Sing

This is not the first time my face has been plastered on the cover of trashy tabloids. It comes with the territory, particularly post-breakup. After my first boyfriend in LA, Sebastian, it was a circus. Word was he was cheating with one of his backup singers. Then: all his backup singers.

After Caleb, I was the one who was moving on too fast. I was “heartless” and “career obsessed” for ending things and moving to New York when my second album took off and his, well, didn’t. I could have set the record straight, done an interview and insisted that he broke up with me, but Terry was sure it would only make things worse. The best thing to do with this kind of press is ignore it. Days later, it’s always somebody else’s heartbreak, someone else’s mistake—real or fabricated—staring back at the world from the checkout racks.

But this time, somehow, I’m not prepared. Being here, away from everything, it’s easy to forget that the world is still chugging along. Jed is still touring, answering questions, being who his fans want him to be. I’m not. I’m nowhere. So I’m fair game.

I open the magazine on top and flip slowly to the center spread. It’s all there. Our last dinner date. The stupid soup. A grainy shot of me watching Jed’s car as it sped away, spare keys dangling in one hand, staring after him like an abandoned puppy.

I quickly scan the poorly written copy, quoting various “inside sources” about our relationship, how it had been stalled for months. “Lily is ready to settle down, and Jed isn’t. The pressure became too much.”

I scoff. Pressure? The only thing I ever pressured him to do was sleep in on Sundays and eat fewer carbs. Tess was right. There’s not a single kernel of truth to be found anywhere.

But as my eyes travel down the page, they land on a quote that makes my stomach drop. “Sources say that Lily’s new album, Forever, was a promise to Jed. A promise he wasn’t ready to make. ‘It was never the big, epic romance everyone wanted it to be,’ says one inside source. ‘Maybe Lily thought they were Forever, but Jed never saw it that way. Just last month she wanted him to fly home to meet her family. He pretended he was busy with work, but really he thought things were moving too fast.”

My heart feels like it’s being squeezed in a vise. It was my grandparents’ fiftieth wedding anniversary. My parents had planned a surprise party at the Italian restaurant where Grandpa had proposed. Jed promised he’d come, but at the last minute a bunch of appearances were added to his schedule. I hadn’t told anyone he was coming. He had a habit of double-booking himself, and I was tired of getting everyone’s hopes up.

There’s a timid knock at the door. Without waiting for an answer, Tess and Sammy shuffle carefully into the room. “Are you okay?”

Sammy slumps beside me and rests her head on my shoulder.

“He talked to them,” I say, my voice a trembling whisper. “He had to. There are things in there …”

“We know,” Tess says quietly. “We’re so sorry.”

“How could he do this?” I’m genuinely bewildered. I’ve been around long enough to know there’s no such thing as an “inside source.” He talked to the press about me, my family. And why? So he could have the last word in our relationship? So he could come out on top? If he wanted to make me look pathetic, it worked. Tears burn my eyes and I fight not to let them spill over. If I felt shock and heartbreak when he broke it off, this is a thousand times worse—now I feel like a fool.

“You have to forget him,” Tess urges. “I mean it. This is exactly why we’re here.”

Sammy rubs my back. “She’s right,” she says. “It’s not worth it. This summer is for you. For us, right? Remember how fun it was, just the three of us at camp?”

“No bugs or bad food,” Tess cuts in. “But otherwise, this summer should be like a grown-up version of the way things used to be. No responsibilities. No stress. Deal?”

I wipe my eyes and smile. “Deal.”

“Good,” Sammy says. “Now …”

“Let’s go out, we know,” Tess singsongs, finishing her thought. “Hold your horses, party girl. I haven’t even showered.”

Tess scoops up the magazines on her way out and stuffs them under one arm. Sammy lingers in the doorway. “See you downstairs?”

I shake my head and put on a smile. “You guys go ahead,” I say. “I think I’ll do some writing.”

“No wallowing!” Tess calls from the hallway.

“No wallowing,” I promise.

Sammy looks skeptical but blows me a kiss from the door.

I grab my journal from the nightstand, my guitar from its case on the floor, and cozy up in a corner of the bed, wedging the pillows behind me.

