Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Genevieve Cantrell was doing something out of the ordinary.

In less than an hour, Gen’s production manager would call her and her band and her dancers to their places backstage, and shortly thereafter, like she’d been doing for nearly two months, she’d emerge onstage to the sounds of thousands of screaming fans. On a typical night, she’d be in her dressing room, getting ready. A ritual that involved makeup, wardrobe, water, a shot of tequila, maybe two, and some sort of quasi-meditation to count down the final seconds. But tonight, she stood in the wings, just offstage, close enough to see but far enough to be shielded from the view of the audience, and watched the performance of the girl she’d hand selected to open for her. Seven weeks ago, the girl was a relatively unknown but deeply talented pop singer. She had a fiercely loyal fan base, one large enough to just barely pay the bills but too small to keep her from occasionally browsing community college courses. When the tour began, she did her job of getting Genevieve’s crowd warmed up and excited — a job she’d done better than nearly every opening act Genevieve had ever worked with — but little else. But sometime in those seven weeks, something of a marketing miracle happened — a perfect storm of exposure and Spotify promotion and viral Tiktoks — and Therese…Blew. The Fuck. Up.

Genevieve was happy for her friend finally getting the success she long deserved. And secretly, she was happy that Therese’s time on her tour would come to an end in just three nights at Madison Square Garden. She couldn’t be sure, but she had the feeling a growing number of fans were there for Therese, and that Genny V was just an added bonus. She couldn’t be sure, but she had the feeling the sudden spike in resale ticket prices wasn’t really about her. She couldn’t be sure, but she had the feeling Therese, on the precipice of something magical, would soon eclipse her.

One thing of which she absolutely was sure: Therese Belivet would finally be able to move out of her shitty studio apartment.







“I need a minute,” Therese called out to anyone who would listen as she stormed offstage.

She couldn’t hear a goddamn thing.

The arena they’d played in Washington, DC, had 14,693 tickets available at the time of sale. All 14,693 had been sold. And then some, no doubt. And if Therese had to guess, she’d say that every single person — everyone in the audience, Gen’s security guard Joe, everyone working concession, every bouncer, every usher, every stage hand — was chanting the lyrics to her newest single along with her. Six months ago, she was stoked to sell out a venue with a capacity of a thousand. Sure, these were Genevieve’s fans. Genny V was the headliner. But now, they were there for Therese, too.

She veered past Gen who said, “oh my god, Therese,” and something else that she didn’t quite catch. Dannie followed close behind. Dannie had been her manager for a few years, now enduring the same unexpected tidal wave of fame. They’d always hoped the Big One would hit, but hope hadn’t properly prepared them. Dannie chased her through the halls backstage until she finally paused, quickly tearing the wires of her in-ear monitor off of her body, practically tossing it at him before stalking off. He started to say something, but she wasn’t listening.

“I just need a minute.” She repeated, this time directly to Dannie, slamming the dressing room door closed in his face.

In reality, Therese couldn’t have prepared herself for this if she’d tried. It was what she wanted, but as the years went on, it seemed more a pipe dream than anything. For almost a decade, she’d been attempting to get her career off the ground. At 18, Therese arrived in Los Angeles with no contacts, no connections, and no friends. She worked dozens of odd jobs in bars and restaurants and retail, sometimes quitting, sometimes fired for skipping shifts to play last-minute gigs. When she couldn’t afford rent, she’d beg her landlord for a few more days, and then walk dogs or clean houses or pull weeds to get just enough to not get herself evicted. For so long, it had all seemed so pointless. Breaking her back and for what? It wasn’t until the past two years that she finally felt the fruits of her labor. A label, a contract, a studio album, a small-but-successful club tour, and now, opening for Gen.

It had all happened so suddenly, but that was how things tended to work out in the music industry. But what had happened to Therese over just a few weeks was rare.

Every night, no matter the venue, the dressing room was always cold. Dannie swore it was fine. The thermostat always read at 73 degrees. It was just the come down of the adrenaline rush, he said. Something about cold muscles. Her rider wasn’t ridiculous. Requesting the dressing room not feel like a freezer didn’t seem outrageous. But night after night, Therese shivered in her costume as she slowly peeled it off. It didn’t help, of course, that her costume wasn’t much of anything. Her tights, ruined every single night by her knees slamming and skidding across the vinyl of the stage floor, were sheer black — a tint of shade, mostly. Her long sleeved bodysuit was the same material. She’d need a new one for the last couple shows — when she’d sat on her knees and then bent back to the ground, lowering herself slowly as she sang and gazed up at the camera Phil held in her face, her elbow caught on a piece of gaffer tape and caused a run that slowly gave way to a rip by the end of her set. Beyond that, her wardrobe consisted of black leather shorts that functioned more as underwear, and an almost-matching black corset top that pushed her tits up without restricting her ribcage. The same outfit, night after night. At least it made packing easy.

Therese took off her top and bodysuit and replaced them with a sweatshirt. She leaned against the makeup counter and inspected herself in the mirror. Her eyes looked tired. Her skin, underneath the thick layer of makeup she’d meticulously applied, was turning dull and lifeless. Her hair — dyed jet-black and tied into half-up-half-down spacebuns, a faint line of root beginning to show — was oily, no longer able to go days and days without a wash. She snarled her upper lip to examine her teeth, and then stopped herself. Her face was nearly touching the mirror.

She had to stop dissecting.

The counter was littered with bags of chips, half empty glasses, a few cut and squeezed limes, tequila, hair tools, makeup bags, and a white powdery residue that could’ve been eyeshadow or something else. Therese dabbed her finger in the powder, the remains stuck to the pad, and put her finger between her lips and her gums, letting her saliva do the rest of the work. She was pretty sure it wasn’t eyeshadow.

The knocks at her door turned impatient, and she heard, “Therese, come on.”

“I just need one —” There was really no point. Plus, it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t just her dressing room. It was her entire team’s space.

She opened the door and in came her drummer, her guitarist, her keyboardist, her sound engineer, and Phil, and Dannie.

Dannie cupped her face in his hands. “Absolutely astonishing.”

She was starting to crumble. “I’m hungry.”

“Do you want a protein shake?”

No. She did not want a protein shake. She didn’t want a protein shake or fruit or carrots or almonds or greek yogurt or string cheese.

“Three more days.” He wasn’t the one making the rules. It was at the request of Therese. She wanted everything to be perfect. “Three more days and then we’ll get you whatever the hell you want.”

Three more days. She could do three more days.

One more day and they were in Pittsburgh. Load in, perform, load out.

Two more days, and they were in New York. Gen had a morning show, Therese had the day off. A day spent catching up on emails with Dannie and then meeting with Gen’s publicist — soon-to-be Therese’s publicist, as well. Erin had called to set up a meeting just about a hundred times, or so it felt like it. Gen swore by her. And Therese relented. She needed someone, and she worked wonders for Gen.

Three more days, and they were finally playing Madison Square Garden.

Therese didn’t think she herself could sell out Madison Square Garden — not yet anyway (Dannie thought otherwise) but she was going to make sure her last performance on Gen’s tour felt like it was her own sold out arena. Throughout the tour, Therese had been mindful that her momentum not outshine Gen. The crowd had very suddenly stopped treating Therese like an opener, but Therese still needed to act like one.

Except, maybe, tonight.

In theory, she could leave Gen’s tour the next day, and her hit single and album sales could plummet, bowing down to a new song of summer, something newer and shinier and better, and she could be forgotten by the time the seasons changed. She may never set foot on the stage of Madison Square Garden again. So that night, Therese was going to work the crowd like it was her very own.

As always, Phil wanted to film, film, film. He was her videographer and photographer and had somehow appointed himself in charge of Therese’s socials. It was fine with her. For now. He always wanted content. Content for Instagram. Content for TikTok. Content for any future use. Content to promote her next tour — which would be happening, and soon if Dannie and her booking agent could help it.

“Tonight, it’s going to be better. Better than we’ve done it. I want it to be so polished that —”

Therese cut Phil off as she lined her eyes, “okay, but I don’t want to get too distracted.” She pulled at the skin on her cheek and dragged a metallic silver pencil across her bottom water line.

She wouldn’t get distracted, he promised. Not by him, at least. He’d film mostly from afar during her opening number. He’d leave, then come back during the fifth song in her set, “Daffodil.” And then he’d be back, as always, during her closer. The song.

Therese joked that the intro was Pavlovian for Phil. Play it and he’d show up with his Canon in her face.

That night was no different. Therese did what she always did. She thanked the audience about ten times. She thanked her band. She hyped up Genny V. And then she said, “I have one last song for you tonight.” Cue the intro. Cue Phil, closing in on his prey. She sang, trying not to think about Phil right in front of her. Trying not to get overwhelmed by the crowd, doing their best to sing so loud that Therese herself might’ve been rendered unnecessary.

Phil and Therese had a plan: the intro and first verse would take place center stage, she’d walk the catwalk during the first chorus (something as simple as walking had inadvertently been crowned her signature move, and emulating it had become a Tiktok trend, one of the many factors that ushered in Therese’s preternatural success) with Phil in front of her, Phil would follow her back to center stage, and from there, she could go wherever, “work the audience and I’ll follow,” as long as she was stage left, on her knees, lowering backward during the song’s bridge. “And then you’ll look toward Joe in VIP on your left, and then right back up at me for the last line, and then pop!” he slammed his hand down on the counter for emphasis, she’d have to redo her eyeliner, “back up for the final chorus.”

(She’d hire a real choreographer soon.)

And all was going exactly as planned. She strutted down the catwalk, resisting the urge to gaze around at the outstretched hands of fans against the barricade of the pit, instead looking directly into Phil’s camera. She walked back upstage, pranced around a bit, scanning the shine of distant iPhone flashes. She made her way to stage left, and slid down on her heavily-bruised knees.

All was going exactly as planned. Except, when Therese lowered to her back and looked left, expecting to find the comforting presence of Joe the security guard, she locked eyes with someone else. There, standing just a whisper away, was one of the most prolific and iconic pop music sensations of the 21st century. Standing just feet away was Carol Aird.







Therese didn’t flinch. She, too, was a professional. She didn’t gasp. She didn’t miss a beat. But she did forget to look back up at Phil right away. When she finally did, she found his eyes beyond the camera, wide with the same recognition. The song ended, the crowd continued screaming, and Therese waved her way off stage.

Dannie was probably getting bored of chasing behind her to grab her in-ear monitor. This time, she bypassed her dressing room, instead making her way to Gen’s. She didn’t knock before swinging open the door.

Gen was seated in front of the mirror, her hair stylist pulling out individual waves and encrusting them in hair spray. “Therese! Fantastic —”

“Carol Aird is here.”

Unfazed, Gen just smiled. “Aww. I’m so glad she made it. I didn’t know if —”

“You knew she was coming?”

“Well, not for sure. I mean, we invited her. But honestly, I didn’t think she’d actually come. That’s so nice of her.”

Of course, Gen knew Carol Aird. Therese knew that Gen knew Carol Aird. The most lauded track off of Gen’s latest album was one that had Carol as a credit. Writer, electric guitar, synthesizer, and vocal production.

Therese had asked Gen about her experience working with Carol before the tour had started. They’d gotten lunch and realized they had about a year of catching up to do. Gen talked about her album and said, “Jerry got Carol Aird in the studio, which was amazing.”

“Oh yeah, tell me more about that.” Therese asked a bit out of curiosity, a bit out of jealousy, a bit to be nice, because it was clearly a topic that Gen could brag about. She didn’t have any unique fascination with Carol. Her interest was likely similar to everyone else’s, maybe heightened by the desire to be in the orbit of someone so esteemed in her industry. Otherwise, she was just another A-list celebrity that drifted in and out of the spotlight.

Gen told Therese the story as if Therese was the first one to hear it, but it was clear that she’d recalled the occasion at least a couple hundred times to anybody mildly interested:

She was working on a song. All she had was the melody, a verse, and a “sonic landscape,” as she called it. Her producer, Jerry, sent it to his friend, Fred, who happened to be Carol’s producer. Fred then sent it directly to Carol herself. “The next day, she’s in the studio with me. I was kind of skeptical at first, honestly,” (that had to be bullshit), “because I said I didn’t want this to be dance-pop, I wanted it to be more pop-rock. Edgier.” (Also maybe bullshit. Therese didn’t question Gen’s artistic vision, but she couldn’t imagine her thinking to take her music in that direction. Carol Aird, however…) “Carol just banged it out. Wrote the lyrics, the guitar, helped me with the chorus. It took her less than two hours.”

“Sounds like a blast.”

“It really was. It still doesn’t seem real, you know? But now I feel this, like, level of respect from her. She even listened to a few of my other tracks. Gave me some suggestions.” Gen played with the remainder of her salad with her fork, picking off the overdressed bits. “She told me she liked my accent, isn’t that funny?”

Gen’s parents were big time casting directors in LA. They divorced when Gen was a baby and her mom moved her and her brother to London. The result was Gen’s voice becoming some fucked up valley-girl version of Posh Spice. There were rumors that she put it on. That it was mostly one thing or the other. Therese had been with a very drunk Gen enough times to know that wasn’t true.

Therese pushed her half-eaten plate to the side and leaned in closer. “So, not to gossip, but…”

“But…” Gen’s lips curled into a smile.

“Is that rumor about Carol — you know, from a few years ago, with —”

“Genuinely, I have no idea. The only personal question I managed to ask her was ‘how are you?’”

It didn’t matter. Therese was just curious. She shrugged, and almost sat back until Gen followed up with, “I will say this, though…the lyrics for the chorus: ‘still she’s fucking with my head/still winding up back in her bed,’ dah-dah-dah-dah, that whole part, they were part of another song she had written for herself and she tried them out with mine. So...”

“She could’ve just changed the lyrics because you wrote the song about a girl.”

That was the other thing, though. Gen didn’t write the song about a girl initially. It was about her ex-boyfriend, but she changed it because she liked the sound better.

“Yeah,” Therese said, but, “most people just say you’re a lesbian, anyway, probably her included.”

Gen laughed and tossed an ice cube from her water at Therese. “You’re so stupid.”

Since that lunch, Therese hadn’t thought all that much about Carol. She listened to her music on a regular basis. Like any living, breathing, pop-culture consuming American, she put some of her songs on her workout rotation. A few were on the playlist her and her band played while getting ready. Beyond that, Carol wasn’t explicitly on Therese’s radar.

After their concert at Madison Square Garden, there was no official wrap party, because, well, the tour hadn’t wrapped. Only Therese’s time on it was over. That was fine with Therese. She knew they’d be invited to whatever over-the-top event Gen would throw after her official last show in Mexico City. For now, Therese was exhausted, and drinking copious amounts of champagne in Gen’s penthouse at their hotel did the trick. They stayed up until 3am, and then Gen kicked everyone out. The rest of them had a flight to London the next day.

After seven weeks, Therese was looking forward to finally having her own hotel room. When the tour started, Dannie crunched the numbers time and time again, finding out where to cut corners so that Therese could walk away with a respectable amount of money. That meant sleeping on the bus as often as possible, and doubling or tripling up in every hotel room. Dannie had said that if Therese was lucky, if merch sales were higher than average and they didn’t incur any unexpected expenses, Therese would leave the tour with several thousand dollars. Success.

But that was then. That was seven weeks ago. Now, Therese stood in her own hotel room, in her own bathroom, in front of her own bathroom mirror, and stared at herself as she brushed her teeth. She leaned in closer, the size of her clogged pores visible without the guise of makeup. She spit, rinsed, and began squeezing at the little black speckles surrounding her nose.

A knock at the door spared her skin from too much carnage.

Therese looked through the peephole in the door, surprised to see a swaying Rebecca glance up and down the hall before knocking again.

Opening the door enough to stand in its crack, Therese emerged, curious. “Hey, Rebecca.”

Rebecca was one of Gen’s dancers. She was nice, a bit obnoxious, but that was mostly due to her age. Even Gen was afraid they’d been giving an underage girl alcohol until one day, Rebecca unceremoniously announced it was her “birthday month.” She’d be turning 23.

“Hi, Therese. Hi. I was just thinking… Well, I just realized that I hadn’t really gotten a chance to really say bye to you, since you’re leaving and all.”

Oh.

“Right. Well, isn’t that what tonight was for? Gen’s penthouse?”

“Sure. But I guess I just wanted to say goodbye personally.”

“I see. So, that’s what you’re doing right now?”

Rebecca bit her lip. “Are you here alone?”

It only seemed right to help her out a bit, so she swung the door open and nodded, inviting. “Not anymore.”








Gen Cantrell: Did you and Rebecca fuck last night?

Therese was seated atop her carry-on, doing her best to make herself as small as possible. Dannie stood beside her, cosplaying as a bodyguard. Therese had been surprised when a few girls from a college volleyball team (or something) recognized her as she left the line at security. She didn’t look much like her onstage self. She reluctantly took pictures with them, fearing how awful she’d look when they plastered them on the internet.

Therese: yeah, why?

Gen Cantrell: Lmao she’s just telling everyone about it

Gen Cantrell: Should I tell her that I slept with you first?

Therese: yes because i’m sure finding out about our love affair that occurred when she was still in high school will ruin her

“Therese,” Dannie tapped her head, “we’re boarding.”

They’d upgraded themselves to first class the night before, easily convinced at Gen’s suggestion. Neither Therese nor Dannie had ever flown first class. Or even Business. ‘Just do it. You deserve it.’ In the bright light of day, it felt sort of stupid. But what was done was done.

The gate agent looked at the name on her screen, glanced up at Therese, and then read her screen one more time. She waited a beat before squinting a bit, smiling, and saying, “enjoy your flight.”

Her phone vibrated again.

Gen Cantrell: It’s annoying me for some reason

Gen Cantrell: Like, I think she’s doing it for clout and being obvious about it is so tacky.

Therese: right because she couldn’t have slept with me because she’s actually into me

Gen Cantrell: Oh my god, no, no, noooo, that’s not what I mean at all.

It was the reaction Therese expected. She knew what Gen meant. She was just trying to get her to her grovel a bit. Get a rise out of her. Just for fun. Her phone kept vibrating as she maneuvered her suitcase onto the plane. She listened to the flight attendants chat, pausing only to chirp “good morning” as Therese passed.

Before she could bask in the satisfaction of only having to walk four rows back, not waiting for less-savvy passengers ahead of her to fumble with the overhead compartment, the unmistakable sheen of long, bubblegum pink hair caught her eye. And again, Therese found herself gazing right back at Carol Aird, already lounged in her seat in Row 1.

It lasted not half a second. Not even long enough to smile or nod in recognition. Therese just walked on, let Dannie take care of her bag, and slid into her window seat. When Dannie sat down, he gripped Therese’s thigh, digging his fingers in hard.

“Ow. Jesus.”

Dannie gave an unsubtle nod to the first row of the plane. Therese mouthed, “I know.” And then pointed at her own head and added, “I thought that was a wig.”

“Me too.”

It wasn’t that weird for the two of them to be on the same flight. They were flying to LAX. Carol likely split her time between New York and LA. Maybe she’d flown in just for Gen’s show. But that seemed very unlikely. In any case, it didn’t matter.

Her phone vibrated again. Seven texts from Gen. It was just her apologizing and re-explaining.

Therese: carol aird is on my flight lol

Gen Cantrell: Wow, flying commercial. Okay, Ms. Environmentalist.

The rest of the flight was uneventful. Therese could tell that Dannie was trying to spy on Carol. She nudged him and rolled her eyes when he just grinned sheepishly and shrugged. Before the flight, she’d split an Ambien in half, wanting to sleep but not wanting to be groggy when the plane landed. Half an Ambien only did half its job, though, and she lulled in and out of sleep, any bout of mild turbulence jostling her back to reality. She drank her water bottle, and then drank all of Dannie’s, too. She thought about getting the attention of the flight attendant, but the flight attendant was busy…talking to Carol Aird.

Therese got out her phone and scrolled Instagram until they landed.

Carol was the first to stand up when they could deplane. She quickly grabbed her bag from the overhead compartment, and Therese swore she glanced back at her before gliding off through the jetway.

On the car ride back to her apartment, Dannie went over her calendar with her. Absolutely nothing for two days, then back on. Studio, interview, meeting, dance class [tentative], rehearsal, rehearsal, meeting, and on and on and on, and then, “Inland Empire Festival on Friday, a media day on Monday, you have time scheduled with Jack on Tuesday…” and then a few days off before flying to Toronto for Wonderland Festival, and then back on the road for an extension of her album tour. The one that was cut slightly short when she agreed to open for Gen.

But for two days, Therese could sit in her shitty studio apartment and rot. She could — should — clean it, too, because the floor was barely visible underneath the dirty clothes and clean clothes. The tote bags and suitcases and makeup. But instead, she ordered Chinese takeout, and watched The OC for hours straight. The regret could be dealt with by future Therese.

Dannie called her near the end of day two. It was late, and Therese had abandoned a YouTube yoga class when she was in downward dog and noticed a book she’d halfway read collecting dust underneath her bed. At first, he texted, asking, have you been on Twitter at all today?

Therese: haven’t been on social media since getting home. so amazing.

When she answered his call, he skipped the pleasantries and said, “I’m going to send you something, but don’t freak out.”

She was definitely freaking out. “What is it, Dannie?”

“Carol Aird said something about you in an interview with Tommy Tucker Jr.”

Not bothering to hear the rest, she pulled her phone away from her ear, opened the article Dannie sent her, and gasped.

Chapter Text

Sitting down with Tommy in his studio, Carol felt as at-ease as she could’ve. It wasn’t simply the fact that she’d been in that very seat before, years and years ago with Tommy’s dad, and then more recently, with Tommy Jr., but she had personal history with Tommy.

Nothing romantic (god no) but Carol’s father had been Tommy’s father’s financial advisor for as long as Carol could remember. It didn’t put them in extremely close proximity, but they’d always existed in one another’s periphery. Once Tommy Jr. had grown up, Carol’s father swiftly became his financial advisor, as well. Their family business was his family business.

The connection didn’t grant Tommy any unique privilege. In fact, Carol found him even less trustworthy than most of her close acquaintances given his fixture in his scummy pseudo-journalistic circle.

But sometimes, easy publicity was just that. And Carol didn’t have many reasons to turn down his invitation to be on his show. The only real downside was getting into hair and makeup and wardrobe on a day she’d planned to not. While his show was a podcast, every episode was filmed and put on the internet.

Celeste, Carol’s stylist, had chosen a pair of custom-made snakeskin shorts for her to wear over fishnets. When she zipped up the back of the leather knee-high boots, she mumbled, “I think your ankles are too thin for these to fit right,” and Carol filed the humble brag away for safekeeping.

When she’d agreed to be on the show, there were two restrictions: do not press her beyond reason regarding her next album (‘reason’ being no more than three (3) questions, follow-ups included), and do not mention Abby Gerhard.

Tommy happily agreed.

After nearly two decades of drudging through the same dull song-and-dance of every celebrity interviewer, Tommy felt like a breath of fresh air. She was, after all, talking to a family friend. And she wasn’t stupid; she knew that he knew she was more herself with him.

They’d made it easily through the pleasantries. Laughed about what Carol was even doing there: she “didn't really have much going on at the moment,” which wasn’t a total lie.

The fact of the matter was, they’d run into each other at a wedding. That was the one ridiculous, but real, reason Carol was sitting on the crushed blue velvet loveseat in the Tommy Tucker Jr. Show studio.

The wedding was back in March, somewhere in Texas. Harge asked Carol if she wanted to come as his plus-one. She hesitated. Harge’s high school friend, Gavin, was finally settling down. Carol had always liked Gavin — she liked all of Harge’s friends from high school — but she hadn’t seen him since they’d split up. So…at least four, five? years ago.

“It’ll be fun,” he said. They’d get dressed up, abuse the open bar, dance. They did always have a blast at weddings together.

He was well past the point of trying to have sex with her, too.

She agreed, and, as fate would have it, there among the sea of regular, everyday friends and family, was Tommy Tucker Jr. and his worlds-out-of-his-league wife, Heather.

“Did you know he’d be here?” Carol whispered after waving to Tommy from their seats on opposite sides of the aisle.

“Had no fucking idea,” Harge mumbled through a grin.

It turned out that Gavin was marrying Heather’s sorority-something — her big or little or middle or whatever. They laughed recalling the incident on Tommy’s show. Tommy added, “great wedding. Great food, too.”

“That’s what I heard. I wouldn’t know, though.” Carol hadn’t been drinking much that year. She’d been too busy. Except that night. That night, Carol was so nervous about seeing all of Harge’s friends again that she’d barely touched any food, instead slamming drink after drink until her blood was replaced with pure liquid courage. Sometime between the reception and Harge deciding it was time for them to leave, noticing that vacant look in Carol’s eyes, Tommy convinced her to come on the podcast.

She couldn’t believe he remembered. Or rather, that she remembered. She spent the entire day after the wedding laying on the floor of their hotel bathroom. When her publicist called the following Monday, Carol thought hard, finally managing an, “oh, yeah, that’s right…”

“You did seem pretty drunk toward the end,” Tommy laughed into his mic. “Still, you two were the life of the party. Really tore up the dance floor.”

They couldn’t spend the entire show shooting the shit, of course. There was some business to discuss. Carol had just won an Academy Award, after all. She sort of shrugged when he mentioned it.

It was her first attempt at a film score. A risky one, at that. She’d gotten the script, described to her as a ‘Hitchcockian neo-noir’ and then, “I pitched them something totally anachronistic but it worked and they loved it.” And that’s how Carol made an EDM album and won an Oscar for it. And now a bunch of DJs were using her music and inviting her to come play with them during their festival sets throughout the summer.

“You came out onto the Pac-West Distributing Stage at Spring Fever Festival two weeks ago in Vegas. It got a bit wild, no?” It was notoriously more than ‘a bit wild.’ For starters, the sponsor of the stage was everyone’s favorite “leather cleaning solvent” manufacturer. How that had been green lit was a total mystery. The festival — and Carol herself — had greatly underestimated how many fans Carol Aird: The Celebrity would add to the stage’s usual audience, drawing in numbers well above what was anticipated.

Eventually, enough people were carried out by medics that Carol felt like she had a moral obligation to leave the set early.

“And yet, you’re doing the same thing in less than two weeks. Inland Empire. Now, you’ve played Inland —”

“Several times.”

“Last time was…?”

“Seven years ago now.”

“So, when someone like you goes to Inland, are you enjoying yourself? Do you get to walk around and watch other artists? Do you even want to do that?”

Of course Carol wanted to. She was, at the end of the day, a normal person. With normal hobbies. Maybe more than most, considering she had the means. She wanted to take a ceramics class. She wanted to start rock climbing. She wanted to take Rindy to Disney World. She wanted to go to a music festival and wander around with her friends. It wasn’t always logistically impossible, either, but—

“But how can you? Here you are, you have pink hair. You’re wearing fishnets and some sort of printed shorts. You, well, stand out.” Tommy was just being annoying. Probably trying to get listeners streaming on Spotify to wander over to YouTube to look at her outfit and drive up views. He knew better.

“Do you think I look like this all the time? When I’m playing music, I’m at work. Here, with you, I’m at work. So, I’m dressed for work. At Inland, I’ll be at work. That said, I’ll probably find a way to catch some sets.”

“Who are you planning to see this year?”

Carol had only halfway thought about that. In an effort to not seem so self-involved that she hadn’t even bothered to inspect the lineup, she rattled off some names she knew would be playing, some lesser-known singers and bands, throwing them a bit of free publicity.

And then Tommy asked, “how about Therese? Playing the same day as you. She’s really blown up these past few weeks.”

Therese. Something about Therese was driving her a little insane. She couldn’t put her finger on it exactly. Her music was objectively great. Total earworms. But there was just something…

“You’re hesitating!” Usually Tommy feigned shock, but this time he was genuinely surprised.

“No, no, I’m not. I’m not. I saw her recently. I saw her open for Genny V.”

“Right. Of course. You’ve worked with Genny V. I’m sensing reluctance about Therese —”

“Not at all. No. I just have this thing —” Carol tried to laugh it off. To keep it light. “You know, and this isn’t about Therese specifically, but there’s this collective of pop artists who used to be making this personal, thoughtful singer-songwriter music. You know, just a guitar or a small band, and great vocals. I know that Therese was doing that six, seven years ago. And now it’s, like, these singers, they’re trading authenticity for fame. Which is fine, I guess. It’s just a bit jarring. Or maybe disappointing?”

“So…we’re a no on Therese?”

“That’s not it. I’m just pointing out a trend. It’s not her exclusively.”

“But she comes to mind?”

“I’m not saying that. Blame TikTok, I don’t know. It just seems like, if you can’t get a 10-second clip from your song, then it’s not really good for anything, right?”

Tommy glanced around the room at some of his crew, eyebrows raised and a sleazy little smirk curling at his lips. “I think you’re alone in this one. Even I’ve had her album on repeat for the past month. And I’m definitely not her target audience.”

That, he was absolutely right about. There was no way Therese, with her songs about sex (with men and women) and parties and heartbreak, was looking to appeal to one of the most aggressively straight men on the planet.

“No, you’re definitely not. That’s something of which I’m certain.”

“We’re going to pivot for a moment— ”

“Oh my god, please, yes.” Carol was bored of the topic.

“And talk again about your Academy Award. Which, congrats by the way. You’ve mentioned in previous interviews that this all came to be — your involvement — when you were introduced to one of the film’s producers, Justin Wu. Who was it exactly that introduced the two of you?”

“A friend…”

A small smile of satisfaction graced Carol’s lips as she made her way through the quiet hall of Tommy’s studio. The interview left her feeling confident and productive. Tommy was kind of a dick, but that was par for the course. If that was work, then it had been pretty painless. She was annoyed with Tommy’s half-hearted attempts to get her to talk about Abby (“who was the friend?” as if he didn’t know exactly the answer), but he hadn’t explicitly brought it up, per their agreement, and she’d dodged any insinuations fairly swiftly.

“Great show, Carol,” said a passing PA.

“Aw, thank you.”

“Carol! Fabulous interview. Come back anytime. I mean it.” It was Tommy’s booking agent.

“Oh, thank you so much.”

When she walked into her dressing room, the fanfare didn’t seem as overwhelming. While her makeup artist packed up in a reserved silence, Carol’s longtime manager, Katy, sat with her arms crossed on a swivel stool, slowly drifting from side to side. She was talking to Carol’s assistant Naomi in a hushed tone, abruptly stopping when she saw Carol’s reflection in the mirror.

