49 EVIE
E VIE
Sometimes, I thought it was all so romantic.
Keeping the grand love of a lifetime a secret and all that.
But other times, I thought the whole thing was nothing but madness.
The night of that damn barbecue, representative of so many other nights like it when I wanted to scream out loud, was like a straw that broke the camel’s back.
The universe shouting at me until I could no longer ignore it.
I ended up plucking that magazine out of the trash that night, gingerly turning the pages, one by one, bracing myself for what I would find.
Finally, I reached a full-page, full-body photo of him standing straight forward and looking directly at the camera.
The first thing I noticed was the photo credit: Derek had taken the photos.
And of course, the rest of it made me swallow.
He appeared to be wearing absolutely nothing, covered only by the carefully placed font of the lettering.
I imagined he and Derek had gotten a kick out of that.
I knew the writer, funny enough. A guy named Michael Fleming. We had both come up around the same time, making our way from fan to insider and telling the stories about the artists we’d covered. I’d always liked his writing style, and he was a good guy.
I traced the curve of Carter’s mouth, the new illustrations that had been added to his body, the lines of his hips, remembering the exact way his skin had felt.
Then, as my eyes drew downward to his hands, I gasped and pulled the magazine closer.
Inscribed on his ring finger was a tattoo of the symbols for sigma and five.
EV. And on the matching right finger—the mathematical symbol for infinity.
A little dazed from the discovery, I continued reading.
From an interview that had taken place at a restaurant in Los Angeles, the story was a skipping timeline of sorts but was fairly sparse, with Carter evading most questions.
He didn’t seem to enjoy the attention, though maybe he’d grown used to it.
I didn’t really know him anymore. The article was also accompanied by a pictorial timeline, and my eyes went straight to a slightly blurred photo of him throwing a vicious punch in the midst of a crowd outside a hotel.
I instantly recognized the scene from New York and cringed at the memory from our last days together.
It’s no secret that Wills has had issues with paparazzi and crowds, not to mention the stories that came out from his school days.
In 1999, charges were levied against him by a photographer over an altercation outside of a New York City hotel.
Eventually, the suit was settled generously outside of court.
Wills never commented on the incident, but after having followed him throughout his career, I can’t help but wonder if he’d care to set the record straight.
“People always made so much of that. Like I was some hot-tempered egomaniac. It’s not who I am.
It just happened, and that’s it.” But something made him do it.
“Let’s just say I was protecting someone I loved and leave it at that. It was a long time ago.”
Someone I loved.
Past tense. A long time ago.
I took a breath and continued to read the discussion about the European tour that year.
Bands come and go, but twelve years after the debut self-titled EP that quietly rocked the UK charts, Mayluna is bigger than ever, selling out venues all over the world.
Well into rock-and-roll royalty, Wills seems unfazed by the level of their success.
“We take it seriously and made a commitment not to screw it up. And we don’t hate each other, which ostensibly, is key. ”
As I read more of the article, I barely recognized the Carter I’d known.
He sounded like he had grown aloof and hardened.
The boyish softness and optimism had been left behind.
I suppose that happens to all of us at some point, though.
I also read about Alex’s struggles in the first few years, and my heart hurt.
The piece went into the music a bit and the creation of the albums, with Sigma Five being called out in particular because of what the writer called “iconic” with “darkly romantic musings.” But little was revealed.
The interview came around to Carter’s wide array of tattoos and the meanings behind them, landing on the one that I was most interested in. The part that had seemingly resulted in a bit of mystery and lore.
Sigma Five. The album title. The tattoo.
The general belief is that the tattoo is Wills paying homage to the album of the same title and that he’s married to his music.
But there have been hints of a deeper meaning.
“The beauty of it lies in the mystery, doesn’t it?
It’s one of the few things in life that’s all mine to keep.
” Does the band know what it means? “Of course.” When asked if anyone else knows what it truly means, the singer simply says, “Maybe.”
Speaking of that ring finger, Wills has been linked with his fair share of Hollywood women, including a recent engagement to model/actress Iliana Billings, who Wills calls “a wonderful human being.” He claims rumors of his philandering have been “highly exaggerated.”
I nearly set the magazine down at that point, my shoulders curling inward.
A few days earlier at a Mayluna show, teenagers were screaming his name, right next to forty-something women and men doing the same. It’s not every day that a dark-haired, tattooed rocker makes that kind of impression.
