Chapter Four. Luna
Chapter Four
Luna
The flight to Paris passes in a blur of laughter with Riley.
We eat the full five-course meal with wine pairings, sync up movies to watch together, and spend so much time talking about food, planes, movies, music, everything, that I forget to even try to sleep.
Whenever I flew during my US tour with Hudson, he made us go private, then he would take a melatonin and sleep the entire flight so he was fresh when we landed, leaving me totally alone as per usual.
He hated when I blabbed on about planes; I could see his eyes glaze over.
I had never been on a plane until my mom moved us to Nashville so I could pursue music, and maybe it’s just because it was tied into the excitement of finally going after my dreams, but I became obsessed with them.
I’d watch videos on YouTube of people flying to Dubai in the apartment suite, or of what it was like to spend sixteen hours in economy on different airlines, and once I finally got to travel as Smith Squad’s opener, and again when I did my own small-venue US tour for my album, flying felt like an accomplishment.
When we land in Paris, my driver and security are waiting for me at the airport and I have them ferry Riley to the hotel too.
As soon as we get there, though, the desk informs her that her mobile kitchen has been delivered and she disappears to make sure everything arrived safely, and so I’m left alone. Again.
When I get up to my room, Ashley has already had a tour PA set up everything perfectly.
I have a suite with an Eiffel Tower view and a balcony, champagne is chilling, there’s a tray of macarons, and all of my clothes are already hanging in my closet.
I take off my dirty plane clothes and shower, then wrap myself in the fluffy hotel robe and step out onto the balcony.
I can’t believe I’m in Paris. In two days I get to play La Défense Arena in a sold-out show.
I snap a selfie with the Eiffel Tower in the background and post it to my Instagram, where immediately fans start reposting it and messaging me.
It still feels weird that millions of people who I’ve never met want to hear about everything I do.
I switch to my fake account so I can scroll through the accounts I’m actually interested in, and I see that Riley’s account has a new story.
I click on it, expecting to see a similar post to mine, of the Eiffel Tower or maybe something from the plane.
But instead it’s a post from twenty-two hours ago that she must have posted yesterday morning on her way here.
It’s a picture of her sitting at a bonfire at the beach, and there’s a beautiful sunset.
Two older men have their arms around her and she’s laughing and they’re surrounded by other people who are also all tanned and smiling.
These must be her dads, who she was texting when we landed.
The story doesn’t even have any words, but it’s obvious this was some sort of goodbye party for her, and all of these people came to see her off.
My stomach twists.
The twenty-first birthday party Hudson threw me this year was “the place to be” according to Access Hollywood and was attended by over two hundred people.
I hadn’t even met half of them, but they were all super famous, and we even had a red carpet so that everyone could show off their looks.
But there was nowhere near this level of love and affection for me at my party.
It was a show of who’s who, not a party to celebrate me.
If my single hadn’t hit number one and I hadn’t been dating Hudson, I don’t think half of them would have even shown up.
I shake myself out of this spiral. I dropped out of high school and left behind any real friends I’d ever had so I could get here.
And I want to actually enjoy it. I don’t want to spend today cooped up in my hotel room resting—I want to see Paris!
I want to climb all 674 steps of the Eiffel Tower and eat a baguette by the Seine. And I really don’t want to do it alone.
This is my first time touring with backup dancers, since my last album was so stripped down, it was just me and my guitar, a drummer, a keyboardist, and a bassist. I had imagined we’d all become friends and do things together, but we haven’t really connected.
I know I’m a decade younger than them, and this is just another job they’re on, but I couldn’t help but be disappointed when I realized they were all hanging out after we wrapped.
Just without me. But for some reason I feel like Riley and I actually did hit it off.
I send a message to Riley’s Instagram account.
Want to visit the Eiffel Tower??? And do Paris things?
She sees the message almost immediately, then types, then deletes whatever it was she was typing.
I’m at the venue setting up my mobile kitchen, you shouldn’t wait on me. Enjoy Paris!
I walk back into my room and flop down onto the bed. I know I could go alone. My driver is waiting downstairs right now, at the ready to take me anywhere I want to go, and I don’t have rehearsals until tomorrow. But something about experiencing the City of Lights solo just feels so depressing.
