I Have Lost My Way(2)

“Happy birthday to me,” she finishes in sarcastically atonally American deadpan, making a slicing gesture across her throat in case the message wasn’t clear enough.

“Is it paralysis? We heard something like that happened with”—her mother’s voice drops—“Adele.”

Freya can hear the hope in her mother’s voice. Not because she wants vocal paralysis but because she wants to link Freya to Adele. A few years back, she read that book The Path, and she bought into it 200 percent. Dream it, be it is her motto.

“I’m going to send you for some tests,” the doctor says, retreating into the already-familiar jargon. “A CAT scan, a biopsy, an LEMG, maybe an X-ray.” He pulls out a card, slides it over, and gives Freya a look that does not seem all that Hippocratic. “And you might consider talking to someone.”

“We did, but the lobotomy didn’t take.”

“Freya!” her mother scolds. To the doctor, “We’re already seeing a therapist.”

We. Like they’re seeing him together. Like they’re both taking the little pills that are supposed to quell the anxiety that is supposedly stifling Freya’s voice.

“This just happened. Literally overnight. If this were”—and here her mother’s voice drops to a whisper—“psychological, it wouldn’t happen in the blink of an eye like that, would it?”

The doctor makes noncommittal noises. “Let’s schedule a follow-up in two weeks.”

Two weeks is too late. Hayden has made that clear. He called in favors to arrange a visit to the famous doctor, treater of one-named wonders like Adele and Lorde and Beyoncé. He paid the $1,500 consultation fee because this guy, Hayden swore, is a miracle worker—implying that what Freya needs is not overpriced medical care but an actual miracle.

Outside, Hayden’s car and driver are waiting, even though he didn’t send the driver to take Freya here. The driver opens the door and bows slightly. “Mr. Booth has requested I bring you to the offices.”

Freya has spent much of the past two years in Hayden’s offices, but the request makes her feel queasy. Her mother, who still, after all this time, acts like Hayden is the emperor and she the peasant, looks freaked out. She frantically scrolls through her texts. “He probably just wants to know how it went.”

Hayden Booth doesn’t summon without reason, and the reason would not be to gather information. Freya’s sure he received a call from the doctor the minute the door shut behind them. Or, who knows, maybe he had a secret camera filming the entire exam.

If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound? If she doesn’t go to Hayden’s office, he can’t fire her. And if he can’t fire her, her career isn’t over. And if her career isn’t over, people will still love her.

Right?

“I’m tired,” she tells her mother, with a weary wave. “You go.”

“He asked for us both.” She looks to the driver. “Did he ask for us both?”

The driver has no clue. Why would he?

“I’m exhausted from all the stupid doctors’ appointments,” Freya says, going into what her mother calls diva mode. Diva mode befuddles her mother because on the one hand, dream it, be it, but on the other hand, it’s fucking annoying.

When her mother gets upset, she purses her lips in a way that makes her look exactly like Sabrina, or Sabrina exactly like her. “It’s like the genes chose sides,” their old babysitter used to joke. Meaning Freya took after their father—the reddish skin, the high forehead, the telltale Ethiopian eyes—whereas Sabrina looked more like their mother, the hair curly, not kinky, the skin light enough to pass, if not for white, then Puerto Rican.

But then her mother reconsiders, and the prune mouth is gone. “You know what? Maybe that’s smarter. I’ll talk to him. Remind him that you’re only nineteen. That you’ve come so far. That we have so much momentum. Making them wait will only make them hungrier. We just need a bit more time.” She’s back on her phone. “I’m ordering you an Uber.”

“Mom. I’m quite capable of getting myself back home.”

Her mother continues tapping on the phone. Freya’s not meant to take the subway alone anymore. Her mother has a tracker installed on Freya’s phone. She exercises caution even though, like Freya’s diva attitude, this too is premature. Freya is not famous. She is somewhere between buzz and celebrity on Hayden’s scale. If she goes dancing at clubs, or hits the kind of bar or café frequented by up-and-coming Actor/Model/Singers, she’s recognized; if she does an event at a shopping mall (which she no longer does; not on brand, the publicists say), she’s mobbed. But on the subway, amid regular people, she is exactly nobody. But for her mother, every one of her actions is aspirational.

“I’m just gonna walk a bit,” Freya tells her mother. “Maybe go through the park, clear my head, see what’s on sale at Barneys.”

She knows her mother will not refuse the healing power of Barneys. Though Freya still feels mildly uncomfortable in places like that. She’s often followed, and she is never sure if it’s because she’s half-famous or half-black.

“Go find something pretty,” her mother says. “Take your mind off things.”

“What else is on the schedule?” Freya asks, out of habit, because there’s always something and her mother has it memorized. Her mother’s awkward pause is painful. Because the answer is nothing. Nothing is scheduled because this time was allotted to being in the studio. Right now, she’s meant to be finishing up recording. Next week, Hayden is going to some private island for a week, and then he’s back in the studio with Lulia, the gap-toothed singer he discovered busking in the Berlin metro whom Hayden made so famous that her visage smirks from a billboard in Times Square.