Zoe
On the road, 2004
All these years later, and could still recall, perfectly, how it had felt to find her husband and her sister, in bed, naked, together: how her head had felt like it was full of thunder, a great, crashing emptiness between her temples and behind her eyes.
How everything seemed to be moving very slowly, as she stood there, frozen and shaking with rage and shock.
Russell had flung himself out of bed, grabbing for his pants (no flopping, flaccid penis in sight, noted coldly).
Cassie had just lain there, looking across the room at , her cheeks pink, pale moon face perfectly calm.
I stole your man just like I stole your dream, and what are you going to do about it? saw her life crashing down: being forced out of the band, her reputation shredded, because, of course, no one would ever believe that Russell had wanted her sister.
They’d think that she’d been the one who’d cheated, that she’d broken his heart.
They would blame her.
It was the end of everything.
And, with that vision, everything had meant to say, all of her plans to tell the truth, disappeared, obliterated by that eruption of rage.
“Outside,”
she’d hissed at Russell, and turned on her heel, hair flying as she went out into the hallway.
He came after her, bare-chested in his jeans, his shirt and shoes in his hand and his head hanging down, pulling a key card out of his back pocket, letting her into their room.
The bed was neatly made.
A bouquet stood on the dresser, a profusion of flowers, roses and lilies in cream and gold, filling the room with its heavy, heady scent.
There was champagne in an ice bucket.
pictured herself lifting the bottle and swinging it at him, imagined the sound it would make when it hit Russell’s head.
She turned toward him, breathless and shivering with shock.
She felt very far away from herself, like she was watching this scene unfold across a distance of many miles and many years—herself, in her high ponytail and her going-out clothes: high-heeled black boots, glossy patent-leather leggings, and a long-sleeved halter top made of silver lamé knotted underneath her breasts.
Before she could say a word, Russell started to talk.
“,”
he began.
“I’m sorry this happened.
I shouldn’t have done it this way.
I should have told you . . .”
He paused to drag his hands through his hair.
knew how that hair felt, sleek and soft against her fingers, except for the bristly bits at the nape of his neck, and she knew she would never touch it again.
The thought kindled rage like a wall of fire.
kept her voice soft, kept her body still.
“Explain it to me,” she said.
He shrugged, giving her a sad smile.
“I don’t understand it either, to tell you the truth.
But Cassie and I . . .”
He was still smiling, but less sadly.
His face looked almost dreamy, which enraged her even more.
“I’m pregnant,”
she said, without preamble.
That slapped the dreamy look off his face.
His mouth fell open.
She saw his Adam’s apple jerk as he swallowed.
“What?” he asked.
“Pregnant,”
pronounced, loudly and slowly, and watched the news land.
Russell’s eyes got wide.
He put one hand, fingers splayed, on the room’s wallpapered wall, like he’d fall down without its support.
He asked if it was true.
She told him that it was.
He asked how long she’d known.
Just a few days, she’d told him.
“I was waiting for the right time to tell you,”
she’d said ...and then she’d told him how it was going to be.
“I’m having this baby, so don’t even ask.
I’m keeping it.
And if you think that you’re going to be with my sister, while I have our baby all by myself, you’ve got another think coming.”
She remembered that he’d pulled on his tee shirt and stood, slump-shouldered and silent and utterly defeated, as berated him, as she called him a liar and a cheater and informed him that he had broken her heart—that he’d been her first love, that he’d destroyed her.
And the band.
And that he was going to pay.
“It was true,”
told her aunt.
“What I told him.
Everybody would have blamed me.
They’d never have believed that he’d picked Cassie instead of me.”
Bess was looking at her steadily.
“Why? Because of how Cassie looked?”
nodded.
“They would have treated me like I was a joke.”
She was remembering the coverage of Britney and Justin’s breakup, the tabloid covers with headlines like “Did She Betray Him?”
and “The War Is On.”
She recalled, too, the televised interview Britney had done with some middle-aged journalist.
“You did something that caused him so much pain.
So much suffering,”
the woman had said, leaning toward Britney, all hairspray and earnestness and fake solicitude.
recalled, too, how angry people had been when Jessica Simpson had shown up onstage, a few pounds heavier than she’d been in her Dukes of Hazzard days, how they’d acted betrayed, injured, as if she’d thrown a grenade into the crowd instead of just choosing the wrong pair of pants.
