Daisy Jones & The Six - Taylor Jenkins Reid Page 0,103
band.”
Billy said, “You know what I meant.”
And I said, “Yeah, we all know what you mean.”
Karen: We were outside of Chicago. Staying the night in a hotel. Camila had called ahead to this clinic. She walked me in, sat next to me. I was bouncing my knee and she put her hand on my leg and stopped the bouncing. I said, “Am I making a mistake?”
And she said, “Do you think you are?”
And I said, “I don’t know.”
And she said, “I think you do know.”
And I thought about what she meant.
And then I said, “I know I’m not making a mistake.”
And she said, “There you go.”
And I said, “I think I’m pretending to be conflicted so that everybody feels better.”
She said, “I don’t need to feel better. You don’t need to pretend anything for me.” So I stopped.
When they called my name, she squeezed my hand and she didn’t let go. I didn’t ask her to come into the room with me and I didn’t think she was going to, but she just kept walking with me—she never left my side. I remember thinking, Oh, I guess she’s gonna be here for this. I got on the table. The doctor explained what was going to happen. And then he left for a moment. And there was a nurse in the corner. And I looked at Camila and she looked like she was going to cry. And I said, “Are you sad?”
And she said, “A part of me wishes you wanted kids, because my kids make me so happy. But … I think in order to be happy like I’m happy, you need different things. And I want you to have whatever those things are.” And I started crying, then. Because somebody understood.
Afterward, she brought me back to the hotel and she told everyone I wasn’t feeling well and I laid in bed by myself. And … it was a bad day. It was an awful day. Knowing you did the right thing doesn’t mean you’re happy about it. But when I called in room service, and I laid there in my hotel room, I knew that I was childless and that Camila was out with her children. And that … that seemed right. That little bit of order amidst the chaos.
Camila: It’s not my place to say what happened that day. All I will say is that you show up for your friends on their hardest days. And you hold their hand through the roughest parts. Life is about who is holding your hand and, I think, whose hand you commit to holding.
Graham: I didn’t know what had happened.
Karen: As we were all leaving the hotel, heading out to Chicago, I saw Graham get in the elevator alone, and I thought about taking the stairs. But I didn’t. I got in the elevator with him. Just the two of us. And as the elevator started going down, he said, “Are you okay? Camila said you weren’t feeling well.”
And I said, “I’m not pregnant anymore.”
He turned to me with this look on his face like, I never thought you’d do this to me. The elevator doors opened and we both just stood there. Not saying a word. They closed. And we took the elevator all the way to the top. And then all the way back down. Right before we got to the lobby again, Graham hit the button for the second floor. And he got off.
Graham: I walked up and down the hallway of that hotel, over and over and over and over. At the end of the hallway there was a window, and I put my head on it. My forehead. And I looked down at all of the people below me. I was only a few floors up from them. I watched them walking from place to place, and I felt jealous of every single of one of them. That they weren’t me right then. I wanted to switch places with every man down there.
When I pulled my forehead off the glass, there was a huge greasy smudge where I’d touched it. I tried to wipe it away but it just made the window cloudy. I remember looking through this cloudy window, trying to rub it to make it better and nothing would help. I just kept rubbing and rubbing and rubbing. Until Rod found me somehow.
He said, “Graham, what are you doing? We gotta be in Chicago this afternoon. Bus is gonna leave without you, man.”