‘Hannah! Are you kidding me?’
She ran from Andrea’s lounge into the master bedroom, where she found Andrea standing in front of her floor-length mirror. And she thought, Oh, Jesus!
Rosalie had picked out a stunning dress for Andrea to wear to the concert. The problem was, it was Rosalie-style stunning and very definitely not Andrea-style stunning.
The black gown clung to Andrea’s incredible figure. The thigh-high slit displayed her slim, long leg almost up to her panties. The neckline plunged to mid-torso, displaying her knock-out cleavage. The long sleeves and high back added a touch of sophistication and the crystal necklace that draped between her breasts added a classy finish.
‘Andi, you look a million,’ Hannah reasoned, with honesty, but knowing she was about to cop it Andrea-style.
‘I look like… like Rosalie.’
‘Admittedly, you are a little more exposed than usual but you really do look—’
‘Like I’m gagging for it from every rock star going to the concert tonight. For God’s sake, look at the time, the limo will be downstairs. I don’t even have time to change! Hannah, how could you do this to me?’
‘I—’
‘Forget it,’ Andrea snapped. ‘Let’s just go.’
Hannah rolled her eyes as she followed Andrea out of the apartment, all the while thinking, So, now she has standards?
After a painfully silent ride to Madison Square Gardens, Hannah was relieved to arrive at the side entrance to the arena – the red carpet being reserved for A-listers and, even Andrea, much to her obvious annoyance, was a nobody when it came to the front pages of glossy magazines.
The rear door of the limo was opened by the driver.
‘Let’s get some of this frosty air out of here,’ Hannah said, smiling to herself as she stepped onto the much smaller and significantly less bright carpet to that which would have been rolled out at the main entrance.
Andrea finally put down her iPhone and walked with Hannah into the backstage entrance to MSG.
The grey corridors, though usually dull and chill, were brightened with poster prints of Sir Presley John with his arm around the shoulders of stars that spanned decades – Cher, Michael Jackson, Dina Carrol, Elton John, Tom Jones, Alicia Keyes. There were images of him performing on stage in the elaborate rock star jackets he was renowned for, sitting at a piano, rocking out with an electric guitar, singing that famous duet with Dolly Parton.
Stars had started to arrive and reporters interviewed them in the corridors. It was just past eight p.m. now, which meant the celebrity guests – the Pitts, Clooneys and Gagas of the world – would be pulling up in their chauffeur-driven rides, coming into the arena one by one in order of status, under the bright flashes of cameras.
The concert was being televised live so, right now, support acts would be playing in the main hall, setting the mood and tone, getting the crowd ready for the main event. Ensuring the room was in great spirits and high with anticipation by the time the TV cameras started to roll.
Hannah and Andrea twisted and bumped their way through the hustle and bustle of suits, fine dresses, stage gowns and, by contrast, jeans and leather jackets of the rock guys. They headed in the direction of the common area where nibbles and drinks had been laid out, and the nearby dressing areas, where Andrea would be able to check on her artists. When she wasn’t calming the nerves of some stars and taming the egos of others, she would be saying all the right things to fellow industry professionals and Hannah would be by her side the entire time, reminding her of the names that matched faces.
‘Annndi, Annndi, Annndi,’ came a familiar drawl, followed by the man himself, Tommy ‘Rock God’ Dawson.
He stepped into their path, his staple attire of worn jeans, cowboy boots (which emphasised his extremely large feet) and a leather jacket in place, his hair as shaggy and purposefully unkempt as ever. In a nutshell, his usual, country-slick, hot self. And, for the record, that was the objective view. The more subjective tended to fall at his feet – literally.
He ran greedy eyes up and down Andrea. ‘Mmmhmm, you don’t know how to disappoint. It’s been too long, Andi. You know where I am.’ He mumble-slurred his words, the way guys tended to do after a whiskey or two. It was that mumble-slur in his singing voice that earned him – and consequently Andrea – the big bucks.
Nevertheless, the content of this mumble-slur, Hannah knew, would lead to her hearing another rant from Andrea about the inappropriateness of that dress later.
Andrea pulled on a subtle, yet obviously (to Hannah) intentional smirk and flashed the flirtatious glint in her eyes that she reserved only for the botchiest of her male clients.
‘Chance would be a fine thing,’ she said. ‘Are you set for tonight’s performance?’
‘You know I am.’
He pulled a plectrum from the butt pocket of his jeans and used it to pick his front teeth – something he always seemed to do when he was flirting. Something Hannah couldn’t fathom – frankly, it seemed unhygienic. But it worked because Tommy Dawson was always, always with another girl – usually of the long-blonde-hair and heavily busted variety. Including, she knew, a number of flings he and Andrea had enjoyed in the past.
He stared openly at Andrea’s breasts, then her thigh-high slit. ‘Baby, where did we go wrong, huh?’
Andrea laughed. ‘A bottle of scotch and a new woman every night. Just try to keep it clean until after the show.’
He flicked his plec in his teeth again and grinned. ‘You always were too good for me, Andi.’
‘If I were better, I’d have never gone there in the first place.’
‘Or back here as many times as you have.’
He laughed and Hannah watched as the pair shared a familiar and warm smile – they had cared about each other once, deep down, whether Andrea had been willing to admit it or not. Ironically, Tommy Dawson would be a better option than a fling with a taken man.
Shaking her head, Andrea walked further along the corridor toward the communal area, calling back a reminder, ‘Keep it clean, Tommy.’
Tommy shook his head with another laugh, then ran his eyes up and down Hannah’s body.
‘Hannah, Hannah, Hannah.’
Hannah laughed – God loved a trier. ‘Toooommy, Toooommy, Toooommy.’
She followed Andrea and Tommy called after her. ‘There’s no breakin’ you, girl, is there?’