Carol could tell something was…off. “Who died?”

A disembodied voice called out “Carol —” It was Katy’s phone, put on speaker with an easily identifiable Denise on the other end.

Denise was Carol’s publicist. She had been apart of Carol’s PR team for the better part of a decade, and when she’d initially begun working with Carol, it was a relatively low-maintenance job. Relatively. At the time Carol was very famous, and her fame came mostly from her music, some shocking-for-the-time fashion choices, and from her high-profile marriage to Harge Maddox. But all Carol really did back then was keep her head down and work. Sure, she could say some outlandish things here or there, but nothing that Denise couldn’t handle. It wasn’t until a few years ago that Carol had really made Denise’s job difficult.

“What’s wrong?”

“Carol,” Denise sighed, it was a sigh Carol could see from the two thousand miles that separated them. She knew the one. A deep sigh that had Denise’s thumb and pointer finger cradling her forehead. “Why did you say that?”

“Say what?” She wasn’t being obtuse, she was actually confused.

“About Therese! Carol, she —”

Oh, for Christsake. “About Therese? It wasn’t about Therese! We were just talking about— how do you even know what I said, Denise?” The interview was pre-taped and wouldn’t be uploaded until the next morning. Carol glared at suspects one and two, Katy and Naomi, both of whom suddenly found the floor especially interesting.

“This interview was supposed to be light. Just to keep you in the conversation. Talk about your Oscar, since you all but refused to do any press after that. Talk about upcoming festivals. Talk about making music. Hell, talk about the goddamn weather. Not malign everybody’s favorite new artist.”

Carol rummaged through the beige weekender bag she’d taken with her to the studio, somehow the glass bottle of water Naomi had packed hiding in the depths, despite its size. Part of what made Naomi such a wonderful assistant was anticipating Carol’s needs, and before Carol could bite, Naomi’s outstretched hand delivered the large, Erewhon-branded glass bottle. She’d kept it cold for her.

Carol sipped, and then closed it and held it to the back of her neck. “I didn’t think it came across that way. Did it really sound that bad?”

Denise began to say “I didn’t hear it verbatim,” before being cut off by Katy’s “yes, it did.”

It was mean, they said. It made her sound threatened, or jealous. Carol didn’t feel threatened. She was jealous, though, for reasons she couldn’t quite articulate. But still, she hadn’t thought that the feeling had seeped out so much.

“So, what now then? Do we kill the interview?”

Of course not. They couldn’t just kill the interview. There were a multitude of reasons as to why that was not an option. For one, it meant the entire thing was a waste. It would also likely mean Carol wouldn’t be welcomed back — not the best position to be in when Tommy Tucker Jr. had what was easily the most streamed entertainment podcast.

“Can we ask to have that portion taken out?”

“That’s…they won’t do that.” Denise said. “I can ask. I’m sure it’s unethical or fucking whatever, but, I’ll talk to them. I really doubt that can happen, though. Listen, just don’t answer any questions about this if you’re asked. And maybe it won’t gain traction.” Unlikely. “We’ll touch base on Monday unless something comes up, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Okay,” Denise repeated, a somber pause filled the air.

“Goodbye, Denise.” There was a beat, and then Carol gave a rolling wave of her hand and hissed, “hang up.”

“I’ll talk to you later, Denise,” Katy said, and ended the call. She hoisted her bag over her shoulder and got up to leave. She had somewhere to be and had already stayed longer than anticipated. Before opening the door, she asked Carol what she was doing that night.

Feeling suddenly dispirited, she just shrugged.

Naomi helped her out. “She’s getting dinner with Avery Stockard and Brian McKeough at 8pm.”

“Cute. Third wheeling?”

Sort of salt in the wound, but fine. Carol rolled her eyes. “Of course.”

“Where?”

“Delaney.”

“Will paparazzi be there?”

Eyes narrowed, Carol took another sip from her water bottle. “No. They don’t go there anymore. Not since, like, 2021.”

“I meant, do you want them to be?”

“No. I don’t want to have to look good.”

The last time Carol was at Delaney was with Abby. Years ago. Back then it was still one of those restaurants. An overhyped hotspot with expensive food and even pricier drinks. The kind of mediocre restaurant where paparazzi would station outside, waiting for tabloid fodder. Celebrities went to get attention. Abby went to get dinner. And probably attention too. She lived in the neighborhood. She brought Carol there and it was the first time that Carol really recognized that what she was doing was bad. Extremely bad.

It didn’t stop her, though.

Katy blew Carol a kiss and told her to have fun, and that she’d call her tomorrow. She’d see her back in New York.

In the wake of it all were Carol and Naomi. Carol probably looked pathetic, all snarled and sad. Naomi tried her best. She shrugged and said, “maybe nobody will notice. I mean, it’s you.”

The sentiment was there.

“You do crazy stuff all the time.”

The attempt to coddle was sweet, but referencing Carol’s past antics wasn’t convincing. The bar was in hell.

“Like, the whole Abby thing.”

Carol raised an eyebrow. “Yes. And then I got divorced.”

“Okay, well, there was that time that you said the governor of Texas should be chained to a radiator.”

While completely true, “the FBI came to my house.” That one was very not good. Plus, it was sort of a popular opinion. Nobody was really that mad. Except the government.

This opinion about Therese was already proving to be resoundingly unpopular. “What did they say about me before I walked in? Katy and Denise?”

Naomi shook her head as if to say “nothing.” But she was lying. She was so, so earnest. And Carol adored her for it. But it made her an atrocious liar, barely able to muster the slightest attempt.

“Naomi, you work for me, not them. Tell me or I’ll spend all night thinking about it.”

“They said that you need to be media trained every other year. That it’s like working with a goldfish. ‘Two trips around the castle and suddenly it’s wow, I’ve never been here before.’”

If Carol hadn’t felt so dejected, she’d laugh. It was extremely bitchy, but also funny. It sounded like something she’d say, which was part of the problem, because she’d probably say it publicly. Naomi didn’t add much more, just packed up Carol’s things while Carol scrolled through her phone. She watched a video Harge had sent her of Rindy riding her bike. She watched it again and again and again, until Naomi nudged her to get her out the door.

Chapter Text

There were a few different options, several ways in which Therese could respond.

But before she could do any of them, she cried.

“Why would she say something like that? Like, what the hell did I ever do to her?” After screaming into her phone for several minutes, she’d finally succumbed to the exhaustion that came from cycling through every stage of grief in 90 seconds, backed herself into the wall, and slid down.

Dannie was similarly at a loss. “I wonder if she’s just, like, an asshole.” He suggested that she try and see if Gen had any insight. He was sorry to let her go (he probably wasn’t — Therese had been capitalizing almost all of his waking life, lately) but he needed to call Erin. They’d figure out what to do, if anything, and get back to Therese.

“In the meantime, don’t stress about this.”

As if that was possible. She texted Gen, sent a link to a Tweet about the podcast and followed with, “what the fuck…?”

Gen was probably in Germany already. Therese wasn’t exactly sure what time it would be there, but it had to be late, too late for Gen to concern herself with something as frivolous as Therese’s interpersonal drama.

Therese surveyed her cramped studio apartment from her seat on the floor. Her space was tiny. No more than 500 square feet. The listing for the place had used typical code words to dance around the truth: “cozy,” “charming,” or, likely in an effort to describe the creaky floorboards and original kitchen cabinets, “old Hollywood.” Therese had bounced around Los Angeles enough to know the drill. Four years ago, after breaking up with Richard, she’d moved out of his beautiful two-bedroom condo in Miracle Mile that was, admittedly, half of his appeal as a boyfriend. Maybe more than half. The condo had kept them together far longer than their relationship’s expiration date. It boasted two parking spots, a balcony, elderly couples living on either side of their unit that provided the perfect excuse as to why now probably wasn’t the best time to have sex, and no mortgage. No mortgage, no rent, just a promise to pay the property taxes to keep Richard’s grandmother from selling it for ten-million times what she’d originally paid.

Four years ago, Therese broke up with Richard and made the decision to push herself as far as humanly possible to make her music career happen. And, if in five years it still wasn’t paying all the bills, she’d pack it in. In order to make that work, though, she needed to suck it up and settle for the “cozy,” “charming,” “old Hollywood” apartment in a building with 18 units and only 10 parking spots. The neighborhood was questionable, too, but the rent was, by LA standards, dirt fucking cheap.

Therese couldn’t let her apartment look as miserable as she felt. She figured one informed the other, but maybe if she cleaned — tidied the space that had done nothing but support her for four years — her mind would clear too. Or, at least, the crippling anxiety coursing through her veins would have one less catalyst. She needed quarters for laundry, probably more dryer sheets, and paper towels. She grabbed her keys, her jacket, her purse, and headed out the door to her parking lot. She slid into the driver’s seat of her 2007 Rav-4, put the key in the ignition, and turned. Nothing.

Again. Nothing.

Again. Nothing.

This might have been Therese Belivet’s year, but it was certainly not her day.

She managed, over the course of a week, to get herself together. It had just taken a bit longer than usual. There were more tears involved. Typically, Therese didn’t cry. Yet — even though she had five songs on the Billboard Hot 100, music playing on any top forty radio station still in existence, an extended album tour that was overflowing with demand for tickets — watching her piece-of-shit car get towed away to its final resting place, a scrap yard in the depths of South Central LA, rendered her a blubbering mess. The tow truck driver was less than sympathetic. He sighed and watched her with one unkempt eyebrow raised before scribbling out an invoice and asking her if she planned to pay with card or check.

Therese stopped crying momentarily. “Check?” In what world?

That was Sunday.

On Monday, she was interviewed for a lengthy profile for The Cut. Even though it operated as a sort of a trashy, pop-culture clickbait site half of the time, The Cut was easily the biggest publication to write about her beyond obligatory album reviews. She’d taken an Uber straight from her producer’s studio to the coffee shop in Echo Park where she’d planned to meet the journalist, Courtney-Something, and apologized profusely for being late, immediately launching into some sort of eulogy for her late car.

On Tuesday, back at the studio, Therese tangled her hands in her own hair. “I probably sounded psychotic.”

If she had, Courtney hadn’t given her any indication. She giggled accordingly and offered advice about buying a new car.

“I’m sure she found it endearing,” Jack, her producer, spun in his padded swivel stool and strummed a few chords on a ukulele.

Therese scrunched her nose and shook her head, a reaction to both the noise of the instrument and her memory of yesterday. “I said losing my car at this point was like when a dog hangs on until their owner is ready for them to go. What is wrong with me?”

“What did you say about Carol?” Dannie asked. He wasn’t normally in the studio with Therese. He’d only joined this particular day in order to schlep Therese across town to get her into rehearsals.

Therese hoped Dannie wouldn’t bring that up. It was like he knew that she’d gone ever-so slightly off-script. Erin had been very clear: she could always say nothing, otherwise, it was best to be honest, but diplomatic. Don’t become the bully, just remain the victim. Go high. Something like…

“I was disappointed to hear what Carol Aird said on The Tommy Tucker Jr. Show. I’ve always admired her as an artist and value her creative contributions to the music industry. That said, I’m accepting of criticism, because I know my music will never be for everybody, which is something Carol and I can clearly agree on.” Light laugh. Wink. Smile. Move on.

“That’s perfect, Therese,” Erin said.

“...and I think she’s a stupid bitch.”

Erin’s face fell. Dannie put his head in his hands.

“I’m kidding. I’d never say that.”

Therese did, however, add a bit more when she was talking to Courtney. Courtney had a disarming quality about her, which probably made her a fabulous journalist. Her thick black framed glasses took up half of her face, magnifying her dark, round eyes and smattering of freckles underneath. How could somebody so adorable not put one at ease? Therese told her, “you know, the one thing that’s frustrating is that comment about my style changing. Pop music is extremely expensive to produce, and having access to instrumentalists, equipment, producers, studio time, it’s all very costly. So, of course I was just playing my guitar or my keyboard, at first: it was the music I could afford to put out. Not everyone grew up like Carol Aird. I didn’t have rich parents. My dad couldn’t pay for me to go to Berklee. I just drove myself to Los Angeles and did what I could to make it happen.”

She surprised herself when she said it. It wasn’t in Therese’s nature to stand up for herself. It was painful to acknowledge, but Therese could be kind of a pushover. She avoided conflict and sometimes that meant making way for other, stronger personalities. It meant she was often described as “sweet” or “kind.” Part of the reason Therese enjoyed performing was to escape herself for just a little bit. Therese Belivet was the nice, demure girl next door. Therese was dark, edgy, and sometimes a bit shocking. Or, as Courtney wrote in the subheader to her piece, “Therese is the sexy, goth cyborg giving pop music a glimpse of the future.”

In fact, the entire article was so flattering in its depiction of Therese that nobody on her team was even remotely annoyed that she’d given Courtney the director’s cut of her statement regarding Carol. They were more focused on Therese rehearsing day-in and day-out for Inland Empire. Everything had to be perfect. Her tour manager had managed to get her set time changed — not by much, but the later billing would help draw in a bigger crowd as more and more attendees arrived for larger, headlining artists.

Festival performances were rarely anybody’s best, save for the headliners that had been paid well into seven-figures in order to ensure they were giving it their all. It wasn’t that artists didn’t care, but there were constraints that made it difficult to achieve perfection. Sound check was rushed, the sound quality was erratic, the weather was always too much of one thing or another, and set lists were abbreviated. Therese thought the show she gave was pretty close to her best ever, though.

It was by design. She’d practiced for it. She’d made everyone run through every song over and over and over again, late into the early hours of the morning. And it paid off. Her philosophy was: if she was prepared, she could relax. If she could relax, she could have fun. If she could have fun, so could everyone else. And Therese did have fun. She had a blast. It was better than every festival she’d played.

In the past, she was definitely a warm-up performer. She’d roll onto stage with sparse help from festival crew, play a well-rehearsed but too-rushed set to a smattering of ultra-devoted fans that had been following her forever peppered throughout a crowd of disinterested and dehydrated festivalgoers that had arrived early enough to get good spots for someone playing the stage much later than Therese.

Finally, it was so, so different.

She left the stage with a high similar to leaving Madison Square Garden. She was afraid she’d crash afterward, be too exhausted to enjoy the rest of her day, but instead she was electrified. She got a ride back to her trailer with Phil and her guitarist. All she wanted to do was change her clothes and go wander around. Phil made her film a video for Instagram about how “amazing” playing Inland Empire had been. On the walk from her trailer back to one of the artist lounges, she passed some familiar faces, some she knew personally and others she just “knew.” A drummer from the band playing the same stage after her high fived her and said, “that was sick, dude.” A rapper she’d listened to since she was, like, born, told her “you crushed it” and asked for a photo. She got a drink and drifted further from the grounds, searching for a festival worker to drive her and Phil across the lawn to a different stage.

But then…

“Hey. Therese.”

Therese recognized the voice that came from behind. It wasn’t one that had ever spoken to her personally, but the lilt in which her name was said had replayed in her head nonstop for the past seven days. She turned around slowly, the heel of her black, lace-up combat-style boots digging into the already torn-up grass.

Other than their brief encounters of late, Carol had existed as only a larger-than-life figure for Therese. She was 10 when she first heard Carol’s debut single. It played on the radio in her mom’s car, but her mom changed the station before the song ended, declaring that she didn’t like “whatever crap that was” or any pop music. Therese pouted, and tried (and failed) to download the whole album on Limewire once they got home. Carol had existed on red carpets; at the Academy Awards; performing at the Grammys; on stage at the Staples Center; being weird on the internet; in tabloid pictures with her then-boyfriend Harge Maddox, his arm slung around her shoulders, cigarette dangling between his teeth. Therese would look at those tabloid pictures when she was in middle or high school and think, “one day, that’ll be me.”

But now, Carol Aird existed in the flesh, just yards away. Not entirely sure what she planned to do, or even say, Therese started toward her, timid at first, and then she picked up the pace. From the outside looking in, it probably seemed as though Therese was about to punch Carol directly in the face. After all, she sort of deserved it. Maybe a part of her wanted to, but that all dissipated once she found herself just a foot or two away from her. Carol’s arms were crossed, her long, dark pink lips sporting a satisfied, if not smug, grin.

“What?” It was all Therese could muster. It wasn’t even forceful, or mean, just demoralized.

“I— ” clearly, Carol had prepared for Therese to unleash some sort of wrath that never came. She thought Therese would have had more to say, that she wouldn’t have to be the one to start. And just like that, Carol’s entire demeanor shifted. Her gray eyes softened and her smile warmed.

Carol was extremely beautiful in photos, but Therese realized those didn’t quite do her justice. She was also a lot smaller than Therese pictured. Still kind of tall, but very slight. Sure, she’d seen her at Gen’s concert and then again on her flight, but it was hard to tell from those angles. She supposed it was part of the idea she’d had of Carol in her head versus the actual woman in front of her, the one wearing an oversized long sleeved shirt from her own merch collection and a pair of worn-out Adidas. She tucked her long pink hair behind her ears and looked away briefly. When she met Therese’s gaze again, she reached out and put both of her hands on Therese’s shoulders.

“That was really good.”

Carol was giving her all kinds of emotional whiplash.

“You watched my set?”

“Yes. Obviously. It was fantastic. I watched from— ”

“Therese!” It was Phil. Therese spun around, ready to snap ‘one second’ but he’d already noticed what he’d interrupted. He continued, “oh, sorry. I just thought you’d want to head over. Maybe just meet me there.” He walked off, only glancing back once before disappearing completely.

“Where are you supposed to be going?” Carol’s arms retracted, once again folded toward her chest.

Therese was going to the Death Valley stage to see her friend Aurélia perform. Carol glanced at her slim, gold wristwatch and said, “that’s in 15 minutes, you going to make it?”

“Well, I’m trying…” She wanted to find a security guard to take her over on a golf cart and deposit her in one of the artist areas in front of the stage, but while the golf carts themselves were a dime a dozen, finding anyone to drive her over appeared more challenging at this time of night.

Carol knew what Therese was searching for as she glanced, because she asked, “do you want a ride?”

A ride? “No. I mean, that’s okay. I can just walk, but thanks.”

“Walk? Through there?” Carol gestured toward the grounds and then back at Therese, who had the same hair and makeup she’d worn on stage. “That’s cute. You shouldn’t do that.”

“Well, these golf cart guys aren’t exactly making themselves super available, so…”

“Yeah, Inland pays really well, but the amenities and security are always bad. It’s just sort of a trade that everyone just sucks up and makes. Which is why…you should just let me give you a ride. If you walk the parameter it’ll take forever.”

Okay…but how? “Do you have your own golf cart or something?”

Carol just smiled, eyes drifting away. It was hot and Therese had to remember that she was still kind of upset with her.

But she followed Carol as she walked them away from the backstage area, past a couple of crew trailers, and out to a dusty loading zone enclosed by crowd control barricades where a few roadies stood smoking cigarettes. The sun was just barely starting to set, yet the floodlights had already kicked on, making Therese regret not bringing sunglasses. She stood back a bit as Carol went up to one of the roadies and motioned toward a white truck with a loading ramp leading into it. The guy smiled and disappeared into the back, emerging seconds later riding a small, low-speed motorbike. Therese recognized it as the type of bike everyone rode around Vietnam. Not that she’d been, but she’d seen plenty of photos. And it was…?

Motioning for her to come closer, Carol said, “this is so much more fun than a golf cart, anyway.”

“Is this safe?”

“Oh, relax, we won’t even go 20 miles per hour. Trust me, I’m a really good driver.”

One of the roadies started laughing and Therese considered this all could be a rouse for Carol to stage her accidental death.

“Is this… allowed?”

“No. But nobody is going to care because it’s me. And you. Now, let’s go. You’ll miss your friend's show.”

Suddenly, Therese didn’t have much of a choice. She did, but no part of her wanted to walk. She wanted to get a ride from Carol fucking Aird on the back of her motorcycle. Yeah, she was still mad, but that was still the better option by a long shot.

Carol sat and instructed Therese to sit on the seat behind her. She said, “put your feet here and don’t put them down, even if we stop for a second. You’ll want to, but don’t.” Carol went to tie her hair back but Therese was in her way, so without asking, Therese took the hair tie and looped Carol’s hair through it for her. She had to grip something on Carol in order to stay put, but when she rested her hands at Carol’s sides, Carol didn’t seem satisfied. “If you fall off this thing, I’ll be burned at the stake.” Then, she tugged Therese’s wrists forward, making her wrap her arms all the way around her waist. There wasn’t much space between them anymore — an oddly intimate position to be in with someone she’d…well, they hadn’t met, had they?

Therese leaned close to Carol’s ear and said, “it’s nice to finally meet you, by the way,” and Carol just laughed before riding them off.

It was so much more fun than a golf cart. Therese could tell Carol was having fun, too, because she looped them around different backstage areas before finally entering the festival grounds and taking an extremely long route to the Death Valley stage.

When she stopped, she dropped Therese off at the side of the stage, in an area barely visible to the rest of the festival, but someone must’ve spotted them riding around, because Carol turned the engine off and all Therese heard were screams. She waved in the general direction of the noise and Therese followed suit.

She slid off the bike and just stood, waiting, not really sure what to do. Carol broke the silence with a dragged out, “well…have fun…”

“Thanks. For the — yeah. Well, I guess I’ll see you…around?”

“How much longer are you in LA?” Carol asked, a little more serious this time.

“I live here.”

“Right. Okay, but, you’re going back on tour. How long are you in LA until you leave?”

The days were sort of all blending together. This was usually a question best answered by her tour manager or Dannie. She thought and Carol waited.

It was Friday. She played the Vesper on Sunday. A couple of days off, and then Toronto on— “I leave Thursday morning.”

And then, Carol’s phone was presented, unlocked, dial screen pulled up. “Give me your number.”

Without asking the innumerous questions, among which were “what?” and “why?” and “huh?” Therese just took Carol’s phone, and typed.

Chapter Text

Standing in her dimly lit kitchen, setting sun streaming through the expanse of south facing windows, in a house nestled comfortably in the steep roads of Laurel Canyon, Carol took in the silence and felt deeply lonely.

Carol often felt lonely, though she was rarely alone. It was paradoxical, as things in her life often were.

Her loneliness was amplified after becoming a mom, though her daughter, Rindy, was the person who made her feel the least alone. Paradoxical.

The loneliness was a product of Carol’s own doing, as things in her life often were.

Being alone in Los Angeles felt particularly miserable, which was why Carol usually made sure she wasn’t. Typically, Naomi would be with her, not necessarily by her side at all hours, but she’d stay in the house when they traveled to LA. But Naomi had left earlier that afternoon, just for a few days, and as Carol watched her take clothes out of her suitcase and stuff them into a small, brightly-colored technical backpack, she bemoaned, “I can’t believe you’re leaving me.”

Naomi stopped, a half-serious panic spreading across her face. “You said it was okay if— ”

“Naomi, I’m kidding.”

Weeks before heading to LA, Naomi had timidly asked Carol for this time off. Her friends Sasha and D’Andre were big-time hikers and asked if she’d want to come along on a camping trip while she was in California. (Why she’d want to do that, Carol hadn’t a clue.) It was during off days, between Inland Empire and an event for the Recording Academy where Carol had nothing scheduled, and she knew it was just a few weeks before she had a two-week vacation but—

“Naomi, take a breath. Of course you can go.”

Carol could fend for herself for a few days in LA.

But now, standing alone in her kitchen, she began to doubt.

Los Angeles had always made Carol feel very claustrophobic. She had a decent sized house that she’d bought over fifteen years ago. It sat on a secluded piece of property with gardens and a back porch and a pool, and where there weren’t walls of trees and shrubs and succulents, there was a small clearing with views of the houses on the hills below, and further, the blinding lights of Los Angeles. Despite all of that, despite the three cars to which she had access in her garage and driveway, Carol felt claustrophobic in Los Angeles.

It was, as things in her life often were…

She couldn’t wait to get back to New York, but in the interim, she had to fill her time with something. FaceTiming Rindy had unceremoniously come to an end after an hour, when Harge bent into the frame and said, “okay, say goodbye to mommy” and then looked at Carol through the phone, giving her a pointed, “because it’s time for bed.” It was already 10pm on the east coast.

Carol looked through her fridge. It was mostly bare besides hundreds of beverages — several kinds of sparkling water, wine, beer, Diet Coke, tonic water, anything anybody could want — and a few prepared meals her chef had dropped off that morning. She didn’t have a dedicated private chef, but when she was in LA, she only wanted to go out when she planned to, so she contracted her friend’s chef to drop off specifically prepared food for her and Naomi every morning. She pulled out one of the glass containers, stood at the kitchen counter, and ate about three bites before putting it back. It was good, some grilled chicken and herb salad thing, but not what she wanted.

She didn’t know what she wanted.

In place of the meal, she grabbed one of Harge’s beers. She didn’t really drink beer that much, but she didn’t want to open wine, because she wouldn’t finish it and felt bad wasting half a bottle. Making a cocktail sounded like too much work. She drank it from the bottle and sat on her back porch, wrapped herself in a blanket, and listened to the echoes coming from the canyon. Another option was taking an edible and going to bed, but it wasn’t even 8pm yet, and that sort of sounded like depression.

Naomi texted her: are you ok?

Was she that helpless?

Carol: Yes, of course. It should be me asking you. Don’t get eaten by a mountain lion.

When it became clear that Carol had nothing to do for three days, Naomi reluctantly asked her, “do you want to come with us?”

Adorable. “Do I want to come with you? Camping. No, I do not. Sweet, though.”

“What are you going to do while I’m gone?”

Oh, the possibilities were endless. Wander around her home aimlessly, maybe drive back and forth down Mulholland until she grew bored, or more likely, lay around and play guitar for hours on end.

“You know what you should do? Call Therese and apologize.”

Naomi was right. She should do that. She’d tried to apologize a few days before at the festival, but Therese was clearly busy so she wound up just weirdly giving her a ride to her friend’s set. When she told Naomi, Naomi was like, “that’s not an apology.” She’d had a vested interest in Carol repairing their nonexistent relationship: she was a huge fan of Therese, a fact Carol only learned after her faux pas.

“Yeah, I think I’ll do that.”

“It’s the nice thing to do and you’re a very nice person.” Naomi would keep her job until the end of time if she kept that up. “Plus, it’ll make you feel better, and when you feel better, we all feel better.” The between-the-lines there was that Carol could be a total fucking bitch when she was upset. When she was upset, everyone was upset.

She helped Naomi pack another bag of bottled water, instant coffee, her chef’s homemade Clif Bars (one-tenth of the sugar and just about one-tenth of the flavor, too), and remarked, “you know, Therese is also really — ” and then she stopped herself.

Naomi turned slowly. “Really what, Carol? What were you going to say.”

“Nothing.”

“Say it.”

“No.”

“Carol.”

“She’s just very hot. I’m just…” she raised her hands in defense. “Just pointing out an obvious, universally accepted truth. That’s all.”

“Mhmm…”

Now, rocking back and forth on her porch swing, she didn’t have Naomi to police her as she scrolled through Therese’s Instagram. She didn’t follow her publically, but she did on her private account. Therese had a videographer that followed her around incessantly. She’d seen him multiple times, documenting everything. It paid off. Therese had fabulous concert footage all over her Instagram and TikTok. She also posted cute videos of herself: doing her makeup, thanking her fans, falling off of a skateboard. Carol sighed. She got it. She could pretend she didn’t all she wanted, but the fact was, the world’s newest parasocial crush was hers, too.

She bit the bullet, closed Instagram, pulled up her messages, and typed: Hey Therese, it’s Carol Aird.

There wasn’t a lookbook for this occasion. Unprecedented. Yesterday, Carol had reached out. She’d texted and then followed up with a voice message.

Hey, so, um, yeah. I know you’re likely very busy, but, um, I was wondering if you had time tomorrow evening, or late afternoon even. Whatever works for you. I thought we could, sort of, I don’t know. Sorry, I’m rambling. I just want to clear the air. Maybe we could…go to Runyon or go on a walk somewhere? I know you said tomorrow is your last day in town before leaving, so totally up to you.

Therese heard her own speaking voice all the time. All the time. She had to, it was just another part of the job. But she still couldn’t help but be self conscious when sending a voice message back to Carol. Carol’s voice was kind of hypnotic.

“Hi. Yeah, that sounds great. Um, Runyon would be fun. Also maybe Silver Lake Reservoir? Less strenuous, I don’t know. I’m free anytime after like five-ish.”

So Carol chose 6pm.

Even in the most optimistic, rose-tinted fantasies of her career, Therese never imagined she’d be taking a casual afternoon stroll around Silver Lake Reservoir with Carol Aird. But then again, she’d also never imagined Carol Aird would go out of her way to publicly call her a hack, either.

Therese regretted the time frame, scrambling once she got home. She found a cute pair of jeans and a cropped, black long sleeved top, put on a bunch of rings, some leather slides, and…walked to the reservoir. She’d forgotten to factor in the not-having-a-car component. Luckily, she lived close, but Carol still beat her there.

It gave her a second to compose herself. She could see Carol from behind as she approached, sitting on a bench, large over-ear headphones hugging her head and oval sunglasses atop her nose, despite the overcast skies. She blended into the vignette of the park, looking very, uncharacteristically average. Because sitting on a bench in Silver Lake, she could’ve been anyone. It was almost funny; people in Alo Yoga gear were jogging, couples walking their dogs, young moms pushing strollers, all passing right by Carol, not even noticing. Granted, LA was filled with celebrities going unnoticed, but Carol was sort of a big one, likely enticing at least a double-take under most circumstances. Finally, Therese put her hand on Carol’s shoulder.

“Hey.”

Carol took a sharp breath in and turned, startled. And, oooh, she looked guilty, too. She gazed up at Therese through her eyelashes and chewed on her bottom lip. “Hi, Therese.” Then, she patted the spot next to her on the bench.

Pleasantries flowed smoothly. Eerily so. It felt almost as if they hadn’t met up for a specific reason. And Therese was…enjoying herself? Finally, Carol cut to the chase: “so, I wanted to see you because I owe you a pretty big apology.”

There it was.

Therese thought it said a lot about Carol, her apologizing. She would’ve thought so even if it had come in the form of text or a voice message. “That means a lot, Carol, thank you.”

