Catch Me

by Claire Contreras

  “Are you there?” she asks.

  “Yes. How are you?” I ask cordially.

  “Better than you, I’m sure,” she responds, but her voice sounds light, not malicious, so her words roll off of me.

  “Yep, I’ve had better days.”

  She pauses for a moment. “It’ll blow over, you know? This whole thing will blow over and people will forget about it. You have a good thing with those microphones.”

  My mouth falls open. My mother has never paid me a compliment before. The only time she has is when there are people around to hear her. I don’t know who she’s in front of right now, so maybe she’s saying it for the sake of her guests, but something tells me she’s not. I think she’s honestly praising my work. I don’t know if I’m too shocked to react and let happiness sink in, or if I’m just hesitant to believe her. I don’t say anything for a long time.

  “Thank you,” I say quietly, still in disbelief.

  “I was sued by a friend once,” she continues. “It was the most hurtful thing that happened to me when I was young. But shit happens, people change, and you learn. Don’t let it get you down, Brooklyn.”

  My throat begins to close in and I blink unshed tears as the driver parks in front of the Chateau Marmont.

  “Thank you, Mom,” I whisper.

  “Are you going to the White Party this year?” she asks, changing the subject.

  “Where will it be?” I ask, hoping it’s in their Beverly Hills home so I have a reason not to go since I plan on heading back to New York as soon as I can.

  “The house in The Hamptons,” she says airily. “It’s this weekend. Shea will be there, his assistant just confirmed. Maybe you can come with him.”

  “Maybe.”

  “All right, doll, I’ll see you next Saturday then. You’re welcome to stay at the house all weekend, if you’d like,” she says before blowing me a kiss and hanging up on me.

  I roll my eyes as I hop out of the car. She’s such a bitch. I note that down as yet another thing I would never say to my daughter. I’m going to be such a different mom if I ever have kids. I’m never going to invite them to stay in my house because they’ll know that anything that’s mine is theirs too. Once I check-in to the hotel and run into a couple of people I’ve met in the past, I go out to my cabana. I love staying at the cabanas here. Not for the pool because I rarely even use it. Sometimes I lay out but most of the time I just stay in bed and listen to the people laughing and having fun outside. I like to pretend that one day that’ll be me.

  Lying back on the bed, I close my eyes and ignore the persistence of my ringing phone. I just want to be left alone for a while. Finally, I slide my finger on the screen and seeing another missed call from Shea, I decide to call him. I can’t ignore him, of all people.

  “BK, what the fuck is going on? Allie’s really doing that shit to you?” He sounds pissed, with good reason. He’s known Allie a long time too, but his loyalties are with me just the same as mine are with him. If anybody betrays him, I would feel betrayed too.

  “Yeah, I guess she is. She won’t even answer my calls, Shea,” I say quietly.

  “Pussy,” he mutters as he lets out a breath. “What happened with Shadow?”

  Even the sound of his nickname makes my heart feel like somebody is squeezing it. “Nothing.”

  “He’s pissed, you know?” Shea continues, clearly not caring that I’m dealing with enough right now.

  “Yeah? Well, so am I. You can tell him I said that too. You can tell him to fuck off and go to hell, for all I care.” As I say the words, hot tears spill down my face, and I’m glad for them. At least my tear ducts aren’t broken.

  “You’re just saying that because you’re angry right now,” Shea says.

  “When the fuck did you become Mr. Peacemaker?” I ask. I know I’m taking my anger out on him and he doesn’t deserve it, but I also know that he understands this.

  “When the fuck did you become cynical?” he spits back.

  “Fuck you,” I spit, my voice breaking.

  “No, fuck you! I’m just trying to be there for you,” he responds angrily and finally, I start crying freely. All of the hurt I’ve tried to contain in one box finally spills over and travels through me at once. Shea is silent until I’m calm enough to speak again. I feel much better after letting it all out.

  “I’m sorry,” Shea says quietly once I’ve calmed down.

  “I’m sorry too,” I whisper. “Can we start over?”

  Shea laughs. “Don’t we always?”

