4. Lucille
— ? —
Lucille
Two weeks pass like water through my fingers, present but impossible to hold.
I see Hugo in fragments now.
A glimpse of him leaving for the studio at 6 a.m., coffee in hand, phone already pressed to his ear. The sound of him coming home after midnight, his footsteps careful on the stairs like he’s trying not to wake me.
Sometimes I find evidence of his existence scattered through the house: a half-finished glass of whiskey on the kitchen counter, his jacket thrown over a chair, a hastily scrawled note that says Thinking of you without any follow-through.
He’s been swallowed by the machine.
Recording sessions that run twelve hours.
Video planning meetings that eat entire afternoons.
Rehearsals with Ginny that require “creative alignment,” whatever that means.
Every time I think we might have an evening together, Derek calls with an urgent issue, and Hugo disappears again with an apology in his eyes and a promise on his lips.
The promises are starting to feel like currency he can’t back up.
I throw myself into work because it’s the only thing that feels solid.
Diane’s rehearsal dinner dress is finished, the burgundy silk draping exactly the way I envisioned, and I’ve picked up two new clients through her referral, a mother of the bride who wants “elegant but not matronly” and a socialite planning her engagement party who described her aesthetic as “if Grace Kelly had a trust fund and a Xanax prescription.”
I laugh more with my clients than I do with my husband these days.
Alice texts me constantly, checking in, offering to come over, suggesting increasingly elaborate schemes to “accidentally” spill wine on Ginny at public events. I appreciate her loyalty even when I can’t match her energy.
Most nights I just want to work until I’m too tired to think, then fall into bed and pretend I don’t notice the empty space beside me.
***
The video shoots today.
I learn this from Alice, not from Hugo.
The text arrives at 10 a.m., while I’m pinning a muslin mock-up on my dress form and trying to decide if the neckline is too severe.
ALICE: Have you seen this? Please tell me you knew about this.
Below the message, a link. I click it before I can talk myself out of it.
EXCLUSIVE: First Look at Hugo Kensington and Ginny Davies’ Reunion Video Concept
The article is short on words and loaded with images, behind-the-scenes shots from the planning stages, concept art, storyboards that someone clearly wasn’t supposed to leak.
I scroll through them with the detached curiosity of a scientist examining a specimen, refusing to feel anything until I’ve gathered all the data.
The concept is worse than I imagined.
They’re recreating moments from Hugo and Ginny’s relationship.
That’s what the article says, though I suspect “relationship” is doing a lot of work in that sentence.
There are storyboards of them walking through a Nashville campus, laughing over sheet music, sitting on a park bench while autumn leaves fall around them like a scene from a movie.
And then there’s the final scene: an almost-kiss by a piano.
The storyboard shows Hugo seated at the keys, Ginny leaning over his shoulder, their faces inches apart. The direction notes read: Hold the tension. Let the audience want it. Don’t give them the satisfaction of completion.
I set my phone down and stare at my dress form.
He knew about this.
He’s known for two weeks. And he never once told me what he’d be doing today, what he’d be performing for cameras, what intimate fiction he’d be creating with another woman. He told me the label agreed to keep it professional, two musicians and nothing else.
Either he lied to me or they rolled right over him, and I’m not sure which is worse.
Maybe he thought I wouldn’t find out. Maybe he thought I wasn’t paying attention. Maybe he didn’t think about me at all.
My phone buzzes again.
ALICE: Lu? You okay?
I type back: Fine. Working.
ALICE: Bullshit. I’m coming over.
LUCILLE: Don’t. I need to focus.
ALICE: Focus on what? Pretending this isn’t killing you?
I don’t answer. I turn my phone face-down and go back to the muslin, adjusting the neckline with hands that refuse to shake because I won’t let them.
The thing about being the wife of someone famous is that you learn to compartmentalize.
You learn to separate the public narrative from the private reality, to understand that what happens on camera isn’t the same as what happens at home.
I’ve known this since before I married him. I prepared myself for it.
But I didn’t prepare for the way it would feel to watch my husband recreate a romance with someone else while I sat alone in my studio, finding out about it from tabloids.
I didn’t prepare for the way it would feel to be an afterthought in my own marriage.
Florence calls at noon.