“I don’t have any reason or excuse that justifies why I said what I said. I was just having a bad day and you unfortunately came into my path.”

“Why were you having a bad day?”

Carol breathed out a laugh and rolled her eyes to the back of her head, said, “where do I even begin?” She was having a bad day for a multitude of reasons: firstly, her mom had called her.

“Say no more,” Therese replied. (Carol gave a knowing smile, a smile that indicated she’d make Therese circle back with her own story later.)

Her mom had called, “and she mentioned you actually.”

“Oh, no. I’m so sorry.”

She mentioned Therese — had she heard of Therese? — and how catchy Therese’s music was, which cut particularly deep for Carol, because Carol’s mom never, not once, gave any indication to Carol that she enjoyed Carol’s music. She’d begrudgingly go to her concerts when they were close enough to where she lived in Orange County, ask why Carol “insisted on taking her clothes off,” and still held out hope that Carol would pivot to acting eventually. “Because apparently that’s a much more respectable career?”

That would be enough to turn Therese into a total terror. Her version of one, anyway. But that wasn’t even it. Carol was getting ready for an event with the Recording Academy, one that was quickly approaching, and that day, just before going into Tommy Tucker’s studio, she’d learned she had to go up on a stage and read out loud. For most, not an issue. Celebrities loved a stage and a platform and a mic. It was the reading a prepared remark thing, because Carol was, as she put it, “mildly dyslexic.” And not in the self-deprecating, I’m-bad-at-reading way, but she was actually dyslexic, which turned the event into a nightmare scenario. “So I was on the verge of a meltdown, and then my daughter called me in the middle of her own meltdown because she realized I wouldn’t be home for a couple of weeks, and…again, no excuses, just…context, I suppose. I’m really, really sorry.”

“That was it, though, you were just having a really bad day?”

“Maybe there’s more to it, maybe a bit of jealousy that I’m having trouble understanding, but it was a lot about me and my personal issues.”

Jealousy seemed inconceivable to Therese. She was just trying to make sure that Carol didn’t really think she was some talentless sellout, or worse, industry plant.

“No. God, no. It kills me that I made you feel like that. If this had happened to me when I was at the same point in my career, I would spiral. Nothing I said…I think you’re great. Truly great.”

It satisfied Therese’s worries and then some. She wasn’t going to make Carol grovel any longer. She’d done far more than enough.

So she changed the subject. “Your daughter has kind of a different name, right?”

“She does,” Carol smiled. She got up, and they began a slow stroll around the two-mile reservoir loop. “It’s Rindy. Nerinda.”

“That’s very— ”

“It’s my grandma’s name.”

They were close, Carol and her grandma. It was her dad’s mother. She was still alive: 97 and living in an assisted living facility in Connecticut, where Carol was from and where her dad still lived. Her grandma, unlike her parents, had been proud of her since day one, even if some of Carol’s more explicit lyrics made her wish for an early death, at times. “She was the only person to stay up and watch the Academy Awards when I won, though. Even though it was, like, 9pm on the east coast. She left me a voicemail while I was on stage.”

Out of nowhere, Therese asked, “can I hear it?” Immediately, she corrected. Of course Carol didn’t need to let Therese listen to it, it was so personal, she didn’t know why she even thought—

But Carol said, “no, that’s okay. You can.”

They paused their walk and Carol put her phone on speaker.

“Hi Carol, it’s grandma. I am so, so proud of you and you look beautiful. Tomorrow, I will tell everyone that my granddaughter is an Oscar winner. Well, you have fun tonight. Be careful. Okay, bye-bye.”

At that moment, Carol seemed so vulnerable, and Therese didn’t have a clue as to why she’d been lucky enough to be made privy, but she quickly decided she didn’t want to let that go. She knew it might mean that she, too, would have to open up a bit. Historically not an easy task for Therese.

“That’s something to keep forever.”

“Oh, I plan to. How about you? Are you close with your family?”

The question earned a hearty, cynical laugh from Therese.

There was a palpable reluctance as they neared the end of their walk. Slower steps, dragging feet. They stood off to the side of the path for a bit, just talking. The setting sun was turning the gray skies dark, and Carol slid her sunglasses onto her head. They’d have to part ways, eventually, right? But Carol didn’t seem willing. “Are you doing anything tonight?”

If Therese was, plans were quickly forgotten. She would rather keep hanging out with Carol than do literally anything else. Prior to meeting up with Carol, she hadn’t told anyone about it. Not Phil, not even Dannie. She was afraid of their judgment. That she was once again letting herself get walked all over. Or that she was only interested in hearing Carol out because Carol was famous and Therese was starstruck. But that wasn’t the case. There’d been something secretly sweet — a little silly — about Carol when she’d run into her at Inland Empire. It was infectious and Therese let it soften her a bit, infiltrate her senses. And now, after actually spending time with her, there was no doubt that even stripped of the aura and fame, Therese still would’ve been intrigued.

So, yeah, she was going to keep hanging out with Carol for the night.

And it’s not like it hurt that the invitation was ordering food and going back to Carol’s house.

“Where did you park?” Carol asked.

“I walked, actually. I just had to get rid of my car and I haven’t had time to buy a new one.”

Well, that was sort of convenient for the sake of getting to Carol’s. When they approached Carol’s car, Therese covered her eyes, “oh my god, I was wondering whose car that was…”

“It’s mine.” Big, cocky smile.

It was a fucking Ferrari. Therese didn’t really know the details beyond that — it was black, had the little horse decal, and was likely worth more than Therese’s life. Only in LA would a Ferrari be parallel parked between a Beamer and a Volkswagen underneath a tree on the side of the road.

“My brother would be so jealous right now.” Therese’s hand hadn’t managed to open the door just yet.

“Cam, or the one you don’t like?”

“The one I don’t like.”

“You should take a picture of yourself getting into the car and send it Cam. See how long it takes for— what’s the other one's name? Jake?”

“Jake.”

“See how long it takes for him to text you.”

She did just that. Carol did a whole photo shoot. Therese outside the car, Therese in the passenger seat, Therese in the driver’s seat. (“Do you want to drive it?” “Absolutely not. No.”) Carol let her pick her favorites, she muttered that Therese looked “so hot in all of them, though,” and sent them to her. She texted a picture to Cam of her in the passenger seat with her back against the door, and put her phone away for the rest of the night.

Carol’s house was something else entirely. And it was not at all what Therese expected. Her car was sleek and shiny and new, suggesting her house might be the same. Hollywood Hills was full of gigantic glass boxes and hideous, monochromatic mansions that proved even millionaires couldn’t escape the tasteless influence of Joanna Gaines. But not Carol Aird. On a chunk of road that connected the more rustic (or sometimes, rundown) charm of Laurel Canyon with the glamour of the Bird Streets, Carol opened the driveway gate to a secluded, modest sized Spanish-style home. The yard was overgrown, but well maintained, though it was so short that Therese couldn’t imagine much effort was put into the front of the house, anyway.

The garage contained two other cars: a white Range Rover, and a Mercedes that had to be from the 1970s. Therese pointed and Carol said, “not mine, my ex’s.”

“That’s a pretty nice car for Harge to keep here and never drive.”

“It’s not Harge’s.”

There had been a moment, while they were stuck in traffic on the 101, when Therese mentioned Richard and Carol said, “wait, I thought you were gay.”

Therese was. Sort of. Mostly. When she was in high school, her family was eating dinner together (a rare occurrence) and TMZ played on the tv in the background, someone was talking about some celebrity who was bi. Her mom said, “I don’t think that’s real.” To which Therese replied, “I’m bi.” Pandemonium.

“Anyway, while I do consider myself gay, I still say that I’m bi because I don’t want lend even a lick of credence to my mother’s dumb fucking comment.”

The subject changed shortly after.

Now, standing in Carol’s garage as she unlocked the door to her house, Therese felt oddly bold. “Whose car is it then?”

Carol turned, eyes narrowed. She wasn’t mad, she was just sizing Therese up. Seeing if she’d back down. Turn timid and tell her to forget it. Therese knew the look. But she just stared, one eyebrow raised.

“It’s Abby Gerhard’s.”

And into the house they went.

It clearly was not a lie that Carol did not live in her Los Angeles house. Carol apologized for the mess, though it wasn’t really all that messy. There were some blankets bunched up on the couch, two different guitars lying on the floor, and a bag from Sweetgreens on the counter. It felt cluttered the same way a hotel room that had a “do not disturb” sign out for a few days would feel. It was void of most personal touches that made a house a home. Or whatever. Minimal family photos, no fresh flowers, no house plants. One of the terra-cotta tiles in the kitchen was cracked. There was a small credenza in the living room that held what were clearly deemed the unimportant awards: Carol’s Billboard Awards, Harge’s People’s Choice Awards, a VMA back from when Harge was in a band, and, hilariously, what looked like a sonophone made of paper mache that had “Album of the Year” written in black sharpie.

Carol Aird had, famously, never won a Grammy for Album of the Year.

“So, what I do have here are beverages…”

They ate outside on Carol’s back porch on a giant, cushioned swing. And, just like their walk around the reservoir, time passed easily. Too easily. They talked about making music, about the worst shows they’d ever played, Carol bitched about everyone else bitching about her taking so long to come out with a new album “considering how much they loved my last one…”

It was critically polarizing, not beloved by the mainstream, but, “that’s my favorite of yours.”

“You and nobody else.”

“Well, me and every gay man in the world.”

“I could put out an album of kazoo noises and they’d be like, ‘mother’s mothering.’ Not that I’m complaining, of course. Good taste is good taste.”

A story about Therese’s mother taking her to a psychic when she was eight years old (a psychic who told her mom that, in a past life, Therese had been hanged in a town square during a witch trial) led to Carol giving her a fake palm reading. They sat there, gently rocking back and forth, Therese’s hand clasped between Carol’s own, resting in her lap, as she dragged her finger along Therese’s palm, and Therese could not comprehend what exactly was happening.

In any other circumstance, with anybody else, there wouldn’t even be dots for Therese to connect. It would just be a thick line. But she wasn’t sitting with just anybody, she was sitting with Carol. It wasn’t just anybody’s knee she was touching, it was Carol’s. It wasn’t just anybody, it was Carol. And it was driving Therese crazy.

Luckily, or more accurately, unluckily, one of them (not Therese) remembered what Therese had to do the next morning (which was, at that point, no longer the next morning.) “Wait…what time are you leaving for the airport?”

“5am.”

“Oh my god, it’s 1 in the morning. Are you packed?”

Nope. Not even a little bit. There was a bit of scrambling as Carol called Therese a car. Not an Uber, but from a car service. Apparently, Ubers never accepted rides so far up the mountain, so the neighborhood association — which was just a few streets of “some of the most insufferable people on earth, and also Michelle Pfieffer” — decided to put additional dues toward a private car service that would be available at their disposal. Something Carol had done nothing but complain about until this very moment.

“I’m so sorry, I lost track of time.”

“That’s not your fault. I’m the one with the flight. It’s no big deal, I’ll sleep on the plane.”

The car arrived irritatingly fast. An Uber that never arrived would’ve been a better alternative. Carol leaned on her door frame as Therese checked to make sure she had everything. She did, she was just stalling. Therese was fairly certain that, if she didn’t have somewhere to be in four hours, she wouldn’t be leaving Carol’s house until the next day. She didn’t think that feeling was one-sided. It couldn’t have been. Especially when Carol, too, was avoiding touching Therese as she left. Friends who were confidently just friends would hug goodbye. But that didn’t work when there was a lingering tension that had been following them around since they met at Inland Empire. It followed and grew and Therese wasn’t sure how or when (or if) it would break, but neither seemed willing to risk it right then and there.

So Therese just said, “well, maybe I’ll see you around sometime soon.”

“I hope so,” Carol smiled, but this time quietly. “And, you know, keep me updated. Let me know how Europe is. Like I said, I’m always good for recommendations.”

Glasgow and Berlin were her specialities.

Therese waved as she disappeared down the driveway and into the blacked out SUV.

Chapter Text

Past

She’d met Jeanette under peculiar circumstances.

Four years earlier, Carol was at the absolute lowest point of her life. It was undeniable. Nobody would’ve claimed she was being dramatic. They’d take one look at where she’d gotten herself, the hole she’d dug and dove into, and agree that, yes, Carol Aird had reached rock bottom.

Her fifth album was released to lukewarm reviews. A first for Carol. She liked it, and she told herself that that was what mattered most, but she knew better. Her peers loved it, her diehard fans would always love it, but mainstream critics and casual fans were split, skewing toward rejection. She was annoyed, a little surprised, disheartened, but mostly too distracted with her personal life to give it the deserved introspection.

Two weeks after the release, Abby Gerhard broke up with her. At least, Carol considered it a breakup.

(Carol: This isn't real

Carol: You're breaking up with me

Carol: Over text?

Abby: No, I’m not breaking up with you. You know why? Because I am not your girlfriend. We aren’t together. I can’t break up with someone I’m not even with. You. Are. MARRIED.

Abby: This is just becoming way too hard for me.)

And only a few days after that, Harge found out.

He’d come to stand in the door frame of the music studio in their New York home. Carol was sitting at a large desktop computer with headphones covering her ears, where she’d spent the majority of the past few days, in a funk Harge couldn’t seem to snap her out of. But when he appeared, Carol’s phone in one hand, his other grasping at the wall, Carol knew. She knew he knew. He looked ready to both cry and explode, and said, “I was looking for Dave’s new number, and your WhatsApp was open…” and whether it was a lie or not, whether he’d instead been snooping through Carol’s phone for clues, didn’t really matter. Because if he was suspicious, it was because Carol was cheating. And it wasn’t just sex, it was a full-blown love affair with a woman she’d been introduced to by Harge.

The proof was in the paragraph-length messages that Abby had sent to Carol. Ones Carol had been too stupid or masochistic or nostalgic to delete.

The shrieked, “why would you go through my fucking phone?!” set off a screaming match that lasted overnight. One that caused their neighbors to call the cops.

It didn’t take long for Harge to file for divorce. He wasn’t willing to try and make it work, and Carol realized she might not have wanted to make it work. The press found out almost immediately. And after the previous months of Carol being photographed hanging out with Abby Gerhard — a spontaneous close friendship that required near constant togetherness — conclusions were reached accordingly. Only assumptions, though. No confirmations.

Harge retreated to LA, which was the smart move, because Carol couldn’t leave their Cobble Hill townhouse without being swarmed by paparazzi. Two security guards flanked her wherever she went. Her assistant couldn’t take it and quit. She couldn’t take Rindy out of the house. The whole thing was a logistical clusterfuck. She spent hours on the phone with Harge, pleading, crying, agonizing, apologizing. Hours only broken up by him hanging up on her over and over again.

It was what she deserved.

Why she hadn’t thought of it herself, she hadn’t a clue. Katy was the one to suggest, “why don’t you go to your lake house for a few weeks? Wait for things to calm down before rehearsals start.”

Her tour started in September and had sold out within a few hours, thank god. She’d had enough embarrassment to last her a lifetime. She didn’t need any more.

So, she left. She flew into Chicago and took Rindy up to the lake house that she and Harge had purchased years before.

It had been sort of an impulse buy. Harge longed for somewhere they could go and just act like “ordinary people.” A middle-class cosplay, of sorts (or their version of middle-class, anyway). He had no interest in a vacation home in the Hamptons, or the Cape. Tahoe was overrun with Angelenos just like the home they’d already bought and sold in Malibu. Even Utah was turning into a cesspool.

But, “Wisconsin?” Carol was beside herself. “Why?”

There was a sentimental factor for Harge. Growing up in Indiana, Harge had spent summers in the area. His parents had a messy, drawn-out divorce that led to a disastrous co-parenting situation that Harge did everything to escape. Luckily, his “rich” friend swooped in and began inviting him to spend weeks on end at his family’s vacation home on a lake that fed directly into Lake Michigan. And so, Wisconsin it was. Carol had forgotten that homes could cost less than a million dollars. For a brief moment, their presence in the small town — one with a handful of locals but mostly populated by vacationers from Chicago — was a nuisance. After enough time passed, the novelty factor of having two very famous people milling about wore away, and they just became Carol and Harge, another young couple that threw parties too late into the evening.

It became Carol’s favorite place. A place she could be totally and completely herself. Away from watchful eyes and obligation. But it was Harge’s place, and once their divorce was finalized, Carol knew she’d have to let go.

Until then, she took Katy’s advice, and fled to the lake house.

Their neighbors to the left had been trying to sell their house for nearly a year. Carol hadn’t even noticed that the “for sale” sign was removed from the front lawn until she saw a white BMW pull down the gravel street and into the driveway. She was sitting on the floor of her front porch, knees curled into her chest, chin resting atop, watching Rindy play with stacks of plush, oversized blocks. A long, black t-shirt covered the short workout shorts Carol had been sporting for going on three days, a pair of squishy foam sandals laid abandoned across the porch.

Carol watched as a family tumbled out of the SUV next door. The driver’s side back door swung open first, and out ran a boy who couldn’t have been older than five. A man, around Carol’s age, slid out of the driver seat and called after him. Charlie. The woman sitting on the passenger side seemed unbothered, she didn’t look at the boy or her husband and just shouted, “honey, you can’t go inside, the doors are locked.” And then she opened the back door, unbuckled a toddler from a car seat, plopped her down, and let her wander in the direction of her husband and son. That’s when she noticed Carol sitting on the porch.

Hopefully Carol didn’t look as miserable as she felt, because the woman now making her way toward Carol looked very much not miserable. Quite the opposite. She was put together and a total ray of sunshine. Carol first noticed her long, chestnut hair, thick and dusting her shoulder blades. And then, when she smiled: her teeth. They were flawless enough to be veneers, but they weren’t; Carol knew veneers when she saw them. She was short but her legs were long and tan and she was glowing and smiley and Carol could appreciate a beautiful woman when she saw one. When she pushed her sunglasses off of her eyes to rest on her head, now just a few yards away, she waved and said, “hi, hi, hi! My name’s Jeanette. We just — oh my fucking god.”

Jeanette then immediately apologized, but Carol didn’t mind. She finally stood and closed the rest of the distance. Hand outstretched, she tried her best to smile. “Hi, I’m Carol.”

“I know. I know you are. I’m so sorry. We were vaguely aware that you two had a house somewhere in this area, but we also weren’t sure. Could’ve just been a rumor. And I definitely didn’t know it was this house.”

“Surprise. I hope you like security.” Carol nodded toward the black sedan parked on the road just beyond the driveway.

“I can’t say I’m bothered by it. And who is this?” Jeanette bent down and waved at Rindy, who’d moved onto a picture book that she was holding upside down. She paused, giggled, and tossed the book aside before requesting to be picked up.

Carol hoisted her onto her hip. “This is Rindy.”

“Rindy, hi! You can’t be much younger than my daughter. Nora just turned two.”

Rindy just buried herself into Carol’s neck.

“She’s 18 months.” It would’ve been perfect. It would be perfect…for Harge. Carol figured this meeting with Jeanette might be the first and last.

“Well, anyway, like I said, I’m, um — ”

“Jeanette.”

“Jeanette. My husband, who’s…” she glanced behind her, and her husband appeared from behind the car, unloading bags and motioning for her to help. “One sec! That’s my husband, Cy. We live in Chicago.”

They talked briefly. Jeanette was a professor at a university in Chicago. She worked in the Gender and Sexuality department, which was very cool and a little apt for Carol, all things considered, but academics often made Carol feel dumb. Cy was a psychiatrist, one of Carol’s personal favorite fields of work. The combination explained the car and the second home and the king sized ring on Jeanette’s finger. Carol gave Jeanette a rundown of the area: most of the stores in town were cute little shops that sold kind of awful clothing, gifty stuff, or books, but there was one store that sold everything people actually needed, which was just outside of town. There was a Target about 40 minutes away if they were ever desperate. Out of the ten or so restaurants in the area, four were actually good, but a fifth was worth going to because it had trivia night on Sundays, and it was fun to see a bunch of locals get hammered and scream at each other. One time Carol was the answer to one of the trivia questions, and there was a bit of uproar because she’s sitting right here, it’s not fucking fair! “And that’s sort of it. That’s all you need to know, I think.”

“Well, thanks so much. That's all actually really helpful. Anyway, I guess I should get back and ‘help’ or something…but don’t be a stranger! We’ll be around most of the summer.”

“As much as I’d like to drop by, I’m actually leaving tomorrow. And I’m not sure when, or if, I’ll be back. But Rindy is staying. My husband…Harge is coming tomorrow. I’ll make sure he introduces himself.” She lowered her voice and added, “he’s going to be very excited to have neighbors that aren't in their 80s.”

With two young children, there was a chance Jeanette didn’t know why Carol would leave only for Harge to arrive, a chance she was too preoccupied to keep up with news about celebrities that, until the moment she’d pulled up to her new vacation home, didn’t affect her life in the slightest. Maybe she didn’t know that “Harge Maddox and Carol Aird have split: true love is dead.” Didn’t read the thousands of comments under every article or post writing, “maybe ask Abby Gerhard about this.” Didn’t know that Carol was the devil reincarnated. But there was a slow nod of recognition when she muttered a disappointed, “oh, okay.”

“Yeah. I’m going on tour and I have to leave to…prepare for that. And we, Harge and I, are getting divorced and this house is kind of his thing, so…”

“Right. Well, if I don’t see you, good luck on your tour — never thought I would be saying that to my new neighbor — and with, you know, everything else.”

Carol went about the rest of her day as usual. She tried to do some vocal warmups so her voice coach wouldn’t hate her. She jogged on her treadmill so her trainer wouldn’t yell at her. She stretched, though her choreographer would absolutely rake her over the coals regardless. She even made a smoothie, so her nutritionist wouldn’t quit the moment she saw her. It was what she was drinking that night when someone knocked on her front door.

It was Jeanette. And her security guard.

“Thanks, Sean. You can come in, Jeanette.”

“I’m so sorry to bother you. That one store is closed and we forgot a few things, so I’ve been sent to ask if you have any of the following items: triple A batteries, extra paper towel, and a light bulb.”

The batteries, no. The paper towel, yes. “What kind of light bulb?”

“The regular kind? Just like a—” she made a little twisting motion with her wrist. Carol smiled.

“Why don’t you just take this one— ” Carol unscrewed the bulb from a lamp they never used on their back porch. Surely, though, Harge would decide to use it this time around and have yet another reason to think Carol was the Worst Person in the World.

“I really appreciate this, thank you. It’s very nice in here, by the way.”

It wasn’t anything spectacular, but Carol supposed it was nice. They’d done minimal work to the house, because it wasn’t supposed to be work, it was supposed to be fun, and even hiring a contractor and designer and waiting for a build out sounded like too much. They’d just redone the kitchen and bathrooms a bit, painted, threw a bunch of furniture from their old house in Malibu inside, called it a day.

Jeanette still stood at the kitchen counter, lightbulb in one hand, paper towel in the other. She was mulling something over, Carol could tell. Finally, “hey, so I don’t want to overstep, but what you’re going through right now, it’s not forever. I’ve been in this situation before. Sort of. I got married when I was 22 and divorced when I was 25. Of course, I’m not a huge celebrity, so that part I don’t know, but…” she took a deep breath. “I’m not trying to imply anything, or make any assumptions, but I got divorced after cheating on my husband. I left him not long after the affair started, but he found out. And told everyone. Like, everyone. And I’d never really thought all that much about The Scarlet Letter outside of high school — do you remember that book?”

Carol did in that it had been the subject of particular humiliation for her in ninth grade after getting called on when they read the book during ‘popcorn reading.’ She vaguely remembered the plot, too.

“It felt like that. Like everyone knew what I did and what happened and nobody could really be on my side. It’s very ostracizing. And embarrassing. And you just sit around and think about how much you’ve screwed up or how ashamed you are…until you don’t, because you can’t punish yourself forever. And you’ll let yourself answer the friends that have reached out, and maybe they’re ones you never expected to hear from, and maybe the ones you did expect to be there for you haven’t been, and it’s up to you to decide if that’s okay. It was okay with me up to a certain point, and then it wasn’t, but that’s a personal decision. Even though I did something very fucked up, I’m not fucked up. I’m still a pretty good person. Overall.” She ended with a shrug, but Carol was close to crying.

She looked up, doing her best to keep the tears from falling, and said, “thanks, Jeanette.”

Typically when people talked to Carol like they knew her, knew her life, knew what she was going through, they very much didn't. They just thought they did because large parts of her life were so available to everyone. And typically, Carol would either nod politely and wonder who the hell would act so familiar with a stranger, or, very occasionally, tell them to fuck right off. But Jeanette kind of hit the nail on head.

“For real this time: it was very nice meeting you, best of luck on your tour, and if our paths don’t cross again, best of luck with everything else. I’ll look for updates on Deuxmoi or something.” Jeanette winked and added, “I’m pretty bummed you won’t be vacationing here anymore. Kind of unfair for Cy to get a built-in friend and for me to get nothing.”

And then she left.

But in December, Carol saw Jeanette again.

She was sitting in her hotel room in Chicago, getting ready to leave for the venue, with her new assistant Naomi diligently going over her checklist and packing her bag. Carol had found Naomi through a friend. An actress Carol didn’t know personally but everyone knew of had recently fired Naomi. She’d worked for her for nearly a year though, and Carol thought, if Naomi could put up with that piece of fucking work for almost an entire year, surely she could work with Carol. And, as luck would have it, Naomi was fabulous.

“Carol, your phone is ringing.”

“Who is it?” Carol called from atop the comforter of her made bed, a face mask stretched across her skin.

“It’s Harge.”

That got her attention. She and Harge had only spoken directly a handful of times since June. Otherwise, it was via assistants, or Rindy’s nanny, or their house manager (much to her dismay), or their attorneys. Even their cleaning lady got caught in the crossfire.

She shot up, her face mask peeling off and falling onto her lap. “What does he want?”

“How would I know?”

Naomi tossed the phone to Carol like it was an active bomb. There was a moment of panic, of ‘what do I do?’ until she finally answered.

It was likely in vain, but for once, she was full of hope. A fleeting, usually worthless feeling for Carol as of late. She knew that Harge knew that she wanted him to come to one of her two Chicago shows — her last of the tour. She wanted him to bring Rindy. It was a bit of a dream of hers that hadn’t ever come to fruition.

Because Carol desperately wanted her family back. But she’d also spent most of her time desperately wanting Abby back, as well. And those two things were incongruent. Recognizing that had given Carol both perspective and a hint of suicidal ideation. Rindy had spent the three weeks leading up to Carol's tour with her, but once it began, Rindy went back to live with Harge. And that’s when Carol really started to sink. Every night she was with thousands of people, but none of them were her people. The ones that claimed to be her people were just the ones she paid. She’d almost gotten over Abby, so it wasn’t really about that, but it was about the disaster she’d made of her life. A life that now seemed irreparable. But maybe…

“Hey, Harge.” She tried to sound calm. Cool. Collected? Definitely not.

“Hi. I know you’re busy, so I’ll make this quick— ” He was all business.

“It’s fine. What’s going on?”

“Do you remember Cy and Jeanette? The Wisconsin neighbors?” The Wisconsin neighbors. Not our Wisconsin neighbors, but not my Wisconsin neighbors. Carol held onto that bit of neutrality.

“Of course.”

“They’re going to your last show tomorrow.”

“Oh, I didn’t know they were fans…”

“They’re not.”

L-O-fucking-L. Carol rolled her eyes. Any opportunity to twist the knife. “Okay…”

“Jeanette’s younger sister and her friend are really big fans and the four of them are going tomorrow. I think it would be nice if you could say hi. Bring them backstage or something. I really like Cy and Jeanette. They’re great people.”

Carol really liked Jeanette, too. From the very little she knew about her. She’d thought about what she said too many times over the past few months.

“Of course. I’ll make it happen. Just find out where they’re sitting and let me know.” There was a long pause until, “will you and Rindy be there?”

Even longer until… “we’ll be there, Carol.”

Carol sat in her dressing room. It smelled like sweat and stale cigarettes. It was the sort of sickening smell that she’d just grown used to after years and years. Rindy had just left, whisked away by Florence for bedtime.

When the show had ended and Carol waved to the audience and thanked her dancers and crew for the last time that tour, she heard gasps and screams. The good kind. To her left, a member of her production team carried Rindy out onto stage. And Carol absolutely fucking lost it. Rarely did she cry on stage, but she scooped Rindy into her arms, and basically wept. It was a moment of catharsis she hadn’t realized she needed. The tour was over and Rindy was there and she’d emerged relatively unscathed and maybe, just maybe, things would work out. She didn’t know what that meant, or what it looked like, but it felt like a possibility. Rindy wouldn’t remember being there, but there would no doubt be hundreds of videos to show her one day.

She held an ice pack to her eye — during her closing number, one of her dancers kneed her in the face (her fault, not his) — and waited for the familiar knock of security. Naomi opened the door and Carol could hear someone say, “I have Jeanette and Cy Harrison and their two guests with me.”

“They can come in,” Carol called out. She gave herself one last glance in her dressing room mirror. The first time she’d met Jeanette, she was emaciated and wearing dirty sweats. This time, not much had changed, but she had a black and blue ring around her right eye and a full face of makeup that didn’t cover it. Nothing that could be done now. Carol spun around in the direction of the door, and locked eyes with Jea—

“Oh my god, Carol, what the fuck happened?” Jeanette’s hands immediately went to cover her mouth. Carol laughed. Another similarity to their introduction over the summer. She supposed they were even.

“It’s so nice to see you again too, Jeanette.” She turned to Cy and shook his hand, then made her way to what must’ve been Jeanette’s sister and her friend, whose excitement simmered as they stood by the door, barely able to make their way into the room.

One, “hi, I’m Carol,” had them screaming like teenagers. They jumped up and down and hugged Carol. They were her “biggest fans.”

“Oh really? Because a guy sent me his wisdom teeth in the mail to show me that he’s my biggest fan. I’m going to need to see some severed limbs next.”

Jeanette gasped, “did that actually happen?”

It did. Luckily, not to her home address. He’d somehow gotten ahold of a PO Box she used, though. He also sent her toenail clippings and pictures of his feet before she finally got a restraining order. “More common than you’d think.”