There’s so much I want to say. I could write a dozen songs in the next three hours about all the ways Jed has hurt me. But they would still be about him. Every time I write a song it feels like I’m giving little bits of myself away. And I don’t want to give Jed—or any of the guys I’ve dated—another piece of me.

A cool breeze tickles the back of my neck. I look out the window, where the sun has just set, casting an orangey-pink light over the treetops. The water sparkles beyond the jetties, the ocean reaching out in every direction, as far as I can see. This is why I’m here. Real quiet. Real life. Real time with real people who love me, who care about me enough to buy all ten copies of the junkiest magazines on the newsstand, just so I won’t see them.

This new album needs to be different. There has to be more to me than just a girlfriend, a lonely left-behind. Before Sebastian, before LA, I’d never been in a relationship. I made it nineteen years on my own, nineteen years that I spent binge-watching The O.C. with Sammy, daydreaming about moving to California. Or spilling secrets to my journal on a Friday night, about how lonely it felt to be different, to never know how to say or wear the right thing. Those secrets turned into songs, my very first songs—the songs that got me a manager, a record deal, a life beyond my wildest dreams.

I close my eyes and imagine the summer I discover who I used to be, who I still could be, with nobody watching. The summer I write the songs I’m meant to write, songs that are more than just starry-eyed sagas or recycled broken-heart ballads. The summer I turn down all the noise and listen to the voice in the quiet, the voice I heard when I was a little girl, telling me to stop worrying so much about what everyone else was thinking. Close your eyes, the voice said.

Close your eyes and sing.

86 Days Until Tour June 18th

THE CAR BLINKS and beeps and I stare at the dashboard like it’s the operating system of a spaceship. The last car I drove myself was the beat-up truck my grandfather gave me when I left Wisconsin for LA There were no tricks to getting it to start, aside from revving the engine and praying a lot until it caught. The Prius has an On/Off button that should be fairly self-explanatory but somehow isn’t.

Finally, with my foot on the brake, the keys in the ignition, a press of the button, and a whispered prayer, the Pree purrs to life. I glance quickly at the upstairs windows as I slowly back out of the driveway. I left a note for Tess and Sam on the fridge, but they were out late, and I doubt they’ll be rallying anytime soon.

I woke up craving eggs and bacon. And pancakes. So far, Sammy and Tess have gotten all the groceries at a market in town, and I’m hoping I’ll be able to find it on my own. The car bumps and lurches along the winding dirt road, feathery branches scraping at the window.

I expected to feel worse this morning. Last night, after the girls went out, I sat on the back deck for hours, watching the stars blink on and thinking more about my album. I was getting nowhere and gave up around midnight, stumbling upstairs to my room and collapsing onto the creaky twin bed. I slept hard and woke up seven hours later, in the same position, fresh and rested and ready to go. Even my body felt different, as if my bones had been shifted, my muscles stretched and realigned until all the usual touring-and-traveling aches and pains were gone.

The dirt road forks off and I turn onto pavement. The trees are thicker here and the houses closer to one another and the road. There’s a small schoolhouse, and a church, and a convenience store with a single red gas pump out back. Across from the harbor is a long, low building with a swinging sign, MCCONNELL’S FOOD AND SUNDRIES.

I park and collect my bags from the front seat. There was a stash of canvas totes in the hallway closet, branded with logos from farms, the library, a bank. I grabbed a handful, along with a baseball cap I found hanging on a hook—faded blue with the red outline of a lobster. Now I pull my hair through the back of the cap and settle the hat low on my forehead. I dig around for my favorite comically oversize sunglasses and ease them on. The hat-and-shades routine hardly ever works anymore, but I still try.

I decide to make a list and I reach into my pocket for my phone, only to remember that I chucked it into the ocean. This morning, in a frenzied panic, I had snuck into Tess’s room and sent a quick text to Terry asking him to FedEx me a new one. Now that I’ve seen the tabloids, I feel disarmingly disconnected. It was a jarring reminder that even though Lily Ross the person is on vacation, Lily Ross the business is still chugging along. On a typical day, by the time I’ve been awake for an hour, I’ve grown numb to the endless beeping of alerts, texts, and e-mails. I’ve also talked to Terry ten times, my parents twice. No wonder I feel so clearheaded, I realize. I haven’t spent this much time alone in years.