“Darling,” she says, and her voice has that particular quality it gets when she’s about to suggest a plan I won’t like. “What are you doing this afternoon?”
“Working.” I pin another section of muslin with more force than necessary. “I have a deadline.”
“You always have a deadline. Deadlines can be moved.” She pauses delicately. “Have you seen the news about the video shoot?”
“I’ve seen it.”
“Then you know it’s happening right now. At that studio in West Hollywood, the one with the rooftop garden.” Another pause. “I think you should stop by.”
I actually laugh, a short, brittle sound that surprises both of us.
“Florence, with all due respect, I am not going to show up at my husband’s music video shoot to watch him pretend to almost-kiss his ex-girlfriend.”
“That’s exactly why you should go.” Her tone turns pointed. “Show your face. Remind everyone whose ring is on his finger. Don’t let that woman control the narrative by making you invisible.”
“I’m not invisible. I’m choosing not to participate in the circus.”
“You’re hiding.” The words land like a slap. “I understand why. I would want to hide too. But hiding is what she wants, Lucille. She wants you to disappear, to make yourself small, to cede the territory. And I raised you better than that.”
She didn’t raise me at all, my mother did that, before the cancer took her, but I know what Florence means.
She chose me for her son, not my father.
She saw a quality in me at those charity functions, a spark of steel beneath the polite exterior, and she advocated for this marriage because she believed I was strong enough to survive it.
I wonder sometimes if she overestimated me.
“What am I supposed to do?” I ask quietly. “Walk onto set and stake my claim? Make a scene?”
“You don’t have to make a scene. You just have to exist. Show up, be gracious, let everyone see that you’re not threatened by a manufactured narrative.” She softens slightly. “And remind my son what he has waiting at home. He needs reminding, apparently. The fool.”
I look at my dress form, at the pins scattered across my worktable, at the life I’ve been building in this studio while Hugo builds his elsewhere.
“Fine,” I say finally. “But if this blows up in my face, I’m blaming you.”
“That’s my girl.”
***
The studio is exactly what I expected: a converted warehouse in West Hollywood, all exposed brick and industrial lighting and people with headsets rushing around looking important.
I park in the visitor lot and sit in my car for a full five minutes, trying to convince myself this isn’t a terrible idea.
It’s a terrible idea.
But I’m here now, and Florence is right about one thing: hiding is what Ginny wants. I’ve spent two weeks making myself invisible, tiptoeing around my own house, pretending I don’t care what my husband is doing or who he’s doing it with. Maybe it’s time to stop pretending.
I check my reflection in the rearview mirror. I chose my outfit carefully, a structured blazer over a silk blouse, tailored trousers, understated gold jewelry. The look says I’m not trying too hard while also saying I’m better than you. It’s a delicate balance.
The security guard at the entrance checks my ID and makes a phone call, and I watch his eyebrows rise when whoever’s on the other end confirms that yes, Hugo Kensington’s wife is authorized to visit set.
“Right this way, Mrs. Kensington.” He gestures toward a reinforced door. “They’re filming in Studio B.”
I follow the signs through a maze of hallways, past equipment carts and coffee stations and clusters of crew members having hushed conversations. The closer I get to Studio B, the louder my heartbeat sounds in my ears.
This is fine. This is just a visit. I’m supporting my husband.
I push through the final door and stop.
The set is beautiful. Someone with actual taste designed it, a recreation of a small apartment, all warm wood and soft lighting and a grand piano positioned by a window that doesn’t lead anywhere real.
Crew members move around the perimeter, adjusting lights, checking monitors, speaking in the hushed tones of people who take their work very seriously.
And in the center of it all, lit like a painting, are Hugo and Ginny.
They’re at the piano. She’s leaning over his shoulder, one hand resting on his arm, her red hair cascading down like a scene from a shampoo commercial. He’s looking up at her with an expression I’ve never seen directed at me, soft, focused, entirely present.
They look like a matching set.
A quiet crack opens in my chest, and I force myself to breathe through it.
“Cut!” The director’s voice rings out. “Beautiful. Let’s reset for the close-up.”
The spell breaks. Ginny straightens, laughing at a comment from someone off-camera, and Hugo’s expression shifts back to his usual professional neutrality. He says a few words to the piano tech, adjusts his position, runs through a few bars of the song.
He doesn’t see me.