Carol took pictures with everyone on the condition of veto power. If she had a giant fucking black eye, she’d get to decide the photos in which it looked best before they were plastered all over the internet. “Do you guys want to see backstage and stuff? My production manager is happy to give you a tour.” It was a tactic she used to get guests moved along in their meet-and-greet experience and out of her face. This time, though, she thought they’d actually might like to see.

Jeanette told them she’d be right there, and then turned to Carol, “how’ve you been?”

And back into her dressing room they went, sans Naomi. Jeanette had spent a considerable amount of time with Harge, and Carol wanted gossip. Carol poured them the champagne provided by the venue per her rider, and they flopped down on the lumpy, creaking couch. She didn’t know Jeanette, but she liked her. She was honest, obviously. Almost to a fault. And she seemed to have a little soft spot for Carol at a time when nobody else did. Plus, it had been a while since Carol had laid around with another girl just to talk shit.

Jeanette didn’t provide anything overly shocking. She said Harge was shy at first, but having Rindy and Nora play together cracked him open pretty quickly. They all hung out a few nights a week. He’d take them on their boat, they’d grill, go swimming, go to dinner. Normal neighbor things. He drank a lot, but never too much around Rindy. Only after she’d gone to bed, Florence never far. He hit on Jeanette’s friend when they had friends over for Labor Day. It was harmless though; she was into it.

“Did he sleep with her?”

Jeanette chewed on her bottom lip and glanced around the room. Horrible, horrible liar. Great for Carol. She loved horrible liars.

“Okay, so that’s a yes.”

“I’m sorry. I…”

“I’m actually glad. Really.” Except the part where it had to have happened in their house, in their bed. But she couldn’t really be skeeved out about that. That was a big pot-kettle-black situation. “Did he say anything about me?”

“Honestly, not a ton. Nothing super private. He called you a ‘fucking whore’ quite a few times, though. Usually while he was drunk. I got pretty mad about that.”

Well, that one Carol had heard with her own ears plennnnnnty of times. She’d considered changing her Instagram handle to it just to make herself laugh.

“He also called, um, Abby Gerhard a ‘fucking…’” Jeanette swallowed and lowered her voice to a whisper, “‘dyke.’”

It sent Carol into a fit of laughter.

“It’s not funny! I yelled at him! We got into it!”

“You yelled at Harge for calling Abby a ‘fucking dyke?’” Carol didn’t know why she found it so amusing. Probably because Harge would be mortified if anybody knew he’d used that word. He was mad and trying to be as hurtful as possible. But Abby wasn’t even around to hear it, so that was sort of funny. And even if she was, Carol knew she’d be like, “yeah, obviously.” It was just so stupid. Like, okay, good one Harge…

“Stop laughing!” Jeanette swatted at her and giggled. “I defended you! And Abby Gerhard!”

“Honey, I wouldn’t even be defending me.”

More champagne was poured and Jeanette asked again, “so, how’s everything?”

Carol figured a shrug would suffice. She kind of felt the same. Like life had been suspended while she was on the road. When she went home — wherever that was, now — she wasn’t sure what to do next. Because the life she’d left behind was no longer really there.

When she tried to explain that to Jeanette, Jeanette nodded, and said, “it’s sort of up to you to decide now. Try to think of it as a beginning rather than an end, you know?”

“That’s actually a really good way of looking at it…”

“I know. I’m very smart.” Jeanette grinned and tossed her hair behind her shoulder. “I did hear a rumor about you…”

“Uh oh…” Carol squirmed. Could really be anything at this point.

“Apparently, since your house in Wisconsin will be unoccupied by Harge Maddox over Christmas and New Years, you might be up there with Rindy. Can you confirm or deny?”

Oh. Well that was cute. Jeanette held her fist up to Carol like a mic and Carol leaned in and said, “I’m thinking about it. I could be swayed. This part is off the record, but any excuse to not spend Christmas with my mother and sister.”

Carol invited Jeanette and Cy and her sister and friend to her tour wrap party. And Jeanette successfully convinced her to take Rindy to Wisconsin for the holidays.

Present

And that’s how they became best friends. Or maybe Jeanette was Carol’s best friend but Carol wasn’t sure if she was Jeanette’s best friend. Only because Jeanette had an embarrassment of friends. Carol had hardly met a person that was more well liked, other than, maybe, herself before people got to know her better.

When the familiar white BMW pulled into its driveway, Carol raced out of the front door and hugged Jeanette so hard it was more like a tackle to the ground. They hadn’t been together since Carol had taken Jeanette to the Academy Awards with her. But that was months ago.

Carol had only spent her birthday at their vacation home one other time. It was when she was pregnant and she didn’t want to do anything except sulk about how miserable she was. The next year, she was in London with Harge. She’d met Abby around that time. It was fitting, because her next birthday was one she’d wanted to spend with Abby, but she spent it, of course, with Harge, just before everything blew up in her face. The year after that she went to St. John with some friends and invited Jeanette, who’d excitedly accepted. She asked if Carol always did something so extravagant for her birthday, and Carol realized their ideas of extravagance were wildly different — for her 40th birthday, she bought out a club and invited every person she’d ever met in her life. She’d kept it pretty low-key since then. She’d almost (almost) forgotten it was her birthday until Jeanette untangled herself from Carol and ran back to her car.

“I have something for you!”

Many nights when they were together, Carol and Jeanette would make a drink, fill up a little insulated tumbler, ditch Harge and Cy, and take a stroll around the three-street neighborhood so Jeanette could smoke cigarettes and they could girl-talk without judgment. Always well after the sun went down and their children were in bed. Carol called it microdosing suburbia. Jeanette called it Tuesday.

This time, Jeanette was talking about how she no longer enjoyed giving blowjobs (Carol was surprised that she’d ever liked to) when Carol heard the chime of an iPhone receiving a message. Jeanette left hers back at Carol’s house, so Carol reached into the pocket of her sweatpants, touched the screen, and immediately smiled.

She’d sort of been waiting all day for Therese to text her. Hoping. They’d been texting back and forth a bit since they’d hung out. Nothing wild, but Therese had messaged her when she was feeling nervous before playing a festival that Carol had played countless times. She’d told Carol about a little piece of gossip she’d heard about Gen and her management team, which sparked a conversation that lasted a few hours. And she really did wind up asking Carol for recommendations in a few cities in Europe, for shops and clubs and restaurants. Carol wasn’t expecting a text from Therese, but she was hoping.

Hiiiiiiii. I meant to text you earlier but I spent the day wondering if it was weird to wish you happy birthday when the only reason I found out today is your birthday was from a Vulture Instagram post. As they put it, happy 14th 29th birthday. I hope your day has been great and fab like you. Okay, that’s all!

She read it again. And again. It was like a dopamine hit straight to her brain.

A shouted “oh my god. Oh my god!” snapped Carol right out of her day dream. Jeanette had stopped walking and Carol looked up at her. She seemed…suspicious.

“What?”

Her eyes narrowed and she pointed at Carol’s phone.

“You have a crush.”

What had Carol even been doing to suggest…? She hadn’t even said anything. “First of all, that’s impossible because I’m 42. Second, what are you talking about?”

“Who are you texting? You’re smiling at your phone like a little lovesick puppy. That’s not a normal text. Who is it?”

Carol tried so hard to stop grinning. She ran her tongue over her teeth and tried chewing on her cheek, but the combination of Therese texting her, Jeanette’s excitement, and having been caught was making it difficult to keep a straight face. “I’m just smiling because my friend texted me happy birthday. That’s all.”

“Bullshit. Friends have been texting you all day and you haven’t looked like this. Like, I’ve known you for four years and I’ve never seen you with that look on your face and — see? You’re blushing!”

“You can’t see that! It’s dark outside!”

“I can still tell! That’s how hard you’re blushing. Carol, come on. Who is it?”

It was clear Carol was fighting a losing battle. And if there was anyone she could talk to about what was going on — or what wasn’t going on, because Carol had no idea — it was Jeanette.

“Okay, okay, fine,” Carol relented. Jeanette jumped up and down and some of her drink sloshed out of her tumbler. “You know the singer Therese?”

“Of course. I’m obsessed. I’ve had her on repeat for, like, weeks. Oh, you kind of don’t like her, right?”

“No, I — ”

“Did you meet someone through her?”

“No — ”

“Is it her ex?”

“Jeanette!” Carol rolled her eyes and sighed. She hated this. Sort of. “It’s her. It’s Therese.”

Jeanette’s face contorted into a silent scream. She again jumped up and down, this time spilling more of her drink when she tried to clap her hands. “Shut the fuck up. I need to know everything.”

Carol groaned and sat on the lawn of her other next door neighbor. “So, after I said what I said about Therese — which clearly even you heard, which is just great — I reached out to apologize…” and they sort of hit it off. Carol had known Therese was cute and sexy but a lot of people were cute and sexy, and Carol didn’t necessarily think twice about them. But she found Therese shockingly easy to talk to. Like they had a lot in common even though they didn’t. “You know when there’s a lull in the conversation and it’s either really comfortable or really awkward? It was like this weird third thing. Like I wanted to fill the silence because we were just, like, staring at each other, and if I didn’t start talking — ”

“You’d be making out?”

“Right.”

“I think that’s what they call chemistry.”

“Sure,” The last person Carol had that with was Abby, and she didn’t remember it being quite as immediate. But a good deal of time had gone by, too. “So, there was quite a bit of that.”

“Did you have sex?”

“What? No. Not yet.”

“Not yet! So, you’re going to.”

“She’s on tour. She’s booked for almost an entire year. I don’t know if she’ll have time for that. And I have a job and a child…”

“Carol, you once flew to Chicago to force me to get my nasolabial filler dissolved. When people want something, they’ll make time.”

“Okay, well, that was a need, not a want. An emergency, really. You’re supposed to have lines there.” And then Carol gave Jeanette the most delicious gift she could think of. On her own birthday, no less. “Can you read our texts to reassure me that I’m not crazy and this is actually a thing?”

Jeanette held her chest. “I’ve been preparing for this moment for four years. Give me your phone, babe. Hand it over.”

Even though it was her suggestion, Carol gave her phone to Jeanette with great reluctance. She held onto it tight enough that Jeanette had to tug before pulling it from Carol’s grasp. Carol scrolled for her, “start here,” and then buried her face in her hands.

“Oh. Okay, right out the gate ‘hey you.’ Come on. And…oh, Carol, that’s so sweet.” Jeanette kept reading, “okay, um, yeah…these are really flirty. This part, when she asked about the clubs in Glasgow and you gave her the list of after hours ones and she says, ‘I’m not sure I can stay up all night anymore.’ And you say, ‘If I were there, I could probably help you with that.’ Like, yes. This is like ‘we’re going to fuck’ type of texting. God, to be this confident…”

“But I’m not. I might have had a drink or two in me before sending some of those.”

Jeanette was about to hand her back her phone when she stopped. “Okay, hear me out: you also have a drink or two or more in you right now. And I think you should call her.”

Call her? Call? “Are you out of your fucking mind?”

“She just texted you. Call her. Say thank you. Actually talk to her. You hate texting, anyway. I’m surprised you engaged with her this much.”

Well, Carol actually liked her. A lot. So she went through a process she found absolutely painstaking just to talk to her.

“I guess she’s going to be on 'Up Late with Lucas Day' tomorrow. I should probably see how that’s going…”

“Oh, weird, my finger slipped, it’s…ringing.”

There was no time for Carol to say ‘are you fucking kidding me’ because Jeanette shoved the phone to Carol’s ear and she heard, “hey.”

“Hey. Hi. Therese.” When Jeanette stood up and tried to walk away, Carol grabbed her by the ankle and glared. She’d leave when Carol fucking told her she could leave. Until then…

“What’s going on?”

“Oh, nothing. Thanks for the birthday text. Very sweet. Absolutely fine you found out via the internet.”

When Therese laughed, Carol relaxed. She asked her if she was ready for tomorrow. If she was nervous. Told her she didn’t have to be. Lucas Day was very good at driving the conversation for new guests. “Just be your charming little self and you’ll be just fine.” Oh, and even though it was nice performing in front of a live audience, most of the audience was at home, watching on television or Youtube, “you’re already good at performing with a camera in your face, as I’ve seen for myself, so make sure to do that, too. Though I’m sure you’ve rehearsed plenty. What songs are you singing?” The beauty of Lucas’ show was that performers got to play several songs and then choose the one that aired.

“Not telling you. You’ll have to find out like everyone else.”

“I’m very impatient but I suppose I’ll live.” Carol paused, then asked, “so, what are you wearing?”

A little gasp came from Therese. She waited and flopped onto her back, the grass tickling the parts of her sides where her shirt had ridden up. She watched as Jeanette covered her mouth in disbelief, and winked. Carol was just trying something out. But Jeanette muttered, ‘Jesus Christ,’ and wandered off in the direction of her house. That was fine. Carol didn’t necessarily want her around for this.

“Tomorrow? Or…right now?”

“I meant tomorrow on the show. But,” Carol bit her lip, “I guess now, too, since you’re offering.”

“Mhmm. Right. Well, tomorrow I’m wearing Charlotte Knowles.” Of course she was. All the cool girls wore knwls. “She sent me something.” Of course she did.

If Carol was a designer, she’d want Therese to wear her clothing.

“Dress or top?”

“Top.”

“I see, I see.” She waited. “And what about now?”

There was a languid sigh on the other end of the phone.

“Well, right now, I’m getting ready for bed. So, it’s very unexciting…”

“Try me.”

“Just, like, these silk pajama shorts and a tank top.”

That was not unexciting to Carol. That was something she could work with.

“What about you?”

Then Carol really laughed, because what she was wearing was absolutely not sexy. “Gray sweatpants and a t-shirt. I was on a walk. I’m outside.”

“Oh, outside. Gotcha.” Therese was rustling around. Carol heard drawers opening and closing, the zip and rustle of a toiletry bag. “I should probably get to bed. It’s almost midnight and I have to be up extremely early tomorrow — 9am.”

“The horror. I won’t keep you any longer. Except, one last question,” Carol held her breath. She knew this was very heavy handed, but she couldn’t help herself. “Underwear or no underwear?”

“Underwear to bed? Are you insane?”

“Right. Totally. I’m just trying to get the full picture.”

There was a long pause. Too long, but then, “I guess next time you should just ask for a picture so you don’t have to paint one yourself. Goodnight, Carol.”

The call ended. Carol dropped her phone into the grass next to her, listened to the choir of crickets, looked up at the stars through the branches of the oak trees that soared 100 feet above, and tried her best to collect herself.

Chapter Text

It took all of two minutes after her plane touched down in Paris for Therese to text Carol.

She’d practiced a great deal of restraint, she thought. It had been nearly a week since she left Carol’s house and slid into the backseat of the waiting black Escalade. She’d just barely managed to pack her suitcases that evening, too wound up to think straight. Thank god for Ruby’s checklist.

Ruby was Therese’s brand new assistant. She had this look that was so popular when Therese had first moved to LA, like a 1950s pinup girl, with cat-eye glasses, glossy black hair, and Sailor Jerry tattoos all up and down her arms. Dannie had hired her sometime while they were on the road with Gen; she was a distant friend of a friend of a friend. Therese liked her, though she was a bit…scary, at times. She was just so serious. But maybe Therese needed someone like that nearby.

Therese packed according to Ruby’s checklist; tried to sleep, but couldn’t, because she was still so turned on; considered masturbating; realized she didn’t have the time; settled for showering and getting ready; and then a car picked her up to take her to the airport. Off to Toronto she flew.

So, yes, Therese thought it was pretty big of her to wait a full six days before talking to Carol again. A whole continent.

To start, she’d kept it simple, asking her how the Recording Academy event went, the one that had gotten her so high-strung that she’d lashed out on Tommy Tucker’s podcast. The three gray dots of an impending response appeared almost immediately: it was fine, she said, just kind of annoying that she even had to do it. “Had” was maybe being used loosely. She thought she had to do it — donating her celebrity, her time, herself, to the Academy was often a necessary evil.

In Berlin, Therese asked Carol for advice on getting into Berghain, and for any other recommendations. When Carol sent her a list, she asked Therese who she planned to go with everywhere, and Therese chewed on the truth for a moment before deciding that it didn’t really matter; Carol was just asking to make conversation. Right? “Probably just my team and stuff. My friend Isabel. Gen will be in Berlin tomorrow, too, so maybe her.”

Carol: If you really do try to go to Berghain don’t go with Gen because she might not get in

Carol: And idk who Isabel is but don’t go to those last two places with her

Therese: Why not?

Carol: Because those bars are very cute and she’ll think it’s a date and that’s not allowed

Therese: What about Gen?

Carol: Definitely not Gen either. Sorry!

Therese: Then I guess you have to come to Berlin so we can go to them.

Carol: Oh, if I could

Therese almost pushed. Almost dared her to just drop everything and come to Berlin. But then she remembered that Carol sort of had a whole life, too. And that life didn’t actually have anything to do with Therese.

Once she’d made it back to the US, Therese sat in her hotel bed and lazily scrolled Instagram before she had to make her way down to the lobby to be whisked away for her 10am call time for rehearsals for ‘Up Late with Lucas Day.’ It felt funny having to rehearse, considering she and her band had been playing these songs night after night after night, but she knew rehearsing was necessary. This performance was different in that it was going to be filmed. And televised. And Therese was going to have to sit and talk. And it would be broadcast across the country. And then made available on every corner of the internet. Therese swallowed her nerves and pushed the thoughts aside. Freaking out wouldn’t do her any good.

She kept scrolling. It was mostly mindless. There was nothing new or interesting when she’d been staring at the same screen for hours on end and — pause. Scroll back up.

Carol. A whole series of photos of her, candid ones, ones from shoots, one of her in her custom Iris van Herpen dress at the Academy Awards. Therese remembered seeing the photo and thinking how wonderfully out of place Carol looked. At an event full of boring actors in drab gowns and suits, Carol was definitely an artist. Weirder, edgier, and worlds cooler. Therese inspected each photo over and over again, reaching the same conclusion each time: Carol was just so fucking gorgeous. And somehow, she was also the woman unabashedly flirting with Therese.

Therese spent so much time gazing at Carol that she’d almost completely missed the text of the post, the reason that Vulture had so kindly graced her timeline with such exquisite content. “Happy 14th 29th birthday to our favorite triple Gemini. Culture wouldn’t be culture without you.”

She was happy she chose to text Carol later that day, because Carol actually called her. It seemed like, for a second, they were going to have phone sex. Carol asked her if she was wearing underwear for Christ sake. But then Carol revealed she was sitting outside, and Therese took that as her cue. She settled into bed and, as soon as she closed her eyes, she got a text. Figuring it was from Carol, she smiled as she grabbed her phone…and then scowled.

It was her mother.

Can’t wait to watch you on Up Late tomorrow!

Her parents' very sudden interest in her career, in her life, was convenient at absolute best. Therese used to go on tour for months and they’d have no clue where she was, what she was doing, or that she’d even left LA. They had no idea what she did to pay her bills when she was first starting out. They’d never seen her live, not even once. Not even when she went back and played a gig in motherfucking Reno. And now, suddenly, they couldn’t be more proud of their baby girl. But it was way, way, way too late.

She didn’t respond. She just reacted to the text with a thumbs-up, put her phone on Do Not Disturb, and tried her best to sleep.

There were many things that Carol had been very right about. All of the bars and stores and restaurants she’d told Therese about were fantastic. Therese didn’t have time to queue for Berghain, but multiple other people had agreed: Gen would’ve been turned away. And Lucas Day, just as she’d said, knew exactly how to drive a conversation.

Maybe he could tell Therese was nervous. Or maybe he actually liked her. He spent enough time kissing her ass about the three songs she’d performed. Only one was played on the network, but the other two were available on YouTube. Lucas went on and on about it.

“For those watching at home, Therese debuted an unreleased — it’s unreleased still, right?”

Therese shifted in her seat and smiled. “Until Friday, yes.”

“Until Friday! Unreleased until Friday. But she performed it here. That’s unbelievable. It’s truly a banger. And it’s called…”

“Black Ferrari.” Therese used the opportunity to look directly into one of the cameras.

“Black Ferrari. Oh my god! Therese, thank you so much for joining us!” He did the whole send off. The ‘you’re just so fantastic’ raw audio while the audience clapped and his studio band played so Therese could stand and wave and shake his hand and then walk off stage.

She wondered, of course, if Carol had watched the show. If she’d gone online and watched the video of Therese’s new song. The song wasn’t exactly about Carol — Therese had been writing it for a while, stuck on the chorus for weeks. Until, suddenly, she was oddly inspired. And Black Ferrari was born.

But she didn’t hear from Carol. Not a call, not a text. Which was fine. Therese was busy, anyway. She had two sold out shows in Brooklyn to play. She’d never played a club that had a capacity of over 3000 people, and now she was playing it, not once, but twice.

The second night, though, Therese went backstage. A flurry of congratulations welcomed her as soon as she stepped off. She almost cried, but didn’t. A stage manager for the venue followed her through the hallway backstage, downstairs, and to the door of her dressing room until she finally let him take all of the wires off of her clothing.

Finally, he left, and Therese was only able to enjoy a minute or two alone, just enough time to unlace and slide off her boots, before there was a hammer at her dressing room door. She figured it was Dannie, who’d finally arrived in New York to once again join her for the (second) beginning of her US tour. Or maybe Phil, bored of shooting the shit with the crew backstage and hoping to lounge around as Therese changed out of her stage clothes and into something easier. Therese loved Phil to death, but she also knew he’d been trying to hook up with her for the better part of the year.

Instead, she heard an unfamiliar voice — someone who worked for the venue, most likely — shout, “you have a visitor.”

That was strange. She couldn’t imagine anyone who’d be backstage who wouldn’t be an already known entity. Curious, she rose from the sofa and cracked open the door. Oh.

“Thank you,” she said, a dismissal for security. Left standing, right before her, was Carol.

Carol.

Carol.

Carol !!!

“Hi.” It was all she could manage.

Carol’s gaze quickly glanced down to Therese’s toes and slowly climbed back up again. Her weight shifted to one hip, and she smiled. “Hi,” almost mocking. A too long pause and then, “can I come in?”

Right. Of course. Therese blushed and opened the door, immediately shutting (and locking) it once she was inside her dressing room. Carol let herself wander through the space, glancing around like she was looking for clues.

It’s not like the dressing room was something of Therese’s design, yet suddenly, she felt self conscious. She looked around at the mess of her makeup and wardrobe and empty cups and open suitcases and felt so exposed. It wasn’t as if the clutter was foreign to Carol. She probably hadn’t even noticed. (Hopefully she hadn’t noticed.) But still, if Therese had known she was having company — Carol’s company — she’d have tidied up a bit.

“Hi.” Once again. She felt like a parrot. She shook her head, and then managed, “what are you doing here?”

Carol drifted toward Therese — the hands she had laced behind her back making her look so innocent, even as she closed in on her prey. Therese took a step back and ran into the makeup counter behind her, fumbling a bit when her lower back hit the laminate. She first crossed her arms in front of her and then dropped them, finally resting her palms on the edge.

“Well, I was in the area — ” Carol got closer.

“I thought you were in Wisconsin… ”

It was the only time Carol’s resolve cracked. She’d been caught. She was blushing. She recovered quickly, though. “I came back a couple of days early.” And she got closer.

“Oh…”

“Yeah.” And closer.

“Just to see…”

“Mhmm.” And closer.

Until there was no longer a way that Therese could occupy her gaze with anything besides Carol, because she was now standing directly in front of her, just an inch or two separating their bodies. Her head tilted to the side as she stared.

“I’m really glad you came…” When Therese looked down at the rest of Carol, there was a sliver of skin exposed between the low rise of her pants and the bottom hem of her shirt. If Carol had been bold enough to come to Therese’s show, come backstage, to her dressing room, Therese supposed she could reach out and rest her hand on that bare spot above Carol’s hip bone.

And she was glad she did, because Carol took one half step forward, a step that eliminated any whisper of space between them.

Therese felt her chest rise and fall, a dramatic heave with her nerves taking the lead. And it seemed like Carol was a bit anxious, as well. She bit her lower lip and smiled when Therese let her fingers wander around to Carol’s back, giving her the opportunity to pull her even closer. One of Carol’s hands rested on Therese’s shoulder, while the other traveled from her neck to the back of her head.

Kissing Carol, in all of its anticipation and buildup and fantasy, was above all a relief. Therese knew Carol thought so, too, because she sighed deeply as soon as they finally did. Carol leaned back, just for a moment, to assess, before smiling right back into another kiss. And another. And they were making out in Therese’s dressing room and Therese was wondering where exactly would be the most comfortable place to continue, because, good fucking god, it was not that disgusting sofa jammed up against the back wall, but it might have to be.

Carol pulled away enough to look down at Therese. The hand that had been curled into Therese’s hair had drifted back down her neck, making its way to the front zipper of Therese’s latex top. Her fingers toyed with the neckline, and then she asked, “is this new?”

“It is.”

“It’s really cute.”

“Thanks.”

“But, I think it would look cuter wadded up on the floor somewhere.” Right. Carol wanted permission to take off Therese’s shirt. She happily obliged, and Carol giggled before making a show of tugging the zipper down one inch, and then two, and then

Bang bang bang. “Therese, can I come in?”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me…” Therese whispered against Carol’s lips. She didn’t move otherwise. She thought maybe if they stayed still enough, if they didn’t make a noise, Dannie would forget Therese existed and just go—

Bang bang bang. “Therese! What are you doing in there?”

Carol rolled her eyes back into her skull and pushed Therese’s zipper right back up to her neck. “Sounds like you’re needed.” And then she leaned into the mirror and smoothed out her hair. Therese tried to do the same, to fix her lipstick and look any bit less disheveled, but it was sort of a lost cause.

When she opened the door, Dannie had his fist up, ready for another rap. “Oh, sorry, hey, I — ” and then his eyes narrowed and he tried to look past Therese, “is everything — oh.”

Oh. Oh. Carol was clearly right behind her, probably ready to run away and not be seen again. Oh. Therese was annoyed. She was disastrously horny and wanted Dannie to Go. The fuck. Away. But he came with a reminder. “Sorry to, um, intrude, but it’s Leon’s birthday and we were all going to go out for…” he then, for whatever reason, decided to acknowledge Carol. “I’m so sorry. Hi, I’m Dannie. I don’t think we’ve —”

Therese opened the door more and they shook hands. Carol said something like, “hi, we haven’t, I’m Carol,” and all Therese could think about was how she was supposed to be getting fingered in her dressing room right at that very moment. But apparently, she wouldn’t be getting fingered in her dressing room or getting anything anywhere else that night, because Carol added, “I actually should get going.”

“What?” Therese didn’t even care if Dannie clocked how bewildered she sounded.

“It’s late and I’ve been up since, like, five in the morning…” Carol leaned in and whispered, “go out for this guy’s birthday. He’s part of your crew and that’s important. And pay.”

Poor Dannie looked so confused. To be fair, the last he’d heard about Carol was Therese working herself into a frenzy over what she possibly could’ve done to piss her off. And now, a month later, Carol was resting with her back on the door frame to Therese’s dressing room, like she belonged there more than Dannie did.

“Well,” Carol ducked back into the dressing room, grabbing her purse and slinging it over her shoulder. “I’m off. But hey, Therese, are you still in the city tomorrow?”

Therese could only nod.

“What’s your schedule like?”

And fucking Ruby — where did she even come from? — bobbed her head into the room. “She has two separate interviews tomorrow, one at 10am and the other at noon, the first can be done from the hotel, the second is on location. And then, at 4pm, she has a meeting with Mike Iero at his office at 75 Greenwich Street.”

Carol covered her mouth with her fingers, smirking as she watched Therese squirm, clearly amused at Ruby’s intrusion and her…devotion…to keeping Therese’s schedule in order. “Full day.” And then, probably just for the sake of driving Therese insane, Carol took the fingers that covered her lips, briefly put them in her mouth, just between her teeth, and dragged them back out. She asked, “does Therese have commitments tomorrow night?” The question was directed at Ruby, though Carol hadn’t taken her eyes off of Therese.

“Her schedule is open after 6:30.”

“Hmm. I see. I’m going to get going. Therese, I’ll call you tomorrow? Maybe shoot you a text, all things considered.”

“Yeah, no. Either is fine. Whatever. Either way. Yeah.” Good fucking god.

At least Carol looked satisfied with herself. “Okay, I’m leaving. Out the front, though. I think there’s probably more than a few people waiting for you to come out the back, Therese.”

And then, she was gone. And all Therese could do was wait for Carol to call her the next day.

Chapter Text

For the fourth time that evening, Therese changed her top. She changed back to the one she’d put on in the first place. It was ten to 8, and if she didn’t leave now, she’d be late-late, past-the-grace-period-late.

She hadn’t expected to think so much about her outfit that night. Truthfully, after Carol’s promise to “call, or text,” she figured she was going to get a location, a time, and she’d show up, and they’d finally, finalllllly have sex. But Therese preferred the offer she got instead. She was sitting in the backseat of a car with Dannie, Erin, and Ruby. Erin was going over things about Therese’s next interview, what to talk about, what to steer clear of, when Carol messaged her: can I call you? Therese decided she didn’t really care what the others thought — plus, Erin had no context for what was going on anyway — and called Carol herself.

“Hey,” Carol answered.

“Hey yourself.”

Dannie’s eyebrow raised at Therese’s greeting. He had a curious, nosy look on his face.

Carol asked what her plans were, if anything had changed — nothing had — and then said, “great, let’s grab dinner.”

Huh. A very pleasant surprise. Therese’s only request was that it be pretty casual, because she wasn’t super into dressing up on an off night.

“Oh, honey, I’d never do that to you. Wear sweatpants if you’d like.”

She wasn’t going to wear sweatpants, of course, but her options for casual-but-not-sweats were very lacking. She threw on a short, flouncy skirt, and then spent far too much time deciding what to wear on top, finally arriving back to her first choice: a tight white tank top, no bra. Admittedly, it left very little to the imagination, but if Therese was going to look like she’d put in no effort (an hours-worth of “no-effort”), then she wanted to look hot. She threw an oversized button down over everything, and immediately regretted it upon exiting her hotel: it was like 100 degrees. She didn’t have time to go back to her room, and just tied it around her waist, instead. After catching a glance at herself in the window of a parked car out front, she decided it looked kind of intentional.