I could so clearly imagine a younger Carter blushing and squirming awkwardly at the subject. At the same time, I, of course, knew the answer better than anyone, though I could never put it into words.
“Poor judgment, perhaps?” Wills responds, when asked if he knows the secret of his appeal. “But it’s very flattering and kind. We’re grateful that we’ve had the opportunity to be a part of people’s lives.”
Ah. There he was. I smiled.
The story was surprisingly brief, and as I read through it, I could feel the holes being filled by the writer as best as possible while working with Carter’s natural and likely frustrating reticence.
Funny that he was so closed about answers but had no issue posing half-nude on the cover.
Then again, he was always more comfortable naked, always running around like a bare-cheeked toddler, I thought with a laugh.
I sank back into my chair, resting my head against the back of the cushion, as I remembered that last day in New York.
The look on his face before he drove away.
I’d been so lost back then. I wanted to return to that girl, the younger version of myself, and say to her, Wait.
Take a breath. There’s a better way. Perhaps there was, but then again, perhaps not.
Despite my best efforts to leave the past where it belonged, Carter often entered my mind over the years.
I’d wake up from a dream, desperate to return to it and the feeling of his kiss.
His face would appear out of nowhere while I was making coffee, driving the kids to school, or having dinner with friends.
Whenever I thought back on the way he and I had been together, sometimes it was hard to remember if it had all really happened to me or if it was just the product of my imagination.
But of course, it had all been real, which made it both easier and harder to live with.
But things have a way of working out for a reason.
When you were kids, I kept a box hidden at the back of the closet tied with a ribbon.
It held a few mementos: the smooth plastic coating of the Mayluna All Access pass that had been my key to so many fun nights on the road.
A small stack of photos. Tommy, Carter, and me, drinks in hand, looking a little worse for the wear, acting silly on New Year’s Eve in London.
A picture I took from the side of the stage of Carter performing.
A note from Carter, ripped from a hotel notepad: Gone for coffee.
Back in a few. Sleep tight, pretty girl.
xo—C. I went through those things that night after reading the magazine, determined to face my past.
Beautiful, he would say. It wasn’t a word that came to mind easily these days.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d heard that word about myself.
My mom’s good genes had been kind to me and I looked mostly the same, I supposed.
For that I was thankful. It was everything else that had changed.
There was a glow that was absent. A light.
My mind flashed to a different time. A different place. A different me.
I remember hearts that pound
The taste of you, like summer found
Tangled in a sea of mist
for hours
Bourbon lips, the stolen kiss
I still can feel you with me love
I found myself humming the melody to the song. The lyrics were written in Carter’s scratchy black handwriting on the back of a crumpled receipt that I’d spotted on the nightstand one morning and held on to. He’d written them during the night while I had been sleeping next to him.
“You like?” he’d asked, giving me a smoldering smile when he saw me holding the tattered paper.
“I love it.”
He’d slipped under the tangled sheets, wrapping around me, warm from sleep. “What do you say we work on the rest of it? I could use some inspiration.”
I thought of these things as the doorbell rang and the house exploded into noise in the way that happens with the unexpected confetti-cannon ringing of a doorbell in a family home.
The kids shouting, “I’ll get it!” in unison, pounding to the door in a race with the barking dog, all sliding on the hardwood to open the door for the neighbors.
It was often like that when Carter was mentioned, pulling myself out of another world while trying to maintain my grip on the real one.
I placed everything back in the box, and called Kate first thing the next morning. The band was on tour that year—the big stadium tour that everyone was talking about. Kate had been bugging me to go with her, and I’d made some excuse not to. But I changed my mind that night. Thank God I did.
“Hey, remember when you asked me if I’d go to that Mayluna show with you?”
“Yeah?” Kate said.
“I’ll go.”
In a sea of faceless fans, I’d be nobody—I wouldn’t talk to him, obviously. But I could watch him. Be in the same geographical location with them. I could hear the music. I hoped it might be enough to put the past to sleep for good.
It’s so easy to lie to ourselves when we really want to. Isn’t it?
I suppose I was meant to see that magazine in the grocery store that day.
Meant to see the news story on the television.
Carter thought so, too, when I told him about it later, so I guess it must have been one of those signs that the universe places in front of us to wake us up and help shift our trajectory.