  That almost brings a smile to my face. “I can’t believe she’s suing me,” I whisper.

  “She’s a piece of shit,” he says.

  “I guess she is,” I agree, a laugh escaping me.

  “So you really through with Nick then?” Shea asks.

  I screw my eyes shut, the name causing the hole in my heart to grow bigger. “He was using me for my name, Shea,” I say quietly.

  “You really believe that, BK? He has his own name. If he really wanted to he could use it,” he says.

  “In the producing world, maybe, but starting up a label?” I retort stubbornly.

  Shea exhales harshly. “He wasn’t using you, Brooklyn. Open up your goddamn eyes.”

  “Why are you defending him all of a sudden?” I ask.

  “Because he’s my friend and he’s a good guy. And I can see how much he cares about you. And because I’m a fucking asshole for trying to come between you when I know you deserve someone like him,” Shea offers quietly. “Seriously, just give him a chance to explain.”

  I shake my head, wiping my face as new tears fall. “He hasn’t even tried calling me, so clearly, there’s nothing for him to explain.”

  Shea has no response to that, but I hear him exhaling again and cough immediately after, so I know he’s smoking.

  “Did Gia make it up to your room?” I ask.

  The sun is already setting and I’ve been gone all day so I know she did, but I want to hear him say it.

  “Yeah,” Shea says, his response sounding like a question, probably wondering why I care.

  “Who was she with? I heard her and a girl talking in the spa locker room.”

  “This girl, Steph—she does her makeup and shit sometimes. I think she’s going with us to a couple of shows,” he says nonchalantly, without realizing that his words are twisting the knife in my heart.

  “Oh,” I whisper. “Do you guys share a tour bus?” I ask, internally begging for him to say no.

  “Nah, she has her own, but you know how it is. Gia wants to come on mine tonight, but Shadow and I are supposed to work, so I dunno …”

  My chin begins to tremble at the thought of Nick hooking up with Stephanie … with anybody. I never knew that something aside from the death of a loved one could hurt this much. That’s exactly how I feel, too, like somebody died. I just keep thinking about him fucking her out of anger toward me. I picture his eyes and the murderous look they had when I left the room, and I feel like dying. It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours since I left, and twenty-four hours isn’t enough time for wounds to heal, but that’s when we do our worst—when our wounds are raw.

  “Has he seen Stephanie?” I ask quietly, pressing my fingernail into the palm of my hand.

  Shea exhales. “Huh. So you know about them.”

  I face the mouthpiece of my phone up so that he doesn’t hear me crying again.

  “Yeah, they saw each other,” he says, his words slow and careful.

  “Did they hook up?” I whisper, needing to know.

  “Why are you asking me that?” he asks. “Why would you even want to know that?”

  I take the fact that he doesn’t give me an answer as the confirmation I need.

  “Brooklyn, you’re doing this to hurt yourself,” he warns after I don’t respond. “This is what you do before you start using.”

  I close my eyes at his words. “Thanks for the reminder,” I whisper sarcastically.

  “Call
your sponsor.”

  “Go get a sponsor,” I counter.

  “Okay, I see you wanna act like a child right now and pick another fight. Call me later. I got a show to put on soon,” he says. “I love you, BK, don’t forget that.”

  “Thanks. Break a leg,” I say quietly.

  The longer that I wallow in my own sadness, the more I wonder if Shea is right about calling my sponsor. The last time I was in this hotel, in a cabana similar to this one, was with Shea, Ryan, and a group of other wild teenagers. I push those memories out of my head. Even though I don’t want to think about him, my mind drifts to Nick and what he may be doing right now. I wish I didn’t have a clear picture of him putting his arm around Stephanie at the airport the first time I saw him, because my chest physically aches at the thought. I wish I didn’t care about him. I wish I’d never spoken to him or become friends with him, but most of all, I wish we’d never had sex because I can’t take the image of his eyes blazing into mine out of my head.

  Swallowing my sadness, I flip on the television for the first time in what seems like ages, and start watching Housewives of Atlanta. At least reality shows should take my mind off of everything weighing down on me right now. I start checking my messages and deleting the voicemails. I let them play back to back in my ear and when I hear Nick’s voice, my insides flip.