Thankfully, nobody seemed to know that Therese was staying at the Ace Hotel in Brooklyn. She’d stayed at the Bowery earlier in the week (easily the nicest hotel she’d ever slept in, put up there by Up Late with Lucas Day) and was swarmed by paparazzi the moment she stepped outside. And then, thanks to paparazzi, fans knew she was staying there and joined them outside, too. It was surreal, and completely jarring. She had to have a security guard walk her the 25 feet to the car waiting out front. But the hotel in Brooklyn? Not a soul.

It was convenient, too, because Carol said she lived incredibly close. She sent Therese the name of a sushi place in Cobble Hill and told her she’d meet her there at 8pm. After getting a running late sorrrrry text from Carol, one accompanied by an upside down smiley face, Therese quickened her pace, determined to beat her there.

She sat on a bench outside of the restaurant and pretended to be preoccupied with her phone, trying to look as though she’d been waiting forever, when in reality, by the time Carol strolled up to her, she’d been sitting for maybe three minutes. And Carol, of course, looked fucking fabulous. Even sporting nothing remarkable, she was a vision. She was wearing some sort of short beige linen shorts and a very worn concert t-shirt of the same color, one from the 2000s. Or maybe the 90s? Before Carol could apologize for her tardiness, Therese slid her sunglasses onto her head and said, “wow, Yo La Tengo, huh?”

Carol stretched her arms out and twirled. “Oldest item of clothing I own. Have you been waiting long?”

“Only a minute. I’m starving, though.”

Recently, Therese and Phil and Dannie had a long discussion about chivalry. Whether too many things that were common courtesy were praised as acts of chivalry, and whether above-and-beyond chivalry was ignored as general politeness. Therese wondered if — when Carol held the door open for her, when she let Therese walk in front of her to follow the hostess to their table (a hostess whose eyes briefly went wide at the sight of Therese, but not at Carol), when she asked Therese which seat at their small table against the wall she’d prefer — she was acting like she would with anyone, just being polite, or if she was being so kind because it was Therese. Therese hoped, of course, for the latter.

Once they sat, Therese realized Carol looked very different from when she’d left her in Los Angeles; her hair, once a light shade of pink, was now an ashy blonde. “It looks beautiful. Sorry I didn’t say anything last night, I was kind of…distracted.”

Carol laughed and looked down. She tucked a newly blonde strand behind her ear — her natural color, apparently, she wasn’t allowed to dye it again anytime soon — and said, “yeah, you could’ve had 20 new tattoos and I don’t think it would’ve crossed my mind, so…”

“Okay, I have to know: how’d you get backstage, anyway?”

The question had Carol’s hands placed on top of the table, a speech eminent. She went slightly slackjaw and made an incredulous little ‘uh’ sound. “Therese, I — okay, I don’t pull this often. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever said this, but I’m going to — do you know who I am?”

“I’m sorry! I just didn’t think they let any random — ”

Another gasp. “Any…random?! Therese I — ” she slung her head down and laughed.

And Therese laughed too. She covered her face with her menu. “Can you find me a spoon or something? Because I don’t think these chopsticks will help me dig this hole any deeper.”

It was clear that Carol had been to the restaurant quite a few times, because while Therese looked at the menu, Carol just stared at Therese. She was smiling and looked away when Therese would look up. She wore oval, gold wire-framed glasses that she removed from her face and cleaned multiple times. When she opened her mouth to speak, Therese held her hand up, “I have to decide before you distract me again.”

“It’s sushi. Get hamachi. Get bluefin. Get edamame. The end.”

“Are you always this impatient?”

Carol grinned, “no,” and then gently kicked Therese beneath the table.

They split their sushi and green tea, and Carol asked Therese all about Europe, about where she didn’t go that she wished she’d made time for, her favorite cities, her favorite crowds. Therese wished she’d spent more time in Paris, because she didn’t really get a feel for it, and Carol leaned in and whispered, “I don’t really like Paris that much. Shh.” She liked other parts of France more. But maybe she’d just never enjoyed Paris with the right person.

“I didn’t even get to really see the Eiffel Tower, though.”

“There’s one in Vegas.” Carol stuck out her tongue when Therese rolled her eyes.

Speaking of her home state of Nevada, Therese told Carol about her parents' newfound efforts to connect. Their — not one, not two, not even three but four — phone calls. None of which were answered. Carol sighed. That was a tough one. “You think they want money?”

“Maybe. I don’t know what exactly they want, but I’m not really dying to find out.”

Therese’s parents were the kind of people who seemed like they had children because they felt like they had to, and not because they wanted to. As a result, Therese, the youngest of the three and the only girl, felt in particular like an afterthought. She could imagine them wanting money, even though — despite her recent catapult to fame — Therese didn’t have all that much of it in her possession just yet (it seemed like for every extra dollar she made, a new person was added to her payroll, too). They’d probably frame it as a repayment for raising her, for taking her to “all of those” singing lessons when she was a teenager, of which there were a whopping total of two, and then they stopped because $30/hour was too much for a hobby.

Carol’s situation was far different. She couldn’t relate to a family money-grab. She’d grown up wealthy, which she knew Therese already knew. Her dad was pretty terrible with money, though, so it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. Stupid investments, living beyond his means, etc. When her parents divorced, “they kind of parent-trapped me and my sister.”

“Wait, like…”

Carol grew up living with her dad in Connecticut, Rebecca lived with her mom (and later, stepdad and step siblings) in OC. “Weird, I thought I mentioned that.”

“No, I’d remember because that’s psychotic. I didn’t know that was a thing.”

“It is when you’re ten and decide you hate your mom.” Not much had changed, either. Carol didn’t hate her mom, of course, “but…”

Therese remembered their conversation from before: they were just in constant friction.

Time passed by too quickly and, eventually, they felt the need to leave the nearly empty restaurant and decided to go see a movie. There was a movie theatre down the street and Carol was beside herself when Therese said she didn’t think she’d seen a movie in theatres in, like, over a year. When Carol got up to run to the restroom, Therese used the opportunity to check her phone — Dannie: sooooo you on your date with carol aird? She didn’t reply. She also didn’t know if it was a date. They were just getting dinner and seeing a movie and, okay, when Therese thought about it that way, it did sound very traditionally like a date. She slipped her phone back into her purse and noticed Carol’s bag was left on her seat, one that Therese had been eyeing since Carol had brought it to her dressing room the night before. It was a soft, black leather tote bag with a gold zipper and suede interior. She got closer and looked for a label on the outside: nothing. It was open, and she began peaking around the inside for a brand when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

Oh. Fucking. Christ. There couldn’t have been anything more humiliating. “I’m so sorry. I was just — ”

“There’s no label. I found it at a small boutique in Seville that makes their own leather goods.” And then, she leaned to Therese’s ear and whispered, “you’re cute when you blush.”

Well…now at least Therese was fairly confident she was on a date.

As expected, Carol didn’t let Therese pay the bill or the tip or for the movie tickets. The theatre was only half full and they settled into two seats in the last row. Therese did a great job of watching the first half of the movie, she really did. She totally knew what was going on (it was a horror movie and not exactly impossible to follow), but sometime around the halfway point, she’d managed to lean herself entirely to one side of her seat, the side closest to Carol. Her arm was on the armrest, palm facing up, and Carol had similarly drifted into the middle. Without taking her eyes off of the screen, Carol grabbed Therese’s hand and pulled it into her lap. When Therese looked over, Carol was still watching the movie, but she was fighting a small smile that teased its way across her lips.

They stayed like that the remainder of the movie, Therese’s hand in Carol’s, resting in her lap. Sometimes Carol would use her other hand to drum little patterns on the back of Therese’s palm with her fingers, or lazily trace a line up and down her forearm. When the movie ended and the lights came up, they both immediately withdrew. They walked out in silence, listening to the other moviegoers discuss the ending; Therese was pretty sure there was some twist she might’ve missed. A shame, too, because she’d really wanted to see this movie. So did Carol. That had been the whole point.

She’d rewatch it when it was released for streaming.

“My place isn’t far, if you want to go back there. You know, see my real house.”

“Absolutely.”

It wasn't a lie, either, the walk was very short. Apparently it was in a slightly different neighborhood than where they’d started — “this is Boerum Hill, not Cobble Hill, which is also where your hotel is.” Therese was so turned around. She hadn’t been paying attention to her surroundings, just to Carol. Carol could’ve led her off of a cliff and into the ocean and Therese wouldn’t have thought twice about it. The entire walk, Therese kept her arms tightly folded into her chest, because if she hadn’t, she would’ve had to reach for Carol’s hand. And even though it was midnight, it was dark and the streets were quieting down, Therese knew that was still probably far too public for Carol’s liking. But luckily, they stopped after 15 minutes of walking in front of an immaculate, narrow 1-2-3-4-story townhouse. Carol waved at something and Therese turned to look over her shoulder.

“That car, the black one, is a security guard.”

“Oh…”

“He’s only here at night. It’s just,” Carol seemed to think it required an explanation. “You know, I live alone. I get home late a lot. Maybe I’m being paranoid, but…”

“I don’t think you’re being paranoid, at all.” Who made Carol think that?

“Anyway. Do you…still want to come in? See my house?”

See my house? Yes, because that was totally why Therese wanted to be let inside. And why Carol was inviting her. It was cute that she felt the need to pretend, though, do the whole song and dance.

“Yes, please.”

Carol unlocked the front and then the interior door. While she unset and reset some complicated looking alarm, Therese tugged at the heels of her sneakers, sliding them off and pushing them aside when suddenly —

She was slammed back against the wall. Carol’s hand was on her sternum, holding her gently — but forcefully — in place. She was breathing heavily, her eyes dark and intense. “You think you can just wear this? Wear this top that’s practically see through? Just to drive me crazy?” And then she leaned in to kiss Therese, but instead nipped at her bottom lip and quickly pulled back. And then she did it again. And Therese tried to dip forward and meet her when she backed away, but Carol pushed her back, harder this time. Christ, if she wasn’t turned on before… And then she did it again. Until Therese whined Carol and Carol grinned and relented and actually kissed her. They stayed there, making out against the wall for what seemed like full minutes, and Therese thought they might just fuck right there in Carol’s entryway, especially when Carol started moving her hands underneath Therese’s shirt, her fingers gliding higher and higher up her rib cage, until, she stopped —

“Let’s go.”

— and dragged Therese upstairs.

When Therese woke up the next morning, it was to a sliver of unobstructed sunlight peaking its way through Carol’s white bedroom curtains. There was a door propped open, one that seemed to lead out to a balcony of sorts, and Therese could hear the distant sounds of cars and horns weaving through the streets for their morning commutes. Or, she assumed it was their morning commute. She wasn’t sure what time it was, and momentarily panicked. She sat up, ready to wake Carol, but Carol’s side of the bed was empty.

Next to Therese on the nightstand was her phone. Carol must’ve plugged it into a charger for her… :)

But she must’ve, like, just done it, because her battery was only at 14 percent… :(

Still, it was so sweet. And thankfully, it was 7:40. Therese had plenty of time. Left beside her phone was Carol’s necklace. Therese smiled remembering how it had wound up there last night. Carol had reached behind herself to unclasp her bra, and then after she removed it, fucking finally, dipped down to kiss Therese, but her gold necklace — one with a small circle pendant — swung down with her, loosening itself from where it had been stuck to her chest by sweat. It nearly smacked Therese right in the face. They both laughed and Carol sat back up. She was still straddling one of Therese’s thighs as she reached behind her neck, “oh my god, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s totally fine,” and Therese watched as Carol struggled to find the clasp. She let out a little indignant groan as she grew more impatient, before Therese said, “here, let me,” and sat up with her.

Carol couldn’t find the clasp behind her because the closure was at the necklace’s front, a toggle right next to the pendant. When Therese began unhooking it, Carol rolled her eyes. She was blushing when she said, “I guess my mind is just somewhere else at the moment.” The gold chain was deposited on the side table, but Therese didn’t lay back down right away, instead using the opportunity to look at Carol’s face very up close. She gently swept Carol’s newly messy hair over one shoulder, and ran her fingertips lightly over her collarbones. “So gorgeous,” she muttered, as much a statement of fact as one of adoration, and then pulled her back down on top of her.

There was a post-hookup anxiety that often set in the morning after Therese slept with someone new. A sinking feeling that it had been a bad idea, or that she’d said something or done something stupid. That she’d been too drunk, or they’d been too drunk. But sitting in Carol’s bed, the silky white covers bunched up around her waist, she felt…fine. Fantastic, actually. They’d had so much fun. Her only regret was that she hadn’t brushed her teeth before falling asleep, though neither had Carol. They simply couldn’t manage to get up to do it. But in the grand scheme of regrets…

“No! You aren’t supposed to be awake.” Carol suddenly appeared in the doorway, and she was suddenly, sadly clothed, though barely. But she did have coffee with her.

“Oh, okay, sorry. Here, let me…” Therese abandoned her phone and leaned back into the pillows, closing her eyes. She heard Carol laugh and rummage around and then felt her jump on the bed, crawling right on top of her. She took that as her cue and opened her eyes.

“Good morning.”

“Good morning.”

When Carol bent down to kiss her, Therese shielded her face. “No, I haven’t brushed my teeth.”

But Carol just moved her hand out of the way and said, “I don’t care.”

They had sex again, and it was quick and so hot and Therese knew that she needed to get herself out of Carol’s bed, soon, or else she’d cancel her tour and devote her entire life to making Carol come over and over again. Carol had asked the night before, just before they fell asleep, what Therese liked for her coffee — “It can be anything — ” so Therese asked for a soy cortado. And, lo and behold, that’s what Carol brought her. Therese sat up and sipped and asked, “did you go out to get this?” Though, it didn’t seem likely, considering they were drinking out of somewhat poorly-made, mismatched ceramic cups. “No, Naomi made them.”

Wait. Naomi, like, Carol’s assistant? “Naomi is here?!”

“Of course she’s here.”

“Does she know I’m here?”

“Well, I sort of had to tell her, considering, you know…” the two coffees. “Is that okay?” Carol really did look worried. Like she’d misstepped. But if Carol didn’t care, then Therese didn’t either.

“Of course it’s okay. I just didn’t think you’d want to have to, like, explain.”

“Mmm, I don’t think there’s very much to explain. I think it’s pretty clear.”

They drank their coffee in a comfortable silence. Therese could feel Carol’s eyes on her, just watching. She was too nervous to look over, though. Eventually, she had to get up. Carol gave her a robe and showed where her bathroom was. When she started to collect her clothes, Carol said, “Therese, those are…I don’t think you can wear those.” She was right. They were pretty disgusting. “Let me grab you something. I’ll leave them in the bathroom for you.”

She showered, used an extra toothbrush Carol set out for her, took advantage of the myriad of products Carol kept in a special fridge on her countertop, and then changed into the sweatpants and shirt Carol let her borrow. She looked in the mirror: the t-shirt was some old merch of Carol’s. She’d be annoyed if it wasn’t so funny.

Therese left the bathroom, walked down the hallway of Carol’s room, and found Carol stripping the sheets from her bed. She stopped when she saw Therese. “Oh my god, it’s always so nice to meet a fan.”

“You did this just so you could make that joke, didn’t you?”

“And it was worth it.” Carol finished removing her pillows from their cases and added, “plus, I don’t need those things back, so…”

Right, right, right. Because, of course, who knew when they’d see each other again? If they’d see each other again. This might’ve been a one-time thing. Therese must’ve hid her disappointment well, because Carol just asked, “well, want to actually see my house before you leave?”

She absolutely did. They, of course, were in Carol’s bedroom. The entire floor was her bedroom and en suite. There was a small outdoor space off the back, “kind of why I bought this house,” and it looked over an enclosed backyard, one with a table and chairs and some kids’ toys. Carol’s house was very white inside, but it was far from neutral or the exhausting clean aesthetic that had become so popular lately. While most of her furniture and finishes were sands and beiges and whites, there was still quite a bit of dark wood. Her floors, for one, and then her windows seemed to don the original dark wood frames (or, at the very least, frames leftover from a very early renovation). And then her walls: mostly white, but littered with all kinds of colorful pieces of art. Big and small. Some looked like expensive oil-covered canvases that were originals done by real-deal painters, another was definitely her daughter’s watercolor that had been matted and framed and hung for all to see. Both fit it perfectly.

One room that wasn’t white, though, was Rindy’s room. It was an explosion of color. Carol didn’t really show it off much other than the mention of “that’s Rindy’s room.” Therese imagined she liked to keep Rindy as private as possible. There was a guest room on the same floor. Another two bathrooms that weren’t worth showing. But the real pièce de résistance was on the fourth floor, the one right above Carol’s bedroom floor. It was her home studio.

And it was more well equipped than some professional studios in which Therese had paid a solid amount of money to record. It was littered with instruments. Electric guitars and basses, a drum kit, multiple keyboards and synths, over ten amps, a shelf of effects pedals, tambourines, a harmonica, a glockenspiel? and a few recording consoles, one of which easily cost over a hundred grand. It was… “unbelievable.”

“You like?” But Carol knew. She crossed her arms and smiled.

“This is incredible.” There was a very comfortable looking sofa along the back wall. Therese looked at it and then back at Carol, “really too bad we never put this room to use.”

“Well, never say never, I guess. Right?”

So, there might’ve been hope for meeting again.

They eventually made their way to the first floor, where they’d started the night before. Carol walked Therese back to the kitchen where a girl about her age, must’ve been Naomi, was working on a laptop at the island. One thing Therese had noticed about Carol’s house was that it was surprisingly…kind of messy. Rather, it wasn’t spotless. There were dirty dishes on the counter in the kitchen, and not ones that Carol’s assistant had just created making them coffee; a bunch of mail sat unopened on a small kitchen table; Therese hadn’t noticed it last night, for obvious reasons, but multiple pairs of shoes were strewn throughout the entry hallway, not just hers; Carol’s bathroom had makeup littered over the counter; a plant sat in the sink, either ready to be watered or to be put back where it lived. In fact, Carol had a lot of plants. In contrast to her home in LA, it was very clear that Carol lived here.

“Naomi, this is Therese. Therese, Naomi.”

Naomi looked up. And she was stunning? There was no way she didn’t model on the side. She looked excited, too, which quickly made sense, because she said, “sorry, I have to say, it’s so cool to meet you. I’ve been a fan, since, like, your Patreon days. Like, I literally — ”

“Naomi!” Carol snapped. She wasn’t that serious, though. “Help me out here. Be cool.”

“Sorry. Big fan. I’m done now.” And then she zipped her lips, locked them, and tossed Carol an imaginary key.

“I’ll walk you out.”

Sadly, the time had come. Therese had ignored exactly three texts from Ruby and four from Dannie until she finally replied, “call you in five.” That five had quickly become twenty, and she needed to get back to the hotel where the bus was waiting to schlep them all to Washington, DC.

“Oh, your shirt. The one you had around your waist…” Carol pointed upstairs, but Therese shook her head.

She hadn’t wanted to mention it last night, but she left it at the movie theatre. They’d already started making their way to Carol’s and she really hadn’t wanted any further delays. She was okay losing it for good.

“I’m sure they still have it.”

“It’s fine. No big deal.” Therese leaned against the spot that Carol had pushed her into the night before. “So…this was very fun.”

“It was.” She kissed her and just barely tilted back to talk. “Don’t be a stranger or anything. Keep me updated.”

“I will. You do the same.”

Carol smiled and opened the door. “Bye, Therese.”

Therese couldn’t be certain, but she was pretty sure if she turned around while she was walking down the steps of Carol’s stoop, turning onto her street, she’d see Carol watching her as she walked away.

—————————————— 

When Carol turned around and walked back into her kitchen, she was smiling. It was one of deep satisfaction and excitement and even a little heartbreak, not really knowing when she’d see Therese again. That could’ve been the last time she saw Therese in that capacity. She pretended to be fine with that, reminding herself to be happy with what she had, what she’d been given.

Naomi caught her, “someone had fun last night.”

Yes, Carol had absolutely had fun that night. Naomi could tell and she’d probably sport that smile for the remainder of the day. It was a smile that hadn’t yet been pulled away by the text she would receive two days later from none other than Abby Gerhard.

Chapter Text

Not too far behind Carol stood Naomi. She was waiting. An equal mixture of satisfaction and curiosity at the ready when Carol turned away from her front door, finally done watching Therese escort herself down the street.

“I know I told you to apologize to her…”

Carol’s eyes narrowed. “I was very mean. And very sorry. Had a lot to make up for.”

She shuffled her way back into the kitchen, poured herself a glass of water, and downed the entire thing in one go. Naomi just stared. What did she want exactly?

“You know you have a 10:30 with Travis, right?”

God, right, of course she did. She met with Travis every single day besides Sunday. But Carol had momentarily forgotten what day it was. What time it was. What month it was. She glanced at the clock behind her. Almost 10. That was fine. She just needed to wash her face and change and migrate to her basement, unless… “wait, here? Or at Apex?”

“Carol! Jesus. At Apex.”

“Oh, fuck.” Now she had to scramble. Apex was her gym and it wasn’t far, but it also wasn’t close. Maybe she’d just take a car, though that sort of defeated the purpose of working out…

“You have one orgasm and I swear to god, your brain melts out of your ear…”

That was when Carol paused in her mad dash up the stairs. She couldn’t help herself. She just had to. “Oh, honey, it was definitely more than one — ”

Naomi didn’t want to hear it. “Go get ready. Now.”

Even with a full schedule, Carol spent most of her day thinking about Therese. She met up with Travis, her trainer— her new trainer. New-ish. She’d been with him for almost a year. His predecessor, Ashley, had dropped her as a client after half a decade. Plain and simple: Carol had slept with Ashley last summer. A few times. And one day, Ashley had suggested that maybe they go get a drink, or dinner, “you know, hang out,” outside of the pilates studio, outside of the workout studio in Carol’s basement. Carol thought about it — not long enough — and said, “yeah, I don’t think so.” It wasn’t the right answer, from content to delivery. Ashley quit, and Naomi and Katy had to find someone else.

That someone else was Travis. He was a man, and just as an additional precaution, he was gay. Carol couldn’t even fuck him if she wanted to. When Katy said exactly that to her, Carol wanted nothing more than to prove her wrong. After all, gay men loved her. They were her bread and butter, the reason she remained relevant. But, of course, she wasn’t exactly interested either, despite the idea of a challenge.

Without using names, Carol told him about her date, and asked how long she had to wait to text. “Give it at least 48 hours. Unless she texts you first.” She could do that. She thought.

Maybe.

Carol decided to settle on telling Therese the name of her private Instagram account and telling her she could follow “if she wanted.” (Thankfully, she did. Right away.)

Her schedule shifted to work after that: 3pm at Electric Lady, a recording studio in The Village where Carol was meeting her producer, Fred, to help work on a song with an up-and-coming pop singer, Katarina. Up-and-coming was a stretch. She was, as it was so delicately put by Carol’s friend Clara who’d written the lyrics to the song, “some bimbo nepo-baby bitch.” She wasn’t a bitch, but she was sort of a bimbo. And she was definitely a nepo-baby, because with no discernible musical capabilities, no budding talent sitting dormant just waiting to be unleashed, how else would she find herself in the studio with Fred and Carol?

“Her mother is on the board of the Lincoln Center and her dad is an exec at Sony.”

That would do the trick.

Carol was a bit of a nepo-baby herself. Her parents had no immediate industry connections, but when enough money was involved, everybody knew somebody who knew somebody.

“I at least made sure I was somewhat good at this before I tried.” Carol gazed into the sound booth as Katarina attempted (and failed) to do a simple vocal run. She sighed. “Fucking dilettante…”

“Why can’t she just model?” Even Fred was annoyed, and that was never a good sign.

She’s too fat. Carol didn’t say it out loud. And she wasn’t fat, in any sense of the word. Carol was tired and being a bitch. In fact, Katarina was rather thin, and by current standards, attractive — but that a model did not make. “She’s got way too much filler.”

But Carol would make sure the song was an absolute fucking hit. With her name attached, she saw no other choice. She wanted a Grammy to use as a doorstop and a royalty check big enough to cover another year of Rindy’s tuition at St. Ann’s.

Katarina said, “I want to be, like, the next Therese,” and Carol’s jaw dropped, because, in what fucking world? She didn’t say it, but Fred did, “oh, sweetie, that’ll never happen.”

That was Tuesday. The rest of the week was supposed to move pretty similarly until Harge dropped off Rindy on Sunday afternoon. Some work, some boring household nonsense facilitated by Naomi, dinners — some obligatory, some pleasurable (i.e. those eaten alone), contemplate texting Therese, chickening out, rinse, sleep, repeat. But, as luck would have it, Carol only made it through Wednesday until she felt the drop of another shoe.

Strewn throughout the hallway of her bedroom were tens, if not hundreds, of unopened beauty products. Sample upon sample that Carol was so lucky to receive. Even if she went through a fraction of them, more were always sent, creating a neverending procession of serums and oils that would only end with Carol’s death, and even then, she imagined in lieu of flowers, companies would line her casket with moisturizers and lay lipstick at her grave. Naomi decided it was time to Marie Kondo her product closet after mistakenly looking inside and gasping like she’d walked into a house out of an episode of Hoarders.

“Keep or donate?”

Carol paused to think.

“Does it spark joy? Three, two, one— ”

Honestly, she didn’t even know what it was. “Fine. Donate.”

The donation pile was split into two: actual donations, and donations to the first bank of Naomi.

The chime of an iPhone sounded in the distance. “Me or you?”

Naomi got up and said, “I’ll check. You: keep working.”

Carol was reading the active ingredients on some toner in an expensive looking package when she heard an “oh, no” come from her bedroom.

“What?”

Without another word, Naomi held Carol’s phone up for her to read for herself.

“Oh, no…”

Abby Gerhard

Sometimes, but not all the time, Harge would have to stay on location for an extended period of time. And sometimes, but not all the time, Carol would follow. That was the case the autumn after Rindy was born. The prospect of spending two months alone (‘alone,’ with a nanny and assistant and a housekeeper and…) in New York with an eight month old while Harge was in London on a shoot felt daunting. Carol didn’t think she had postpartum depression, but she had grown overwhelmed and needy. There was something continuously surprising about waking up every day with another human being depending on her for, well, everything. She’d only ever had to take care of herself, and even that was a task she outsourced.

Harge always adored when Carol would come with him on location. He was especially delighted to have her in London, because it meant he wouldn’t be apart from Rindy, and, though she hated to admit it, he was up to the task of parenting in a way that hadn’t yet clicked for Carol. Not having to go through the agony (and Carol did find it agonizing) of pregnancy gave him a slight advantage. That was what Carol told herself, anyway.

There was a studio in London, one that housed television series, film sets, sound stages — Carol had even once used it for tour rehearsals — that Harge wanted to visit on one of his days off. A friend of his, another actor, was filming there, and Harge wanted to bring Rindy to his set to show her off to everyone. Carol had nothing better to do, so she figured she’d come along.

It was a decision that functioned as both one of the best and worst of her life. Five years later, the pros and cons list hadn’t stopped running.

Harge wandered off, and Carol wandered around. Most people would feel timid traipsing through production crews and trailers, unsure of where and what was off limits. But not Carol. She was, after all, Carol Aird, and even if she was somewhere she wasn’t supposed to be, it would take a pretty gutsy person to tell her to leave. She thought that was what was happening when an unfamiliar voice behind her, a woman’s, barked, “hey!” But the face that met hers when she turned around was smiling. And it belonged to Abby Gerhard.

Immediately, Carol faltered. She’d never met Abby Gerhard, and Abby was easily one of her favorite actresses. Not that Carol was unique in that quality — Abby had developed quite the cult of admiration. Abby was just a smidge younger than Carol, and she’d been nominated for some nine? or ten? Oscars. She held some sort of record…most consecutive nominations or most nominations before a certain age. It helped, of course, that she was drop dead gorgeous.

Carol decided she wouldn’t hide her excitement. What was the point? “Oh. My. God.”

Abby flipped her hair back and rolled her eyes. “Right back at you. I just met your husband and the cutest little baby in the world and he told me you’d be around here somewhere.” She pointed her index finger at Carol, winked, and then extended her hand. “I’m completely starstruck. It is so nice to meet you. Huge, huge fan.”

Their handshake lingered and Carol realized she might’ve been blushing. “As am I.”

It helped that Harge was invited to dinner with a group of his friends. It helped that, because it was some group of dudes — a guys’ night of sorts — Abby wasn’t going. It helped that Florence, Rindy’s nanny, had accompanied them to London. Because then, really, it only made sense for Abby and Carol to go get dinner together. Just the two of them.

It took ten days, an exchange of numbers, two meetups for coffee, a shopping trip, and one night out for ‘a drink’ before Carol was hammered in Abby’s hotel suite, lying on the sofa with Abby’s fingers deep inside her.

Maybe it was because she was a terrible person, but after some momentary panic, shame, a wave of “what the fuck have I done?” Carol…got over it. And it kept going. And going. And luckily Carol was in the middle of finishing an album and had the perfect excuse to keep traveling back and forth to LA, where Abby lived most of the time.

Everyone knew Abby was a lesbian. She’d been publicly out for a little while, privately out her entire life. And everyone also knew that Carol was married, and by all accounts, straight; she’d just had a baby; she and Harge were worshipped as a perfect couple. But, still, the amount of time Carol and Abby spent together raised more than a few eyebrows. But Carol didn’t care. Because she was pretty sure she was totally, completely, head-over-heels in love.

“What did she say?” Naomi’s eyes were saucers, but her jaw was set, ready to bite. “Open it. Open it!”

Before Carol could, her phone buzzed again. A second message.

“Carol!”

“Okay, Christ. Hang on.” Carol was trying to be cool about it, but she thought her stomach was going to fall out of her body and onto the floor. She was long, long over Abby, though it wasn’t as if they did any chit-chatting. They’d only gotten together on one occasion since they’d ended things— a coffee the morning after a run-in at an industry event— and they’d kept it very brief. Beyond that, the last time she’d spoken to Abby was at the Academy Awards. She saw her on the red carpet, they took a photo together, and Abby whispered, ‘I think you’re going to win.’

Carol didn’t know if she meant it, but she was right.

“It’s a text and a voice message.” Carol read it. Several times, just to make sure she’d gotten it right, then she showed Naomi.

“‘Hi, I’m in town for a bit…’ okay, play the message.”

