Chapter 4
4
I advance down the step and repeat like the well-seasoned pro that I am. After countless requests for smiles, pouts, hair flips, and a few jarringly abrasive demands for a twirl, it all starts to feel like some chaotic game of Simon Says, anyway. So, when Angelo whisks me off for a round of press, the relief I feel is a shock to the system.
“And now we have joining us, the stun-ning Ella Simone,” Sherelle purrs. As I approach, she gracefully takes both of my hands to help me ascend the steps. Sherelle is dripping with diamonds in a floor-length sparkling green number that looks like something straight out of the Emerald City. It’s doing amazing things for her legs and waist.
“Honey! You’re just giving us ev-er-y-thing tonight!” she coos.
We beam at each other and air-kiss, careful to position ourselves so that the cameras capture our best angles. I try to center myself in the interaction and drown out the chorus of activity surrounding us. “But look at you! That waist is snatched,” I croon, careful not to shout on instinct to counter the chaotic din of the carpet. Years ago, I learned the hard way that yelling into the mic on a red carpet makes you sound utterly ridiculous to anyone who’s watching at home.
“Oh, stop it.” Sherelle playfully swats at me with a gloved hand. “Now of course everyone’s been dying to know where that handsome hubby of yours is tonight. Can you tell us if Majors will be joining you later?” she asks.
Somewhere a record scratches, sending a violent chill up my spine. Angelo and I rehearsed this in the car, sure. But after all the spins and twirls, somehow this feels like an ambush with knives. I figured if Sherelle was going to be the one interviewer to highlight the absence of my yet-to-be-announced ex, she’d at least ease us into it. Maybe, like the others, she’d ask me who I’m wearing or who lent me the million dollars’ worth of diamonds that are digging into my neck and stretching out my earlobes. I school a sour expression before it has time to manifest on my face.
Where is Elliot, you ask? Probably with his head up a twenty-two-year-old’s skirt , I think, but don’t dare say. Instead, I shrug casually and glance to my left, where Angelo stands dutifully within earshot, ready to step in and rescue me if I start to bomb this interview.
If I gave Sherelle the whole truth, I’d tell her that as of this moment, Elliot Majors and Ella Simone are at war—two ex-lovers engaged in a battle to sever all ties. But on a less dramatic scale, he has been not-so-subtly blowing off this awards show ever since a very public falling-out with the Recording Academy over its refusal to televise the awards categories of his neo soul and alternative R&B artists—the ones the industry draws the bulk of its inspiration from but has no trouble relegating to the sidelines on its biggest night. So even though Elliot gave his word, via Coco, him showing up tonight would have been an aberration. But alas, I settle for the cover.
“He’s at Abbey Road,” I lie, with a smile.
“Oh! Londooon.” Sherelle drags out the last syllable and waggles her eyebrows. “I assume he’s working on something very special, then? I mean, to miss a big night like this?”
Absently, I finger the eight-carat ruby that sits above a white gold band, both weighing down my left ring finger. Per our prenup, he’ll get it back when we formally divide our assets. Maybe that’s when I’ll feel the last string that binds our union snap.
Eager to satiate Sherelle’s curiosity so I can be done, I return to my practiced script. “Elliot has signed an amazing new artist—”
“Mm-hmm, Miss Thing! Oh yes, honey, we’ve seen,” Sherelle cuts in. I feel Angelo inch closer—a warning for Sherelle and her producer to stay in bounds here. Clearly everyone’s seen the photos of Elliot’s hot young protégé draped across his lap in the VIP section of Cirque le Soir in London.
“Yes, well they’re working on a new album,” I add with feigned enthusiasm. “I’ve heard some of the tracks they’re recording, and it’s truly phenomenal stuff.”
In my periphery, I see Angelo, ever the enforcer, make a swiping motion across his neck with his right hand. His eyes are nearly popping from their sockets—all part of his nonverbal cue for Sherelle to cut the bullshit. She clocks it and visibly gulps before giving an almost imperceptible nod. Then, course correcting with a quickness, she says, “Well, I’m sure Majors is eager to get himself back across that pond with the way you’re looking tonight! So tell us, who are you wearing?”
I thought she’d never ask.
After barreling down the crimson gauntlet, Angelo and I follow hastily behind Lydia toward our assigned seats on the floor of the arena. We find them with only a few minutes to spare ahead of Thundercat’s opening performance. Instead of hanging out backstage or in a greenroom, where he’d usually be, Angelo’s next to me, filling in for Elliot. This way I don’t have to sit next to a stranger all night or, worse, an exec from the label. Production has strategically placed me on the aisle for a comedic bit I’m supposed to do after the opener with our host for the night, Trevor Noah.
We’ve just been served our drinks, a flute of champagne for me and a tumbler of scotch for Angelo. I take a sip of the sparkly liquid and let my eyes flutter closed. When I open them, I sense an energy shift when a slight commotion breaks out around us. Turning, I find two seat fillers peering down the aisle with their jaws practically detached. I shrug it off—it’s been a long time since a celebrity sighting has had that kind of effect on me. I’m about to turn back to the stage, when a tall, dark figure snags my attention from the direction they were gawking. I blink twice to try to reconcile this reality with the photos I’ve seen in the past. On the third blink, it’s unmistakable.