In the market, I settle on a quick list of ingredients and begin to make my rounds. At the deli counter is a pair of girls in denim shorts, maybe nine or ten years old. They’re daring each other to do something, their eyes glancing furtively at the ice cream freezers. I stand behind them, knowing what will happen when they turn around. I brace myself for squeals, iPhones, maybe even questions about the magazines and Jed.

But the strangest thing happens. The girls look up at me and I smile. They freeze. Before I can say hello, they’re gone, giggling and scampering down the aisles and out through the chiming front door. I’m not sure if they recognized me or were simply scared that they’d been caught.

At the register, I wait behind a handsome young dad, his three little kids clamoring for more treats and hanging off the cart. He’s so preoccupied with them that he doesn’t glance in my direction. Then the middle-aged woman behind the counter swipes my card without noticing my name. I leave the store laughing, lugging the bags over my shoulder, and when my sunglasses slip off my nose, I don’t even put them back on.

“What the hell were you thinking?”

The screech of tires is still ringing in my ears as I gingerly climb from the front seat. There’s a puff of steam coming from underneath the hood of the Prius and my fingers are trembling. One minute, I was cruising through an intersection, almost home, windows down with the smell of the ocean filling up the car. The next, I was careening toward the passenger door of a pickup truck, slamming on the brakes too late and whipping against the steering wheel.

Tess is going to actually kill me. Her precious Pree, practically her third best friend, is wedged beneath the bed of a rusty old truck. The truck’s driver is angrily prying open his door and also appears ready to actually kill me. So at least when Tess finds me, I’ll already be dead.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m so sorry.” I walk around to the front of the car, squinting to see and not-see at the same time. The car and the truck are locked together like pieces of a life-size puzzle, and there’s some kind of ominous-looking fluid pooling between them on the ground. “I didn’t see you.”

“Well, that’s a relief, I guess.” The driver, a guy around my age in dirty shorts and a pale blue T-shirt, walks to the back of his truck, surveying the wreckage. “If you’d seen me or that stop sign you just blew through, I’d say you might need more than a new prescription.”

It takes me a long moment to realize he’s talking about my sunglasses, which I’d stashed on the top of my hat. “Oh.” I pull off the glasses and wave them. “These? They’re not prescription.”

We’re in the middle of an intersection, which, I now see, is a four-way stop. Another car, some kind of old-model Subaru, creeps up behind us, and the guy waves the driver on. Then he crouches between our cars, peering up at the underside of his truck, before glancing down at the puddle.

“They’re actually just sunglasses,” I explain, now wiping my lenses on the front pocket of my overalls, as if that might help. “For the sun? I got them from a street vendor in Rome.”

I hear myself still talking and want to climb under the smoking hood and stay there until he drives away or I melt, whichever happens fastest. Sunglasses? For the sun? It’s embarrassing to admit, but there are times when it’s easier to be recognized. Times like these, for example, when it would give me an excuse to stop talking, or at least start talking about something else.

“You don’t say,” the guy grumbles from the other side of the hood. He stands and scratches his upper arm, revealing a hint of one tanned tricep. I feel my face going red, which is annoying—I’m not in the mood for muscles and blushing. I glance away from him and up at the bed of his truck. It’s stacked high with long wire crates, tangles of mesh nets, and a pile of oblong buoys. Tucked between two empty traps is a long yellow surfboard, its rounded nose jutting out over the tailgate.

“You surf?” I ask as he stands, waving off the steam and lightly pressing on the bumper. “I mean, obviously. I took a lesson once. My friend wants to learn this summer. It’s on her summer bucket list. Not that she’s dying. She just … it’s something she wants to do.”

The guy is still carefully inspecting the hood of my car, which has finally stopped smoking. There’s a gnarly looking dent in the bumper and a pattern of scratches near the front, and I’m reminded of Tess and the whole killing-me scenario, which, given the way this conversation is going, now seems like a welcome alternative.

He holds out his hand and it takes me a minute to understand that he’s asking for my keys.

“Are you a mechanic?” I ask. I realize there’s little chance he’s going to drive off with Tess’s car, and if he did, he wouldn’t get far, considering we’re on an island. But it still seems important to establish his credibility before handing over her keys to a complete stranger.