  “Brooklyn, it’s me. I’m an asshole. I shouldn’t have said that to you, I was pissed off. I’m sorry … call me.” His voice is raspy and deep and sounds exhausted.

  I look for the time of the message but it shows the time I turned on my phone, so there’s no telling. I wonder if he left it after he spoke to Shea or after he found out that him starting a label wasn’t the reason I left. Not entirely anyway. A part of me wishes he would’ve told me but I realize that if he would have, I may have treaded more carefully around him. I love the way he made me feel free. I don’t even know what to think anymore, but I know I’m not ready to call him yet.

  I order room service and a bottle of wine and let myself drown in a couple of glasses instead. I figure that it’s better than drugs. Three glasses later, I feel drowsy and decide to go to sleep. Tomorrow will be another day. Tomorrow will be better. Soon I’ll head back to New York and leave this tainted state behind me again.

  Depression is a cruel bitch. She starts by planting little seeds all over your mind, knowing that life’s troubles will water it daily until it grows into a massive bonsai tree that crowds your thoughts and feelings, not leaving any room for leaves of hope to spur from it. Those are my thoughts as I lay in bed. I’ve lost count of how many days I’ve been in here, faking headaches and period pains so that my brother doesn’t try to drag me out.

  Turning to lay on my stomach, I swivel the volume tuner on my iPod so that I can get lost in music. The more melancholy I feel, the more depressing I want my music to be, so I’ve been listening to what my brother so aptly calls, my suicide playlist. Clearly, the no filter thing runs deep in my family. Nonetheless, it’s a fact of life—when you’re sad, you listen to sad music; when you’re happy, you listen to party music. I wish I could stop. I wish I could press pause and put away the iPod, but I can’t.

  I see my door open, mainly because there’s light in the room now, but I don’t look up to acknowledge it. I just see my brother’s shiny black shoes and Nina’s equally as shiny black patent pumps before my earphones get tugged out of my ears.

  “What the hell?” I mutter, sitting up on the bed.

  “You’re acting like a fucking bear,” Nina scolds, pushing the button to open the drapes.

  “Bee, you need to get out of this funk,” Hendrix agrees. “Are you taking your anti-depressants?”

  My eyes begin to water as my lower lip trembles. “I don’t want to.”

  I really don’t. I don’t want to take any kind of drugs, not even ones I’m prescribed. I’m scared that I’ll try to drown in them if I take one. It’s easy to take two and then three and then drink. And I’m scared that I’ll fall back into something I can’t get out of. My sponsor says I’ll be fine. She asks me to call her every day to update her on my progress, which I do even though there is none. I spoke to Allie’s husband on the phone when I called her the other day and he screamed his head off at me. I still haven’t had any communication with her and it’s killing me. I know I shouldn’t call her, but I hate that we haven’t spoken. I hate just leaving our friendship hanging like that even if she did try to screw me over.

  Apparently I’m that girl, the one that needs closure. The one that’s unwilling to accept that sometimes people in your life vanish into thin air.

  Nina sits down beside me and pulls me close to her, laying my head on her shoulder. “Okay, no drugs. What else can we do to help you?”

  “Get me a new heart,” I murmur.

  “Oh my God,” Hendrix says. “Stop being so melodramatic. You knew the guy for what? Two months?”

  “I knew him long enough for him to make himself my life,” I say quietly as new tears start.

  Nina rolls her eyes and shakes her head, looking at me like I’m a pathetic excuse for a woman. I swear if she starts spewing her women power bullshit right now, I will kick her.

  “So fucking call him,” Hendrix says. “If you feel this way, fucking call him or pick up the goddamn phone when he calls you! Why are women so fucking complicated?”

