Ten Sicily
Ten
Sicily
2018
Sicily hums to herself as she strolls through Utsubo Park, drinking Earl Grey milk tea. July is probably her favorite month, she thinks to herself, even if the cherry blossoms in Japan have gone by now. Deep summer is super romantic, too.
But maybe that’s just because she’s in love again.
This time it’s with Squeak, one of the backup dancers on her comeback tour. Is it too late to come back? The question has nagged at her, but no, the answer is that it’s definitely not too late. Gwen Stefani made it huge as a solo artist in her thirties, so why can’t Sicily—especially when she was a solo artist to start with?
Along with promoting her new album, the tour comes with a big prize at stake. If all this goes well, and Sicily proves that she can still sing, dance, and draw major crowds, then a Vegas residency is practically guaranteed.
And she really, really wants a Vegas residency.
Toned, taut, and tanned—she’s been back at it, doing all she can to lose weight and get into peak shape again over the past year. But it’s not for her; the tour is called “Second Chances” for a reason. She clicks the lock on her phone, as she’s already done a million times today, to see the picture of Noah that serves as her wallpaper. He’s posing in his scuffed baseball uniform, a toad he found somewhere displayed carefully in his palm and an expression of pure glee on his face. His dirty-blond curls are a glorious mess, and he’s missing his left incisor tooth. Sicily has never seen a more perfect picture. She hopes that someone will improve on Google Glass someday so she can project the photo in the corner of her vision constantly.
Noah still lives with Hugo and Hugo’s insufferably sweet Zoe Kravitz look-alike of a wife in LA, on a big all-American plot of land with a front porch and ranch-style backyard that would make anyone forget that Hugo is an expat.
But Sicily gets Noah one weekend a month, when she’s not traveling; every second holiday; and three weeks every summer, every second of which is spent spoiling him as rotten as possible and practically gluing him to her side.
It’s still never enough. And she’s begun to feel the tension, the way he pulls back or looks embarrassed when she runs her fingers through his hair or kisses him on both cheeks. A sharp Hugo-esque chin is starting to show through the baby fat.
Sicily hates every second she spends apart from her son. But a Vegas residency—that would start in the new year and give her what she craves most: stability. Financial stability, professional stability. Sicily could stay put for a while, and Chad—her new manager—says he can negotiate one Saturday a month off so she can spend as much time with Noah as possible.
Chad is the manager she never knew she needed. Sicily has not spoken to her father or Uncle Henry in five years, the exact amount of time that has passed since she successfully challenged the conservatorship and got back control of her life.
It had been a long and difficult battle. The seeds were planted when someone who had formerly been on Day and Uncle Henry’s legal team leaked a voicemail to a pop music podcast—a voicemail of the two of them discussing how to take away Sicily’s car after they caught her driving it after curfew. She had been twenty-six at the time. The whistleblower also alleged that the conservatorship was supposed to be in place for only two years as an emergency measure, but that Henry and Day had extended it as a means of control and had abused Sicily under its pretense.
It had taken Sicily a long time to realize that this was true. She’d bent to her family’s will for so long—she’d been raised to do it. She was placed on a pedestal by all of them, almost a sort of messianic figure that elevated them out of their rural background and brought them more money and fame than they ever could have dreamed.
But they didn’t see her as a human. Sicily doesn’t like to think of those long, dull days that were just eat, rehearse, train, sleep, repeat. The two men even limited the amount of time Kendra spent with Sicily, though Sicily didn’t learn this until later. The daily roundups stopped; they didn’t want her to hear too much from social media, especially when the “SilentSicily” hashtag started trending and groups popped up all around the world, banding together and demanding her release from legal restraint.
Sicily still doesn’t know who that whistleblower was. But she’s forever grateful to them.
Day and Uncle Henry were dismissive of the “conspiracy theorists,” then irritated, then paranoid. The days got darker before they got better; the suspicion that had begun to plague Sicily when she drove to Nevada spiraled when the outrage from the public—while affirming—made it clear that her mistrust of her family had never been in her head.
