Kehinde Wiley—is that how you pronounce it? And he’s kind of fascinating. But it just made me proud of you. And I know I gave you a hard time about the Invisible installation, but I’ve been thinking about it a lot since our conversation in New York—about how we value some art more than others—and really, I think what you do is amazing.”

I lay there staring at him. Every time he opened his mouth, I liked him more. It had taken Daniel much longer to not view my work as some kind of self-indulgent charity project. In many ways, I’m sure he still did.

Hayes made his way over to me then, leaned in, kissed me. “I love this mouth. I’ll be back in a bit.”

“Oliver said something interesting the other night…”

“Did he?” He tensed.

“He said the first time you saw me, that night in Vegas, you said to him: ‘Did you see that mum? I just want to fuck her mouth.’” I allowed it to sit there. “Is that true? Did you say that?”

He was quiet for a moment, contemplating. “Mm, that sounds like something I might have said … But in my defense, I was a twenty-year-old lad. We can be crass.”

“Hayes…”

“Fucking Oliver … Oh, come on. What did you say when you first saw me? To yourself, what did you say?”

“Probably something like, ‘Oh, he’s cute.’”

“Really? Hmm … Because I clearly remember a conversation with someone saying, and I quote, ‘God, I just want to sit on this kid’s face and pull his hair.’”

I smiled at that.

“I don’t know,” he continued, “but that sounds an awful lot like fucking my mouth.”

“It sounds more delicate my way.”

“Delicate? Delicate mouth fucking?” He smiled. “Right. You’re insane, Solène, and that is why I love you.” He kissed me again before heading toward the door. “Let me know when you’re up for some delicate mouth fucking. I’ll be back.”

*   *   *

I awoke in the middle of that night to Hayes’s mouth traveling the length of my spine. His lips, tongue, soft, descending. To my ass and between my legs before I could properly recall where we were. My screams, stifled in the pillow. And when he was done, he flipped me over and did it again.

And I wasn’t certain if it was the thinness of the mountain air, but everything felt so heightened and intensified that I could not be sure whose birthday we were celebrating. Hayes’s tongue unfolding me. His fingers, long and thick, and so very familiar. The way he explored me so completely, as if each time was the first. As if he were enjoying it. I could not get enough. My ass lifting off the bed to meet him. My hands in his hair, gripping his skull. My nails in his scalp. Jesus fuck.

I came so hard it seemed to me the entire room was spinning.

“Shit,” he said, smiling up at me. “That wasn’t very delicate, was it? My apologies.”

Hayes wiped his face with the back of one hand and grabbed both my wrists with the other, pinning them above my head.

And before I could recover, his dick was pushing up inside of me. And as always, that first thrust was everything. I marveled at it: the way he fit me. Thick. Perfect. Like no one who had come before him. As if all my life I’d been walking around with a Hayes-shaped vagina and never knew. The idea made me smile. But then, completely unexpected, I started to cry.

He stopped moving, his free hand brushing my hair from my face. “Are you all right?”

I nodded.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Why are you crying? It’s a little disconcerting when we’re having sex and you’re crying.” The heel of his palm slid over my cheek.

“I’m sorry.”

“Why are you crying, Solène?”

“Because … I love you. Because this is perfect and I don’t want it to end.” It was the most honest I’d been with him. It was the most honest I’d been with myself.

“Are you ending it?”

I shook my head.

“Then there’s no reason to cry. I’m not going anywhere.” He started moving again. So. Fucking. Deep.

“It ends every time you leave. Every time I go back to my life and my fucking computer, it ends.”

“Well, we’ll get you a new computer, then.” He smiled. “Look at me. Look at me. It’s just us. It’s just you and me in this relationship. Fuck everything else.”

The fact that he could say that to me with my arms pinned above my head and his dick gliding in and out—the fact that he held my gaze the entire time, never wavering, never losing his tempo, the fact that I could smell myself on his face—was so unbelievably sexy. I did not want it to end.

I did not want it to end.

When he was close to coming, he leaned in and bit down on my lower lip so hard that I anticipated the taste of blood, but it never came.

“You. Are fucking everything to me,” he said. His breath coming in short spurts. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Afterwards, when I was reveling in the joy of my third orgasm and he’d passed out beside me, his body slick with sweat, I thought long and hard about what he’d said. It was just us. Fuck everything else.

*   *   *

In all the months of slipping off to various locations, Hayes and I had never flown in and out of the same terminal together. We had never departed and arrived as a couple. It was something I’d not made note of until we touched down at LAX Monday evening.

“It’s going to be crazy out there,” he said as our plane was taxiing. “Just a warning.”

“Like photographers?”

“Photographers, fans, all of it. It’s Grammy week. It’s going to be bad.”

“Okay,” I said.

But “all of it” did not quite capture the madness. We had no fewer than three airport escorts who met us at the gate and accompanied us to baggage claim, and the entire time, walking at a relatively fast clip, we were hounded by a handful of paparazzi. Hayes walked one pace ahead of me, clinging to my hand, protecting me from the brunt of it. And what struck me most was not the intrusiveness of the experience, but the running commentary spewing from the guys with the cameras. “Hey, Hayes. Happy Birthday, Hayes! How does it feel to be twenty-one? How was Aspen? Hi, Solène. Did you get a lot of skiing in? You gonna go out drinking tonight? What bars you gonna hit? You excited about the Grammys? You’re looking good, man. I love your work, dude. I love the new album. Your girlfriend is very beautiful. What do you think of Rory’s new tattoo?” Dear God. Who were these people?

And then, as we exited into the chaos of the baggage claim, the full scale of Hayes’s celebrity hit. There were over a hundred girls squealing with cell phone cameras and throwing themselves in his path attempting to take selfies and yelling his name and falling down and crying, and it was terrifying. The paparazzi’s flashes, blinding. I spotted Desmond with our driver, and even his familiar ginger head did not alleviate my panic. They were touching him and pulling at him, and he was squeezing my hand harder. And they were at turns euphoric, diplomatic, and violent. “Get the fuck out of the way.” “Make a path.” “Hi, Solène.” “You’re so pretty, Solène.” “Guys, let them through, please.” “Happy Birthday, Hayes!” “Can you sign my face?” “There’s a girl on the floor.” “OhmyGod!OhmyGod!OhmyGod!” “Can I get a picture, please?” “Let them through!” “Happy Birthday!” “HayesHayesHayesHayesHayes.” “Let him go!” “He doesn’t want to take your picture. Just let him go!” “Get off of him!” “They’re gonna think we’re animals!” “Move, bitch!” “Hayes, I’m so sorry about this.” “You guys, let him go. Jesus fucking Christ!”

By the time we got into the back of the Escalade, I was hyperventilating. And he was as cool as a fucking cucumber. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

It took me a minute to catch my breath, to gather my wits, to assess that I had not been physically harmed. “Yeah,” I said. “It’s just you and me in this relationship. Fuck everything else.”