People back then—and, probably, people right now—thought that they owned their female stars, that their fandom gave them a say in what they wore, how they looked, who they loved.
When the stars failed to follow the script, people felt perfectly entitled to make their displeasure known.
Jessica Simpson was supposed to stay thin and hot and Britney was supposed to stay virginal and faithful and sweet, and was meant to stay married, even if some of the band’s fans, the fat girls, the mousy girls, the girls with glasses or braces, the weird, lonely girls wouldn’t be amused or horrified if they learned that Russell was with Cassie.
They’d be delighted.
Thrilled.
They would think that, if someone like Russell loved Cassie, maybe there was hope that someone could love them too.
“So what did you want?”
Bess asked.
bowed her head.
She realized that she’d been foolish to expect sympathy.
It wasn’t like she deserved any, and she certainly wouldn’t get it from Bess, who’d loved her sister, and who probably blamed for driving her away.
“Did you want to be with Russell?”
“Did I want to be married to a man who was in love with someone else? Did I want to have a baby with a husband who would spend the rest of our lives making cow eyes at my sister every Thanksgiving?”
smiled thinly and shook her head.
“I wanted to hurt him.
To make him suffer the way I was suffering.”
“Did he know about Tommy?”
shook her head again.
“I don’t think it ever occurred to Russell to think that I was cheating.
He was probably feeling so guilty about what he was doing that he wasn’t paying any attention to what I was doing.”
Bess sipped her tea, waiting.
remembered how she’d been terrified when she’d realized that her period had failed to arrive, how she’d rubbed herself raw with toilet paper every time she peed, praying to see blood.
She’d sent Abby to buy a test, after swearing her to secrecy, and when the test had confirmed what she’d already known, she’d buried her face in a stack of pillows and howled in anguish, her whole body shuddering in primal, animalistic fear.
At that moment, the pregnancy had been an obstacle, a problem.
As soon as she’d seen Russell and Cassie, it had transformed into a weapon: a sword she could wield against her faithless, two-timing, heartbreaking asshole of a husband and then use on her sister.
In ’s mind, in that moment, everything she’d said to Russell had become true.
He was the love of her life.
He had betrayed her, broken his vows, broken her heart.
And it was not just a pregnancy anymore, but a baby. His baby.
In their hotel room, Russell had half collapsed against the wall, pressing his hands to his eyes.
His face was anguished.
had relished his misery, like an exotically spiced dish she’d sampled and found delicious.
She wanted to gobble it down, to stuff herself full.
“I’m keeping it,”
she’d said, her voice mean and gloating.
As soon as she’d said the words, the part of her that had spoken and the part that was floating somewhere near the ceiling, watching, came together long enough to realize that this was insane.
She was twenty-two years old, with no desire to be a mother.
She was too young, and too busy being a rock star, albeit a mostly extraneous one, and pregnancy fit that dream about as well as a pair of her stilettos and a thong would have fit the eighty-year-old tortoise she’d once seen on a class field trip at the Camden aquarium.
She had gotten her happy ending: a life, and a man, that a million girls would have killed to have as their own.
There was no room in her life for a baby.
Only now . . .
“Picture a little love nest,”
she sang, her voice high and mocking and, for once, sounding just as good as her sister’s.
“Down where the roses cling.”
She didn’t continue, but she was sure that Russell, who knew every song ever written, could hear the rest of the verse: Picture the same sweet love nest /And think what a year can bring.
Even when she was threatening him, taunting him, telling him the way it was going to be, there was a part of her watching, shocked and grieving, aching from the betrayal.
That part knew the truth.
She didn’t want to have a baby.
A baby was not going to bring Russell back, or keep them together.
At least, not forever.
Maybe he’d end things with Cassie, maybe he’d come back to .
But, eventually, she’d be left with a child she didn’t want, and a man who, she knew, didn’t really want her.
Not to mention a band that had no place for her.
It was more than she could stand.
But hadn’t let herself dwell on any of that.
“I’m going to keep it,”
she’d said.
“And you’re going to stay with me.”