He stares at me for a long moment, and I’m sure this is when it will happen. When he’ll finally recognize me. But I can tell by the look in his eyes—which, unfortunately, are a bright and almost breathtaking blue—that he has no clue who I am.

“No, I’m not a mechanic,” he says, impatiently running a hand over the top of his cropped light hair. “Are you?”

I drop the keys in his palm and watch as he climbs into the driver’s seat. “It’s not my car,” I call after him. “I mean, I didn’t steal it or anything. It’s my friend’s. It’s a hybrid. It’s sort of tricky to turn on. There’s this thing with a button?”

Within seconds the car is whirring to a frenzied start. He glances over his shoulder before slowly backing up. There’s a nasty-sounding crunch as the car unsticks from the undercarriage of his truck, but he doesn’t flinch. He reverses all the way back toward the stop sign, then hops out and jogs back to me.

“So what’s the bad news?” I ask as he pulls open his door and starts to climb in. “How much do I owe you?”

“Me?” The guy smiles for the first time, and my insides turn to a familiar pool of wobbly goo. According to Tess, the year-round population on the island is around two thousand. What are the chances that on my first day, I literally run into the best-looking person here? “Well, it is a work vehicle,” he says, thoughtfully tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. “Not to mention my only transportation, so …”

“Of course.” I nod solemnly.

“I’d say about fifteen grand?” he ventures. “I mean, like I said, I’m no mechanic, but that seems a reasonable guess.”

My heart clenches. Who racks up fifteen thousand dollars in damage driving on an island with four major roads and no stoplights? A boxy Jeep rolls through the intersection between us, and the driver and the guy share a wave. I duck behind my hand, imagining the next big headlines: Lily Ross in Grief-Fueled Fender Bender. Not exactly the “quiet escape” I had in mind.

“Fine,” I huff, an embarrassed whisper. “I don’t have my phone on me, so you’ll have to give me your number or something …”

The guy looks at me for a drawn-out beat. “I was kidding,” he says flatly. “Are you serious? Fifteen grand? This truck is older than I am. I’ll probably have to pay somebody to get rid of it eventually.”

I blink at him, flushing from the neck up. Of course he wouldn’t expect me to pay thousands of dollars for a truck that looks like it’s held together mostly by duct tape. I can tell by the smug lift of his golden eyebrows that he thinks I’m an absolute buffoon.

“Right,” I finally manage, clearing my throat. “Of course. So … we’re good, then?”

He smirks. “Yeah, we’re good,” he says, closing the door between us. The truck sputters dramatically as he turns the key in the ignition. He checks his rearview mirror and slowly pulls away, pausing after a few feet to glance quickly over his shoulder. “Just don’t write a song about me or anything.”

He puts on his blinker and lifts two fingers in a half wave at the mirror. I stand frozen in the intersection, a surprised smile inching across my lips, and watch as he takes the turn down another dirt road, traps and buoys and the yellow surfboard clattering in the bed behind him.

84 Days Until Tour June 20th

THE SATURDAY MORNING yoga class was Sammy’s idea. She had seen a flier on the community board in the supermarket, and dragged us out of bed for it. Tess wanted to stay home—she’s more inclined to beat out aggression in kickboxing than breathe it out at yoga—but after my little mishap with the Pree, she’s refusing to let anybody else drive. I bet Sammy twenty bucks that Tess wouldn’t last through the first sun salutation.

“Let’s start with our hands on our hearts.” The teacher, Maya, is around our age. She has an easy smile and seems genuine, not pretentious like a lot of the teachers I’ve had in New York and LA

The room is packed, a cozy attic space above the island’s only hardware store. Every so often I hear the electronic chime of the door below as it swings open, or the thud of the cash register slamming shut. I chose a spot near the wall, with Sammy to one side and an older woman in tie-dyed leggings to the other. Tess is as close as she can be to the exit.

“Let your breath be your guide,” Maya says. She sits at the front of the class with her eyes closed, a thick beam of dusty sunlight caught in her long, braided hair. She is tall and toned, and dressed comfortably in a gray thermal shirt and worn, wide-legged pants.