A lot of horrible things came to light—everyone was out to get her. She discovered that Joe, her cousin who was in charge of accounts, had been skimming money. Candy, another, was taking secret photos and selling them to the tabloids. Yet another had a side business where they sold pairs of her socks and her old jewelry and other junk on eBay for hefty sums.
But the worst of all was Kendra, whom Sicily caught texting Elliot—one of the other members of No Exit.
“It was you,” Sicily had said softly, startling Kendra as she read the screen over her shoulder. Sicily had become very good at sneaking around, watching, observing. They had underestimated her.
“Jesus Christ, Sicily. What?” Kendra clambered to her feet and shoved her phone in her jeans. “What was me?”
“You told Hugo all that shit about me. You set him up with everything he needed for the custody case.”
“Sicily, shut up.” Kendra was upset. “You don’t know anything. I’ve never spoken to Hugo.”
“How am I supposed to believe that? How am I supposed to believe anything you people say? You’re texting Elliot Stowell!”
Kendra’s face was bright red. “So I got some with Elliot while you were getting some with Hugo. So what? You think I voluntarily signed up to be dragged around the world as your personal assistant? I never get to have normal relationships, Sicily!”
“You never? You never?” The rage felt like a living animal inside Sicily, hot and writhing. She doesn’t quite remember what happened next, but some of the ugliest words ever exchanged among the Bell family were contained within that single argument. It might have gotten physical if Carole hadn’t come in to break things up.
Sicily stopped speaking to Kendra after that.
After six months of social media fervor and denied requests for press statements from Sicily that only fueled the flames, a lawyer from Corcoran and Associates messaged Sicily privately on Instagram to offer her services. Her name was Deborah, and she was a no-nonsense tank of a woman who agreed to take Sicily’s case out of goodwill.
She spoke to Sicily plainly and very matter-of-factly, like a doctor trying to understand a health concern. Sicily was grateful.
Under Deborah’s advice, Sicily did not let on that she was speaking with counsel until she’d managed to gather as much evidence as possible about her father and uncle’s legal control and the ways they had abused the conservator system.
Sicily had hoped it would be one and done with a single court case, but no—there were hearings and sessions, follow-ups and recesses and delayed court dates. Deborah said that Henry and Day were trying to starve her out.
But Sicily had Germaine and Miranda on her side, the first public figures to use the “SilentSicily” hashtag, and who pooled their money to offer her a safety net for anything she needed.
Plus, the press was vitriolic against Day and Henry. Someone doxed them, and Uncle Henry even got a rock through his Audi window.
At the end of the battle in court, it was Day who made the choice to finally, voluntarily, terminate the conservatorship. Sicily walked freely out of the courtroom with Deborah that day without casting a second glance back at her father or uncle.
She posted a picture of herself on the steps with the simple caption: #SilentNoMore .
Her mother is still in her life, for now. Kendra is not. Sicily still keeps in touch with some of the other cousins who had about as much agency in getting yoked to the family machine as Sicily did—like Emmylou, who could still do Sicily’s hair and makeup better than anyone. But the rest of the Bells are kept at arm’s length.
Chad, on the other hand, treats her like an adult. A real, actual adult—and it took some sinking in for Sicily to realize that she was no longer a kid. He’s asked for her opinion on things, dropped plans when she expressed reluctance toward them. It came as a shock. But the stable guidance gave Sicily the confidence to follow Gwen Stefani’s footsteps, all the way to Japan, where she is playing an Osaka gig at the Ookini Arena on Maishima Sports Island tonight.
All seven thousand seats will be full, Chad promises. And she believes him because he tells her the truth.
Sicily’s phone dings, and she glows when she checks the screen, due not only to the picture of Noah but also to the text from Squeak: You manage to escape again?
She grins around her tea straw. Whose business is it? she texts.
Mine, because I think I see you by the fountain.
Sicily looks around, excited by the thrill that he’s somewhere nearby. Soon she spots his tall, muscular frame approaching down the park path, his grin equally wide to see her.
