Chapter 14
Nell doesn't like getting into other people's business, but she's been watching Erin Dooley ever since she joined the tour team that travels with Mia, and she always gets the same feeling when she looks at her: that Erin is a woman who has trouble connecting with people, or that she's simply very lonely—though Nell leans toward the first.
When she's not with Mia, the doctor is always alone.
It doesn't matter if it's lunchtime—where she picks any empty table and sits facing the window—or if she has free time because Mia is resting.
She's never with anyone, and she barely glances at her phone, as if she has no social media and no one to call.
Nell doesn't read her as a sad woman, but she does read her as someone who's missing something she doesn't know how to look for.
Right now they're in the dining room—or that's what they call it: it's a private room management has set aside for them so they can eat without mixing with the rest of the hotel guests.
It's breakfast time, and when Nell walks in, she sees the usual scene: Mia is at one of the tables with Noah, and several people from the team are spread across the others, always in groups of two or more, but Erin is alone by the window, drinking her coffee while she stares outside with a distant look on her face.
"Mind if I sit?" Nell asks.
Erin turns, surprised.
"No, go ahead."
"Can I ask you something personal?" Nell can't help being direct, even though she knows she should probably try sometimes.
"Sure."
"Do you always sit alone because you like it, or because you just don't know how to make friends? Sorry if that's blunt," she adds when Erin's face goes blank with surprise, "but at my age I don't bother beating around the bush. I'd like to understand you."
On instinct, Erin raises her hand to her hair and slides it up from the back of her neck, pressing her fingertips against her scalp—what she really wants is to tug at a strand, but she doesn't want to undo her updo.
"I guess I'm not very good at it," the doctor admits.
"But you have friends, right? Back in New York, I mean. Some people have a hard time making them, but once they do—"
"Maybe one."
"Maybe?" Nell opens her water bottle and studies her, intrigued.
Erin doesn't know what to say, so she goes with the only truth she has.
"Like I told you, I basically raised my little sister.
From twelve to my early thirties, I made sure she had everything she needed.
And when Brooke started depending on me a little less, my mom got sick, and I took care of her until she died two years later.
Between school, work, and the two of them, there wasn't much room for anything else.
So I've always been pretty much on my own. "
"There's a huge difference between being a solitary person and being a person who's alone, Erin," Nell says. "And I think you're in the second group. Have you ever been in a relationship?"
"A few, but they never lasted long. I could never figure out how to split my time, and eventually I'd crash. Being with someone created more stress than it relieved."
"And when your mom died?"
The doctor pushes her empty coffee cup to the edge of the table and runs a napkin over the dark ring it left in front of her.
"It's hard for me, Nell," she admits, because she knows where the woman is headed and she'd rather not answer questions to get there. "When I was younger I didn't make friends because I didn't have time, and now that I do, I don't know how it's done. I guess I'm at an age where it's harder."
"You've spent your whole life taking care of other people, honey," Nell says.
"First your sister, then your mom, and on top of all that you're a doctor, which means you take care of everyone—including her," she adds with a tilt of her head toward Mia's table.
"What I keep wondering is who takes care of you, Erin. "
The doctor feels something like a blunt blow to her sternum that turns into a knot pressing from the inside.
No one has ever been this direct with her, and even though she already knows it somewhere deep down, hearing it out loud from someone else makes it so real that a sudden pressure builds in her throat.
She takes a few seconds to let it sink in—that she's turned her life into a kind of servitude toward everyone else, that she's always giving and never receiving even a little.
Erin doesn't ask for much; her sister's support would be enough.
"I don't need anyone to take care of me, Nell. That I can do on my own."
Nell leans back in her chair and fiddles with the leather bracelets on her wrist.
"I got into this business because of my husband," she begins, and Erin looks at her with curiosity, because until now Nell has never shared anything personal.
"He was in all of this when I met him. I fell in love and we got married within months, and I had the best years of my life with him until he died.
I've stayed in this world ever since because he was passionate about it, and if I leave, I feel like his passion dies with him. "
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. I'm not looking for sympathy, and I don't feel sorry for you either.
I just want you to understand that life is so much better when you have people beside you who you truly connect with—people who care about you and who matter to you.
The ones who don't, you leave behind. I had him, but I made friends along the way too, and if it weren't for them I would've fallen apart when he was gone.
You're not too old to make friends, Erin, or to meet someone.
All you have to do is be more open and more willing.
Sitting alone every day isn't going to get you there, that's for sure. "
"You sat down," Erin points out, meaning it as a smile to finish the joke, but what comes out is a sad little grimace.
"And I'll keep doing it if you let me—but there are other people around here, Erin Dooley. Put in a little effort."
The doctor smiles at her and gives a small wave as Nell stands and walks away, already answering a call.
Now would be a good time to sit with what she just said, but Erin's mind doesn't have space for it, because she's still turning over the argument she had with Mia yesterday.
She doesn't even know how they got there—how they went from just starting to eat to not being able to finish.
She hadn't expected the singer to call her out on the way she treated her, and she knows she didn't handle it well.
Maybe she could have been a little more empathetic, or tried to explain herself differently—though when she thinks about it, she doesn't actually regret it, because she was honest with Mia.
Almost entirely, anyway, because there was one small part she chose not to share, and it's probably the most important part, the one that unsettles her most: what comes naturally with Mia is treating her with the warmth she didn't hide when the singer needed her most. It's the rest of the time that she holds back and runs cold.
She's been up all night asking herself whether she should let Mia see how she actually feels around her, and she's talked herself out of it every time—because she knows Mia is interested in her, in taking her to bed, and Erin has no intention of giving her anything that might make her think she has a shot.