I must doze off, because when I wake up, the sun is low in the sky, and I realize I’ve slept away my only off day in Paris.
I jolt upright, then jump out of bed and throw on a sundress and sneakers.
I’m not wasting any more time. I meet my driver in the lobby, where he’s been waiting, and ask him to take me to the Eiffel Tower.
“Right away, miss,” he agrees. Wordlessly, my security detail stands from the chair he was in to follow us. “Do you want to pick up your package from the venue first?” my driver asks.
“What package?” I ask, confused. “I’m sure it can wait. But who called about it?” If it was Ashley, she would have had whatever it was couriered to me and called if it was important.
“I’m not sure, miss. Riley, your chef, called in saying it was ready for whenever you decided to go out.”
I hesitate. I had told myself that I was waiting for no one, finally ready to seize the day solo. But it wouldn’t hurt to just see what it is. “Sure, let’s check it out. It would be nice to see the venue anyway.”
When we get to the venue, I wave off his offers to have someone bring it out to me, and insist that my security wait outside the car, and I run inside myself. “Can you take me to the mobile kitchen?” I ask the first employee I see.
He’s probably a local stagehand or PA, and he’s clearly nervous about taking me anywhere but my greenroom or the stage. “Madame, I can get for you whatever you need. Tell me, what do you need?”
I smile reassuringly. “Just to go to the kitchen, thanks.”
He speaks in French into a walkie-talkie, his brow furrowed, then finally takes me down a freight elevator to the basement. He walks me down the hall and points at a door. “I will wait here, to take you back. The lift, it is dangerous.”
“Merci,” I say cheerfully, then I push open the door to the kitchen.
I’m hit with a wave of heat. It must be ninety degrees in the small room, which clearly has no AC, but Riley appears unperturbed.
She’s in cutoffs and a white T-shirt, her blond hair slicked back into a tight bun.
It’s a simple outfit, but it fits her perfectly and only serves to emphasize her generous curves; strong, tanned limbs; and natural, unfussy beauty.
She’s so cute, she looks like she could just as easily be licking an ice cream cone outside a beachside shack on the Cape as working in a kitchen.
She’s testing the temperature of a tart with a digital thermometer and is so focused, she doesn’t hear me come in, so I walk over to her.
“I hear you have a package for me?”
Riley looks up in surprise and grins. “I do. But you didn’t need to come in here to get it! I would have run it up to you.”
“I hear the elevator’s dangerous,” I tease.
“I used the stairs,” she laughs. She abandons the tart on the counter and walks over to the fridge, where she pulls out a wicker picnic basket that she hands to me. “I made you a picnic for the Eiffel Tower. If you have a few minutes, I can add a piece of fresh strawberry rhubarb galette to it.”
“I think I’d wait all night for that.”
I watch Riley cut into the galette and expertly extract a perfect piece. The muscles in her forearms flex as she opens a glass container and then fits the slice in perfectly before adding a sprig of rosemary on top.
“Maybe I need two,” I say suddenly. “Come with me. You’ll have plenty of time to prep tomorrow.”
Riley shakes her head and turns on the faucet to wash the knife she cut the galette with. “Tomorrow isn’t a prep day for me; it’s a working day because you’re rehearsing. I’m meeting the runner at five AM to shop the markets.”
I barely know Riley. Not enough to feel this disappointed.
I fiddle with the picnic basket and try to wipe the dejection from my face, but when I look back up at her, I can tell she didn’t miss a thing.
I’m not used to people being so perceptive.
Everyone else is paying attention, in a sense, but mainly just to their job.
Not to how anything impacts me. “It’s okay, really.
You should rest. I already kept you up all night on the plane. ”
“No, no, you’re right,” Riley says quickly. “It would practically be a crime to not see the Eiffel Tower our first night here. I think my dads might disown me. Just give me ten minutes to clean up here, and I’ll meet you upstairs.”
Exactly ten minutes later Riley is sitting in the back seat of the car next to me.
She’s checked her watch three times since she got in here, but I don’t say anything.
I know she didn’t really want to come, but I just want to see the Eiffel Tower, even for a few minutes.