Russell had managed a single, short nod.
lifted her chin, stood up straight, and, with as much dignity as she could muster, walked out of the room.
She’d gone to the lobby, where she’d half fallen into an armchair and pulled off her boots.
She sat, in her leather and her silver lamé, and waited for someone to find her—maybe Russell, to beg forgiveness; maybe Cassie, to apologize.
No one came.
sat alone, in the lobby, all night long, unwilling to go back to the room where she’d fought with Russell, determined that he should come to her.
To comfort herself, she thought back to one of her fondest memories.
The band had been in LA, driving to the airport, at the end of their radio-station tour.
No gold record; no record at all, just their first single.
hadn’t been sleeping well, after too many hours of snuggling up to Russell in the vans, or trying to spoon him in bed, only for him to push her away, telling her that he was tired, that he had heartburn or a scratchy throat, that they both needed their sleep.
She’d been grouchy, PMS-y, feeling bloated, and the first twinges of a headache, when the DJ said, “And now, a brand-new single from a brand-new band.
This is the Griffin Sisters.”
had screamed so loud she was surprised the car’s windows hadn’t shattered, and Cam and Russell were whooping right along with her.
“Turn it up, turn it up!”
Cam was chanting.
They’d rolled down the windows, and all of them, her sister included, had stuck their heads out into the highway traffic, screaming, “THAT’S OUR SONG!”
while the label rep had veered into the slow lane, yelling at them to be careful, because Jerry would never forgive him if one of them got decapitated, but also laughing at the same time, as delighted for them as they were delighted for themselves.
thought about that day, and about the wedding, dancing with Russell, the taste of champagne on her lips, the guests’ attention, the photographers’ cameras; seeing her own beauty reflected back at her in their gaze, and in her husband’s eyes.
They’d been happy.
Hadn’t they?
All night long, sat in the lobby and waited for Russell to come, to apologize, to tell her that he’d come to his senses, that ...
what? That it had been an accident? That he’d tripped, and fallen into her sister? That Cassie had seduced him? That seemed impossible.
How could Russell want to sleep with Cassie when he had her, ? How could any man? It would be like a diner in a restaurant sending a perfectly cooked steak back to the kitchen and requesting roadkill instead.
knew how her sister looked without shapewear and clothes.
Cassie was flabby; she was squishy; her belly sagged and her breasts drooped; and even if a guy didn’t let himself see her body, he wouldn’t be able to keep from feeling it.
Had Russell wanted to touch her? Or had he, somehow, been attracted to Cassie’s personality, to her talent, so much so that it had canceled out her sister’s looks?
It didn’t make sense.
It barely seemed real.
Except had seen them together, in bed.
Russell had not seemed repulsed.
And Cassie, for all her fat, hadn’t seemed hideous.
Her hair had been tangled, her face had been flushed, and she’d been smiling, her hands gripping Russell’s shoulders, as he’d . . .
swallowed hard.
As he’d looked at her adoringly; with a tenderness she’d never seen on his face when they’d been together.
She’d had plenty of sex with Russell, and it had been exciting, and thrilling, sometimes with a fine edge of danger, but it had almost never been tender.
Russell seemed to have been saving that side of himself for Cassie.
In the hotel’s empty lobby, sat, legs crossed, one foot flicking up and down, and waited, hot-eyed and sleepless, as the night dragged on.
Later, she would wonder if she’d heard the sound of the car that had killed him.
Had she noticed the screech of the tires, the thudding of flesh against metal? Had she raised her head at the wail of the sirens, as the cop cars had gone racing by? She didn’t remember hearing, or seeing, or sensing anything unusual, lost, as she was, in her own pain.
At six o’clock in the morning, finally, someone had come.
stood up, grimacing at the prickles in her feet, but it was just a yawning guy in khakis and a clip-on tie, looking more asleep than awake as he set urns of coffee and hot water up on a table by the front desk.
A half hour later, she saw CJ.
She’d called his name, but he’d hurried past her without a glance, running through the lobby and through the hotel’s sliding doors.
had stood, staring after him.
Part of her wanted to follow, and part of her was already dreading what she’d see past the hotel doors.
So she’d waited.
Eventually, CJ had come back, flanked by a pair of police officers.
