“Maybe he doesn’t recognize the number.”

“I’ll use my cell. I think he has that number saved in his phone.”

But Peter didn’t answer that, either.

“He’s probably shmoozing or something. If I know Pete, he’s on it.” Rose slid off the bed and tugged at my hand. Her touch took me by surprise; in my memory, Rose had never reached out before. “Here. Let me raise your spirits.” She turned off the lights so we were in muted darkness and led me over to the window. “What floor are we on?” she asked in a conspiratorial whisper.

“The . . . twelfth?”

“Fifteenth. You can still hear them. Here, let me turn off the air.” She left my side to click the air conditioner off and the room fell completely silent. I could hear the shuffle of feet throughout the hallway, the honk of car horns on the streets below. Rose brushed open the curtains and we stood next to each other in the soft light that came in through the windows—the light pollution of the buildings all around us and the night sky’s glow. And then, softly—

“Is that . . . ?” I whispered.

We placed our ears against the glass, my left, her right, so we were facing each other. Her eyes glittered, and again I remembered the last time I saw them like this—the last time we’d really been alone together, in her mother’s house.

“Yeah,” she breathed, “you hear it?”

Glosssss! We love you, Gloss!

“It’s my favorite thing,” she murmured, her palm cupping around her ear. “People down on the streets, knowing we are here, shouting our name. It’s amazing, isn’t it? Like being high.”

We were safe where we were, a soft room done up in plush silks. No paparazzi. No Jerrys. Just fans below.

My arms broke out in goose bumps and I felt my mouth stretch into a smile. “Wow.” We listened for another minute, our breath tickling our hands that were pressed against the window. She touched her tongue to her lips before speaking again. I stared at her mouth, suddenly very aware of it. The shape, the pout. I imagined what it would feel like to touch my lips to hers.

She was speaking again, and I had to refocus my attention on her voice. If she’d noticed my dreamlike stare in her direction, she didn’t acknowledge it, maybe because she was in a trance of her own. “It’s like my meditation.” She retreated from the glass and switched on a side lamp, creating a circlet of blush-colored light on one side of the bed. She snuggled under the covers, making a cocoon. “Just me, my blanket, and the background noise of adulation. Quiet enough that I can’t hear it all the time, but if I get stuck thinking about things too much I can tune back in and remember. Feel.”

I sat on top of the covers on her bed, lying on my back next to her, and stared at the muted pink ceiling. The sound still carried, a faint chant. I could hear her shifting toward me, her hair loose across her face. “What do you think?” she asked. “A little silly, huh?”

I turned toward her and raised my head on one hand. “No, it’s beautiful.”

We lay there smiling at each other, and I felt my heart skip a tiny beat. Embarrassed, I stared at the ceiling, the two of us listening to the crowd and the other’s breathing.

It felt like the days in the shared room with Yumi, all dark and quiet and secrets could be shared. I had to ask. “So you and Viv . . .”

“Yeah.” She knew what I meant.

“But not anymore . . . ?”

“No.” She was quiet for a moment. “When she was diagnosed with leukemia, we’d already been broken up for a while, and she made it clear to me that I should still keep living my life—as much as I can, with this pop deal going on, anyway. I still care for her, obviously.” She shrugged one shoulder. “But it’s water under the bridge now.”

I wanted to tell her I could relate—I still cared for Alex, no matter what had happened between us—but it didn’t seem like the right time. I had the urge to swipe her hair away from her face gently with my fingertips, but instead I said, very softly, “Okay.”

Rose made no motion to get rid of me, and truth be told, I didn’t want to leave. We lay in comfortable silence as the room ticked warmer and the clock ticked later. Before I knew it, I was dozing off, and I felt safe for the first time in a while.

27.

May 2002

Prime Tour: Northeast United States

Cassidy

I thought that I would feel relief once we touched down in New York—we’d be home, Emily would join us with Penny, we’d have better access to Peter—yet my anxiety about the tabloids continued to grow. Peter had been strangely quiet the last few days of the European tour and had called Ian for only a brief chat while we were in Paris. I turned off my phone because the incessant ringing was running down my battery, but when I’d switch it on, Edie’s and Joanna’s messages filled my in-box first with worried voices, then exasperated ones. I returned calls only to my mother, though I told her to ignore half the things that were printed. “Which half?” she asked, annoyed.

As we disembarked at JFK, the paparazzi swarm emerged. All I could do was keep my lips together, heeding Justine’s inexplicably vague advice: “Just don’t comment on it.”

I’d also hoped that the removal of my cast would dampen the rumor mill—with the visual reminder gone, maybe the questions and speculation would fade—but when we peeked at the Madison Square Garden crowd preshow, scattered fan signs announced their opinions on the matter. Why wouldn’t people let it go? The longer it went on, the worse I started to feel about Alex. He didn’t deserve this.

“Focus,” Rose said over the headset. I glanced over at her but her eyes shifted away, already on task. The audio started and visuals onstage began to play, and we waited for our cue. Being near Rose now gave me a tiny thrill, as I recognized my feelings. It was as if, once I’d learned that there was a possibility she could like me back, my brain gave itself the go-ahead to run full throttle into crush mode. She’d murmured a good morning in Copenhagen that had liquefied my spine.

I’d stayed in my own room in Paris, worried that another night with Rose would lead me to do something reckless and stupid.

But we played a rousing show in New York—the first of two—and after we were bussed to our hotel, Rose waved me into her room. “I figured out your leak,” she said once the door was closed. “It’s Lucy.”

“Lucy?” I repeated. That didn’t make sense. I’d been so wrapped up in my broken arm and the tour that I hadn’t even talked to Lucy in weeks.

“It’s just the type of attention-seeking shit she would do,” Rose insisted. “Like going to the Oscars in a fairy-princess gown, on the arm of a man twice her age? Then he dumped her and the tabloids are going on about how lovesick she is. Wouldn’t you want to feed them something in exchange for some peace and quiet?”

“How would she know about it in the first place? Why talk about me?”

Rose shrugged and popped an after-show Diet Coke, one of six that she had required in her rider to be in every hotel and dressing room on the tour. “Maybe you didn’t kiss her ass enough, worship her fragile ego?”