‘Not in a million,’ she said across her shoulder. And she meant it. Though he drove her half insane, Hannah had never done more than second-glance at a man who wasn’t Rod.
As she reached Andrea, she received the kind of side-eye look that told her a dress-related comment was coming. She zoned out entirely because, for one thing, Andrea looked good, and for another, who was she to talk about appropriate or inappropriate. For a third thing, Hannah was trying her damned best to be a mother, a wife, a friend, her own person and Andrea’s PA. She had so many faces it was making her dizzy. If Andrea wanted to be a dick, it could fall on Hannah’s selective hearing tonight.
The common area was packed full of musicians – established and budding – producers, agents, managers, press and VIPs with backstage passes.
Hannah and Andrea worked the room, slowly, one air-kiss at a time. Since Hannah had worked with Andrea for practically her whole career her face was just as familiar to most people as Andrea’s. They didn’t treat her as a nobody but as an essential part of the clockwork that was Andrea and her artists.
People greeted her, kissed her cheeks, flirted with her, offered to get her drinks and congratulated her on the birth of TJ because for most people it was the first time they had seen her since the baby bump.
She had eyes on Andrea, in case she was needed, but otherwise had a drink too many and was enjoying herself – not as a PA or a mommy but as Hannah, just Hannah. And it felt good. Her life had been going just fine. The boys were getting bigger, childcare cheaper. Then she fell pregnant with TJ. She adored her baby but hadn’t been ready for her life to be commandeered by children for a third time.
And as she thought that, she felt a pang of guilt. She shouldn’t be happy to be free of her family but damn it, sometimes she needed a break from nagging and tears and her husband leaving the toilet seat the eff up.
Thankfully, she didn’t have time to get bogged down in her personal dilemma because a bigger problem was about to unfold.
Rosalie stepped into the room, drawing the eyes of admirers, both men and women alike, as she managed to shine in a floor-length gold dress that not even Carrie Bradshaw would have been able to pull off. As soon as Andrea noticed her, she made a beeline for her. After all the help Rosalie had given Hannah lately, she wasn’t about to let Andrea tear strips off her about her outfit selection.
Both women came in and out of view as Hannah worked through the crowd, arriving at Rosalie’s side at the same time as Andrea.
Andrea had a face like thunder. Hannah watched Andrea open her mouth to speak but her jaw stayed loose and no words came out, her focus no longer on Rosalie. Hannah followed her gaze and realised that Andrea’s eyes were trained on the man behind Rosalie, who was holding a woman’s – his wife’s – hand and pressing his lips to her temple. That man and his wife were Rosalie’s parents, Hunter and Loretta.
There was a beat of awkward silence that was not lost on Hannah. Why?
She hugged Rosalie, then Hunter and Loretta. Eventually, Andrea followed suit, hugging Rosalie, then kissing Loretta on each cheek whilst holding her at arm’s length. Then Hannah observed as Andrea lengthened her spine and rolled her shoulders back, puffing out her chest like a lioness might to mark her territory in the wild.
Andrea held out her hand to Hunter, who had gone in for a hug, such that the pair ended up in a strained embrace, holding hands.
Hannah asked Loretta, ‘Where is that dress from? I love it!’ but she kept her eyes on her best friend and Hunter. She watched as he ran hungry eyes over every part of Andrea that was displayed to its best advantage in that dress. She watched as his eyes grew darker, heavier.
And in that moment, she knew.
As if the way they addressed each other and couldn’t tear their eyes from each other wasn’t confirmation enough, the uncommon flush of Andrea’s skin and the way she fidgeted as she exchanged pleasantries with Loretta, were also fairly damning evidence.
Andrea promptly excused herself from the group, grabbing a glass of champagne from a waiter on the way out of the room, downing it as she moved quickly into the corridor.
It was the nail in the coffin. Hannah was one hundred per cent certain that her best friend was having an affair with her other best friend’s dad.
‘Holy mother of fuck,’ she whispered under her breath, meeting Hunter’s nervous gaze.
On wobbly legs, Hannah excused herself, told Rosalie she would find her in a while, and went in search of Andrea, not sure whether she wanted to kill her first and reason with her later, or the other way around.
How could she do this? How could she lie about this? How could she cast aside Rosalie’s feelings, as if years of friendship stood for nothing?
She pushed through the door into the ladies’ restroom and saw Andrea, braced with her hands on a wash basin, looking at her own grey complexion reflected in the mirrors. The picture Hannah found told her the answer to all her questions and it was worse than she had first thought.
She stared at her friend, not the powerhouse music exec but the vulnerable woman, who had lost her mother as an eight-year-old girl and brought up her younger sister whilst her dad found solace at the bottom of a whisky bottle. The woman who had grown up hiding her emotions and didn’t know any other way, but who, deep down, was compassionate and complex and had spent her life caring for others – her friends, her sister, her dad, her musicians – without ever asking for the same in return. A woman who could be promiscuous but who was afraid to ever let her guard down because she had been terrified for thirty years of getting her heart broken. A woman who had just seen Hunter, her lover, with his daughter and wife, and endured the agonising reality that she was that other woman.
‘Oh, God,’ Hannah said. ‘You have feelings for him, don’t you?’
Andrea heaved in a breath.
‘How could you do this, Andi? How could you do this to Ros?’
‘I don’t know, okay? Damn it! I didn’t mean for this. I just… don’t seem able to stop it.’
Hannah shook her head, refusing to feel sorry for Andrea. ‘Of course you can’t stop it. This is perfect for you. A man that you can’t ever commit to. It’s signature Andrea. Except this time, you’ve crossed the line, and you need to stop it. Or maybe that’s your master plan? Push the few people you have let close to you away, one by one. Hell of a first innings, Andi.’