He’s all brown skin and tattoos, the physical opposite of Hugo, and much more caring. She found his name mismatched for someone of his broad and athletic build—Sicily looks petite standing next to him. When she asked about it, he told her about his favorite dish called “bubble and squeak,” the one that he ate every day growing up in Brisbane. He loved it so much that his mom gave him the nickname, and it stuck.
Utterly charming, Sicily thinks. Irresistible.
He kisses her on the forehead and Sicily melts.
“What are you doing out here?” Squeak asks.
“I could ask you the same thing,” she chides. “I thought rehearsal was still going on.”
“We’re breaking for lunch. And you , my SiSi, should eat something more than boba before we need to load into the tour bus.”
His nickname for her. Sicily loves it. Their couple name is apparently circulating as “Squeaksy,” which is embarrassing—but at the same time she can’t get enough of the sappy articles. If she and Kendra were still speaking, Sicily thought she might have even looked forward to the daily roundups.
“I had something earlier,” Sicily says, laughing and pushing him away lightly. She doesn’t want to let on how nervous she is; she doesn’t think she could keep anything down until after the show. There has never been so much riding on it.
“If you say so.” He still looks concerned and loops an arm around her waist. “You’re going to be killer tonight, you know that, right? You always are.”
She leans into him, his body solid and secure against hers. “Thanks, you. Walk me back to the hotel before they drag you away again?”
They walk through the park slowly, hand in hand, watching kids play in the fountain and fly kites on the green. This is a life she once never imagined could be hers.
Sicily and Squeak run into Chad just inside the hotel and instinctively drop hands, though everyone must know what’s going on between them. Chad pretends not to notice.
“You haven’t been keeping her, have you? How long are these lunch breaks supposed to last?” he says to Squeak, half joking, half not.
Squeak grins sheepishly. “I was just getting back.” He waves goodbye to both of them, holding Sicily’s gaze for a lingering second that makes her a little lightheaded.
“Could you be ready in forty-five minutes?” Chad asks her once Squeak is gone.
She loves that it’s a question. She could say No, sorry, I need more time , and Chad would make it work. But it’s for this reason that Sicily never wants to let him down.
“For sure.” She nods. “Give me thirty.”
“Fantastic. Right on the money.” He’s always saying corny stuff like that—it’s the best. Chad heads toward the elevators, then turns back like he’s suddenly remembered something.
“Hey, I’m happy for you two,” he says. “You more than deserve the chance to blow off some steam. Just play it cool, yeah?”
Sicily feels her face redden a bit. “I will.”
“A dancer romance is for tour, not for happily ever after.”
She shifts her weight. “I know.”
Seven thousand seats full and then some. From the stage, Sicily swears she sees people standing in the top rows, in the aisles, packed as tightly as they can in the arena just to see her perform. She’s been practicing her routines for months to perfect them, but once the stage lights hit her, it all comes back like magic—the energy, the charisma, the feeling that she’s incapable of making a single misstep. The crowd loves her every move, roaring their enthusiasm and singing the lyrics along with her by heart.
Sicily feels fluid, hitting all her marks and even catching Squeak’s eye during one song to wink at him in excitement. The nod he gives back, as if to say I told you so , seals it. She and the dancers bring down the house to thundering applause.
Sicily runs offstage and is suddenly hit with a wall of exhaustion. She’s breathing hard and sweating. Squeak was right—she should have eaten. But this feels like more than regular nerves to her, and, anyway, the hardest part of the night is already over.
“Let’s do an encore,” the stage manager says into their headset, signaling for Sicily and the dancers to go back out. She takes a deep breath and braces for the hot lights once more.
Sicily makes it through, but the arena swims before her eyes, and she doesn’t hit her marks quite as sharply as she did when the adrenaline was helping her. The crowd doesn’t care—she’s already won them over.
But back in her dressing room, nausea brings her milk tea back up in the sink. Yet it’s a familiar feeling, and something is nagging at the back of her mind, a gut instinct that doesn’t go away the next day and the next.
A pregnancy test from the drugstore finally confirms it.
Sicily did it again: she’s pregnant.