It was only because no one suspected anything that I was able to live here unrecognized. If anyone had connected my grandfather to his brother, the Earl, or me to my famous father, my identity wouldn’t remain secret for another hour. But generally, people had no reason to think you might not be who you said you were. How often have you met someone new, heard their story from their own lips, and been suspicious that they were lying? I can tell you how often it’s happened to me: Never, that’s how often. Even with my own reasons, and given my own secrets, if my friend Nat was suddenly revealed as the son of a famous actor, or my ex-lover Kurt Talbot turned out to be a novelist instead of a surgeon, I’d be as startled as anyone. Added to that was the generosity of San Franciscans generally—people have come here to reinvent themselves since Oscar Wilde famously said: “It’s an odd thing, but anyone who disappears is said to be seen in San Francisco.” People were taken at their own valuation. If anything about my life seemed slightly odd, it would be shrugged off as mild eccentricity or simply none of their business. At least I assume that’s what was happening. Grandfather wasn’t well known, but a simple Google search would probably place him in his family tree, which would make my own relationship to him easier to uncover. And once that happened, his relationship to my father, and our family disaster, wouldn’t be hard to find.
My English parents had been famous and rich, and now they were dead, and the high-profile way they’d died had left me shocked, grieved, and nearly consumed by a media firestorm. After the events that had eventually driven me out of London the year before, I wanted to disappear, and I was almost too successful.
Because I was a member of the London paparazzi tribe—if taking photos of drunken friends weaving their way around Sloane Square and falling out of West End dance clubs qualified—they felt I owed them easy access to my story and resented me when I wouldn’t play. I’d felt like chum for the rabid sharks of the British tabloid press. Harried and chivvied for weeks, I’d finally thrown some random clothes and shoes into a suitcase and bought a ticket on the first plane leaving Heathrow. I’d dyed my hair red to disguise my natural blonde, and exchanged Stella McCartney and Christian Louboutin for Levis and long-sleeved T-shirts. I introduced myself as Theo and took the name Bogart from an actor in one of the movies I was still watching to improve my American slang. I was even grateful that my nose had recently been broken, which subtly changed my appearance. I hoped it was enough, because there was a limit to what I could accomplish in the way of a new identity. It wasn’t easy to disappear in an era of terrorist watch lists and twenty-four-hour international news cycles. It was, however, fairly easy to keep in touch with a few people via Skype without exactly explaining where I was, knowing that if anyone asked them about me, they’d be typically vague and self-involved. No one was surprised that I’d needed a break after the horrific events of that year, and I was deliberately noncommittal about when I’d be back.
Fortunately or not, I was as impulsive as ever, or perhaps simply numb. Within weeks I bought a derelict building, agreed to go into business with someone I met over coffee, adopted a dog I found mooching around my back door, and somehow signed on to serve on the board of our neighborhood association. Grieving, and without friends or family or familiar surroundings, I needed something to hold me in place. Aromas was my anchor.
My shop is called Aromas because pretty smells are what the merchandise has in common. Added to the essential oils, soaps, lotions, and perfumes, we feature bath-related items like kimonos and natural sponges. We also sell shampoo and lotions in bulk (sourced from a former meth-cooking chemist whose professional name is Smart Alex), refilling bottles our customers bring in. It’s a small space, and I’d just installed a rolling library ladder so we could use the top shelves, just below the ceiling. Bunches of wildflowers and herbs, some of them given to us by customers, are jammed together to create a sort of upside down meadow on the ceiling, hiding an assortment of ugly pipes and conduits.
So I had my anchor, but I was also a prisoner of my own lies. I’d originally intended to just live quietly and anonymously for a few weeks or months, in a city where I knew no one and no one knew me. But being involved in a murder investigation in those first few months, and getting to know and like the people in my neighborhood, meant that in no time at all I had friends here; I had Ben; and trying to explain why my relationships with them were built on lies wasn’t just difficult—it felt impossible.
And so the lying went on.