One Night Only

Chapter Eleven

"Are you sure you aren't taking me to the moon?" I say to Mom, while peering out the airplane window at the night sky. We're above the clouds, and the constellations shine so brightly that it's like being one with the stars.

"I wish, kiddo. There are fewer people there." Mom looks up from the book she's reading on her tablet and gives me a wistful smile.

Neither of us expect crowds or a media firestorm where we're going, which I'm told is a cottage we've rented for the entire summer on a lake in Northwestern Ontario, Canada, somewhere outside of a city called Thunder Bay. The lake sounds like it will be secluded, but I get what she means. People lately have meant intrusions and emotions, drama and trauma. It would be nice to have a world to ourselves for a few weeks, but this will be a lot closer to that dream than anywhere we could retreat to in southern California.

At first I thought we were staying a couple thousand miles closer to home. I was only half-listening when Mom mentioned a lake and part of Ontario, but it wasn't until she dug out our passports and unearthed a few suitcases from a closet that I realized she meant the province in Canada, and not a fast getaway to a resort or spa in the Inland Empire, outside of Ontario, California, like at Lake Arrowhead or something. My mind was otherwise occupied the first time she filled me in on our vacation plans, so I missed the finer details.

All I could think about was the venom Bowie and his fans could be spreading online at that very moment, on top of what they'd already achieved in twenty-four hours, and what my own fans might believe. Would they be upset or angry, or think I didn't care about the lengths some of them went to for tickets or to book travel to a show? Would they think I'm ditching them, or buy into anything Bowie might claim to be true? A small part of me wonders if my music career will be destroyed after this, if I ever find a way to get on a stage again without being paralyzed by panic and fear.

My mentions on Twitter and Instagram have been a cesspool of spite since Bowie beat our record label and my publicist to announcing I'd dropped out of the tour. There were carefully-planned statements designed to frame this in the best possible light, and those went out the window the second everyone had to shift to damage-control mode. I'm sure Bowie got an earful about that, or more likely, his management did. I doubt anyone but Bowie's parents would call him out on something short of felony activity these days, since he's a money-making machine for the music industry. Everyone else in his sphere probably fears losing their job if they make him mad.

Elton took the heat on behalf of Team Cayden, which I only know from eavesdropping on Mom's end of a phone call with him. I sent him a text, apologizing for how it all played out. Elton told me not to worry about it, and to forget about all of this while I'm on vacation.

I wish I could.

As it is, I've been fighting with fidgety fingers for the entire day. Our flight from LAX to Toronto had WiFi, but I couldn't have connected to it and gotten to my social apps without Mom noticing and confiscating my phone. I've already been told I need to disconnect or my time away will be pointless. I even handed over my passwords to Elton, who said he'll post updates for me while I'm away.

It's for my own good, but looking at social media is a hard habit to break, especially when there's a ton of swirl around the topics of me canceling on the tour and if Bowie and I have called it quits. I haven't seen anything new reported about Portia and him, although I'm tempted to leak the news of their hook-up and his cheating myself and let his people deal with it. All that's stopped me so far is knowing I'd just be giving Elton and my publicist more to deal with.

I fight back a sigh, then lean forward to peek through the mesh panel on Alfie's travel carrier. He has been as good as gold today, both on our first flight and this one. He's used to this, since he travels with me a lot when I have shows in the US and Canada. The hardest part about touring overseas is not having him with me.