  “Listen,” Nina starts with an attitude, letting go of me and standing up to place her hands on her hips. “Men are fucking stupid. That’s why they think women are complicated. Women want three things. Three simple things: Keep your dick in your pants. Be honest with us. Worship us. That’s it. That’s all. You motherfuckers can’t do all three without getting your brain mixed up. She cannot call him because she is the woman and he should be groveling at her feet and kissing them while he’s down there. Fuck him. Fuck you. Fuck all men. I’m taking an oath right now and writing all men off.”

  Hendrix starts laughing, throwing his head back and clutching on to his stomach. “Oh, that’ll be the day, Nina. That’ll be the day,” he says, laughing.

  “Go home to your ex-wife, you miserable, childish little man,” Nina says, pivoting back to me while Hendrix laughs.

  “She’s not my ex-wife. We’re still married,” he says.

  “By the grace of God,” she mumbles, sitting beside me again.

  “Look, the point is that if she’s this miserable she needs to call him,” Hendrix says.

  “You’re not bothered that he’s been working on this Wildfire Label all along?” I ask.

  Hendrix crouches down in front of me, looking at me with seriousness in his caramel eyes. “Bee, do you know how Dad started Harmon?”

  I shake my head. I’ve heard a million stories of how, but I wouldn’t know which one is true: the one where my dad fought off the bear that was around old records or the one where he started selling CDs out of his trunk.

  “He was an intern for Donny, you know, from Mojo Records, and he started taking clients. Anybody that wanted to sign that Dad really liked, he spoke to on the side. That’s how Harmon came to be. This is a shark business, Bee. If you’re not ready to bite, you’re gonna get eaten. You know this. So no, I’m not mad at Wilde. He has the right to do whatever he wants, and you know what? He’s beating his dad at his own game. I respect him,” Hen says with a shrug.

  “His dad is an asshole,” I mutter.

  “Bigger than ours,” Hendrix agrees, making me smile.

  “Damn. I gotta meet this man,” Nina says, making Hendrix and I shoot a warning glance her way. She puts her hands up in defense. “Just to see if he’s really a bigger asshole than Uncle Chris! Geez … oh ye of little faith and shit.”

  I laugh despite myself and bump her with my shoulder.

  “Seriously, Brooklyn, it’s been a week already, you need to get your shit together. You have other things going on,” Hendrix reminds me.

  One week. That’s how long it’s been. One week since I last saw him. One miserable
week and I’m still not over him, not that I thought I would be. It’s amazing how you can live without somebody your entire life and then you meet them, let them in, let them take over your every thought, and then the moment they’re gone, you feel like you’re fucking dying. My shoulders and head drop at the thought of it all. Just when things seemed to be going in the right direction for me, my comfortable rug gets pulled from beneath me. Nick called me the first couple of days and then stopped, I don’t know if it was to give me space or because he finally decided to quit on me. I expected the latter to happen at some point, but I didn’t know it would hurt this bad. I didn’t know it would feel this painful.

  “Do you have a dress for Saturday?” Nina asks, bumping me back with her shoulder.

  I shake my head, not caring if I even go to that stupid party. Nothing good has ever come out of those damn White Parties anyway.

  “Shea will be there,” Hendrix says. “Maybe Nick will go.”

  “Yeah, with a date, I’m sure,” I scoff, the thought making my stomach turn.

  I get out of bed and shower, not because I feel like I have the energy to do it, but because my cousin and brother will kill me if I don’t. Hendrix places a cup of coffee in my hand as Nina drags me out of the house, insisting that we go dress shopping. The White Party went from “dress in all white” to “tux and gown mandatory” throughout the years. My mother got sick of rockers showing up in jeans and a white T-shirt claiming that they were properly dressed for the party. Being that she was the only one in a custom floor-length dress, she changed the rules. My father laughed and argued that it would no longer be a white party if they changed the wardrobe, but he went along with it anyway.

  After browsing a couple of stores, we end up in Oscar de la Renta on Madison Avenue, which is where I suggested we go to begin with, but Nina always has to get her way and fail before she goes along with anybody else’s idea.

  “What if I wear a short dress?” I ask, holding up a sleeveless black dress with a boat neck and a full skirt. It’s not short, it would probably fall where my knees end, but it’s not floor-length like my mother wants it to be either.