She's clear on the fact that she has no interest in the singer, and what she feels, if anything, is curiosity. Nothing more.
She glances at her from across the room for a moment, then looks away immediately.
Mia is still as closed off as she was this morning when Erin stopped by her suite to check on her.
The moment had been awkward—both of them polite, both of them cordial, but the tension from yesterday still hanging in every space they share.
When she sees Mia and Noah stand up, she checks the time and does the same, because they have a meeting with Jude in ten minutes in the singer's suite, and Erin wants to swing by her room first to brush her teeth after breakfast.
"First things first," Jude starts once everyone is gathered in the singer's suite.
Mia—as always—is on the couch next to Noah.
Nell sits to Noah's right, Jude is in a wingback chair across from them, and Erin stays standing, leaning against the wall, because the only open spots left are the other chair beside Jude—and she doesn't much like the man—and the left end of the couch next to Mia, and right now things between them are too strained for that.
"How are you feeling today, Mia?" her manager asks, without even looking up from the screens of his two phones.
"Fine," the singer says.
"Great, great." Jude glances up. "Perfect timing, actually, because I've got an interview lined up for this afternoon that we can knock out in an hour.
We just drive over to the studio, you answer the prepared questions, and we're done.
A couple hours, tops. And tomorrow morning we'll do a visit to a rehab center—great press opportunity.
You'll perform a cappella, no instruments needed, just one song, because the show is that night and—"
"No," Erin cuts in, tired of listening.
He turns to her, surprised.
"No, what?"
"No to all of it. She's not doing that interview today, and she's not going to any center tomorrow.
Yesterday she nearly passed out during rehearsal.
She needs as much rest as possible before tomorrow night's show.
I sent you an email last night: today is full rest, and tomorrow too until the afternoon sound check. "
Something that looks like a rash creeps up Jude's neck, and he runs his hand over it before dragging it back through his hair, which today is slicked straight back.
"I'm not asking for anything physically demanding. The interview is just answering a few questions, and the—"
"I said no." Erin's voice doesn't waver, her expression doesn't change, but the tone is cold enough that Jude actually shifts in his seat.
Nell doesn't bother hiding her satisfied smile, and Noah keeps his eyes fixed on his tablet, because if he looks up he's absolutely going to burst out laughing at Jude's face. Mia, though, stays quiet, watching them both.
"You don't have the authority for this, Dooley. Your job is to make sure she doesn't collapse—or to bring her back if she does—"
"I don't know if you bothered to read the contract I signed," Erin cuts him off again, and Jude stands, because it makes his ego feel a little less flattened, "but I do have that authority.
In fact, it's a condition. What's the point of my being here if we don't apply what I determine she needs to recover properly after each episode? "
"Okay, maybe you have a point there, but I think you're overdoing it this time. She already said she feels fine. She rested all yesterday afternoon, and look at her—her eyes are brighter."
Erin tilts her head and looks at him like he's being dense.
"I'm done arguing about this, Jude. She may feel perfectly fine, but that doesn't mean she doesn't need to recover.
I'm convinced the main driver of her episodes is stress and not enough rest. I don't care if you think I'm overreacting—Mia is resting until tomorrow afternoon, and if that doesn't happen, I'll call Violette and have her escalate it to the insurance company.
I'm sure they'll love hearing that you're ignoring medical recommendations. "
Shooting Erin a look that would make most people flinch—though she doesn't seem to feel it—Jude pockets both phones and grabs his blazer.
"Fine. In that case, there's nothing left to cover in this meeting. Mia rests until tomorrow, as instructed."
He walks out of the suite without saying goodbye, and everyone stands to leave. Noah gives Erin a wide, conspiratorial smile as he passes, and Nell stops beside her for a moment.
"Well done, Doc. You've got to shut him down early or he'll walk all over you and you'll never shake him," she says, giving her arm a squeeze before heading out with Noah.
"I don't need you defending me," Mia says when Erin turns to leave.
"I'm not defending you. I'm doing my job. Those are different things."
"Right. Everything's just work," the singer murmurs.
Erin exhales in frustration.
"Can we stop this, Wilder?" she says, her voice low but sharp.
"I'm here for you—to take care of your health—and I'm trying to do it as well as I can.
If you don't like how I do it, that's fine.
We can end the contract and you can find another doctor.
But if you're going to keep me, stop second-guessing every call I make and every way I act. "
Mia holds her gaze with those blue eyes gone dark, like they're announcing a storm.
But she takes a step back and nods, because even though it would be easier to let Erin go and find someone else, she doesn't want to.
With Erin, she feels okay. The fear fades faster during her episodes when it's Erin's voice she hears, and she doesn't want anyone else taking her place—because she likes the doctor enough to make the effort worth it.
Mia has never felt this kind of pull toward any woman before, and even though nothing is going to happen between them, she's not ready to stop seeing her.
"Fine. You, your job. Me, mine. I won't complain anymore—not even when you look at me like that," Mia says, pointing at her, and Erin frowns.
"Like what?"
"I don't know." Mia's shoulders rise and fall. "Like I'm an inconvenient case you take on anyway because the pay is good."
Erin could tell her that's not exactly it—that she looks at her that way because it's how she protects herself, how she keeps Mia at a distance.
But she's not going to say that, precisely for that reason.
They have an understanding now: each of them to her own side, and that's what she needs until the contracted time is up and she gets her empty life back in New York.
"I'll check on you later. Call me if you need anything."
"I will," Mia says—though she has no intention of doing so unless she feels like she's about to go under.