The traffic getting there is horrible, but occasionally I can see the tower in the distance as we get closer, and I’m getting excited.
I can tell Riley is worried about the time, though.
She keeps checking her watch and pulling up maps and looking at how far we are from the tower.
Finally she leans forward to the driver. “Can you just pull over here?” She looks at me. “We need to run.”
“What? We’re really almost there.”
“Miss, I have to advise you to stay in the car,” my security guy interjects.
This is exhausting. I’ve largely gotten used to having a huge man tailing me everywhere, but this is Paris!
Not New York. I want to feel normal for a minute, and six months ago I didn’t even have security.
It was Hudson and Ashley who insisted it’d become necessary.
“Please just stay in the car nearby,” I say firmly. “You have my location.”
I grin at Riley. “Let’s go.”
She grabs the picnic basket and blanket and opens the door and jumps out of the car, and despite not understanding exactly what the rush is, I follow her.
“I don’t want us to miss it!” she says as she starts running.
I follow her as we race down the street, narrowly avoiding knocking into flower stands and outdoor seating at the cute little bistros.
I almost lose her when she takes a turn and I keep going straight a moment too long, but she grabs my hand. “Quick!”
By the time we reach the lawn, I have a horrible stitch in my side and I have no idea how Riley has managed to keep up this pace while holding that basket. Once we’re on the lawn with a clear view of the tower, she drops to the ground, panting. I turn to her. “What was that—”
“Look!” she yells. “Keep looking at the tower!”
I turn, and then it happens. It’s dusk, and suddenly the tower goes from dark to twinkling and my jaw drops. Everyone on the lawn claps, and I look around in awe. It’s such a magical moment. “Oh my god,” I whisper. Riley wasn’t trying to get away from me. She was making sure I experienced this.
“How did you know about this?” I ask without taking my gaze from the tower, which is still sparkling.
“My sister, Liv, studied abroad in Spain for a semester,” Riley explains.
“She called me from basically this spot and I watched it light up on FaceTime with her. I have a lot of great memories with her from that time, before she started working.” Her voice catches on the word before, and I want to ask why.
But I’m not used to talking with a friend like this, and I don’t know if it’s appropriate, so I stay quiet.
“My dads also had their honeymoon here,” Riley continues.
“Paris is a gorgeous city, but even with all the art and fine dining and shopping and history, this has always been what I wanted to see the most.”
Suddenly the lights stop twinkling, although the tower now stays lit. “Oh,” I exhale, disappointed it stopped but thrilled we got to see it. “Thank you for showing me.”
Riley starts unpacking the basket and assembling our picnic. “Of course. It happens on the hour, every hour, so you’d probably have seen it. But there’s something special about being here for the first sparkle of the night. And you were so right: I’m glad we came. It’s just perfect here.”
I get up and sit on the picnic blanket Riley has set out, and look at the spread.
She has delicious-looking sandwiches, the galette slices, a fruit-and-cheese board, and real French champagne and glasses.
It’s above and beyond. “Riley, this is amazing. Thank you for making it for me—today was supposed to be your day off.”
“I wanted you to enjoy your first night in Paris,” she says, blushing.
“And everyone should have champagne when they’re under the Eiffel Tower for the first time.
” She pours us two glasses, expertly letting the champagne hit the side of the glass to stop it from being all foam like I’ve noticed waiters do, and hands me one.
“Cheers to your world tour,” Riley says.
“Cheers,” I echo. And it feels so special.
I can’t remember the last time someone celebrated me like this, in a private, intimate way.
Hudson does things for me, but they’re always for the bit.
He’ll buy me a pink Jeep but film giving it to me for Instagram.
He took me shopping for my birthday but called the paparazzi to photograph the entire day.
I look around, worried for a moment that someone could be filming us. But all around us the lawn is just full of couples enjoying their picnics. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything more beautiful. “This whole night feels like a love song,” I whisper.
“I know,” Riley says softly back as she kicks off her shoes in the grass. “I love Paris.”
I grab one of the napkins and pull a pen from my purse and start scribbling furiously. I don’t know where this verse will go, but I can’t lose the feeling. It’s been so long since I was inspired to write something new, I can’t believe it’s happening again.