Then, finally, he’d seen her.
“,”
he said. “Oh God.”
His round face was ashen.
His cheeks glinted with stubble, and his Hawaiian shirt was on inside out.
“Oh Jesus.
What a shitshow.
What a mess.”
“What are you talking about?”
Was CJ crying? He was.
Tears were rolling down his cheeks, and for a moment, thought that he’d found out about Russell and Cassie.
“What’s going on? What happened?”
“There’s been an accident.”
He reached out and took her hands in his.
“It’s Russell,”
he said.
“Russell’s dead.”
She stared into his eyes. “No,”
she said. “No.”
“The police called me.”
CJ ducked his head and said, as if he were reading from cue cards, “He was hit by a car.
It’s him, .
They found his driver’s license.
He had his wallet in his pocket.”
All of ’s fury was gone.
Her brain was a blackboard against which someone had hurled a bucket of soapy water.
It was wiped clean, completely empty, absolutely blank. “No,”
she said again.
This wasn’t real.
It couldn’t be.
None of this was real—not Russell sleeping with Cassie; certainly not Russell dying.
It was all some horrible dream, and she’d wake up, any minute now.
Only CJ was still gripping her hands, and she could smell his sour breath and could see the creases the pillow had left on his cheek.
“I’m so sorry, .
I am so sorry.”
’s knees had wobbled.
She’d staggered back, collapsing into one of the lobby’s armchairs.
CJ stood next to her, shaking his head, muttering to himself.
“Gotta tell the promoters ...gotta call the venue ...gotta let Jerry know what happened.”
was too afraid to interrupt and ask for details.
Had Russell gone out into the night, believing that was going to have a baby and force him to stay with her? Had he been preoccupied, distracted enough to wander into a car’s path? Or—she cringed, moaning at the thought—had he done it on purpose? Had he been so full of despair that he’d seen no way out except death?
I should be crying, she thought.
My husband is gone.
But there were no tears, just that faraway feeling, like she was a spectator in a theater, watching her own life unfold.
She realized that CJ was talking to her.
“I’m so sorry, .
I hate to have to even ask, but—maybe you can tell your sister?”
nodded without thinking.
Take care of your sister, she heard her mother saying in her head.
That had always been her job.
Giving Cassie this terrible news would be just one more version of her eternal assignment.
It had been, again, like watching a movie.
There were her feet, carrying her to the hotel’s front desk.
There was her voice, asking for a key.
There was her hand, with its long, red-lacquered nails, beringed fingers, and braceleted wrists, inserting the key card into its slot and opening the door to the room she’d been meant to share with Russell.
She’d planned on going to the bathroom, to wash her face, and try to collect herself a little before going to her sister, but as soon as she walked into the room, she saw the piece of paper on the desk.
Hotel stationery, folded in half.
picked it up, unfolded it, and saw Russell’s handwriting.
I’m sorry, read the first line.
The sorry was wavery and splotched, as if it had been blurred by a drop of water, or a tear.
And then, six words.
I never should have touched you.
stared dully at the paper.
The message was for her.
She was the “you.”
She knew it, in her bones, in her heart.
But, without a name, how could she be sure? How could anyone?
Her leggings had no pockets, so she tucked the scrap of paper into her bra and walked down the hall, to Cassie’s room.
When she knocked, the door opened so quickly that wondered if Cassie had spent the night on her feet, standing in the vestibule, waiting for Russell to come back.
Cassie wore pajama bottoms and a man’s white undershirt.
was certain it was one of Russell’s.
She wondered if it still carried the scent of his skin.
“There’s been an accident,” she said.
Cassie rubbed her eyes and tucked her hair behind her ears.
“What? What accident? What happened?”
“Russell was hit by a car.
He’s dead.”
Instead of looking stunned or hurt, Cassie just looked irritated.
Her brow furrowed, her lips pursed.
“I know you’re mad, .
But why would you say something like that?”
“It’s true.
There are cops in the lobby.
Go ask them, if you don’t believe me.”
Cassie gave a long, unfriendly look, before turning around to grab a sweatshirt and her shoes.
waited as Cassie walked off down the hall.
She sat on the bed, waiting, and a few minutes later, Cassie came back, her face slack and blank and shocked.