It was like she knew. She could sense from 3000 miles away Carol was interested in someone who wasn’t really available but having fun anyway and, hey, why not come and maybe ruin everything? Or, at the very least, completely fuck with Carol’s head.

Hey, Carol. I figured it’s just easier for me to give you all of this in a voice message. I’m sure this seems super weird and out of the blue. I’m in town for a week and would really love to see you. I completely understand if you don’t want to, or if you’re busy. This is so last minute, absolutely no big deal if you can’t. I sort of wanted to get your perspective on something. I might be moving here? Would love your advice re…that. And, obviously, I would really like to catch up and hang out. Anyway, I’m here until Tuesday night. Call me or message me. I’m busy most days but I have every night free except for tomorrow and Sunday. Alright, talk soon.

Naomi stared at Carol. Carol stared at her phone.

Of course Naomi thought it was a bad idea. When she’d begun working for Carol, it was just a few months after Carol’s life had gone up in flames. Naomi was quiet at first, but matter-of-fact. She was 22 and didn’t see much reason to kiss ass. If she got fired, there were plenty of other jobs out there that were a hell of a lot easier than being at the beck and call of spoiled celebrities. And some of those jobs paid better. Katy had hired Naomi for Carol, and flew her out to Los Angeles where Carol was living a bit of a monastic life as she prepared for her tour. She’d wake up, eat breakfast, meet with her vocal coach, rehearse for six hours, maybe workout with her trainer, eat dinner, and by then Naomi’s day was done, so whatever happened afterward was in God’s (or someone else’s, just hopefully not Carol's) hands. Naomi watched her live a version of the same day over and over for four weeks until her tour started: three sold out nights in LA.

A few hours before Carol’s third show, whatever facade she had unintentionally built completely shattered. Letting herself into the Laurel Canyon house using her spare key, Naomi found Carol bawling on the floor of her bedroom. In-fucking-consolable. The type of heaving sobs that made Carol feel like she’d vomit, or pass out. She’d come across a picture on the internet of Abby with some woman, clearly more than a friend, and realized the door to that relationship was now closed, locked, and sealed shut. Too distraught to put up a fight, Carol let herself be pulled into Naomi’s arms, where she cried as Naomi hushed and stroked her hair until there were truly no more tears left.

Naomi didn’t even realize what her meltdown was about until much later.

So, yes, of course Naomi thought this dinner was a bad idea. When she thought of Abby Gerhard, of Carol and Abby Gerhard, she thought of the woman that rendered her boss a heartsick, devastated mess. “Nothing good can come of this.”

She’d said it, like, twenty times. It was clearly too late. Celeste was picking through clothing options, Stephanie was setting up a makeup station in Carol’s bathroom. Even Katy was there, chatting on the phone as Carol laid out on her bed in a robe, long, wet hair splayed out behind her. Carol hadn’t yet warranted Naomi’s protests with a response, but she needed to shut her up. “Naomi, it’ll be fine. I have to see her at some point.”

“Do you?”

Okay, well, when she put it that way…

“I think this’ll be good for Carol.” Katy was unusually optimistic, though she was treating this dinner like a work event.

The restaurant Abby chose was constantly flooded with paparazzi. It was less the doing of the restaurant, and more that, for whatever reason, a bunch of A- and B-listers decided that it was the spot. It had been open for years, so why now, Carol hadn’t a clue. But Abby loved a scene, so the choice was unsurprising. It was, however, annoying. For two reasons: one was that Carol didn’t like Italian food. She liked it in Italy, but had no interest in going to an Italian restaurant. She didn’t have any special love for pasta, hadn’t eaten red meat in years, and hated red wine. All of which Abby knew, though she could’ve forgotten. Her second grievance was a more sensitive issue that she was certain Abby hadn’t forgotten: nothing tripped her up quite like reading menus. Lists in general were challenging, but then there were the idiotic fonts, the small text, the formatting, the unfamiliar ingredients. That was why Carol liked going to the same places. She had nearly everything memorized.

To mitigate her stress, Naomi was reading her the menu — another thing she’d done twenty times that day.

After far too much time parsing through clothes, Carol finding a multitude of reasons to reject Celeste’s offerings (“Chanel? Just burn me alive.” “Rodarte? Sort of a snooze, don’t you think?”), Carol finally made it out the door and into a car. She looked down at her dress — they’d gone simple: black, spaghetti straps, cutouts in the back — and black leather boots that went up her calves. Irritating, because it was so goddamn hot outside, but she supposed she looked good. She better have, because there were, unfortunately, a slew of paparazzi. Carol didn’t really go out like this much, so they seemed pleasantly surprised at her appearance. She just waved and walked inside.

Shocking nobody, Carol was late. She’d texted Abby, “I’m going to be late,” and Abby texted back, “never change.”

Any anger that Carol had preemptively built up as a defense, frustration toward the choice in venue, or Abby’s apparent disregard toward Carol’s preferences, went out the window almost immediately. Abby stood from the table, beautiful as ever, and hugged Carol. “I think I timed this perfectly: our lovely waiter just took our drink order. He seems totally slammed so I got you a vesper — right? — to spare him the trip. You look gorgeous, by the way. It’s so nice to see you.”

Carol knew she was turning red. She just smiled and took the chair, though she preferred the banquette that Abby occupied.

When Abby was nervous, she talked. And, boy, was she talking. “Listen, I know you say you hate Italian, but I went here a few months ago and it’s incredible. I think I still have a pretty good grasp on what you like and don’t like, so don’t worry about the menu and just stop me if I order something you won’t eat. Sound good?”

Okay, so she had thought of Carol. Naomi’s voice played in her head nothing good can come of this. But Abby was clearly trying, really trying, to accommodate and for whatever reason, just a little extra consideration and Carol was left totally disarmed. Stupid, but she couldn’t help it. Abby ordered food and red wine, and when she did, she said, “I know you usually don’t like it, but please trust me,” and Carol thought, well, okay.

They caught up. And drank. And they laughed… a lot. And then drank some more. As much fun as they were having, Abby had quirks that Carol couldn’t stand. And Carol was enjoying Abby’s company, but she kept remembering oh, right…that. Little things that gave her the ick. Even during their relationship, Carol had found certain qualities about Abby slightly insufferable. (It wasn’t until later, with a clear head, that she’d recognize how alarming it was to grow so annoyed with the nuances of somebody whom she hadn’t even been with an entire year.)

Abby mentioned to her how she was sick last month, and that her New York trip was delayed because of it. But she was constantly claiming to be sick. Carol once told her she had “small dog problems” and Abby actually got offended (another ick). “What’s that supposed to mean?” It was just, like, small dogs always had “so many manufactured health issues.” It was an explanation that forced Carol to apologize ad nauseam in the days following— and Carol hated apologizing when she felt like she’d done nothing wrong.

They also had slightly disjointed senses of humor. Abby was often scandalized, or, more likely, performatively scandalized, by things Carol would say, like Carol was too crass, or too sarcastic. Though Abby had no problem dishing it out, but to be on the receiving end, well… she found herself constantly wanting to tell Abby to grow the fuck up.

But still, Abby would look at Carol some type of way, and all was forgotten.

Abby revealed her plan to move to New York. She wanted to focus a bit on theatre. Carol immediately knew the reasoning. “You want to EGOT?”

“I’m halfway there.”

“So am I, apparently…” She said it just to get under Abby’s skin. Because Carol had absolutely zero ambition to pursue awards purely for the sake of it.

“My agent thinks I need to really immerse myself in the environment. So, I was thinking, if I move here, do I move to Brooklyn?”

Carol nearly choked on her wine. “You would hate Brooklyn. Move to Tribeca.”

“Hmm. It’s just so expensive…”

“Rent. Don’t buy. You might just turn around and sell.”

“Can you refer me to your gym?”

Apex was a private, very exclusive club. But Abby was Abby.

“Sure. But you won’t need a referral. Oh, I moved, you know…”

Abby poured Carol more wine and leaned further into the table. “I didn’t know but I figured. Same area?”

“Pretty much. Adjacent.”

“Can I see it?”

Oh. Oh… She’d walked herself right into that one, hadn’t she?

Before leaving her house, Carol had decided there was no chance this was headed in that direction. She didn’t really clean up after herself, hadn’t trimmed her nails, left her sheets unchanged, all just to ensure additional roadblocks. But, she was very drunk, and, while hesitant, none of that was enough to stop her from saying, “yeah, for sure.”

(They took separate cars, of course, upon Carol's insistence.)

The tour wasn’t very involved, because that wasn’t what Abby was there for. She made them drinks and they stood in her kitchen, not talking much, but waiting. Abby was leaning against her counter and pulled on Carol’s wrist. She motioned toward her bracelet and said, “let me see this.” A thinly veiled plan. And yet, it worked, and twenty minutes later they were in Carol’s bed, every item of clothing littered on a different floor.

Carol was finding it hard to be fully present. She was wasted, so that didn’t help. But Abby went down on her and after a considerable amount of time, Carol was still staring up at her ceiling fan. It wasn’t like Abby was bad in bed — exactly the opposite — but Carol’s mind was racing, and she was beginning to feel self conscious about not coming. She decided to try one last thing before she’d grab the back of Abby’s head, arch her back, and give a performance practiced to such perfection, Carol herself would EGOT: she thought about the person who’d very recently made her come so fucking fast, it was actually a little embarrassing.

Her eyes closed and she remembered Therese, how hot she was and how perfect Carol’s hand felt laced in her long, dark hair. The way that hair brushed over the tops of Carol’s thighs — that tickling feeling alone drove Carol insane. Therese’s hand moving from Carol’s hipbone to the underside of her thigh, nails tracing lightly until they hit the back of her knee and pushed up. Just a bit. Therese’s high pitched voice when she groaned, “fuck,” when Carol put her fingers inside her. Therese’s breath in her ear. Therese’s perfect tits in those tight little tops. Therese’s eyes rolling back into her head. Therese’s waist. Therese’s lips. Therese’s tongue —

Yeah, that would do it.

Thankfully, when Carol told Abby she had to kick her out, Abby didn’t put up much of a fight. It wasn’t mean, or without reason, and Abby really didn’t seem to mind. She laughed, said, “I feel so used,” and asked if she could borrow the shirt draped over the chair in Carol’s bedroom.

“No!” Then she corrected. “Sorry, no. I need that for something.”

Instead, she just helped Abby gather her own clothes and wait for a car. “I’ll let you know when I’m back in town. Have fun with Rindy next week.” With a kiss goodbye, she left.

In a shocking twist of events, the idea of Abby moving to New York agonized Carol. A tidal wave of anxiety swept over her, not dissimilar to the one she used to feel at the thought of losing Abby, of never being with her. But faced with the opportunity to make just that happen? Suddenly, it made Carol’s stomach turn. Why, she couldn’t articulate. Maybe it was just all the alcohol.

Carol went back to bed, watched the room spin, and, as she did most nights, wondered what Therese was doing.

Chapter Text

It was all about balance. That was what Therese always said. Said being so goddamn operative. How did she manage to write-record-then-release an album, go on a sold-out club tour, go on Gen’s tour, and then go back on a much larger sold-out tour all within the course of 10 months without burning out like a dying star? It was all about balance (she hardly slept, all but ghosted her friends, and would maybe run herself into the ground anyway). How did she manage to spend every second of the past few years dedicated to her career while still maintaining side gigs to pay the bills? It was all about balance (the bills were often not paid, she was in massive credit card debt, and she’d been fired, like, two or three times). How’d she manage to make time for family? Balance (nearly cut them off). Stay so skinny? Balance (basically starve, and the occasional bump of cocaine never hurt).

If she were to — in some sick, twisted, fucked-up fantasy — have something resembling a healthy, functioning relationship with someone (could be anyone!) all while traipsing around the world and back and was asked, “how do you manage?” Therese would just say, “it’s all about balance.”

She supposed that’s why she was being punished for even letting such a dumb idea cross her mind. According to Erin, being single was better for publicity, anyway. “Keeps people guessing, which keeps you interesting.”

It hadn’t even been a week since Therese unceremoniously trudged onto her tour bus — last on save for Ruby, who followed closely behind, the teasing murmurs of “nice of you to join us, princess” punctuating her tardiness. She’d taken off Carol’s joke of a t-shirt (though she would keep it) in favor of what could barely be described as a sports bra, but still wore the sweatpants. She snapped at Dannie, “you, come with me,” and pointed to the bus’s second story.

He knew what it was about. And he was excited. Therese let Ruby follow, too. While terrifying at times, Ruby was also fun. Or maybe just funny. They hadn’t done much in terms of extracurriculars yet. Point was, Therese liked her. She imagined she could be some sort of bought and paid-for friend like Naomi was to Carol.

“Okay…I think I went on a date last night?” Jury was still out on specifics and likely would be forever.

Dannie was as shocked as Therese. He’d been joking when he referred to Therese and Carol meeting up as a date. After quickly piecing together what he’d interrupted when he’d knocked on the door to Therese’s dressing room, he was left wildly confused, though fairly certain as to what Carol wanted from Therese. And, like Therese, he thought the invitation of dinner was merely a disguise for the main event. Though Therese had made Dannie and Ruby and a few others privy to what had transpired between herself and Carol back in LA, neither of them realized the extent to which they’d continued talking.

So the dinner and movie and cutesy little hangout sesh was a curveball to say the least. But Therese gushed and they patiently listened, with minimal eye rolling. “…and when we were leaving the movie, she was like, ‘if you’re tired, I can walk you back to your hotel, I know you have to be up early, no pressure, this and that…’ like, no presumptions. She really, truly didn’t just expect me to have sex with her just because she bought me dinner. Which, as you can imagine, just made me hornier.”

“Naturally.” Ruby laid on her side, rolling a hand at Therese, coaxing her to continue. “Okay, so you go into her house, and…”

“At that point I’m, like, oh, it’s on. We fucked for, like, almost three hours.”

Ruby sighed. “Bliss.”

Dannie spared himself and pivoted. “Was her house crazy?”

Kind of? It was crazy in the sense that it was clearly wildly expensive, but it was also just some brick row house sandwiched between identical brick row houses. It was aesthetically stunning, but nothing over-the-top. It felt lived-in. Comfortable. Aside from the artwork, it was almost…normal. But, “she has what is easily a multimillion dollar studio on her top floor. It has its own security system. Oh, and her bathroom has heated tiles and a towel warmer. And there are two pilates reformers in her basement.” Therese could go on, so maybe it was a little beyond normal.

“Alright…what now?” Dannie asked. What a great question. But Therese didn’t really have an answer.

“Who knows?” She shrugged and then joked, “I guess I’ll just run into next year at the Grammys, or something.”

Not even a week had gone by since that conversation. Not even a week had gone by since Carol gave Therese permission to follow her private Instagram account, ‘@onplanetcja1983,’ though permission was only granted after Therese signed what appeared to be an ironclad NDA (a surprise that sent Therese and Ruby into a fit of laughter). Not even a week had gone by since Therese had carved out studio time to finally record 'Black Ferrari,' which was kind of, sort of inspired by Carol. And not even a day had gone by since Therese had sent — and received — multiple memes to and from Carol. Days. Hours. So little time before Therese woke up to an Instagram post by some celebrity gossip site of Carol Aird and Abby Gerhard arriving and leaving the same stupid restaurant in the West Village.

“Are you mad?” Ruby was lying next to Therese on her bed that took up most of the small room at the back of the tour bus. Therese forced her jaw shut and sat up, grabbing an apple she’d almost forgotten about.

“Why would I be mad?” Therese’s teeth tore into the skin. She wasn’t mad, but she probably looked it. Maybe she was a little miffed. And that, she decided, was totally different. There was no reason to be mad, no grounds for anger. “We hung out twice. We hooked up once.”

“Right, but you are, like, actively talking. Being all flirty and stuff.”

The most generous description of whatever was going on between Carol and Therese was maybe, mayyyybe dating. But there was a potential date. Singular. Therese couldn’t really be convinced that the term was applicable. Another somewhat liberal interpretation was calling it a friends-with-benefits situation. Therese could say with confidence that Carol was a ‘friend.’ But again, they’d slept together once, whether it was a continuing thing had not yet been established. A bleak, though sadly realistic version of events was that Therese and Carol had a really fun night together, and she’d no doubt see her around, but that was about it. And in any case, Carol was absolutely free to see or date or fuck whomever she damn well pleased.

“Maybe they didn’t have sex. Maybe it was just like a friends-catching-up thing.”

Maybe. But Carol looked excruciatingly hot. Nobody wasted that on just a friend. Therese didn’t, anyway. Plus, she looked like she might’ve been drunk in the photos of her leaving, all flushed and glassy-eyed. Therese had gotten drunk with some of her exes before, and on every occasion but one (Richard), they slept together. It was always so easy, so, like, why not? Even just a few weeks ago in Berlin, she’d gotten dangerously close to sleeping with Genevieve again, they’d managed about everything but. That said, Gen wasn’t exactly an ex. So if Therese wasn’t mad, what was she feeling?

Jealous, for sure. Jealous of Abby for being talented and beautiful and likely irresistible. After all, she’d won Carol over back when Carol had an entire husband. She was married and (claimed to be) straight and Abby still had her hook, line, and sinker. Therese couldn’t fathom that behavior but, hey, to each their own.

Therese was not a girl who pursued straight girls. They did nothing for her. She had friends who thought straight women were fun, but Therese was completely turned off at the idea. There was just something fundamentally uninteresting about them. She felt deep secondhand embarrassment watching a friend fall head over heels for some boring looking chick who was desperate for attention, who just needed to know that if she wanted to, she could.

There was, of course, nothing wrong with someone doing some genuine sexual exploration, but Therese had lent a helping hand enough in high school to bow out of such charity work in adulthood. She tried to see Abby as pathetic, as the 40-year-old version of a teenage Therese that didn’t mind fooling around with drunk cheerleaders at parties, only to have them cry and scream the next day “you can’t tell anybody about this!” All of those girls still lived back in Reno, hawking MLM shit on Instagram and married to whatever jockish boyfriend side-eyed Therese in the hallway and whispered “fucking fag” (they hadn’t yet learned that ‘fag’ wasn’t a catch-all slur for anybody gay, and Therese always just laughed, anyway). Besides, throughout most of high school, Therese had her own shield: a boyfriend ten years her senior. She met him at her part-time job at a coffee shop, only his job was full-time. Because he was in his late 20s. He had a car and an apartment and legal access to alcohol. Plus, it gave Therese an excellent excuse to not have to attend school dances — the school admin said he was too old for her to bring. Grateful for the loophole, she still thought the rule was asinine. If the cutoff age was 22, what was barring a 26-year-old preventing? Oh, no, now we can’t partake in the traditional post-prom celebration of…renting a car?

Obviously, Abby had caught something in Carol that wasn’t public domain, and it had a more lasting effect than any of Therese’s trysts with cheerleaders. The only reason Therese knew Abby was the main instigator of her and Carol’s affair was from a vaguely worded comment Carol had made when Therese attempted to broach the subject.

“It was pretty confusing to be chased by someone who understood the situation, and then to be dumped for just that reason…” ‘The situation’ being Carol’s marriage, family, image, life. Carol worried her bottom lip, probably looking for a more diplomatic way to proceed.

“You don’t have to— ”

“Actually, sorry, yeah, can we change the subject?” She said the whole experience just really fucked her up, and though she’d long moved on, it still brought up some terrible feelings and she was having too great of a time with Therese to talk about something that could potentially derail their night.

When Therese apologized for asking, Carol stopped her. “Oh my god, don’t be sorry at all. It’s just a story for another time. I’d much rather talk about you right now.”

As Therese recalled, Ruby sighed. “Wait, did she actually say that?” She did. “‘I’d much rather talk about you?’ Great pivot.”

(Ruby mostly dated men, so there was no doubt in Therese’s mind that she’d never heard the words ‘rather’ and ‘talk’ and ‘about you’ strung together in that order before.)

She stared back at the pictures of Carol, and then the ones of Abby, and felt something else: competitive. What did Abby have that she didn’t? Okay, well, there was actually quite a bit…

“Do you think she’s just using you? Or, rather, used you?”

It had crossed Therese’s mind — only for a fraction of a second. And she would never admit it. But, Therese was an overnight sensation, and, though it felt impossible, her popularity seemed to grow with each passing day. And it was clear that, with such abrupt success, Therese wasn’t completely well-versed in navigating the waters of fame. She knew it left her vulnerable, and others knew, too. If there was a time to use her, it was right now. But it just didn’t make sense, because Carol didn’t hang out with her in a very public way. Exactly the opposite: she still seemed to be hiding. Therese didn’t care, but if she kept seeing Carol, she’d certainly address the topic. Carol wasn’t out. Not officially. So, she wasn’t trying to be pictured or seen with Therese. Therese wasn’t useful to Carol in any way that could make her the target of exploitation.

Therese wasn’t mad. She wasn’t being used. She was just jealous, competitive, and…confused. “Okay, so, breaking news: Carol just sent me a message. Like, just now.”

“She’s feeling guilty.”

Huh. Maybe. Though it didn’t seem likely. Therese talked to Carol in some amount every day. Granted, it rarely came in the form of a minute and a half long voice message, but the channel of communication was very much up and running. And why would Carol ever think to feel guilty?

“Because she’s also been on Instagram today and she knows you spend eight fucking hours a day staring directly at your phone. What’s she saying?”

Therese played it for the two of them. It was a bit rambling. A kind of hi-how-are-you? Where are you? Are you going to this Vanity Fair women-in-music thing next month? And then she added, “that video you posted to your Instagram story of you doing a cartwheel on your bus was super cute anyway hopeyourdayisnicesofarbye.”

If Carol was going to ignore it, Therese decided she would, too.

She responded like A Normal Human Being (she was going to ‘that Vanity Fair thing,’ was Carol?) who was Not Seething Over Abby Gerhard. And quickly, as the days passed, Therese was able to actually ignore it, because nothing about the way Carol talked to her changed. They shared things over Instagram, messaged back and forth for solid portions of the day, nothing seemed…off. She finally had enough free time one night to actually call Carol, talk to her in real time.

are you busy? can i call you?

It started out innocently enough.

“Hey, you.” Carol’s voice was more like a purr.

“Hi, Carol.”

“What’s going on? What are you up to?” Maybe she was totally delusional, but she thought she could hear Carol smile through the phone, that cute one where she tilted her chin down and looked up through her eyelashes.

“Not much, really,” Therese settled back in her bed, let herself get more comfortable. “I’m just laying in bed in my hotel in…”

Where were they again?

Carol laughed at the pause. “Uh oh.”

“‘Uh oh’ is right. I am in…Detroit. My hotel in Detroit.”

“Detroit. That’s fun! They have casinos.”

Therese hadn’t been to a casino in at least five or six years. Carol gasped. How could she not when LA was so close to Vegas? Therese did love Vegas, but she’d been nickle and diming herself for so long that every time she’d gone, she wound up just laying out by the pool all day instead. Carol made a mewling noise and said something like ‘well, that’s certainly not bad…’ Carol had always wanted to get married in Vegas. Apparently, she was an avid gambler. Not, like, the kind where she had a problem, but she had the money and thought it was fun and knew when to tap out. It made sense, she had small line work tattoos of card suits on the knuckles of both of her hands. She said liked baccarat better than blackjack, and blackjack better than roulette, because “the house always wins roulette.” But ultimately, she wasn’t that picky.

“I don’t think I know how to play baccarat. I can only play blackjack.” Therese loved listening to Carol talk. She hadn’t done enough of it when they’d gone out to dinner. She’d spent too much time talking about herself — something she was mortified thinking about in the days later. Carol hadn’t seemed to mind one bit, though.

“It’s very easy. I can teach you sometime.”

“I’d love that.” She considered the possibilities, and then heard what might have been the sound of Carol flopping her head onto a pillow. “What are you up to right now?”

“I’m just laying in bed. I was about to find a movie to watch, but you are far more entertaining.” Therese hummed and Carol continued. “You were in my dream last night, actually. I won’t bore you with details, though.”

“Well, wait. Hang on. Was it a sex dream?”

“Yes. Duh.”

Yes, duh. Therese wanted to scream. Nobody could see her, but she still had to cover her face with her hand, biting down on her lower lip before continuing, “well, maybe you should tell me the details and I can decide if it’s boring or not. And don’t leave anything out.”

…and so the call had started innocently enough, but it certainly hadn’t ended that way. A phone call that left Therese sweating and panting and how could phone sex be that good? It was literally just masturbating while listening to someone else do the exact same thing which, sure, was super hot, but still. Maybe it was because that other person was Carol. Therese just tried to catch her breath and stared at the ceiling, praying the walls in her hotel room weren’t paper thin.

The comfortable, necessary silence in which they’d sat was broken when Carol said, “I want to come see you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I want to come see you, that’s what I mean.”

“When?”

“Now.”

Therese had to sit up. She pulled her knees into her chest. “Now? Right…now?”

Okay, no, not right that second, but as soon as humanly possible. “When do you have a break? Like two or three days between shows?”

Carol was serious. The issue was that, of course Therese's next break between shows was so soon. She played the next two nights in Detroit, “and then I’m in St. Louis for a couple of days before my Saturday show.” She scrolled through her calendar, “but then after that, we’re looking at— ”

“You have off days this Thursday and Friday?” Carol added that it was bad scheduling, Therese shouldn’t have a Friday off, but as the beneficiary, she wasn’t going to complain.

“Well, you can talk to Dannie when you see him.” She still didn’t think Carol would follow through with her half-formed plan.

“I just might. I’m going to look at flights now and I need to focus. I’ll text you the details.” And then she just…hung up.

If Therese was in competition with Abby, which she hadn’t yet confirmed, she felt like she could win, because Carol was sitting backstage at her show in Detroit, waiting for Therese in her dressing room. Or, at least, that’s what Ruby told her when she stepped off stage. Therese absolutely couldn’t believe it. “She got in 20 minutes ago. We got her a salad from Sweetgreen. Actually, we all got one. We got you one, too, it’s— ”

“Ruby!” Time was pretty of the essence. She had an encore to do.

“Right, anyway, she’s in your dressing room. She’s clearly feeling a little shy.”

Shy? No. The question remained: did the car pick up the correct person from the airport? Therese wasn’t fully convinced until she left stage for the final time — this had easily been her best performance to date, she couldn’t put her finger on why, though — and headed downstairs, directly to her dressing room, and opened the door.

And just like that, the brief internal crisis Therese had had about Abby just two weeks prior seemed so far away, and so silly. Because Carol had decided she wanted to see Therese badly enough that, in a matter of 36 hours, give or take, she hopped on a plane and, once again, showed up backstage at her show. This time, she was perched on the little swivel stool by the makeup mirror, her hair in a low bun save for two strands that flowed loosely down the sides of her face and long past her chest. She looked up from the book she was reading and smiled.

Therese shut the door and couldn’t help but laugh. “Sorry, I just cannot believe you’re here right now.”

“Well, hopefully your disbelief comes from a place of excitement, because finding a flight was not the easiest feat.”

“Did you fly first class?”

“You know,” immediate sass, “it’s pretty big of me to almost always fly commercial,” she shut her book and sat up straighter, “so I have to draw the line somewhere.”

As she stared, still getting used to the presence of Carol just across the room, Therese realized she still stood with her back glued to the door, and Carol ten feet away, waiting patiently. Carol had always made the first move. Always closed the distance, whether it was one foot or one thousand miles. She’d flown to Michigan just to see her, and now, Therese knew the ball was in her court. It had to be. It was hard, because Carol was Carol. She was Carol Aird. And it seemed like she always had the upper hand. But she was also, at the end of the day, just a regular person who was clearly into Therese on some level.

She walked to Carol, not letting her stand up from where she sat, slid her hand below her jaw, and kissed her. Really kissed her. She felt Carol sigh and smile right before she pulled away.

A humming noise left the back of Therese’s throat. “I have to go say bye to some people really quickly,” she whispered, still so close to Carol’s face, “my opener is leaving for a few weeks so I want to see them off. Do you have everything you need? What were you drinking?”

“This,” the empty rocks glass with ice nearly melted, “just tonic water and lime. I might switch to something harder later but I took a Xanax this afternoon, so— ”

“Oh, you can totally drink and take Xanax at the same time, my best friend in high school called it bar hopping.”

Carol’s eyes traveled directly to the back of her skull.

“I’m kidding. I mean, she did do that but I don’t think you need to. Anyway… Hi, again.” She tucked a lock of hair behind Carol’s ear and let her gaze wash over every detail of her face: her grey eyes that Carol herself often called ‘colorless,’ the sharp curve of her jaw, her pink lips that still carried the remnants of an unnatural pout, her cheeks that were turning the same color as her lips the longer Therese studied. Therese either needed to look away or kiss her again, so she chose the latter, not letting it get too out of hand because she really did need to go show her face beyond the confines of her dressing room. Eventually. At some point.

But Carol’s hands found a place around Therese’s hips, her thumbs grazing where the little knobs of her bones jutted out. Her hands stayed there after Therese craned her head away, stroking back and forth. She did her best not to squirm out of reach. It wasn’t the least bit awkward having Carol there, but it did feel tense, several things hanging unsaid or unasked between them.

“What are you reading?” Therese didn’t let Carol answer before she pushed the book’s cover into view. Constance Debre. Oh my god. “Carol, this is the gayest book I’ve ever read.”

She laughed, earmarked a page, and set it aside. “My friend gave it to me. She said she thought I’d like it. It’s kind of explicit.”

“Maybe that’s why she thought you’d like it…” Then Therese wondered, and asked, “what friend exactly?”

Carol didn’t catch the shift in her tone, one toward accusation. She just answered, “Jeanette.”

Right, the one in academia. That made sense.

“Anyway, I think I just read the same vignette 20 times and still have no idea what she was saying because I’m so nervous being here that I can’t really concentrate.” It was said in the way that someone who was absolutely not nervous would say something. And then she grinned.

And for somebody who claimed to be nervous, she sure as hell didn’t look it. She looked predatory. And as Therese left her dressing room to go make her rounds, she considered that maybe both things could be true.

Chapter Text

Two Xanax, actually. She’d taken two.

The first was her typical, pre-airport pre-flight dose. Carol considered herself aggressively average in her proclivities, pharmaceutical remedies that abated her disdain for the airport being among them.

