The day after Rolling Loud I was up at eight.
Rue had her last session at the acting studio and she had asked me to come. It was a small place on the east side, black box theater setup, folding chairs along the walls for whoever was watching. I got there right as it was starting and sat in the back.
I did not know what I was expecting. Rue had always been sharp in a way that did not always have somewhere to go, all that observation and feeling with no clean outlet for it. But watching her in there I understood it immediately. She was good. Not beginner good, not doing-her-best good. Actually good. She did a scene with another student and she was the only person in the room I was watching. She had this quality where you believed her even when you knew she was performing, which I had heard was the whole thing with acting but had not seen up close before.
When it ended she found me in the back and we walked out together.
"Well?" she said.
"You know you're good," I said.
"I want to hear you say it."
"You're good, Rue."
She smiled and looked straight ahead. "Yeah."
* * *
We got breakfast at the diner two blocks from the studio. Corner booth, coffee for both of us, Rue ordered the same thing she always ordered like she had not looked at the menu once.
She talked about being clean first, not because I asked but because she wanted to. She said it was different this time and I believed her, not because the words were different but because she was different. Steadier. Like she had found the floor.
"Acting is the thing," she said. "I know that sounds basic but I mean it. It's the first thing that makes me feel like I'm supposed to be doing it."
"So do it."
"I'm already doing it."
"I mean for real. College, training, all of it." I wrapped both hands around my mug. "If you want to go to school for it I'll pay for it. Full ride."
She looked at me across the table. "You're serious."
"Yeah."
She was quiet for a second, turning her fork over in her hand. "Mom's gonna cry."
"Probably."
"I'm gonna cry."
"Please don't do it right now."
She laughed and looked down at her plate. "Okay. Yeah. I want that." She looked back up. "Thank you, Jordan."
I just nodded. We ate breakfast. It was a good morning.
* * *
I had interviews starting at noon.
Over the next two weeks we were hiring thirty people. A&Rs, assistants, PR, social media managers, a booking coordinator, a sync licensing person June had been pushing for. The studio suite we were using had a proper conference room now and June had scheduled everything in thirty-minute blocks.
The first one came in at noon exactly. A&R candidate, twenty-six, had done two years at a mid-size label before going independent. She had a playlist of artists she had scouted on her own time and she led with it before I even asked a question. That told me something.
The second one I cut off after ten minutes. He spent the first eight talking about a deal he had almost closed three years ago. Almost was doing a lot of work in that sentence.
The social media manager was twenty-two and she had already audited all three of our accounts before she walked in. She had a slide deck, which I did not ask for, but the notes in it were good enough that I did not mind. She got a second interview.
The PR candidate was older, mid-thirties, had done crisis work for a major label for six years. She was direct and she did not try to impress me and she knew more about the current media cycle than anyone else I talked to that day. June liked her immediately. That was enough for me.
By four o'clock I had been in that room for four hours and I had a headache and a short list. It was a start.
* * *
I picked Gia up at five.
She was already outside when I pulled up, backpack on, phone in her hand, looking at me through the windshield with an expression that said she had been waiting for at least five minutes and had opinions about it.
"You said five," she said, getting in.
"It's five."
"It's five-oh-three."
"Gia."
"I'm just saying."
I pulled out of the driveway. "Where do you want to go."
She thought about it for approximately two seconds. "The mall. And food. Real food, not whatever you think counts as food."
"I eat real food."
"You eat protein and sadness."
I looked at her. She was already smiling out the window.
We went to the mall. She made me go into three stores I had no interest in and I carried her bags without saying anything about it because she was fourteen and it was her day. We got food court Chinese and she talked the entire time, about school, about a girl in her class who had been posting about her indirectly, about a teacher she actually liked for once, about whether she wanted to try track in the spring.
I just listened. I did not try to fix anything or give advice she did not ask for. I just let her talk.
On the way back to the car she grabbed my arm with both hands and leaned against me while she walked, the way she used to do when she was little.
"I'm glad you're doing good," she said.
I looked down at her. "Yeah?"
"Yeah. It was scary for a while. When you were in the hospital." She said it flat, not making it a thing, but it was a thing. "I didn't say anything because everybody was already worried and I didn't want to make it worse. But it was scary."
"I know," I said. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry. Just stay okay."
"I will."
She let go of my arm when we got to the car and climbed in and immediately went back to her phone like the conversation had not happened. That was Gia. She said the real thing and then moved on. I respected it.
* * *
I got home late.
Maddy was in bed with the lamp on, silk scarf on her head, face clean, scrolling through her phone with her legs crossed under the blanket. She looked up when I came in and did not say anything right away, just watched me drop my keys on the dresser and sit on the edge of the bed.
"How'd the interviews go."
"Long. Some good ones." I pulled off my shoes. "Gia said hi."
"She already texted me. She said you were late."
"Three minutes."
"She said five."
She was smiling at her phone. I took it out of her hand and set it face down on the nightstand.
"Jordan—"
I kissed her before she could finish. She made a sound against my mouth like she had something else to say and then forgot what it was. Her hand came up to the back of my neck and she kissed me back slow, not in a hurry at all.
I pulled back. Her eyes stayed closed for a second.
"Long day," she said.
"Yeah."
"You should probably sleep."
I looked at her. The lamp was putting warm light across one side of her face. She had that expression she got sometimes where she was pretending to be reasonable.
"Probably," I said.
She pulled me back down.
I got her scarf off, and she laughed when it caught on her earring, batting my hand away and fixing it herself. I kissed her neck while she did it, and she went still for a second before she finished, and then her hands were in my hair, and we stopped laughing.
She pulled my shirt over my head and ran her hands down my chest, across my stomach, slow, like she was in no hurry and wanted me to know it. I pushed the blanket down, and she arched up into my hands when I ran them over her, her breath going uneven. She had on just a few little sleep shorts and a thin tank, and I pulled the tank up, and she lifted her arms and let me take it off her.
"Hi," she said softly.
"Hi."
She kissed me again, deeper, one leg hooking around the back of my thigh, pulling me in. I could feel her heart beating fast. I moved against her, and she made a low sound in the back of her throat, and her nails pressed into my back, not hard, just there.
She whispered something against my jaw. I asked her what. She said it again, louder this time, and I felt it everywhere.
We stayed like that for a while, no rush to any of it. Maddy was never in a hurry at these times, and I couldn't explain why everything slowed down. She moved her hips in a slow, steady rhythm that made it hard to think. She knew exactly what she was doing, and she did it. She whispered in my ear, her lips close to mine, and I had to press my face into her neck to keep it together.
She came with her hand in my locs and her back arched off the mattress. She tried to muffle a sound against my shoulder. I kept moving, and she shivered and grabbed my face with both hands. She looked at me like she was trying to remember something.
"Don't stop," she said.
I didn't.
After that, she lay on her stomach with her head turned toward me and one arm over my chest. The lamp was still on. Neither of us moved to turn it off. The room was quiet except for both of us trying to catch our breath.
"Okay," she said after a while.
"Okay."
"Good day?"
I thought about Rue almost crying in the restaurant. Gia grabbing my arm in the parking lot. The crowd at Rolling Loud standing still for that one long second before it broke open. Claire's slow nod from the wings.
"Yeah," I said. "Real good day."
Maddy pulled the blanket up and closed her eyes. I lay there with the lamp on and listened to the neighborhood go quiet outside.