I nodded again. “Thank you.”
She was thinking. “You lose place?”
I nodded. “Yeah, I’m lost.”
She spoke in rapid-fire Japanese, took me by the arm and hauled me to a nearby cafe filled with people. She was taking a video and jabbering rapidly, showing the cafe, the windows, the intersection, me, her friends, and then suddenly I had a pink drink in my hand and I was sitting with the group of Japanese teenagers who were all staring at me like I was someone, chattering to each other and giggling behind their hands, whispering. The girl who’d approached me sat beside me, showed me her phone.
Her social media stream was on the screen, and she tapped her latest posts—the photo of us, the street sign, and then her video—the likes, shares, and the retweet numbers were shockingly high considering how recently she’d posted it. I was impressed. And that was when I saw what she was pointing to: a comment under the video. A tiny thumbnail pic of Myles from one of his album covers, with his name and blue checkmark. “Thank you! And tell her to stay put!” This was in English on a feed dominated by her native Japanese characters.
I felt an absurd burst of relief, so powerful that I compulsively hugged the girl. “Thank you! Oh god, thank you so much!”
She was surprised by my hug, uncomfortable. Stiff, awkward. She shifted away from me, smiling and laughing, but obviously deeply uncomfortable. “Ohh…okay!”
I moved away. “Sorry.” I grinned sheepishly. “What’s your name?”
She nodded, looking anywhere but at me. “Okay, okay.” She finally met my eyes, my gaffe forgiven. “Emiko.”
“I just…thank you, Emiko. Thank you.”
She laughed. “Hai, hai.”
There was a commotion, then—people in the cafe responding to something going on outside—a crowd gathering. I tried to see, but the crush and rush was too thick—so I moved to the window.
Myles.
Stepping out of a blacked-out SUV, still in his jeans, boots, sweat-stained white T-shirt, and backward Dallas Cowboys hat, the outfit he’d worn on stage. He was ringed by people thrusting dozens of receipts and hats and photographs and scraps of paper at him, coming from all directions—there were four security guards around him, but they could barely keep the gathering chaos at bay.
Myles was absolutely at ease. Smiling, shaking hands, posing. Signing with a big black Sharpie. Never hurrying. I saw him glance over the heads of the crowd, lifting up on his toes—his eyes met mine, and I saw longing in them, relief.
Another slip of paper was waving in his face and he turned to give that person his attention—and for that moment, as he bent to listen, smiling, turning to pose for a selfie, that person had his entire attention. A genuine smile—not the megawatt magazine grin, but the real Myles smile.
I expected him to sign a few autographs, pose for a few selfies, and then escape.
But he didn’t.
The crowd grew, and the security guards did their best to keep him from being crushed, but he didn’t turn anyone away, even when the crowd continued to grow.
How long?
Half an hour? A full hour?
I wasn’t sure.
Seeing him in front of a sold-out crowd was one thing.
This was another.
And the way he handled it hit me hard, for some reason.
He cared.
He made eye contact with each person. Didn’t shy away from being clung to for a photo, and that photo becoming two or three, or more. He signed everything handed to him. Smiled for each person, wrote their name on the autograph. Not just a scribble of his initials.
Finally the crowd began to thin and his security was able to gradually move him away from the SUV and toward the door of the cafe where I was. I moved to the door, and a hulking American security guard in a black suit and mirrored Oakleys hooked his arm around my shoulders and hustled me into a walk. “This way, Miss Goode.”
“Uh, okay.” I halted. “Wait!” I went back in and grabbed Emiko by the hand and brought her to Myles. “Emiko, this is Myles; Myles, this is Emiko, the girl who helped you find me.”
He seemed to know hugging strangers was a cultural no-no, because he didn’t try, as I had. “Thank you so much, Emiko. I was worried sick.”
Emiko was over the moon, chattering in Japanese and jumping up and down. Finally, she settled enough to take several selfies and a short video with Myles, and got him to sign a scrap of paper.
And then she was waving at us with a huge grin, and we were finally alone.
“That’s us,” Myles said, gesturing at the SUV.
The bodyguard guided me to it, shielding me from the press of people with his own body. opened the door just wide enough to admit me, then closed the door and leaned over to whisper to Myles, who nodded and signed another hat, took another selfie.
Myles did all this despite the exhaustion I saw in his eyes, and in the lines of his body. He had just performed at a huge show, using all the energy that entailed, and then I put him through the stress of running away in a foreign city. I felt worse than I ever had in my life, but the worst of it was that I couldn’t control myself.
On top of that, I realized just how careful he had to be about going out in public. He rarely went out in public, knowing he would be inundated by the kind of thing I had just witnessed.
Knowing someone is famous is one thing.
Seeing the effect of it is another.
I had a lot to think about as I sat in the back of the SUV with Myles, alone with my thoughts.
Finally, after what had to have been an hour, he waved goodbye and slipped into the car.
I buckled up and silence descended on the hushed interior of the luxury SUV. The security guards were split between the front seat of this SUV and an identical one behind us.
He wasn’t looking at
