Page 14 of Pieces of Ash
Those sixty days when I lived with Gus? They were arguably the happiest days of my life. He often had early calls for makeup and hair, but he’d take me with him, slipping out to drive me to school at eight. He was waiting for me every day at three o’clock on the dot, his blue chrome VW Bug shining in the California sun. He was a loving, patient, and consistent substitute parent, feeding me dinner at the same time every night and reading me a story before bed. For those two months, he didn’t go out at night and leave me alone, and I knew a safety and security that I’d lacked since moving to LA.
When Tig came home, I knew I should have been happy, but I felt a deep, almost profound, sense of loss. A pure, unalloyed sadness. Saying farewell to Gus was gut-wrenching. Though I still saw him often, it wasn’t the same. I missed having him aroundallthe time.
My mother was fired fromLure Mefollowing her overdose, but it didn’t matter. Her name had been in all the magazines and newspapers, and all publicity is good publicity. Modeling jobs started coming in again. People celebrated her recovery, and Tig basked in her revival. For a little while, at least. But the problem with rehab is that it didn’t change my mother’s surroundings. She returned home to the same old bungalow where her bad behavior had started. Old habits die hard no matter how much you want to change. Three years later, Tig was using again, out drinking at clubs every night, snorting cocaine, and shooting up between her toes and in her ankles to avoid track marks on her hands and arms.
And then one day, just after I had turned thirteen, we went shopping together on Rodeo Drive.
Shopping with my mother wasn’t an unusual activity. She loved dressing us up, then posing for pictures when we werespotted by paparazzi. She was wearing sunglasses, of course, to hide her bloodshot eyes.
Her credit card was denied that day. I remember it clearly because it had never happened before. She pitched a fit at Fendi, throwing a three-thousand-dollar powder-pink leather clutch at the saleswoman when she cut up Tig’s denied credit card. We were escorted from the store by security, and I vividly recall Tig hissing, “Fendi is shit. This whole street is nothing but overpriced shit!”
That must have been the day Mosier saw us walking together.
Was it before or after the scene at Fendi?I wonder, standing up from my bed and crossing my bedroom to the door. I unlock it, opening it as quietly as possible, and peek out at the hallway. My mother and Mosier didn’t share a bedroom, and before I leave, I want to take a look in her suite of rooms. I don’t even know what I’m hoping to find. I only know that I can’t shake the feeling that I’m being lied to about her death, and I want to know the truth.
I step into the hallway.
Not long after that day on Rodeo Drive, my mother got a call from Chanel Harris-Briggs, the top Hollywood matchmaker, who had her own reality TV show calledSoul Mates. She said that she had a new client, a very wealthy businessman from Manhattan, who was insisting on a dinner date with Tig.
My mother laughed at the phone call at first, but when her credit card bill came the next day, she called Chanel back and said she’d take the date. In a gesture that totally got Tig’s attention, Mosier sent his jet to LAX to fly her to New York for an overnight date. When she got home the following day, she said we were moving to the East Coast.
I’d never met Mosier. She’d only met him once.
“He’s a sugar daddy, Ash. He’ll take care of us,” she said, wiggling her fingers so that her new, five-carat diamond solitaire ring would make rainbows all over our bungalow.
The main condition of Mosier’s marriage proposal?
No more drinking. No more drugs.
Tig ignored this condition for the two weeks leading up to our move, partying her ass off all over Beverly Hills on Mosier’s dime as a moving company carefully packed all our belongings and had them shipped to New York. When we arrived at JFK Airport, my mother and I were separated without explanation. I found out later that she was taken directly to a detox facility, while I was driven to a hotel in Manhattan, where I remained with my grandparents in adjoining rooms for ten lonely days.
On the eleventh day, we were collected by Eddie and driven to an Orthodox Church in Brooklyn.
My mother didn’t smile when she saw me. In fact, she didn’t even make eye contact with me. But I’d never seen someone so changed, so quickly. Her cheeks were hollow, and without Gus to do her makeup, she looked sick instead of chic. Her hair, which had always been blow-dried stick straight, was heavily curled and piled on her head like a Disney princess at prom. Though a simple white slip dress would have been her choice, her wedding gown had a massive, poofy ball-gown skirt, and was covered with hundreds of beads that shone like diamonds in the June sun. She went through the motions of the day in a quiet, dutiful manner that was foreign to me. She smiled for pictures but otherwise kept her eyes down and her thoughts to herself.
But her hands didn’t shake like she needed a fix.
I never saw them shake again.
Moving quickly, I scurry down the hall and turn the knob to enter her room, sliding inside and closing the door behind me as quietly as possible. My mother’s perfume permeates every soft space of this suite, and I stand just inside the door, leaningagainst the paneling. I close my eyes, and I breathe in the scent, half expecting to hear her voice.
Kid? Is that you?
Sudden tears burn behind my eyelids.
Yes. It’s me.
Did she know? Did she choose this life for us? For me?
How did you die, Tig? How and why?
I make my way through a tiny foyer, my feet making no sound on the plush carpet as I enter the main room of her bedroom suite, where morning sunlight streams in through the floor-to-ceiling windows. But as the room comes into full view, I stop short. A man sits at the foot of her giant, California-King-sized bed, his head cradled in his hands. Staring more closely at the back of his head, I realize it’s Anders, and the subtle movement of his shoulders tells me that he’s crying.
Then I notice something pink sticking out from under Tig’s mattress. I squint, realizing that it’s the tip of a hot pink feather. I’m curious about it, but I’m not supposed to be alone in a bedroom with Anders. It’s probably best if I slip out and?—
“Get out,” he mutters without lifting his head.
I have never been particularly close to Anders, but the agony in his voice makes my breath catch.