Every so often I sneak glances at Tess, who gradually stops pouting and at one point even seems to be enjoying herself. The class feels great—calming and slow—and I make a mental note to grab a schedule on the way out.

In savasana, we lie on our backs. Maya sprays a lavender mist around our heads, and my limbs sink heavily into my mat. She asks us to set an intention for the rest of our day. I close my eyes and think about the people I’ve been watching in the mirror, the middle-aged women with frizzy hair and baggy T-shirts, a few rugged men lightheartedly grunting as they attempted to touch their toes. I wonder what their lives are like, if this is their Saturday-morning routine. Breakfast. Yoga. A trip downstairs for supplies to finish a project around the house.

There’s an unpleasant fluttering in my chest—I’m jealous. There’s a part of me that would give anything for every Saturday to be like this one. I know it sounds absurd, and if I ever said it out loud I’d be immediately branded as ungrateful. A lot of people—my whole family, Terry, even my friends—have made sacrifices over the years so that I could be where I am today. And “where I am today,” most days, feels like on top of the world. What kind of a person would throw all that away for tie-dye and a chore list? I breathe deeply, trying to reclaim the temporary peace I’d found, but it seems I’ve already lost it.

There’s shuffling beside me and I look up to see Sammy rolling her mat. She holds a finger to her lips and nods to Tess across the room. She’s still sprawled out on the ground, and I can tell by the steady rise and fall of her chest, the heavy, outward tilt of her feet, that she’s sleeping.

“Well, that sucked,” Tess grumbles, her yoga mat folded sloppily under her arm.

Across the street from the yoga studio is Fresh, a vegan café. We’re staring at the chalkboard menu, deciding between shots of wheatgrass and house-brewed kombucha.

“Yeah, you looked like you were really struggling,” Sammy jokes, closing her eyes and lolling her head to one side, before breaking out in a fake snore.

“My point exactly. If I wanted to pay fifteen dollars to take a nap I could have gone to the movies. I don’t need a guru for that.”

Tess leans her mat against the counter and pushes in front of us to squint at the menu. As she’s looking, the line shifts and I see that Maya, our serenely smiling instructor, has walked in behind us. She greets a few familiar faces and falls into line.

“Fire cider?” Tess asks, making a face. “Kombucha? Is it a requirement for there to be at least one insufferable hippie establishment within a hundred feet of every yoga studio on the planet?”

I clear my throat as Sammy looks pointedly over Tess’s shoulder. “What?” Tess asks. She turns around and Maya wiggles her fingers in a teasing wave.

Tess’s face, still pink from the heat of the studio, flushes an even deeper crimson. “Oh,” she says. “Hey. I didn’t mean …”

“No, it’s a really good question.” Maya nods, a spirited sparkle in her big green eyes. “I’ll have to take it up with my guru.”

Sammy and I laugh while Tess fidgets uncomfortably. It’s not very often that she’s put on the receiving end of this kind of banter, and it’s entertaining to watch.

“I’m only teasing,” Maya says, touching Tess lightly on the shoulder. “But you really should try the fire cider. It’s life-changing.”

As a peace offering, I insist on treating Maya to a cider shot, and she suggests that I get a round for the rest of us, too.

“What’s in it?” Sammy asks as the barista hands over the squat glasses. She leans in and crinkles her nose at the pungent smell.

“It’s vinegar infused with horseradish and a bunch of other stuff,” Maya explains. “It’s like a power-washing for your insides.”

“And that’s a good thing?” Tess asks quietly, clearly still recovering from the taste of her own foot in her mouth.

Maya smiles. “It’s never a bad idea to start over,” she says, holding up her shot glass. It may be something in her eye, but I swear she winks at me as we clink glasses. For a paranoid second, I wonder if she was actually reading my mind in class.

We knock back our ciders—it’s like a mix between mouthwash and a Bloody Mary, in a not entirely unpleasant way—and say good-bye to Maya, promising to come back to class next weekend.

There’s a small corner table in the back of the café and I duck toward it. A freckled girl with pigtails stops me on the way to ask for a photo, and I oblige. It’s only happened a handful of times since we’ve been here, and everyone has been so polite that I haven’t minded, but today, it gives me a little shock. It’s been amazingly easy to forget that I’m famous. I sort of expect that everyone else has forgotten, too.