The second was when, just before boarding, Carol thought, oh my god, what the fuck am I doing? She splashed water on her face, effectively bidding farewell to the sanctity of her makeup (if all went as planned, she’d have time to reapply before Therese finished her show), and took a good hard look in the mirror at who might’ve been the World’s Dumbest Woman. She unscrewed the cap from the bottle, took a sip of water, inserted the pill between her lips, and swallowed. Another woman stood two sinks down, washing her hands and staring. She finished quickly, and then didn’t bother to wait until she’d completely left the bathroom before Carol heard, “you will never guess who I just saw in the Centurion Lou— ”

Typically, when flying out of New York or LA, she didn’t go through any public thoroughfares. She’d wait in a private lounge, have security escort her to the gate, usually board last, though occasionally first (but never anything otherwise), and remain entirely unbothered. Naomi could’ve arranged everything for her this time, too, despite the time constraint. But she didn’t feel like explaining— going unrecognized wasn't incredibly difficult when her glasses and a hat were involved— instead telling Naomi she’d be out of town for a couple of days, could she help her pack? End of story, would not be accepting questions at this time.

She sat in seat 1A and wondered if the Xanax had expired. Or if Cy had tired of writing her prescriptions without proper evaluation and had given her some sort of placebo.

It was cute, how much warning Therese had given her regarding the circumstances of her tour accommodations, she didn’t think Carol understood. Plus, “unfortunately, we can’t, like, have sex on my bus, because I would honestly have to end it all if any of them heard— ” Of course they couldn’t. Carol wouldn’t even dream of it (well, she might dream of it, but she wouldn’t actually do it). But she knew how it went, how unglamorous life on the road could be.

“I hate to pull this, but when I started dating Harge, his band — which was all dudes, by the way — used the shittiest, grossest bus. I’d sleep in a fucking bunk with Harge. Like, imagine— ”

“I will not imagine, thank you. Even though that was many, many years ago, I’ll take you at your word.”

“One more ‘many’ and you’re lucky to hear from me ever again.”

And it was stupid to make plans when she was on the phone with Therese, because Therese laughed, and all she could think about was what would be the fastest way possible to get to the source of that sound. But she’d only be free of responsibility for so much longer. Carol wouldn’t say she was officially in pre-production mode just yet, but she’d sent Fred nine mostly-formed songs in the past two weeks, and he finally put it bluntly: “let’s get to work.” As much as she loved everything about working on an album, getting locked-in to the process often rendered her a social recluse.

Until then, she’d enjoy the freedom of going wherever the hell she pleased (hilariously St. Louis via Detroit was her destination of choice, likely the first time a person made the journey without the constraint of some sort of contractual obligation), whenever the hell she pleased.

For a brief moment— brief but still much too long— Carol was afraid Therese wasn’t going to kiss her. She sat on the stool, waiting, feeling suddenly very small as Therese stood with her back against the door. Therese was…very beautiful. Even sweaty and disheveled from stage, made up heavily and tights ripped, she somehow looked composed, self possessed in a way that Carol couldn’t imagine when she was her age. And Carol gazed at her and felt an almost unbearable sense of longing. But after so many years of putting up a facade, she did a great job hiding it. Carol knew that creating a veneer of coolness was among her small handful of talents. When Therese did kiss her, she cracked for a brief moment, grinned in a way she knew looked silly before collecting herself once again. She wasn’t completely sure what she was doing, why she’d gotten on a flight that evening, why doing so seemed so essential to her well being, but Therese was there, and she was chatty and smiley and downright giddy, so Carol was at least pretty confident she wasn’t, in fact, the World’s Dumbest Woman.

When Therese was eight, pop music was invented.

That’s how she remembered it, anyway, because, before then, she didn’t think she’d ever heard it.

Sure, pop music must’ve been playing faintly on the radio overhead as she hid in the clothing racks at TJ Maxx, or through the speakers of whatever strip-mall chain restaurants her parents took her and her brothers to on occasion, trying and failing to penetrate the raucous chatter of diners, or maybe Therese heard it on the school bus, or in the cars of friends’ parents, but until she was eight, it hadn’t stayed with her. When she was eight, a singer named Franki D had a song that crawled into Therese’s ears and never left. To this day, it was the only song Therese knew by her, because she was the very definition of a one-hit wonder, and, though that one song was formative, it wasn’t technically outstanding enough for Therese to pay her discography any further exploration.

She quickly learned, too, after begging her mom to keep the song on when it played on the radio in her car, that pop music was unsophisticated and banal, made by people (not musicians) who lacked both creativity and skill. The assessment wasn’t served to her in quite so many words, instead it was her oldest brother who said, “this song fucking sucks.”

“Jake, don’t say fuck,” her mom swatted toward where he sat in the passenger seat.

“You just said it.”

“Yeah, because I’m a fuckin’ adult.”

Therese remembered giggling when her mom said this, because she looked into the rearview mirror, caught Therese’s gaze, and winked. A fleeting moment of comradery that would eventually grow less and less frequent. Jake repeated that he still hated it, and thought it sucked. Her other brother agreed. And her mother must’ve, too, because Therese lost her battle, and the station was changed.

Jake and Cam listened to real music, they said, and Therese figured if that’s what they said, then it must’ve been true, because they were usually right about everything. So she listened to the bands that they liked, the songs they played, real music, until she was about ten.

That was when Carol Aird entered the public consciousness, whether the public liked it or not.

Therese asked for her CD for Christmas and didn’t get it, because her mother couldn’t stand Carol Aird, “she’s crude,” (which was a weird take, considering Therese had heard the lyrical content of the stacks of pop-punk CDs in her brothers’ bedroom), but Therese was ten, and figured if her mom said it, maybe she was right. And unfortunately for her, her dad had already uninstalled Limewire after Jake nearly ruined the family’s computer.

(Less successful were her dad’s attempts to uninstall the virus that caused ads for adult chat sites to pop up every five minutes.)

But that same year, Therese’s parents bought Jake a new iPod for Christmas, and, as sibling succession went, Cam got Jake’s old one, and Therese got Cam’s, and, with it, all of the music he listened to that Therese couldn’t figure out how to offload. And so between attempts at adding songs of her own choosing, she settled on listening to a lot of gravelly voiced dudes whine into a microphone while the same three power chords played over and over again. She thought most of the stuff was god-awful, but her friends liked that kind of music because the boys in their class liked it, too. Plus, they thought the guys in the bands were cute, and Therese supposed she agreed. And there was one band— a band called Victors who only had two (critically rocky but commercially popular) albums— that Therese thought was halfway decent.

Typical of any group of girlfriends at any point in history, when Therese and her friends listened to a band, they divvied up the members accordingly; their crushes had to be spread evenly, avoiding overlap. The only exception was made for Victors, because Harge Maddox was in a league of his own.

(Looking back, he absolutely wasn’t, but for whatever reason, he seemed like The Only Man in the World at the time.)

Harge was tall, a bit lanky but still muscular, with dark shaggy hair and a cigarette permanently lodged between his teeth. He was the band’s lead singer and sometimes the bassist and consequently he was placed dead center of every poster or promo pic.

Soon after her career took off, and not long before the complete dissolution of Victors, Carol Aird began dating Harge Maddox. And, as tradition went, every preteen and teenage girl (and certainly an embarrassingly high number whose ages no longer began with the number 1) decided they absolutely fucking hated her, a sentiment that did not bypass Therese and her friends. Because, of course, the only thing that kept Harge Maddox— a 25-year-old man with full sleeves of tattoos and a Ducati Monster— from falling madly in love with a nearly prepubescent sixth grade girl at Downing Middle School in suburban Reno, Nevada, was Carol Aird. Her existence and absolutely nothing else was what stood between them and the man of their dreams.

If further evidence of Carol Aird’s demonic nature was needed, the breakup of Harge’s band less than a year after their relationship’s conception provided proof beyond reasonable doubt. When Therese opened a magazine, a tabloid, and saw a picture of Carol Aird and Harge Maddox walking down the street in New York City, she, along with her friends, bemoaned ‘one day, that’ll be me.’

The memory was pretty deeply buried, in great part due to total insignificance, but when Therese slid the door shut to her tiny bedroom at the back of her tour bus, she looked at Carol, seated on her bed, tugging her hair out of its bun, and wondered if it could still be a self-fulfilling prophecy when the original desires were ambiguous.

Carol smiled, and Therese began to see the nerves Carol had spoken of earlier. Probably more pronounced now that they were trapped on the freeway for the next eight or so hours. Luckily, Therese’s tour bus wasn’t as crowded as it could’ve been, given, of course…the sudden budget increase. “When’s the last time you were on a bus?”

Another smile, though this one tinged with satisfaction. “Well, my last tour. Four years ago.”

“Give me a fucking break.” There was no way. “You didn’t fly everywhere?”

“Not everywhere. Most of the time, sure, but sometimes it’s way less convenient to fly. You’ll see.”

You’ll see because Carol was so confident that Therese would one day be touring like she did. Because Carol had somehow, somewhere along the way, become her cheerleader.

Therese changed into her sleep shorts and heard Carol sigh. “Are those the shorts you told me you wore to bed when I called you on my birthday?”

“Oh…yeah, they are.” They were just black silk, and Therese had owned them for so long that they were beginning to get ratty, a hole in the back and loose threads everywhere.

“I see, I see,” Carol hummed and then pulled on the hem lightly, coaxing Therese to stand closer so she could tug on the front of her shirt. “This is torture, you know. It’s what they do to detainees at black sites.”

Therese’s lips were almost touching hers when she said, “well if it helps at all, I probably smell like sweat from stage. You probably don’t want to get near me, let alone— ”

She was cut off when Carol dragged her down onto the bed next to her. Not for anything nefarious, just to lay.

The easy part of Carol’s presence during the three days was simply being with her. They stayed up too late watching Tiktoks in bed on the bus, a text from Dannie hearing you two enjoying each others company is almost more sickening than hearing you fuck serving as a reminder to actually get some sleep (and to shut the fuck up). Then, of course, when they arrived at the hotel, they finally finally finally could have sex. That night, Carol insisted that they go to the dinner that Ruby organized, because it was good for Therese to do things like that, and while Therese was selfishly annoyed to share the very little time she had with Carol, there was something electrifying about seeing her seamlessly integrate into Therese’s group of friends. She was funny, too, and when the awestruck waiter asked if there were any dietary restrictions after Dannie ordered just about one of everything on the menu, Carol put a hand over Phil’s mouth before he could speak: “well, yes, because they’re all from LA, but to save you the mental breakdown, we’re just going to say ‘no’ and you can trust nobody here will go into anaphylactic shock.” She never kissed Therese in front of her friends, or did anything close to it— not at the restaurant or the bar they went to after or the bar they went to after that— but to be fair, neither did Therese.

It was strange, because everyone knew why Carol was there. They had to, because they weren’t stupid. If they cared, if they were scandalized, they didn’t make it known. And even if Carol didn’t kiss or touch Therese in front of her friends, she sure stared at her enough to make up for it. It was nearly 2am when Therese decided that she’d had enough of Carol eye fucking her all night— she wanted to actually fuck. She was decently drunk and so was Carol. Therese brushed her hand over Carol’s knee and up her thigh, under the table and out of sight of anyone else in their booth, and whispered, “I’m tired.”

“Great let’s leave.”

The entirety of the two days was beyond enjoyable. They laid in bed, scoured the internet for the decidedly best coffee shop, visited said coffee shop, went to a vintage store, went to a record store— Carol bought a rare, original press of a Mad Season vinyl for Harge; his birthday was coming up.

“We have the same birthday,” Therese told her.

“August 19th?”

“Mhmm.”

“Well…that’s easy for me.”

A stoned goth kid with a double nose piercing and black and green hair eyed Carol as he rang her up. “Do people ever tell you that you look exactly like Carol Aird?”

She paid cash, waited a beat, and then smiled. “I don’t think I’ve ever gotten that one. Thanks. Maybe.”

He smirked. “No, it’s a compliment. She’s a total babe. Not that— I’m not trying to be creepy. I’m not…it’s just uncanny. Please don’t tell my boss I said that.”

Carol smiled, maybe more satisfied than Therese had ever seen her. She winked at him, effectively quelling his fears of sudden unemployment. “Have a good night.”

All was well until they were sitting at dinner. It was just the two of them, and neither cared where they went, so they picked a random place a stone’s throw away from the hotel.

It took every bit of courage for Therese to finally broach the topic. “Can I ask you a question?”

“You can ask me anything.” An answer from somebody who likely did not see what was coming.

But those were Carol’s words, so she proceeded. “So, you hung out with Abby…”

Carol stopped thumbing the stem of her wine glass. The fingers she had tucking her hair behind her ear paused mid route. She didn’t look up right away, and Therese felt kind of bad. She knew that Abby was a sore subject for Carol, but if she’d avoided asking any longer, she would’ve driven herself a little crazy. But maybe mentioning it wasn’t—

“That wasn’t a question.”

Well, okay, sure. But Carol was just being purposefully obtuse.

“I guess…I guess I’m just wondering how that was.” When she did meet Therese’s gaze, she looked guilty, almost ashamed. That was not Therese’s goal in the slightest. “Never mind, you don’t have to— ”

“It was fine. We just got dinner. She was in town.”

“Did you sleep with her?” Therese even surprised herself with the question.

This time, Carol just nodded in confirmation. She didn’t look away, or offer explanation, she just…nodded.

And that was really all Therese could think to ask. She was about to introduce some clunky segue when Carol asked, “are you mad?”

“Oh, Carol, no. Of course I’m not mad.” That was the truth, after all. “I’m maybe just kind of jealous, but I’m not mad.”

“Yeah, I don’t know, she just reached out and I hadn’t seen her in a while. We haven’t really spoken. And it was fun. Catching up and whatnot. It was nice. I guess I slept with her because I wanted to, but also because I didn’t know how to not. If that makes sense…”

It did. “You don’t have to explain yourself, you know. I’m just asking because I’m nosy. It’s not like we’re together or, like, dating or anything. So you didn’t even really have to answer me in the first place.” Therese wondered if her laugh sounded as forced as it felt. “Seriously, though. You don’t owe me anything. I was just wondering.”

“Right. But still, you’re my friend and I like you and I want to be honest with you.”

Therese really, truly appreciated that. What she didn’t appreciate was…

“She told me she’s probably moving to New York.”

That.

“And if she actually does move, I don’t know what that means. I might’ve fucked up a little, sleeping with her after she said all of that. But maybe she doesn’t want anything.”

Even if Carol and Therese were just friends, the thought of Abby moving to New York, closer to Carol, put a sour taste in her mouth. Her eyes rolled and she knew Carol saw and didn’t say anything. This part…this was making her angry. Not toward Carol, but Abby. It seemed so calculated. She could just move to New York and not bother Carol. It was a big city, after all, and, like Carol said, they hadn’t spoken. Reconnecting now was intentional. Swimming among her jealousy and dread was something else. It wasn’t irritation, and it wasn’t quite pity, but she felt a bit heartbroken for Carol. The push and pull, even four years later, couldn’t have felt particularly great.

“Okay, so this— last question, by the way— I’m only asking because the last time Abby was brought up, you got sort of…” Therese searched, but Carol helped.

“Upset?”

“A little bit. But, after seeing her and everything, are you…okay?”

Therese could hear everything as the seconds passed: the beat of a cocktail shaker from behind the bar, chatter from tables on either of their sides, the clink of glasses, the screech of a chair against the hardwood floor, everything but Carol’s answer, because for a while, she didn’t. She just stared. And then, “yeah, I’m fine.”

It didn’t totally put a damper on the rest of the night, but Therese couldn’t tell if she’d regret having brought it up. Carol got a lot quieter, but also a little bit clingy. Maybe saying something was for the best, because that night, Therese was pretty sure she had the best sex she’d ever had in her life.

In the morning, Therese woke up when she felt the bed dip behind her, a hand anchored to the mattress creating a groove that caused her to roll back. When she (sort of) opened her eyes, Carol hovered over her, looking down. Her hair was long, and hanging around her face like drapery. She blew at it, which didn’t do much, so Therese reached up to push it over one side of her neck.

“I have to get going soon.”

Therese pouted. “I know.”

She couldn’t just stay with Therese indefinitely because, well, she had a life. A very busy one, in fact. And she had Rindy. Carol told Therese that one of the nice things about being divorced was shared custody. Therese had asked if Carol liked being a mom, because it seemed like she did. (Finn, her sound engineer, asked if Carol had hand lotion, which she did, and when Therese asked, “why did you assume she had hand lotion?” Carol answered before he could, “I’m a mom.”) It seemed like she enjoyed the persona of being a mom, the status of it. What Carol explained, though, was that she initially didn’t like it after years of thinking she would, and it made her feel like a total failure. And then her marriage failed, due to her own actions, and it somehow afforded her the opportunity to be a better mom, and enjoy it in the way she’d always thought she would, because she had time to be her own person, too.

Carol laid on top of her, kissed her shoulder, and then rolled off the bed. Before grabbing clothes and heading off to shower, she tossed a shirt at Therese, “oh, you left this at the restaurant, by the way, not the movie theater.”

“Wait, how’d you get this?”

“What do you mean ‘how’d I get this?’ I walked over and got it. It’s really cute. And it doesn’t seem particularly cheap.”

It wasn’t. It was thrifted, but it was designer, so still relatively expensive.

“Thank you so much. You didn’t have to do that.”

Carol just shrugged and stuck a toothbrush in her mouth.

“Can I ask you something?”

The response was less enthusiastic this time. Carol’s eyes darted toward Therese, and she hesitated. “I suppose…”

Therese had questions. She wanted to know why Carol wasn’t out, because she’d spent her career as a gay icon, a champion for the people who propelled her to success. She also wanted to know when she’d start working on her album, because, honestly, Therese kind of wanted more of her music; she missed it. She wanted to know if Carol still dated men, or if she wanted to date men. But those were all pretty long winded, so she settled for an easier one:

“Why didn’t you just fly to St. Louis to meet me? Not that I wasn’t super happy with the alternative, but it just seems like it was a way bigger hassle to meet me in Detroit and then have to ride with us…”

Maybe it wasn’t such an easy question. Because there was a long silence, only filled by the sounds of running water and hands rifling through a toiletry bag. “I really like this hotel. I’ll have to remember it if I have the misfortune of spending time in St. Louis again.”

Therese didn’t press.

In the back of the car on the ride to the airport, Carol took a Xanax— just one this time— and caught up on her 55 unread messages: Rindy’s nanny giving mundane updates regarding Rindy’s schedule (Harge and Carol sometimes called Florence ‘Rindy’s manager,’ and they paid her accordingly, too), her dad confirming that Carol and Rindy would be coming to Connecticut to visit him and her grandmother that week, Naomi bitching about Carol’s housekeeper, Katy bitching about Denise, and then a new one from Therese, thanking her for coming and telling her she’d see her in LA in a few weeks. Carol had been incredibly annoyed at Denise’s insistence that she attend the Vanity Fair lunch until she learned Therese would also be there. After learning that, her tune changed entirely.

It was late afternoon when she got home. She abandoned her suitcase in the vestibule, took off her shoes, and went up to her studio and worked until early in the morning.

When Harge arrived with Rindy the next day, Carol hoisted Rindy into her arms while Harge poked around the entryway.

“What’s with the suitcase? Were you out of town?”

Carol always told Harge when she was leaving the city, but not this time.

“Just for a couple of days. It was last minute.”

“LA?”

“No. Have you two eaten lunch?” The question was directed toward Rindy, who shook her head. They wandered into the kitchen, leaving Harge to let himself inside. It wasn’t like he was exactly a guest.

“Where were you then?”

He knew it wouldn’t have been Chicago or Wisconsin, because Cy and Jeanette were in Mallorca with Jeanette’s parents, so she didn’t bother spinning that lie. Carol rummaged through the fridge. It was a distraction, and not a particularly good one— they both knew Carol didn’t cook. She made exactly three things: peanut butter and jelly, grilled cheese, and boxed macaroni. Her excuse was always that she had trouble following recipes (whoever decided to make tbs and tbps the abbreviations for wildly different measurements should’ve been shot in the street), which was only half true. The other half was that she didn’t care to learn. Not at this point in her life.

“Not important.”

Harge’s eyes narrowed. He smirked, and maybe guessed the nature of why she’d left town. “Mhmm.”

She let go of her little homemaker charade, shut the fridge, and glanced at her phone. Both Therese and Abby had texted her within the same five minute period. It was the first she’d heard from Abby since they’d had dinner. (When she'd told Therese about Abby, Therese wasn't upset. She was a little concerned. And it was so nice, almost too nice, and for a second Carol thought she might cry.) Awash with both excitement and dread, she didn’t let her face give her away, because Harge was still staring, amused. He thought he could get her to crack, but she wouldn’t. Both texts went unread for the moment. She turned to Rindy, “let’s go out for lunch,” and then told Harge could come if promised to drop it.

Chapter Text

Keeping a low profile with Harge and Rindy in tow was a hell of a lot more challenging. Harge always looked the same, easily recognizable. And then there was the presence of Rindy. A child walking into a room drew attention. People had opinions about children, strong ones, about where they should and should not be, where and when it was acceptable to hear them, and, of course, whether or not they should be staring at a screen. As soon as a kid entered the space, it warranted a glance at the very least. The glance would move from Rindy to the person who the onlooker could directly blame were Rindy not to act in a way congruent with their specifically crafted set of decorum: her mother. (It was never the father’s responsibility to parent, of course.) But since Harge was there, the glances would then bounce to him, back to Carol, to Rindy, to Harge and— ah— recognition.

Contrary to how it was often depicted in film or television, the sound of a room’s collective realization of the presence of a celebrity was not a shriek, but instead, silence. Voices lowered, conversations suddenly very close, ‘I think that’s Carol Aird and Harge Maddox. There. No! Don’t look— ’

It wasn’t as if it really mattered. Carol didn’t expect any violins to be played for the pains of being rich and famous. She just felt a bit on display.

They settled into a table and Carol removed her sunglasses, leaning back in her chair and folding her arms as she watched Rindy parse the menu. She could feel Harge studying her. It took them a long time to get to where they were, to a friendship free of resentment and full of understanding. Carol knew she was lucky— she was so, so lucky to have someone like Harge. Co-parenting could’ve been a nightmare, but he loved Carol enough to make it work. Years of couples therapy helped, too. But right now he was staring at her and she sort of wanted him to fuck off.

“You know, I actually wanted to talk to you about something.”

Carol’s interest piqued. Harge was rarely so direct. “Which is…?”

“So, that Coppola film I’m doing, you know? I’m still doing it, but I’m taking a bigger role.”

“Oh, that’s great.”

“Yeah, yeah. But, I’ll need to be in LA for longer. Now we’re looking at, like, six weeks instead of two.”

Ah. Carol knew what this meant. What it meant was that he’d beaten Carol to a scheduling conflict. He didn’t know it yet, because unless he’d meticulously studied Carol’s calendar (which neither of them were prone to do) then he didn’t know she was blocking off swaths of time to start working again. It was, of course, all tentative. She hadn’t even met with her label to come up with a timeline. But regardless, Harge could always use the excuse that he actually had a job— one that he hilariously called a real job— that required him to be in a particular place, on a particular day, at a particular time. Carol, on the other hand, had a more fluid agenda. At least, that was how Harge treated it. “You’ll be in LA all of September? Because that kind of fu— messes things up for me.”

To his credit, Harge looked excited once it clicked. “Wait, you’re going to start recording?”

Harge had always been supportive of Carol. She was, after all, the one who’d kept their bills paid throughout most of their marriage. Not that Harge didn’t make a ridiculous amount of money himself, but the lifestyle they led outpaced what he took home.

They’d met when Carol was on her first ever tour. Her record label had booked her a decently sized club tour. Similar to Therese’s current predicament, Carol’s popularity quickly rose, creating a demand for tickets that eclipsed venues’ capacities. When she neared the end of the US-leg, she was debatably one of the most famous people in the world. Huge in Japan. That’s when her friend— her makeup artist at the time, Joey— introduced her to Harge Maddox. He’d told her before a show one night, in San Diego, that his friend had driven down from LA just to catch her performance. “We used to bartend at Akbar together. He’s straight, though. He’d pull incredible tips because he’s so hot.”

A straight guy driving over 100 miles to see Carol Aird? She shrugged. She wasn’t all that interested, but she’d meet him.

The first words out of his mouth when Joey took him backstage were, “I’m obsessed with you.”

It was pretty charming. Carol recognized him from his band. She was extremely surprised he was even remotely interested in the music she made. “That’s so flattering, thank you. You’re— your band is— ”

Harge waved his hands to cut her off. “You don’t have to do that. I just wanted to say that you’re incredible. That was incredible. It was maybe the most fun I’ve ever had.”

He had to leave. He needed to drive back to LA that night. “But trust me: I’ll see you again. Soon. Even if you don’t see me.” He gave her a little ‘I’m watching you’ salute and left out the back door.

So at the mention of a new album on the horizon, Harge reacted like the fan he was.

“Well,” Carol watched Rindy closely as she picked up her water glass and brought it to her lips, trying hard not to spill anything, then turned her attention back to Harge. “That’s the plan. It’s all tentative though. I was hoping to get the ball rolling in September, but— ”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don’t worry. We’ll figure it out. Maybe Rindy can cut school for a week or so and come out to LA for a bit. Hang out on set.”

“Harge, she can’t just ‘cut school.’ We’ll talk to Florence about it.”

Rindy curled her lip. She seemed to enjoy school about as much as Carol had, which was cause for mild concern.

They’d figure it out, Harge assured. His other request, however, momentarily gave Carol cause for panic. Could she get the extra car out of their garage? Harge was under the impression that the Mercedes in question was a Carol impulse purchase. She’d never told him it was Abby’s, and Abby had only bought it because Carol convinced her to— Abby collected cars, which Carol thought was a tacky hobby, too ostentatious and extraordinarily out of touch, but if Abby bought it, she’d use it for her music video. The music video never happened, and Abby clearly hadn’t rushed to get the car back, because there they were, four years later, Harge still none the wiser.

“Why? It’s not like we need the space.” She’d fucking have to text Abby. Something she was avoiding only because she knew she was about as strong as wet newspaper. Maybe Naomi could just connect with Abby’s assistant du jour.

“Okay, look, the other part of this is…I’m sort of seeing somebody, and I wanted her to come out to LA with me. And she’d…need space to park a car. If this is okay with you.” There was a considerable pause until he tacked on, “and I’m buying another bike.”

“Oh, c’mon, Harge.”

Carol secretly knew Harge was dating someone. And she knew who. Her name was Greta and she was a model and 25 years old. Up until recently, Carol thought it was gross of Harge to date someone so young. It was ridiculous, but Carol had begun comparing herself to Greta once she read that Harge was dating her. She wasn’t sure if it was jealousy. She didn’t think she was jealous of Greta, not for dating Harge— she certainly didn’t wish to get back together with him— but she couldn’t help but feel insecure that Harge had moved on with somebody younger, somebody (almost impossibly) thinner, somebody taller, more beautiful, whose skin hadn’t yet been kissed by the burden of age.

“Greta Jansen?”

“How did you…?”

“Deuxmoi.”

Harge hung his head. “Excellent.”

While being a celebrity was full of perks she wouldn’t really trade, it didn’t come without its downsides, like seeing pictures of her ex-husband holding hands with a literal supermodel on Instagram, or like the time she was reminded of her impending divorce via a Google News alert.

When Carol ordered— grilled salmon salad, no croutons, no almonds, dressing on the side— Harge raised an eyebrow, added fries for the table, and once their waiter departed, asked, “what’s with the shitty restriction meal?”

“I don’t feel good.”

“What have you eaten today that isn’t tiny, round, and about the size of your pinky nail?”

They both knew the answer was nothing. She’d taken her antidepressant with a sip of iced coffee, and then did the same with her birth control, ibuprofen, and a handful of supplements. Plus, she ate and drank like a king all weekend, the mention of which fueled another inquisitive look from Harge. “And I’m going to that Vanity Fair thing in a few weeks. I’m just trying to detox a bit. I need to, you know,” she circled her hand around her face, “refresh.”

“Ah. I see.”

Rindy chose that moment to insert herself in the conversation, no longer amused by the game she’d been playing on her iPad. She mimicked Carol’s hand gesture and asked, “what’s ‘refresh?’”

“Your mom is getting— ”

“—a facial,” Carol finished, and then shielded the side of her face out of view of Rindy and mouthed shut the fuck up.

Rindy knew what a facial was because Carol got one every month or so. That level of vanity already felt like too much for Rindy to know about at such a young age, so explaining to her that her mother was getting an expertly administered dose of hyaluronic acid distributed throughout her face felt like a bridge too far. Nobody could teach a girl how to hate herself better than her mother could. She did not want to be that mother. And the last thing Carol needed was for Rindy to start the school year talking to her friends about the filler her mom had gotten over summer vacation. Not that nearly every other mother (and a fair amount of fathers) didn’t do the same. Most of the parents at St. Ann’s were wealthy, several worked in the entertainment industry, but only one was Carol Aird. During one of her first weeks at the school, Rindy asked a group of her classmates what songs their moms sang. She didn’t know that not everybody’s parents were professional singers. While adorable, it left Carol feeling a little ostracized.

Harge smirked and said, “I don’t think you need to get anything done, but whatever makes you happy, Care.”

When they parted ways, Rindy hugged Harge for a long time before he pulled away and said, “I’ll see you girls next week.”

Carol wondered if Rindy liked Harge better than her. If she’d remembered what a mess her mother had been when she was a toddler. That had to be impossible, right? She hadn’t asked, but she wondered if Rindy had met Greta, and if she had, had she liked her? She was pretty certain that Harge wouldn’t introduce Rindy to someone he was dating without checking with Carol first, but then again, this was new territory.

The question continued to nag her on their ride up to Connecticut that week— in a different way. She thought about Therese, if Therese liked kids, if she’d like Rindy. Rindy would like Therese, Carol knew that already. If Therese was ever in town during a week that Carol had Rindy, could Carol introduce the two of them? Without having to run it past Harge? After all, they were friends. Rindy had met plenty of Carol’s friends. What was one more? But it was different. Carol wasn’t an idiot. She wouldn’t be questioning herself if she’d actually been able to properly compartmentalize Therese as ‘just a friend.’ She supposed that was her problem, though.

Carol’s father still lived in the same house he always had, the same house where Carol had grown up.

And she couldn’t say it held the finest of memories.

