Chapter Fourteen. Luna
Chapter Fourteen
Luna
After my talk with Ashley, I go out the back of the venue and get into the black SUV that’s waiting for me.
This is the first tour that I’ve had to sneak out like this.
When I opened for Smith Squad, I would just change and watch their show with my mom, then walk out and get dinner in a restaurant that was mainly fans.
When a girl occasionally asked for my autograph, it was thrilling.
I can still remember the moment I realized that I had gone from that kind of niche notability to being truly famous.
On my way to get a bacon, egg, and cheese on everything from my local bagel shop, I squeezed past the teens sitting on the stoop of my brownstone and was already a few steps down the street when one of them called after me. “Wait! Are you Luna Leya? Like, the singer?”
I turned around, surprised. It was rare that I got recognized in the city; the past few years that I’d been here I’d been largely anonymous, going to museums and restaurants with everyone else. “Um, yeah,” I said hesitantly. I waved awkwardly. “Nice to meet you!”
“Oh my god, can I get a pic?” one of the other girls said quickly. “I love your new song. You and Hudson are, like, the it couple. Ludson slays.”
“What?” I said, confused. I walked back to her so we could take a photo.
“Ludson? Your couple name? Even I know that!” the guy said.
“Right, right,” I said quickly, even though this was the first I was hearing of this.
I pushed my face next to the first girls, then the others, and we took selfies. I took one with the guy as well, supposedly for his sister, and then bid them goodbye and continued my walk.
I got stopped three more times.
When I walked into the bagel shop, my head was spinning.
I’d never been recognized on the street like this.
When Hudson and I had gone on our date last week—which our management sent the paparazzi to so they could photograph us to build buzz for the song—I had felt how famous he was.
There were whispers around us at the restaurant, people surreptitiously taking photographs of him, and a few people brave enough to ask for autographs as we left the restaurant, his security clearing the way through the crowd of onlookers.
Hudson was too famous to walk and get a bagel without his security.
And for the first time, I couldn’t help but wonder if someday soon I might be too.
I waited in line to order, and when I got to the front, the checkout girl wrote down my order without looking up. But when I handed her my credit card, she froze when she saw the name and her head jerked upright. “Oh my god,” she said. “I am such a big fan. Since ‘Ever After’!”
Hearing this girl had listened since the beginning made my heart soar.
Creating “You and Me” with Hudson was so electric and new, but it was my last album that felt the most me.
Heartfelt and personal, those songs were a raw authentic portrait of my girlhood.
Seeing people find them since I’d been associated with Hudson was great, but it was the fans who had been with me from the beginning that got me here.
I stuffed a twenty in the tip jar. “Thank you for listening,” I said earnestly.
From that day on, my life was never the same.
I’m too famous now to go get a bagel without security trailing me, and there are videos posted online of people trying to see whether Hudson is with me through the tinted windows of my car after shows.
If I want to go out to eat with Ashley, we reserve a private room in the back.
And I always can’t help but think that if my mom were here, it would still be exciting.
I go in through the back door of the hotel tonight, since fans have figured out everywhere I’m staying, and a worker ushers me up to my room.
I rush in, only to shut the door and then be met with such resounding silence, my stomach drops.
It’s ironic that I was just in a stadium full of girls who would kill to meet me, but I don’t have one person who I can invite over right now.
I walk over to the bed and pull up Quinn and Andy, the travel couple I follow on YouTube, and hit play on their latest video.
The sound of them comparing the first- and business-class cabins on the Korean Air Airbus A350 keeps me company as I take my makeup off and robotically do my skincare.
I can’t wait until I can go days at a time without makeup at the end of this tour.
My skin is red and sensitive underneath the layers of foundation and glitter, and I wonder how many shows I have until the tender spot on my chin becomes a full-fledged breakout we have to hide so people can’t zoom in on it.
As I watch Quinn and Andy choose from the dessert cart—an ice cream sundae for her, a red bean taiyaki for him—I examine the late-night room service menu.
Warm cookie. Ice cream. Churros. Tres leches cake.
It all sounds incredible. But instead of ordering, I hide the menu under the phone.
These jumpsuits are already so tight, I can barely breathe, and I want to feel light on my feet when I’m doing my dance routines at tomorrow’s show.
But I miss when my outfit was a flowy skirt and a tank top and I spent most of the show just standing in front of the mic playing the guitar instead of trying to sing while strutting down the stage and remembering choreography in almost nothing.
Being a pop star got me a Grammy nomination, I remind myself. I just need to keep pushing through for a little longer.
I leave the video up but mute the TV, and pull out my writing notebook.
I stare at the blank page, my pen hovering above it.
But nothing comes. I flip through the notebook, and the last time I felt inspired was when I wrote that song at the Eiffel Tower.
Before that there’s the pop songs I dragged myself through writing, that still aren’t trending and that people don’t share clips from or sing as loudly to at my shows.
And before that there’s “You and Me.” These pages are a chaotic mess of inspiration, with both Hudson’s and my scribbles all over the page.
Writing with him is like a dream; he’s the perfect collaborator.
We were almost strangers when we wrote “You and Me,” both channeling our separate pasts to make one song that felt true.
But flipping through my notebook, I don’t think I can find one lyric that I’m proud of, that was inspired by my relationship with him.
I open a fresh page and try to think of something. Anything. Hudson. Gifts. Writing together. Grand gestures. Fans. Fans like us. But my brainstorm goes nowhere. When I try to think of songs I can write for Hudson and me, all I can picture is Riley in a tight tank top laughing at something I said.
For a moment I feel a rising wave of panic.
If I can’t write great songs, then what’s the point of all this?
Does a Grammy matter if I lose the one constant I’ve had my whole life—that I’m a songwriter?
I take a breath and put the notebook down.
I just need to go to bed. In the morning, faking it will make sense again.
I turn off the lights and curl up under the covers.
But before I even try to go to sleep, I open Riley’s Instagram from my own secret Instagram account.
And as I watch her “day in my life as a private chef on a pop star’s tour” video from today, I feel calmer.
In the voice-over, she explains the care she put into choosing each dish, and as I watch, her biceps flex as she whips egg whites and her face flushes as she sears a piece of steak for my tapas.
She’s so hot. And it feels really fucking good to know that she’s thinking about me, even if it is her job.
And even though I really shouldn’t, I text her.
I hope you liked the outro
goodnight