The early afternoon sun passing through my office window set his sapphire eyes ablaze, and he wore the newly minted flints of salt and pepper on his temples well. It wasn’t fair how well men like him aged. He was a walking, talking, Ralph Lauren billboard complete with an old money pedigree and two Ivy League degrees adorning his office walls.
“See you at home,” I called after him, eyes still focused on my computer screen. I felt him watch me for a second before he left my office.
I shut my office door before pulling my phone out and calling my sister.
“Addison,” I breathed desperately into the phone the second she answered.
“What’s up?”
“I can’t do this.”
“Can’t do what?”
“Go back to Darlington.”
“Why would you be going back to Darlington?” I couldn’t see Addison, but I could sure as hell picture the scrunch-nosed face she was probably making. She hated going home just as much as I did.
“I have to interview him,” I said, attempting to swallow the balled lump of fear that had lodged itself in my throat the moment I booked my airline tickets. “Beau.”
Addison was quiet. Too quiet. “You said his name. I’m just shocked. You never say his name. You haven’t said his name in…”
“Ten years. You see why I can’t do this?”
“Coco.” Addison’s voice firmed up, and I could sense a speech coming on. “You remember what you told me a few years ago? After Kyle and I broke up? You told me I could do hard things. And you told me you would always have my back. Now it’s my turn to tell you. You can do hard things.”
I drew in a deep breath, summoning the inner strength that had gotten me through the greater part of my almost twenty-nine years. The mere mention of Beau had a tendency to dissolve it like rain on chalk.
My entire life had been hard. Hardness was nothing new. It had shaped and molded me into the woman I was destined to become. It tugged and gnawed and gnashed its teeth, nipping at my feet as I scaled mountains few people had the audacity to climb.
“You’ve interviewed plenty of famous people,” Addison said. “He’s just one more.”
It wasn’t that. His fame didn’t rattle me or intimidate me or make me place him on a pedestal of any sort. He was Beaumont Mason. My high school sweetheart. My first love. He’d been inside me in every sense of the word. My heart was permanently branded by the promises we’d made to each other when we were too young to know any better.
“You wouldn’t understand.” I shouldered my phone and gathered paperwork from my desk, organizing it into neat little stacks and darting pens back into the pen cup. Cluttered desks hindered my thought process.
“Try me,” Addison said.
I opened my mouth to speak, but the words got stuck. She didn’t know everything. She was a couple years younger than me – too young to remember how things with Beau and me went down in the end. And there were things she didn’t know. Things I’d sheltered her from. Things I neglected to mention to her because I couldn’t stomach the chance that she might look at me with anything other than pride. I never cared whether or not my mother was proud, but having a little sister who thought the world of me was something worth protecting. “I have to get back to work. I’m flying out tomorrow, so I guess I’ll get a hold of you when I get back.”
“I’m a phone call away if you need me.” Addison seemed to linger a bit, and I supposed she wasn’t used to me needing her. It had been the other way around our whole lives.
My fingers twitched as I ended the call.
Pull yourself together, Coco. Now.
I’d imagined running into him again a million times, each scenario different from the one before. I already knew what I wanted to say to him. How I wanted to be perceived. The way I wanted him to feel about me. But they all had one thing in common – they were just fantasies I’d dreamed up.
This was real. This was really happening. And there was no way to stop it.
“Right this way, Ms. Bissett,” a stocky older man with tufts of white hair sticking out from his Stetson hat led me down a dark corridor. A faded, black Beau Mason ‘Young and Reckless 2012 Tour’ t-shirt hugged his bulbous belly, and he waddled a bit as he walked. He stopped short at the third door on the left. “Here it is.”
His hand dove deep into the front pocket of his tight jeans as he fished out some keys. He proceeded to try several before finding a match.
“They never mark these things right,” he said with a cordial laugh, though I could hardly hear him above the blood-rushed thumping of my heart in my ears.
Echoes of discordant warm-up music from the stage trailed down from the dressing rooms, and various sound and stage crew members rushed up and down the hall with arms full of wires and cords and clipboards and headphones.
“You’re welcome to wait in here during the show.” He turned and offered me a kind smile, lifting the apples of his rosy cheeks in the process. His name was Mickey, and he had been Beau’s tour manager for the last decade. My heart tightened at the realization that Mickey probably knew Beau better than I ever did. “Or I can get you a backstage pass if you want to watch the show from stage right?”
“Oh, um,” I said, tugging on my bottom lip before forcing a polite, professional smile on my face. I could sit in his dressing room and go over my list of questions and give myself the silent pep talk I so desperately needed. Or I could go and see him before he had a chance to see me. I gripped the chain strap of my quilted Chanel handbag and lifted my chin up, overriding the anxious tone of my voice with faux, camera-worthy excitement. “Maybe I’ll watch a couple songs and then come back here and prep for the first part of my interview?”