That’s all it takes to draw him out of his self-conscious funk.
It feels like we’re in a Hollywood movie when we all make our way back through the staff areas to the rear door and jump into the two waiting vehicles. Even though we’re dressed for the beach, all of us are on high alert, keeping Luna safely between our huge bodies.
When the sea comes into view Luna squeals again. “Look at it…look at the waves.”
We all crane to see the gorgeous bay that is one of Australia’s most famous beaches. With light sand and vivid blue waters tipped with foaming white waves, it sure is a sight to behold.
Luna’s hand squeezes my knee, and I smile at her efforts to share her bubbling joy. “Look at that,” I say. “Isn’t it something?”
“It’s more than something,” Luna whispers. “It’s everything.”
At Bondi, Connor asks the driver to stop. Jumping out, he heads into a nearby shop and returns with a wide-brimmed straw hat for Luna and four large bottles of sunscreen for us all.
“If anyone recognizes Luna, we’ll need to get off the beach as quickly as possible,” Connor says. “We’re good until then, but just keep a low profile.”
“That’s going to be easy with seven huge guys who look like a cross between The Rock, Chris Hemsworth, and Mark Wahlberg,” Luna snorts.
The driver advises us to head to the end of the beach, where there are fewer people. We try to make it look like we’re a group of buddies out for an afternoon rather than seven bodyguards surrounding a celebrity, but I’m aware of the intrigued looks of the surrounding beachgoers. Luna’s disguise is good enough that she’s not easily recognizable, but how long before people put two and two together? There must be a few people at the beach who have tickets to her concerts. Her tour is a sellout, and she’s playing all the major stadiums around the world. It won’t take much for them to notice us.
I really hope that they don’t. I want Luna to have fun for at least an hour. I want her to wade into the ocean and feel its power. I want to watch the light pour out of her as she experiences this momentous thing for the first time.
Because who knows how many first times we’ll have together?
This thing we’re doing has to have an expiration date. Celebrities don’t just leave their careers to shack up with their seven bodyguards. Even movies haven’t stepped that far.
When Luna strips off her cover-up, we all gawp at her like starving puppies. It’s not like we haven’t seen her naked before, but in this tiny white bikini, with straps that could come untied so easily, it’s so much more of a tease. Before we can insist that she applies the sun cream, she’s dashing across the sand, clutching the hat onto her head. Stopping abruptly at the shore, she seems to take a few seconds to look out toward the horizon. There are so many other people in the sea, laughing and splashing, but it’s as though she doesn’t notice them at all. There’s only Luna and the roaring power of the ocean. Luna who was named for the moon, the celestial body whose movements control the ocean’s tides.
The first time the water laps over her foot, she takes a step back. Then she turns, not realizing that Mo, Connor, Elijah, and I all followed her closely. “We’re going to come in with you,” I say softly.
“I can’t swim,” she admits. “I don’t think I understood how big and crazily powerful it would be.”
“Not all sea is the same,” Mo tells her. “Some seas are warm and calm; some are freezing and angry. This is a mixture of the two.”
“Warm and angry. Sounds a bit like Connor,” Luna says, and when he growls at her joke, she dashes into the water. Soon we’re all up to our waists, the seven of us surrounding Luna, eyes scanning for threats and making sure she’s safe in the water too.
We manage to enjoy thirty minutes before a girl with red hair and freckles dusting her nose approaches to ask Luna if she can have a selfie. Ben steps in to say no, but Luna puts a hand on his arm and lets the girl come closer.
“I didn’t recognize you at first,” the girl says, her face flushing. “But then…”
“Are you coming to the show tonight?”
The girl nods enthusiastically. “My mom bought the tickets for my birthday.”
“Well, that’s awesome.” Luna puts her arm around the girl and smiles for the selfie. With her hat shading her face and her huge sunglasses, it’d be hard for anyone to really see that it’s Luna in the flesh, but at least the fan is happy.
“Thank you so much,” the girl says, waving to her mom, who’s waiting on the shoreline.
“Anytime,” Luna says.
When the girl dashes back to show her mom the photo, Luna gazes out the horizon again. “I guess it’s time for us to leave.”
“It’s probably for the best,” Connor says.
“I’m ready for my bed anyway,” she says softly.
Who knows if it’s the truth? But what I do know is that Luna is learning what it takes to be a real celebrity. I just hope that, in accepting the restrictions of her new lifestyle, she doesn’t lose a part of herself in the process.
20
MO
Luna is playing three shows in Australia. Two in Sydney and one in Melbourne.
It turns out that the girl at the beach was the daughter of a journalist for one of the major Australian newspapers, and she writes an article about celebrities who show real kindness and appreciation to their fans. The sweet selfie of a disguised Luna and a very happy fan is splashed all over the front page of the Entertainment section, and Blueday Records are ecstatic at the exposure. They are less happy that Luna is, in their words, “out in public in a way that's dangerous.” Connor patiently explains that she can’t be expected to be a hermit and, in the politest way, that we're not getting paid to be her jailers.
Luna then receives a phone call warning her of the dangers of over-exposure and, for the rest of the day, is walking around with her eyes lowered.
Anger bubbles away in my chest.
No one should act in a way that takes away someone's sparkle. I saw it often with my cousins. They'd get married to a man who, on the surface, seemed okay, but then over time, they'd change the way they dressed and how they'd express themselves in public. It was like the marriage sucked out their true selves.
I read somewhere once that affairs happen because a person is looking for another “self.” We mold to walk beside the people we love, and sometimes we don't like the person we’re shaped to become. Will that be the same for Luna? Walking arm in arm with the phenomenon of celebrity is going to shape her for sure.
There is not a man among my friends who wants to mold Luna to be anything other than she is.
The trouble is that everyone she works with seems intent on shaping her to be something totally different.
We’re on our way to Melbourne. It's a short flight, and once again, we're traveling with the dancers and the band, and even some of the technical team too. Luna has a great relationship with most of her supporting crew, but there is one guy, a lighting technician called Marcus, who makes the hair at the back of my neck prickle.
There's no reason for the strange sense that I have about him. He hasn't, to my knowledge, done anything wrong. There's just a feeling of wrongness about him. The same kind of wrongness that I sensed in my cousin who ended up in jail. An emptiness in his eyes. A smirk that doesn't touch the rest of this face.