“It can’t be true,”
she said, more to herself than to .
“This can’t have happened.
He can’t be gone.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, clenched her hands into fists. “No,”
she was saying, under her breath.
“No, no, no, no, no.”
pulled Russell’s note out of her bra and held it out, waiting, until Cassie looked.
“What’s that?”
Cassie asked dully.
“He left a note,”
said, holding it out for her sister.
Cassie took it, unfolded the little piece of paper.
watched her face as she read, and there, finally, was what had wanted to see: shock and sorrow; shame and guilt.
Her sister turned away and started crying.
, who still hadn’t cried, got up from the bed and stalked across the room, bringing her face close to Cassie’s.
“This is your fault.”
“No,”
Cassie whispered.
“Yes,”
said.
“He felt terrible for cheating.”
“He said . . .”
Cassie’s voice was tiny.
“He said you were the one who wanted to get married.
He said it was all your idea.
That he didn’t want to.
That it wasn’t real.”
“Yeah, well, men lie, don’t they? They lie when they want things.
But Russell loved me.
Whatever he told you, whatever he said, he was my husband.
My husband.
He loved me.”
Cassie flinched, turning away.
grabbed her sister’s chin and held it hard, forcing Cassie to look at her, to listen.
“If he hadn’t felt so guilty about what he’d done, he wouldn’t have drunk half a bottle of whiskey and gone running out into the dark.”
“No,”
Cassie repeated, almost moaning the word.
“Yes,”
said again, gripping her sister’s face, digging in with her nails, hissing the words.
“This happened because of you.”
Not true, she thought, as she kept talking.
“You might as well have put a gun to his head.”
Cassie shook her head some more, and finally managed to pull herself away from . “No,”
she began whispering.
“No, no, no.”
She walked to the window, rocking back and forth, arms wrapped around her shoulders, keening.
In her great-aunt’s kitchen, bowed her head.
“So Russell left you a note,”
Aunt Bess said.
Her voice was emotionless, and soft, in a way that let know precisely how disappointed she was.
“He left you a note, and you gave it to Cassie, and you made her think it was her fault.”
nodded miserably.
She squeezed her eyes shut, resting her face on her fisted hands, rocking a little in her seat and crying, great, wrenching sobs that racked her frame and made it hard to breathe.
All the tears that hadn’t been there the morning she’d gotten the news.
She wept, and wiped at her dripping face, and remembered something that had happened when she’d been a girl, some trick she and her friends had played on Cassie, some lie they’d told her, something mean they’d done.
She couldn’t recall the specifics of her transgression, but she could remember how furious her aunt had been, along with every word of what Bess had said back then: when you hurt someone’s feelings, it’s the same as if you broke their leg.
It’s even worse, because it takes longer to heal.
Sometimes, it never does.
“I’m sorry,”
she said, in a gasping, choked voice, when she could manage to speak again.
“I’m so sorry.
I know how much I hurt her.”
“Do you?”
Aunt Bess said, in a cool tone that said, more than words ever could, I doubt it.
found herself devastated all over again, disgusted with herself, positive there was no way forward.
This was why she’d only looked ahead for so long, only forward, never back.
This was why she’d refused to let herself think about what had happened—no, not what had happened.
What she’d done.
Who she’d hurt.
Because there were some breaches you couldn’t repair, some harms you couldn’t undo, some transgressions so terrible that forgiveness was impossible, and all you could do was try to live with what you’d done, and what kind of person it made you.
I’m not a good person, thought.
But she didn’t say it, knowing it would sound self-pitying, self-involved, like she was the victim, the one who’d suffered.
Her, and not Cassie.
“What can I do?”
she said instead.
Which, she realized, was the wrong question.
Can I fix this? she should have asked.
Can this be fixed? Ever?
She raised her head, looking for advice, or sympathy, or absolution.
Aunt Bess stared back at her and didn’t say a word.
“I never thought,”
began, and then stopped, resting her elbow on the table and her forehead on one fisted hand.
I never thought he’d cheat on me.
I never thought he’d die.
I never thought Cassie would leave.
I never thought that anything could hurt so much, for so long.
She closed her eyes and just repeated, “I never thought.”
Because there was nothing else left to say.