It wasn’t her dad’s fault. Not entirely, anyway. He wasn’t abusive or an alcoholic, he wasn’t directly the cause of any childhood trauma. Even her parents’ divorce hadn’t been all that hard on Carol. They chose the untraditional, legally convoluted way of divorcing, with her mom moving to the exact opposite side of the country, creating what could’ve been a custody battle for the ages, but when Carol requested to stay primarily with her father, her mother didn’t push too much.

The house wasn’t massive. It wasn’t small either. But it was expensive. Carol didn’t know how much her dad had purchased it for, but she did know that, if he wanted to downsize, or just move (closer to the city! to her!), he could sell it for several million dollars. He’d initially operated under the fantasy that, one day, Carol and Rindy and, at the time, Harge, would want it, trade their Brooklyn brownstone for a Cape Cod-style house, “yard, and all.”

“We have a yard.”

“You have a stoop.”

New Canaan was a wealthy area of Connecticut. It was almost a part of the New York Metropolitan area, and was still far enough to have a distinctly small town identity. Carol could walk to the little downtown area with her friends, stay at the park past sundown, and run through the streets without looking to see if cars were coming.

She didn’t start resenting her hometown until she was a teenager.

Eighth grade was when Carol’s dad sent her to Linden Country Day School. Despite the name, Linden Country Day School offered a boarding program. In fact, a majority of the students were boarding students. Carol was not among them.

Linden Country Day cost tens of thousands of dollars a year and was as close a guarantee that students would attend an Ivy as could be. Carol was pretty sure nobody was convincing her father that Carol would be among them.

Linden Country Day was an over 45 minute drive from New Canaan, so none of her friends from elementary school attended. None of the other kids at Linden lived in New Canaan, either. Carol’s status at her new school was solidified early on: when there was a test in her English Composition class, a teaching assistant came into the room, pointed at Carol, and told her she’d “take her to the learning center.” Half the class snickered and Brad Bates whispered, “is she, like, retarded or something?” After that, every month or two, Carol would scream and cry and beg her dad to send her to Interlochen, the arts school in Michigan where she already went to camp every summer, and every time, it was an emphatic, “no.” Carol went to one of the top ten high schools in the United States, they weren’t going to pull her out just because some kid was mean to her one time.

But it wasn’t just her peers— in fact, it was much less about them than it was about her teachers. Carol’s teachers were clearly frustrated with her, ill-equipped to provide her with help, considering the rigor demanded by the school’s curriculum assumed students operated at an extremely advanced level in nearly every subject. It was obvious Carol was gifted: she was exceptionally well-spoken, analytical, and beyond creative, but that wasn’t a winning combination academically.

The experience was isolating enough that when Carol began to realize she might not really, super be into boys, she decided that simply wouldn’t be the case. She didn’t need another target on her back. Besides, when she left high school, she was going to become a famous singer, and she’d let absolutely nothing get in the way of that.

But there was one great thing about New Canaan: Carol’s grandmother lived there. Carol footed the bill for what was one of the most expensive assisted living communities in Connecticut. She’d pay 100 times the price if required, though.

Rindy sat on on Carol's grandmother’s lap and told her about her week, about her friends, about her lunch with her parents, about Carol’s facial ‘refresh’ which earned Carol a pointed look from her grandmother. She didn’t like it when Carol touched her face. And then they did what they always did: ate pull-apart Twizzlers and watched the news while Rindy sat on the floor and tore through a coloring book. The news was actually TMZ. Every person mentioned, her grandmother would ask, “what’s she like?”

Kim Montgomery was an actress on a very popular television show. “Huge bitch,” Carol whispered. “New assistant, like, every other week. I’ve only met her once or twice. She’s so mean.”

Noosha was an R&B singer that Carol would describe as her peer, though maybe Noosha would claim slight superiority over Carol, which Carol wouldn’t necessarily argue. But if there was anyone as enduringly successful over the past two decades as Carol Aird, it was Noosha. “Aw, Noosh.” Everyone knew they were friends, her grandma included. “I’m surprised they have paparazzi footage of her, though, I thought she’d paid them all off.”

And then there was Abby Gerhard, leaving a restaurant in LA with a group of friends. Carol didn’t offer up anything, so her grandma asked, “any updates from Abby? Anything since you had your falling out?”

“Um, not really.” When Carol told her grandma that she and Harge were divorcing, she didn’t try to hide her disappointment. She was a little bit old-fashioned. Not unexpectedly so, considering she was in her nineties and pretty fucking Catholic. There was no question that she’d been privy to speculation surrounding Carol and Abby’s friendship, but the topic was never broached. Carol was far too nervous to say anything, and her grandma never asked. Nobody in her family knew for sure besides her sister. She’d been sad when Carol skipped Christmas with her the year of her divorce and said, “if you think I’d judge you because of everything that happened with Abby, then Carol— ” and Carol completely cracked open, sobbing relief and sorrow all at once.

It was strange though, that her grandma chose that moment to seemingly change the subject, asking, “anybody new in your life that I should know about?” She poked Carol’s thigh and Carol almost choked.

Was it a lie when she said, “no, grandma, just me” …?

She squirmed in her spot on the sofa, her grandma’s stare making her nervous. Carol’s answer to her question wasn’t really a lie, but she lied to her over and over again by omission. Suddenly, she was overcome with the urge to cry, her chest tight and eyes stinging, so she laid down and put her head in her grandma’s lap so she wouldn’t see. The tears just sort of spilled out, either imperceptible or ignored, and she felt a hand run over her hair, smoothing it out of the way. Poking at the spot behind Carol’s ear, her grandma asked, “is this new?” and Carol remembered she’d gotten a tattoo of a rose there somewhat recently. Not quite able to talk yet, she just hummed, “mhmm,” before clearing her throat.

“How many do you have now?”

“Oh, god, I don’t know…27?”

Her grandma gasped, just to be dramatic, and Rindy turned around from her spot on the carpet and giggled.

Carol didn’t like lying, not to her grandma. But she was 97, and Carol didn’t want to lose her before she had to lose her.

Waking up in her dad’s house, in her childhood bedroom, was jarring. It didn’t look much like the room she’d left; her dad had taken down the posters, thrown away most of the notebooks with scribbles and doodles, painted over where Carol had scrawled “I fucking hate it here!!!!” beside her bed. Save for the layout and the full sized bed, it was transformed. Still, she felt just about sixteen years old as she pouted at her phone’s idle screen.

It was her turn to text, but she decided she didn’t want to do that. Therese had texted her days ago, Carol had just heart-reacted to the message, and had since been waiting for Therese to, once again, reach out. Was she too old for this? Absolutely. She was 42. She had an entire child, one she could hear prancing around the hallway outside her bedroom, and yet, she couldn’t help but indulge her angst. She’d spent days staring at a black screen, waiting for it to light up with a notification. The last time she’d acted like this was with Abby, but Abby was far easier.

Carol didn’t believe in manifestation, or karma, or any sort of cosmically ascribed inferences, and she maybe didn’t believe in God. Certainly not in the man-in-the-sky kind of way. She didn’t pray, and if she did, if she did and she believed in an omniscient power who was always watching, she wouldn’t waste his (His?) time on praying for Therese to text her back, not when tragedy was occuring on catastrophic scales around the world. But in that moment, Therese did finally text her back, and she quietly thanked all of the above. She smiled, then frowned. She wanted to FaceTime. Easy for a 20-something who was likely up and in full makeup for any number of reasons. Still, she supposed she’d oblige.

Therese was not in full makeup. She wasn’t in any makeup. She was, like Carol, lying in bed. Which was so much better.

“You know,” was the first thing Therese said when Carol answered the call. “I’ve clearly been talking to you or about you or I’ve been around you too much, because— ”

“Impossible. I’m amazing. But continue.”

“ —and so humble. Because you’re all over my Instagram explore page now. I look like a stalker.”

“I’ve actually had quite a few stalkers. And I think if they were anything like you, they’d have a much different story to tell.”

Therese laughed and hid her face. She was on her bus, on her way to Salt Lake City, and then San Francisco, and then finally home, to LA. And she was just trying to kill time but wound up inundated with Carol Aird content. Carol didn’t admit it, but she couldn’t say she was particularly mad about big tech spying on Therese in that moment, if it meant that she’d be served little reminders of Carol anytime she went to do something as mundane as checking Instagram. Maybe it depended on what exactly was coming up, though…

“A lot of clips from interviews you were doing for the Oscars. The video of you winning. You pulled off surprised very well, by the way.”

“Because I was surprised.” That night, when her name was called, everyone stood up before she did, which was another surprise. It was redemption, for sure, and everyone knew it. She’d spent years keeping a low profile, knowing she was undoubtedly the bad guy in every scenario. To experience vindication at the Oscars, though— an event she mostly viewed through the lens of Harge or Abby— was unexpected.

“I can’t really imagine why, but okay. I also keep getting fed the video of you performing that other song at the Oscars like 10 years ago. You guys were robbed.”

Ah, yes. That. She and Fred had written a song for a movie and gotten nominated the same year that what might as well have been “My Heart Will Go On Part 2” was nominated. They weren’t robbed. They just hadn’t stood a chance. Carol begrudgingly performed it with Fred, deciding that she’d never perform at the Oscars again, “it’s so weird because it’s this big theater, but you aren’t playing for a room of musicians like the Grammys, so everyone is just sitting and staring and it’s just so different from my style. Our style.”

“Like a choir recital.”

“Sort of, yes. Everyone is very serious. And I was, like, basically crying on stage. It made us look fabulous but, in reality, I was just pregnant and my hormones were freaking out.”

“Well, I’ve watched it like ten times now. Anyway…where are you? What are you doing? Where have you been?”

Heavy sigh. Dad’s house. Just waking up. Been with Rindy. “Was starting to think I wouldn’t be hearing from you until we ran into each other in LA…”

“For the record, you all but left me on read. Can I see your room?”

“Sure…” Carol gave Therese a detailed tour of where things used to be. She tried to convince herself that this was normal friendly behavior. If Jeanette or Naomi or Katy or Tess, her best friend from Berklee, called her while she was in Connecticut, she’d probably just lay in bed and FaceTime them for hours. Jeanette might ask to see her room. Maybe. She’d tease her a lot less than Therese did, though.

“And this is the keyboard I was given in middle school…”

“I see, I see. This is where you’d write your little sad girl songs? Play Fiona Apple covers?”

“Listen,” Carol turned the phone back toward her and narrowed her eyes.

“Oh, she’s hot when she’s mad. Struck a nerve because I’m right, right?”

“Sorry, your phone cut out after the word ‘hot." I assume that was the end of the sentence, though.”

It wasn’t like it was overtly more than friendly, Carol thought. She’d tried not to make herself too emotionally invested. She didn’t talk about her feelings with Therese all that much. About all of her insecurities, what she wanted out of life, anything similar to that. Combining those conversations with flirting and a sort-of friendship and sex was dangerous, not a path to go down with someone like Therese, who was unavailable for the foreseeable future. But in the moment, chatting with Therese for nearly an hour made Carol forget about the fine line on which she walked. She was just happy.

Chapter Text

After an unceremonious ending with her last boss, Naomi had been reluctant to take another gig as a personal assistant. Her termination of employment hadn’t been due to a lack of capability – no, that’s what had kept her afloat for most of the year – but a simple clash of personality. Meaning, a clash between Penny Wright and every single person with whom she came into contact, Naomi one victim among many.

If someone had given the average, every day person a list of every celebrity in the world, and asked, “who do you think would be the most difficult to work with?” Penny Wright would fall in just about everybody’s top three guesses. And they’d only be wrong if they didn’t place her at number one.

Really, surviving the year had been a miracle.

Naomi’s friends urged her to do anything else. Go back to the coffee shop. Try bartending. Take modeling more seriously. Anything.

And she almost listened to them…but then she got an email from Katy. ‘

“...interviewing assistants for NYC-based, high-profile client…you were highly recommended…”

It had been Dan Goss, her boss prior to Penny Wright, that provided a glowing endorsement. She missed Dan. He was an actor and needed a PA in New York City when he moved into town for a Broadway show. After eight months, he begged Naomi to move to Los Angeles to continue her employment, but she wasn’t ready for that kind of change.

After a phone screening and then an interview on Zoom with some woman named Delandra— whose job title was also assistant— she sat across from Katy at a table at Soho House in Brooklyn. Katy was a pleasant, attractive blonde woman who could’ve been in her 40s, but also maybe not, extreme stress and expensive injectables working against one another to skew Naomi’s estimation. Her hair was a bit unkempt and her blouse was wrinkled, but she spoke about her job, and Naomi’s prospective job, rather cheerfully.

While the salary might have felt under industry standard for the type of talent, “the job is pretty cushy.” Naomi could not think of a single way in which being at the beck and call of some helpless celebrity was ‘cushy,’ but she kept listening… “You’re really only dealing with personal business. Any travel that’s work-related, yours included, is arranged by someone else. All household issues are dealt with by her house managers. You’ll never be tasked with childcare duties. It’s really a lot of keeping her schedule together, reminding her to check said schedule, appointment booking, bag packing, and attending events. Something to consider, however, is the travel. While I’m sure you traveled with Penny, working with a touring artist is different. And it can be intense. But rewarding. And that part is, of course, completely paid for. Flights, accommodations, meals. And we’re looking for someone to start as soon as possible.”

“Can I ask why the position is open?”

Katy sighed, but kind of smiled, and later Naomi found out it was because every candidate had asked that question and an answer she’d initially hadn’t prepared was beginning to feel canned. “Her outgoing PA has been with us for a while now, but she became a bit overwhelmed with some increased media attention. Concerns about privacy, which!– while understandable, really aren’t grounded in reality. It’s a very secure environment.”

“How do you know Dan Goss?” Naomi was just curious.

This made Katy laugh, which afforded Naomi some comfort in the final moments of the interview. “College boyfriend, actually. We’re still very close. And I consider his opinions to be facts.”

That night, Naomi sat on her sofa with her roommate. She worried she wouldn’t be getting the job. And the thought of having to leave her apartment— which was becoming more and more imminent every day she spent unemployed— was nerve-racking. Naomi made a great assistant because she was highly organized. Very type-A. Naomi was very type-A because she operated with undiagnosed-but-let’s-just-call-a-spade-a-spade obsessive compulsive disorder. Finding an apartment in New York City that didn’t throw her into a near-panic attack upon entry had been almost impossible. But once she’d secured her first gig as a PA, and then found a roommate in Anika— a girl she’d gone to high school with that always had perfectly color-coded notes— the newly renovated, spotless, bugless, two-bedroom apartment in Greenpoint was hers.

She couldn’t just let that go now.

“It’s so much travel, Naomi. Maybe if you don’t get it, it’ll be for the best.” Anika set her water glass down on its coaster. Naomi knew that she was half concerned for her well-being, and half concerned for her own well-being, not one to love spending too much time alone.

“Right, but I could be in, like, Tokyo in a few months. For free.”

Naomi had grown up in Queens in a very close, very middle class family. Not lower-middle, not upper-middle, just straight middle. They had everything they needed and some of what they wanted. They’d go on a vacation every year or so: Myrtle Beach, Dollywood, Grand Canyon. But never abroad. Naomi didn’t even have a passport, which was a problem that Katy said, should she be offered the job, could be quickly rectified.

She felt lucky, and called her mom to gush, because nine days later, she was sitting business class on a flight from JFK to LAX. Sadly, she wouldn’t be received at the airport by Katy, which made her nervous. A driver picked her up at the airport along with her bags and took her to a warehouse in Burbank where she met with Carol’s tour manager, Nicolas; her daughter’s nanny, Florence; Delandra, whom she found out was Katy’s assistant; and Hunter, referred to as Carol’s “acting night assistant,” but he was typically just a production assistant. He was maybe the most grateful for Naomi’s arrival.

Naomi had met plenty of celebrities in her lifetime. She’d grown up in New York, where they were simply around and everybody noticed but nobody cared. Her last boss, Penny Wright, was an extremely famous actress. But suddenly, in anticipation of meeting Carol Aird, Naomi felt oddly starstruck. She kept her mouth shut, instead trying to focus on the inundation of information being thrown at her before she could even put her belongings down. Carol’s water, Carol’s clothes, Carol’s baby, “her name is Rindy. Rindy can you say hi?”

And finally, after what seemed like either seconds or hours, Carol Aird.

Her natural frown transformed into an easy smile when Delandra said, “Carol, this is Naomi,” and she extended a hand with bitten, undone nails. “It’s so nice to finally meet you. Thanks for flying out on such short notice.”

So her unresponsiveness in the many exchanged emails on which Katy had CC’d her wasn’t due to absence. She’d been reading them (or having them read to her) the whole time.

“I’m excited to be here.”

“Sorry you have to stay in a hotel,” Carol said, as if staying at Sunset Tower for three weeks was a chore. “You’ll have a room at my house the next time we’re here. I heard you just got done working for Penny Wright.”

Carol’s eyebrows wiggled, and Naomi couldn’t tell what she was supposed to say. “I did, yeah…”

“She’s such a fucking bitch.” Carol grabbed a bottle of water that Hunter had at the ready and held it to the back of her neck. When Naomi didn’t react to her comment, she smiled. “I appreciate the discretion, but you’re amongst friends. This isn’t a loyalty test, I promise.”

Still, Naomi treaded lightly.

They spent the next few weeks in a comfortable, if formal, routine. Naomi arrived by driver to Carol’s home at promptly 9:30 each morning. Carol didn’t wake up until just after 10. By then, she had Carol’s coffee and a strawberry smoothie at the ready, the latter of which Carol’s nutritionist told her how to make; a specific combination of fresh and frozen strawberries, soy milk, yogurt, chia seeds, camu powder, maca powder, protein powder, and, “please, go heavy on the cashew butter until she decides life is worth living again.” (After that, half a tablespoon.) Naomi would pack Carol’s bag with a change of clothes, chargers, a book, her lunch, glasses, contact solution, and medication, while Carol played with her daughter. And then the four of them— Carol, Naomi, Rindy, and Florence— would leave for Burbank, where they’d spend the next eight hours.

Naomi’s friends were curious. What was Carol Aird like?

Fine. Normal. She’s nice. Easy tbh. Just chills with her kid, works, and sits on her phone.

She didn’t have much to give them.

Until, that is, the afternoon of Carol’s third performance. Performance days started later, because Carol slept late. She’d get to bed around 2am and wouldn’t wake up until noon. And that particular morning, Carol’s tour manager had sent Naomi a list of errands: Erewhon, dry cleaning, the tailor, and a fourth thing Naomi never got to. She was at the tailor when Katy called her, “are you at Carol’s?”

“No, I will be soon, though.”

“Where are you now?” Katy’s tone was sharp. Serious. And Naomi had a sick feeling that she was about to be fired.

“I’m picking up that dress— ”

“Can you do that later and just go to her house, please? She isn’t answering anybody."

Well, there was a good chance she was asleep. The woman was very clearly depressed. And if Naomi knew anything about a massively depressed person…

Naomi was also concerned that Katy was sending her on a mission to find a dead body, which felt slightly above her pay grade. Once she opened the front door to Carol’s home, however, it became quickly apparent that Carol was neither asleep nor dead.

She was crying.

For the first time ever, maybe in her life, Naomi didn’t remove her shoes before entering someone’s home. She ran straight through the foyer, up the stairs, and to the back, where Carol’s bedroom was located— a space in which she hadn’t yet set foot— and found Carol slumped next to her bed, sobbing.

Naomi had endured plenty of Penny’s meltdowns: a crying fit over the wrong food delivery here, a door slam when a dress didn’t fit there.

This was not that.

Carol’s despair seemed serious, and though she didn’t know the source, Naomi instinctually knelt beside her, pulled Carol into her arms, and whispered, “it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay.”

Maybe it wasn’t, she didn’t know. Maybe someone was dead. But it was going to have to be okay because Naomi could tell that somehow, someway, Carol getting her shit together on time for her concert was going to become her responsibility.

But Carol eventually choked out, “I ruined my whole fucking life for her,” and Naomi was further confused, though now she could say with confidence that there was no funeral to attend.

“It’ll be okay.”

After the better part of an hour, Carol seemed to have run out of tears. Naomi was afraid Carol would be embarrassed by the vulnerability she’d displayed and fire her in an effort to save face. But she didn’t. She let Naomi make her coffee and pack her bag and sit next to her in the Escalade to Dodger’s Stadium. Carol, ever the pro, put on a performance that gave no indication of her overwhelming sadness.

She apologized to Naomi that evening.

“I was having a moment. It won’t happen again.”

Naomi wasn’t so certain that was true. “Been there, girl, trust me.”

Carol just smiled shyly.

Once they left the US, Carol relaxed around Naomi, and in turn, Naomi did the same. Their first stop was Paris, and Naomi was floored when she realized that, while majority of the band and crew was staying at a very nice hotel nearby State de France, Naomi would be staying at the same hotel as Carol…which was the Shangri-La. She screamed when she FaceTimed her friends. And screamed again from the Corinthia in London. And again at the Four Seasons in Tokyo.

“I feel like Scarlett Johannson!”

“They’re at the Park Hyatt in that. And would that make Carol Aird Bill Murray?” Anika sighed.

“Whatever. I’m literally looking out onto the entire city. Look at this— ” Just as she flipped her phone camera around to show Anika her view, Carol called.

There was a moment of panic (Carol never called her), a back-and-forth what do I do/just answer it/I’m scared/you have to answer before Naomi picked up on the final ring.

“Hi Carol, what’s up?”

“Are you busy?”

Busy? They’d arrived at their hotel only an hour ago. And it was 9:30pm. And she was technically working, so if Carol needed something…

Carol hummed. “Well, I wasn’t sure if you had plans.”

“What plans would I have?” Naomi hadn’t spent much time with many of the others on tour yet. They’d all had dinner together several nights, and they’d gone to a club in Mexico City that Carol bought out, and while everyone was super nice, most of the production crew and dancers had known each other for years, and it made finding a small group to penetrate difficult.

“You’re 22 years old and it’s 9:30 in the City That Never Sleeps.”

“That’s New York.”

“Not these days.”

That was actually so true. Anyway— Carol cut to the chase— if Naomi wasn’t busy, could she do Carol a favor?

The favor in question was not something Naomi would ever have guessed. She probably asked, ‘really? too many times. But she did as she was told. Naomi slipped on shoes and a jacket, took the elevator to the lobby, walked up to the concierge, and asked where the nearest grocery store, or even convenience store, was located. She left the hotel, passed the paparazzi camped at the entrance, counted the two blocks to a corner store, and loaded a basket with every available flavor of Pringles, of which there were many. She returned to the hotel, took the elevator up, up, up to Carol’s floor, found the door to her suite where a security guard leaned against the wall and scrolled his phone. His name was Mark, and when he saw Naomi, he straightened himself.

“I won’t tell.” Naomi whispered, as if Carol would even care.

Seeing Carol in her private life was jarring initially, but Naomi was now very used to it. Her long, silvery hair— majority of which was extensions— was tied haphazardly in a ponytail. She wore thick, gray sweats with the waistband rolled down, a ratty, faded Red Hot Chili Peppers t-shirt, and wire-framed glasses. She smiled, glanced at the cardboard box in Naomi’s arms, and said, “excellent,” and then, “come come,” which was Naomi’s cue to enter.

The errand was complete, but it was obvious that Carol expected Naomi to stay. Perhaps she needed help with whatever project she was putting together. Naomi removed her shoes and hung her jacket in the coat closet beside the door. Carol’s suite had a rather large dining table, and Naomi removed the 12 tubes of Pringles.

When she returned from depositing the box in the hallway, asking Mark to take care of it, Carol had a lit joint dangling out of her mouth. She took a sharp inhale and coughed, offering it to Naomi.

Naomi accepted but it was more for show. She didn’t really smoke. She felt it worsened her anxiety, which was already rather high. “Are you allowed to smoke in here?”

Carol just glanced in her direction, one eyebrow raised, and then went back to inspecting the flavors of Pringles. The answer, of course, was no. But for Carol, it was yes, because she could do whatever she wanted.

“Look how tiny. So cute.” Carol opened the sleeve of a flavor called Napoli, which Naomi imagined was pizza. They were adorably small compared to their American counterparts. “Kind of just cheesy. Hm.”

“Okay, so what are we doing with these?”

They were trying them, “duh.” But they’d have to be portioned in smaller containers, otherwise Carol claimed she would absolutely eat an entire sleeve, which she described as some sort of catastrophic event. Naomi nodded and just said, “right, sure,” before putting little stacks into water glasses, the only vessel on hand, given the setting. Carol asked if Naomi wanted wine. When Naomi said yes, Carol offered red or white, and Naomi deduced that Carol had made a point to have both options available in anticipation of Naomi staying to hang out with her; Naomi had spent the past couple of months doing her best to learn things about Carol that Carol sort of assumed everyone already knew, one of which was: she did not drink red wine.

But Naomi did. And maybe Carol noticed this about her, and poured her a glass of red. Perhaps she was simply a good hostess, which didn’t seem out of the realm of possibility.

It was funny watching Carol open a notes app on her phone and find one titled “Pringles” and proceed to take meticulous notes as if she were conducting research. Naomi was expected to chime in, to “help,” and she almost asked what the point of all of this was before she realized one did not exist. It was, at best, a hobby. A mindless thing that Carol did when she was bored and felt that leaving her hotel room was too fussy. Naomi could learn something from the experience, as she was always very purpose driven; if something didn’t have a productive value, she lost interest. Yes, there was something to be learned from Carol’s frivolous fascination with Pringles.

“You know, I could take your notes and put them into a big excel spreadsheet for you. It would make them easier to read.”

Carol typed away. “I’m very sure you could. You are my organization guru. That said, I’m not sure it would be easier for me to read. But you’re welcome to have at it.” And then, apropos of nothing, she asked Naomi if she was enjoying her job.

Naomi surprised herself, happily, when she said, “I am,” without pausing to think. She really missed her family, though.

“Do you like me? As a person?”

This part felt like a trap. There was no getting out of it. Carol was waiting, her expression unreadable. The hesitation wasn’t necessarily doing Naomi any favors, so she said, “I don’t know you very well, but I like you a lot so far. I just hope that you feel like I’m doing a good job. And that you would tell me if you thought otherwise.”

“You would know immediately.” That, Naomi did not doubt. Carol stood up to grab the bottle of wine and tossed a television remote at Naomi. “Let’s watch a movie. Pick something good.”

It was going well until the movie ended. Netflix automatically suggested another called Cleaning House, which starred Abby Gerhard. She wasn’t thinking when she asked, “want to watch this?” and instantly realized what she’d done.

They’d never talked about ‘it,’ but after Naomi had triumphantly dragged Carol out of her house and to the stadium in LA the day of Carol’s meltdown, she told Katy what had happened. Katy scowled and said, “Abby Gerhard is going to ruin all of our careers at this rate.”

The look Carol gave Naomi was chilling. Reminiscent of Jack Nicholson in The Shining, a lethal mixture of disgust, disdain, and condescension. Naomi just hoped there wasn’t an axe nearby.

When Carol finally turned away, finding her wine glass, Naomi tried again. “I actually— ” don’t want to watch this movie? Was it better to act like she had no clue and changed her mind? Probably not. “That was— ” a stupid thing to say? Obviously. “Sorry, I wasn’t even— ”

Carol spared her. “You know, the last time I was in Tokyo, I was with Abby Gerhard. Actually, the last time I was with Abby Gerhard, I was in Tokyo.” Carol laughed, not because it was funny, and Naomi realized she had to be drunk. When Carol took a sip of her drink, she sat back against the couch and fixed her gaze to a spot on the rug. There was more to say, and Naomi braced herself for what would not be a happy story. “I somehow convinced Harge that it was normal for me to come to Japan for, like, a day and a half just to see Abby. I told him that she was going to this restaurant I’d never been to, which was true, and that I hadn’t seen ‘my new best friend’ in months, which was a lie. Huge lie. I saw her a couple of weeks before. Right before she left.”

She poured herself more wine and stood up, walking to the window to look out. She said she hated Tokyo now and had begged to not have to come back, but nobody took her seriously. When she thought about the city, she felt foolish, because when she’d come to see Abby, Abby was, “happy, but not happy enough, considering...”

Considering Carol flew 12 hours, one-way, just to see her for 36.

And now that she was back in Japan, she felt worse than she imagined. She still faced the floor-to-ceiling window, back turned to Naomi, but Naomi saw the hand that wasn’t holding her wine glass reach for her face as she let out an audible sob.

“Is that why you were upset back in LA? It was about Abby?”

A minute or two passed before Carol collected herself enough to answer. “She’s with someone else. She moved on so quickly and I’ve never felt as insignificant and replaceable as I do now.” The sheer amount of tears falling from Carol’s eyes would’ve been comical— impressive, honestly— if it hadn’t been so gut-wrenching. “I’m sad all the time. I don’t want to cry every day but I don’t know how to make it stop.”

She was encroaching on dangerous territory, just by engaging in the conversation, but she also didn’t have much choice. “I don’t know how you fit crying into your schedule. Most days, I barely have a spare half hour carved out for you…” Jokes would help, right?

Thank god it got the slightest laugh out of Carol. “Well, ‘the shower’ and ‘to sleep’ are usually where I slide it in.”

“Carol…nobody is worth that. Besides, you’re Carol Aird. You’re…you.”

“I’m just a regular person, Naomi.”

Naomi had never had her heart broken. She largely believed she’d be spared from that feeling. Perhaps naively so. But watching Carol return to her place on the sofa, and then slump into Naomi’s side, looking small and defeated, she could say with confidence that it must be the most humbling experience of the human condition.

The entrance of Therese into Carol’s life was equally exciting and distressing. Naomi hadn’t cared at all when Carol dated Brad Seldon, the drummer of a very average English rock band. Carol truly did not give a fuck about him. She’d just been lonely and he liked her. And then there was her pilates instructor, and the only reason Naomi had vested interest in Carol please god no not dating her (dating— an insanely generous interpretation) was because, should it go south (it did), Naomi would have to find a replacement. But Naomi was excited about Therese on a personal level; she was a fan. It was exciting (and relieving) to witness the goofy way Carol looked at her phone as she typed out a response, the way she seemed to zone into daydream after hanging up a call, the way she gazed across the room at the Vanity Fair lunch they were both forced to attend. It was exciting and relieving, and it was also terrifying, knowing just how far Carol could sink.