Miles Westbrook has entered the building.
Under the dim blue-hued lighting of the arena, Miles’s tall, athletic frame appears—dark, imposing, and devastatingly regal. Suddenly unsure of what to do with myself, and unwilling to be found staring, I hastily turn around. For what reason? I don’t know. But that’s when I notice a card with his name taped on the chair directly behind me. And next to his seat is a card that reads Draya Nishelle . I recognize it instantly and feel tiny pinpricks on the back of my neck.
Draya is a fitness model I once found Elliot getting a little too close for comfort with in the far corner of an album release party. He never supplied me with a straight answer as to whether or not things had started and ended there with her. But then, I never got straight answers from Elliot about all the countless scenarios that made me question my own sanity. It wasn’t until I later caught him in the act that my reality became just that—real.
Feeling overheated, I swivel forward and take an oversized gulp from my champagne flute, nearly draining the glass. When I look up again, Miles and Draya are just a few feet away from us with her arm possessively interlocked with his. In a figure-hugging hot pink jumpsuit, she flicks her seventies Cher-like hair over a shoulder while smiling and blowing air kisses at attendees who are already seated. For Miles’s part, he’s sporting a warm, broad smile with a look of wonder in his eyes—almost like he’s surprised by the warm reception. I have to admit it is a very welcoming embrace from a room that, for all the boisterous appearances on television, can be stilted and cold in person. But Miles is getting dapped up by everyone from Machine Gun Kelly to Ed Sheeran and Usher.
The chatter around us ratchets up several notches as more people start to take notice of his arrival. “Guess baseball really is America’s favorite sport,” I mumble, leaning close to Angelo’s ear, mindful of the fact that in the arena, cameras are on us at all times, and any display of outsized emotion is likely to be captured and repurposed into a viral meme.
Angelo cranes his neck to peek for himself. “When baseball looks like that and has a nine-figure contract…what’s not to love?”
At this I nearly spit up the bubbly. “I’m sorry, did you say nine ?”
Angelo scoffs. “Spread out over ten years, but…yeah. The boy is paid.”
Just as I begin to quietly contemplate my life choices, the house lights dim further and the couple of the hour nears us to brush past. But before they do, Miles looks down and our eyes lock. At this precise moment, something cold and hot slices through my entire body, and the promise I made myself not to stare at him is instantly forgotten. Our eye contact can’t last more than two seconds, but the moment he turns away, I feel like I could fall. That’s when Thundercat takes the stage and the crowd erupts with excitement.
Somehow, Angelo’s procured a double shot for me, and I could kiss him with gratitude. Within seconds, I’m swept up in the groove of the song and have no choice but to get up and move my body to the hypnotic bass line. Three minutes later it’s over, and Trevor Noah is standing in the aisle next to me with a spotlight trained on us. We didn’t rehearse the bit in advance, but it’s simple enough—we do an eight-count of a viral TikTok dance that’s set to one of my singles, and the crowd awards us with polite laughter. He intros the show and we’re off to the races.
Seconds later, Lydia scurries over to me and Angelo, our cue to get backstage for my wardrobe change.
This Balmain number could make “barely there” look matronly. It’s basically one intricate circuit of multicolored silk straps that intersect in all directions to form a lattice pattern around my torso. The skirt tapers down in a tattered fringe effect that showcases the full length of my legs and only a portion of my ass. I loved it when I initially saw the sketch and tried it on during fittings, but now that I’m about to be onstage beneath all the lights, I’m wondering if maybe I’m doing just a little too much.
“Uh-uh,” Rodney chirps as he notices me scrutinizing myself in the mirror. “Don’t do that!”
“Don’t do what?” I ask in mock confusion, already sure of what he’s about to say.
“You know you look damn good. Don’t come around here with that ‘I shoulda went harder at the gym’ look on your face. Nobody has time for that!” he scolds.
We watch the next segment of the show from backstage. It drags on in overlong speeches interspersed with a motley lineup of performances, some arguably more inspired than others. At the halfway mark, Lydia comes by the greenroom area to scoop me up so I can go join Ariana Grande for our duet honoring Mariah Carey, one of my all-around top-five favorite vocalists and probably my biggest lyrical inspiration.
The performance goes mostly as planned—save one iffy moment after the bridge of “Always Be My Baby” when our ad-libs begin to clash, so I back off the mic. But by the end we save it enough to garner a standing ovation. And by the looks of it, Mariah didn’t hate it. If she had, that plus my divorce might be enough to put me off on an indefinite hiatus.
I spend another twenty minutes in the audience sipping a glass of wine with Angelo. By now the crowd is well lubricated and loosened up. Everyone’s ready for the show to be over so they can head to the after-parties. But the biggest awards of the night are coming up, which means there’s a healthy dose of anxiety in the air too. Without a new album released in time for this year’s nominations cycle, the pressure’s off me for the night—except for my R&B Song of the Year presentation with Miles. He and Draya weren’t in their seats when I got back after my performance, and they haven’t returned yet.
I find myself swatting away images of what they could be off doing together in secret corners of this arena. But before I lose that battle with my curiosity, I’m tapped on the shoulder once again.
I turn to find Lydia crouched down near my seat. “Miles Westbrook is asking for you backstage.”