Hmm. That gave me a moment of pause. I did remember the ugly crying. But, wait, the letter had come that long ago? “When did I get it?”
“Oh, like, late sheme-dmn.” Jillian mumbled her response.
“What was that now?”
“January.” Liv confirmed. “You got the letter in January.”
“January!” I could feel cartoon steam coming out of my ears.
“Seriously, Ana, that was back when you couldn’t stop crying.”
“But—” I spluttered.
“You were such a mess!” Jillian added. “I’m sorry we did it, but we were just worried about you.”
“I wasn’t that bad,” I protested.
“You wore your pants backwards one day,” Liv corrected me.
“I did?”
“Yeah. But I made you turn them around.”
She had? When had that happened? “I don’t even remember that.”
“It happened,” Jillian confirmed.
“You were really far gone,” Liv agreed.
“He seems like such bad news,” Jillian added. “And we thought a letter from him might really send you over the edge.”
“So you burned it?” I still couldn’t get on board with their logic.
“We burned it. And that might not have been the best idea, so I’m sorry,” Jillian apologized.
“I’m sorry,” Liv added.
I exhaled, fuming. “I’m still mad,” I insisted.
“We know,” they both agreed.
Surveying them in disbelief, I asked, “At least, did either of you read it before you burned it?”
They both shook their heads no.
“But it was thick. It was a long letter,” Jillian said, looking awfully pale.
“Oh God.” I sank my head into my hands. Whew. They were certifiably insane, that was clear, but I guess I’d known that already. “You’re both crazy, you know that?” I had to tell them.
“OK, but promise me you won’t wear that dress to the awards show,” Liv exclaimed. “It has sleeves! You might as well wrap yourself in a blanket!”
“You can’t wear that,” Jillian agreed. “It’s way too short and tight. What if you drop something? How would you bend over and pick it up?”
“OK, thanks, guys.” At least I knew what I was wearing to the awards show. Now if only I knew what had been in that freaking letter.
Because apparently Ash had written me a letter. Four months ago. It had been a long four months. I supposed I should feel like I was getting over him by now, like I didn’t remember exactly how it felt when he held me or kissed me. By now I should have completely forgotten about the way he laughed over something silly I said or made me spaghetti or marveled over my playing piano or made love to me like I was the most sexy, amazing woman in the world.
I hadn’t been getting over him. And it wasn’t just the fact that I heard his voice yearning for me from every street corner. That didn’t help, of course, but it was more than that. My attachment to Ash was like one of those tricky weeds that drove my dad crazy in our lawn. You’d think you’d removed it all, but somehow it kept springing up, robust and new, withstanding any and all attempts at eradication. The roots were deep and stubborn.
And now I was about to see him again. My parents and I flew out to L.A. tomorrow. I knew back when Ash and I had been together, I’d been full of doubts. We lived in different worlds, he ran with a fast crowd, I liked to knit, etc. etc. It all seemed stupid now. My heart felt like it had been broken in two. If he felt the same way, if we were two parts of a matching whole, then what the hell were we doing apart from each other?
I didn’t know what the future had in store for us. But I did know I was going to plunge headlong into it, fly there and find him and get to the bottom of this. Wearing a gorgeous, glittering dress—yes short and tight, Jillian, and yes with sleeves, Liv—to a live, televised awards show where I would get all the answers I desperately needed.
CHAPTER 11
Ash
After Ana left me, I went into hibernation. I literally turned into a bear. OK, I didn’t literally turn into one. I’m not a shape-shifter. But I think I came as close to becoming a bear as a normal, full-blooded human can.
I went off the grid. I’m not talking a Mammoth cabin with a caretaker hooking you up with L.A. gourmet dinners in the freezer. I’m talking a hardcore, can’t find a trace of you off-the-grid cabin. The kind my brother, Heath, knows all about.
Heath went off the grid sometime before his graduation from college. It had about killed our father. I think he’d been two credits shy of earning his diploma, whatever credits were. I didn’t know the details, but I got the picture. My younger brother had been about to graduate and instead of donning the cap and gown and posing for photos he’d help up his middle finger and gone Off The Grid.
I knew all about holding up my middle finger. But I needed Heath to help me disappear. Lucky for me, he answered my call and set me up in a cabin near his in Vermont. When I say near his, it was probably about 30 miles away but I think there were maybe only two houses in between us. I’m exaggerating, like the bear thing. But the essence is true. In the cold and snow in a basic, rustic cabin I felt completely alone.
Which was exactly what I wanted. I’d never felt that way before. I’d always sought out a constant hum of activity. Now, I understood the other path my younger brother had taken. Stripped down, there were no distractions. No cell phone, no internet, no fans, no cameras. There was no bullshit. Just you and the elements.
And a piano. I knew that maybe was a little L.A. of me to insist on having a piano, but it wasn’t like I was demanding that roadies remove all the green M&Ms from the backstage dishes. Not that I’d ever done that, just for the record. But I needed a piano. I knew I had something I needed to work on, to finish up.
And I did, with the wind howling that the snow piling up outside, I let it all out into that song. Undone. I wrote it all for Ana, about Ana, with what was left of me after Ana had walked away.
I’d already written a lot of what I said in the song in a letter to her. Before I took off for the cabin, I wrote a long letter, the kind men used to write women when they used quills instead of pens. Or at least I hoped it was that kind of a letter. I was shit at writing. She probably couldn’t even read my handwriting. But I didn’t care, I wanted to write her exactly how I felt without worrying about how dumb I sounded or what she might think of me. I stayed up all night telling her exactly how much she meant to me, how she’d changed everything in my life and I never wanted to be without her. I loved her. I sealed it and stamped it and brought it down to the post office like a regular citizen and off it went.
I never heard back from her. Not even a cursory “thanks for the note!” Nothing. I guess I
hadn’t really expected her to hop on the next flight back to California and run into my arms, but it would have been nice.
So, instead of burying myself in Ana like I wanted to, I did the next best thing. I took off for the wilds of Vermont and wrote a song unlike any I’d ever written before. I figured that was a good thing. If I wanted to make big changes in my life, why not start with the core of what I did, making music? I had it finished by the time the Super Bowl rolled around, and I brought a crappy digital recording with me to play for my studio.
Lola and Joel just about crapped their pants in joy over my re-emergence. Sorry to be crass, but that about summed up the moment. I meant it when I said I’d gone off the grid. No one had been able to contact me for weeks leading up to the show. Not Connor, no one. And Ana, the one person I wanted to contact me, hadn’t.
I wondered if I was the first celebrity they’d had to hose down and shave so I could appear for a pre-game interview. I think I’d been wearing the same clothes for about a week by the time I showed up for rehearsals. Connor wasn’t looking too hot, either, though he looked more zombie than bear. I’d found him passed out in Johnny’s hotel room with two naked girls on his chest. As usual.
The thing about Connor was he never wanted to be alone. Even when we were in S.F. where we all had homes, he never seemed to want to be at his own place, always crashing over my place or Johnny’s or trying to book us into hotel suites. Once I got home, the last place I wanted to be was another goddamned hotel. Not so for Connor.
He looked peaceful lying there asleep, but I had something I wanted to talk about with him.
“Get up, mate.” I kicked his foot with my boot. He could rally with the best of them, and five minutes later we were walking down a sidewalk.
“Want one?” He offered me a cigarette.
“You know I quit.”
“I keep waiting for you to come to your senses.” We paused a moment while he protected the flame from his lighter and lit up. “Where the fuck’ve you been?” he asked after he’d taken a long drag. “Lola said New Hampshire?”