She shrugged. “It’s what I got.”
I wanted to ask how we could know for sure that Mrs. Beeton was the person who came up with the ingredients idea, but I decided I was going to have a little faith that it was true. I was going to have faith in Mrs. Beeton, and—if Rain was bothering to be kind to me, to dredge up this story she’d been saving until I deserved it—maybe a little faith in myself.
My sister walked over to the bay windows, looked outside. “It is really freaky to be back in here.”
I walked over to the windows, too, so we were side by side. “I’ve actually found it kind of comforting.”
“That’s even freakier.”
I looked right at her, Rain’s eyes still straight ahead. “I shouldn’t have said what I did, about you and Dad,” I said.
She flinched. “I’m not like him,” she said.
“I know that.”
“Do you?”
“If anyone’s like him, it’s me.”
She turned and met my eyes. I nodded, wanting her to know she’d heard me correctly—that I meant it. I did. I knew it was the reason I’d had to leave Montauk. It was the reason I stayed away from my sister; because she knew it too.
I only understood it now—after Sunshine had taken such a terrible pivot, after Danny had outed me—and I was forced to face myself again. I had become my father’s daughter. He’d had his rules. And I created my lies. And they served the same purpose at the end of the day. They let us live in alternative universes where we got to pretend that we were strong. Where we felt good enough.
Rain looked away, not sure what to say. I was sorry, and she knew it. I was trying to do better. If we had a different relationship, she could have taken my hand or touched me. But that wasn’t who we were, not anymore.
She looked at me. “I’d like to go home now,” she said.
I smiled, a little deflated. “Sure.”
“And I would like you to come with me.”
I nodded, my throat catching. She shrugged, playing it off.
“I guess that baby inside of you . . . he gets you some goodwill as far as I’m concerned.”
“You think it’s a he?” I said.
Rain started gathering up her things, doing a final sweep of the kitchen. “I just picked a pronoun.”
50
Putting the ingredients up front. Here’s how I planned to do it.
I called Julie, ready to take her up on her generous offer. There were many reasons to tell her yes after all. A new show would provide financial security, a career, a way to help take care of Sammy, to take care of my own kid, a way out of Montauk. A shot at redemption. No lies this time. And hadn’t a version of this very thing been the goal?
Still, when I heard her voice on the phone, the word yes wouldn’t come out of my mouth.
“So, are we going to do something great together?” she said.
“Can I ask you something first? Do you think there’s a way to live in the public eye and be authentic? You work with all sorts of people. How do people do it?”
“Well, you don’t lie about who you are. For starters.”
I laughed. “I know, but even then . . . it seems tricky.”
“Oh, jeez. I guess they don’t take the whole thing so seriously,” she said. “Or maybe they take it very seriously. I don’t know. I think you’re missing the point.”
“Which is?”
“I’m offering you a second chance. And this time, there will be no pretending to be anything you’re not. It will be the real you.”
That stopped me. Because she couldn’t promise that. That was the tricky part, wasn’t it? That was Ethan’s point. Danny had been able to hack me because I’d lied about who I was. But he was also able to do it because I’d put everything out there. I’d told the story about myself that I thought needed to be told. Until it had taken me so far away from myself that I couldn’t even find it anymore. The truth. My truth. However large or small, however unimportant. However click-worthy.
Maybe that was all we had to hold on to. Our truth. Our thing. The thing that made us who we were. So the entire world wasn’t suddenly for sale.
“Are you still there?” Julie said.
“I am,” I said. “But I’m going to pass.”
“No.” She was firm. “Really?”
I almost didn’t believe it myself. “Apparently.”
“Come on. Why would you do that?”
It was a fair question. “I don’t think it’s right for me.”
“Who knows what’s right for them? Some days I want to move to Mexico, other days I’m scared of Zika. Do you get what I’m saying? I mean, you don’t want to be a waitress forever.”
“I’m on trash.”
“I’m getting a headache.”
“I think I just need a private life right now.”
“Is the husband back?”
“No. I just don’t want to put myself out there. At least until I know again what I’m putting out there.”
“I’m not sure what that means. Though I hope you’ll call me when you come to your senses.”
Maybe I would. But I didn’t think so. “Thank you for thinking it was a good idea.”
“I’m thinking a little less so now,” she said.
51
There is another thing you should know about “Moonlight Mile”—it was what I was trying to remember, what I was trying to hold on to again. The reason why Mick Jagger wrote the lyrics. The reason it spoke so eloquently to Mick Taylor. It was one of the few songs Jagger had written that showed his weariness of living life on the road, the pressure of keeping up appearances.
Jagger had always kept his public persona and his private feelings separate. So it was startling and incredible to hear him open up about his loneliness. To expose himself in that way.
As soon as I got off the phone with Julie, I turned on the song and—now that she didn’t care anymore—I figured out a better answer to why I felt like I had to turn her down. I realized: It couldn’t have happened that way today for Jagger, could it? If Jagger were coming up today, instead of listening to the most honest rock song ever written, we would see on his Facebook feed that life on the road was draining him. We would see on his Twitter, a few hours later, an apology for sounding ungrateful that life on the road was draining him. The world eager to chime right in with their judgments.
Was his apology sincere? Was it sincere enough?
And, really, it wasn’t even about being famous—or famous in your corner of the world, like I’d been, for a moment.
I was still trying to figure out what we all lost in broadcasting our lives for everyone else’s consumption. Before we took the time, you know, to figure out what we wanted our lives to add up to.
Something important, it seemed to me. Something like the chance to write the song.
52
That night, I told Chef I needed to talk with him.