Nina scrunches her faces. “That looks like an old lady dress, Bee.”
I purse my lips, examining the dress, which now that she points it out, does kind of look like an old lady dress with the red flowers on it. “I don’t really want to wear a gown though.”
Nina takes the dress out of my hand and puts it back on the hanger before thanking the employee and pulling me out of the store, informing me that we’re going to Barney’s.
“I’ll never hear the end of it if I end up wearing the same dress as somebody else,” I groan as I browse the racks of long gowns there.
Nina agrees and we move on to Neiman Marcus. As we’re getting to the designer dresses, I spot a one shoulder beaded bodice ball gown that makes my heart skip a beat. Because this is the first time I’ve even felt my heart beat in a week, I decide that’s the dress I want. I try the Naeem Khan gown on and fall in love all over again.
“This is it,” I breathe, swiveling in front of the mirror.
Nina nods in approval. “That is beautiful,” she says, walking up to me and looking at the price tag. She shrugs. “Could be worse.”
I laugh, looking at it and agreeing that it could be. Price aside, the dress is couture enough that I know most of the invitees won’t wear it. I like to push the envelope when I dress for events like these. I never go for the plain dresses unless they have a classic look, like the de la Renta one I’d seen. Nina tries on a strapless floor length Monique Lhuillier gown with a whirlwind of green hues and a slit that shows off her thin long leg. As soon as she steps out of it, I grab it from her and start walking to the register, as she gets dressed.
“Don’t try anything else on,” I say over my shoulder. “You’re wearing this.”
She laughs but doesn’t argue. We both decide on gold shoes: Nina’s a peep toe Prada, I’m a strappy Jimmy Choo, and then we head over to Hell’s Kitchen to eat with Uncle Rob and his husband Vic.
We leave everything in the car. Nina tells Marcus, the driver, not once, but twice, that he better be careful with our purchases. He laughs as if it’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard, but Nina is dead serious about her request. We got to a tiny little café called The Eatery.
Uncle Rob and Vic greet us and pull up chairs for us before ordering each of us a mimosa.
“I love coming here,” Nina sings as she lets out a happy breath.
“Yeah, it’s cute,” I agree, tilting my head to look at the rainbow painted American Flag across the street.
“Have you noticed how many gays are hot as fuck?” Nina asks suddenly, blatantly checking out the gay couple walking by us.
My jaw drops, but I laugh when Uncle Rob and Vic start laughing.
“The things that come out of your mouth,” Uncle Rob says, shaking his head.
“Seriously,” I agree, looking at my menu.
“Whatever,” Nina continues. “I work with a lot of them, but it seems like the really hot ones are out here. I mean, look at him,” she says, pointing at a strong blond guy walking an English Bulldog.
“You do realize that he can hear you, right?” I ask, gripping the finger she’s pointing. “And it’s rude to point.”
“I don’t think he would think it’s rude that I’m saying he’s hot,” she counters, glancing at her menu.
Vic laughs. “No, probably not. When’s your next play?”
“I start one in two weeks. It’s going to be huge, I just know it,” Nina says, beaming.
I love watching her talk about her plays. She gets so excited about every single one of them. Even if she doesn’t play a major role, she treats it like she’s the main character. I love that about her.
My uncle places his hand on mine while Nina talks to Vic about her play. I look up and find his hazel eyes looking at me with concern. “You okay?”
I nod slightly and offer him a small smile. “I’m getting there.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Have you gone to the therapist I sent you to?”
My shoulders slump and I shake my head. “No, not yet,” I whisper.
“You know you don’t have to wait until the last minute to seek help, right? You don’t have to wait until you’re drowning in your sorrows to go talk to somebody,” he says, his voice quiet as he rubs my hand.
“I know,” I agree. “I just … it’s always the same thing, you know? I go and I tell them my whole life story and I feel stupid. I feel stupid for needing help. I feel stupid for feeling depressed. I’m crying out and feeling sad and here I am, sitting in a café in the middle of the day after I just spent twelve thousand dollars on clothes without a second thought. It just makes me feel petty. There are people starving, kids that need water, and here I am … feeling depressed over what? A friend that sued me, a guy that let me walk away from him, that may have tried to use me, a best friend that’s always on tour and has issues of his own, a best friend that died because my interest in drugs led him to get stuck in it?” My throat closes in on me, not letting me continue my rant and I blink away tears, running the tips of my fingers under my eyes just in case.
My uncle stands up in the crowded space and rounds the table, crouching down beside me and pulling me into a hug. “Depression has no reason, Brooklyn. It’ll eat at you, showing no remorse, because it can. You don’t have to let it. You can own the universe and still feel this way.”
I know he’s right, but just like depression has no reason, it also doesn’t allow you to reason things.
“If I can’t get myself out of it, I’ll go see your lady,” I promise, and I will.
He smiles and kisses the top of my head before returning to his seat. Our meal is filled with laughs and funny stories from both Nina and Vic, who can entertain a stand-up comedy audience with their obscene jokes. As we head back home, my heart begins to cry again. As great as it is to get out, it still doesn’t erase what I feel when I go back home and am alone with my thoughts. I get my bags out of the car and kiss my cousin goodbye and when I get upstairs, I decide to FaceTime with Melody and Sarah. Sometimes the only thing that can truly cheer you up is the sound of a child’s laughter, and Melody’s giggles never let me down. I choose to listen to her tell me stories about what her day was like and what she’s going to be for Halloween. Instead of suffocating myself in darkness, I choose light. For once.
I yawn, feeling exhausted from lack of sleep. Nick called me last night while I was in the shower. By the time I saw the missed call, it was too late to call back. The feeling of needing to see him has become unbearable. My phone vibrates beside me on the nightstand and I reach over, turning on the bed to look at the screen. My stomach does this crazy flip when I see his text message pop up on my screen.
Nick: I miss you
Ignite butterflies.
Me: Stop saying that
I hate that his words, written or voiced, have a direct line to the blood that flows to my heart, but more than anything I hate that I want to hear them so bad. I’ve spoken to Shea a couple of times for about a second each time. He says they’ve been working their asses off on the album and rarely have time to even eat, which makes me secretly happy because that means they don’t have time to screw around either.
Nick: I can’t help it.
I clutch my phone harder, but don’t respond. What would I say? I’ve been spending so much time alone with my thoughts, that just as I made it to the point where I convinced myself he wasn’t using me for his label, I backtrack and decide he may have been. I have to give myself a couple of days to clear my head completely so that I can talk to him in person. A couple days of no lawsuit drama, no heartache, and no pain relief, which is beginning to sound more and more like a vacation. After a moment, my phone chimes again.
Nick: I want you
Holy. Shit. I stare at the message for one second, two seconds, three seconds, four … all while my heart sputters in my chest. How is it that he makes me feel like I can’t breathe even when he’s far away from me? It’s only a text message, but I can hear his raspy voice saying th
at into my ear and it makes my skin break out in goose bumps.
Me: Stop
Nick: I can’t
My insides are no longer mine; they belong to the butterflies and every other creature with wings that are currently fluttering inside. When he doesn’t text again, a tiny part of me is relieved, the bigger part of me wants to scream at the phone for him to send another, even though I don’t want to respond again. Maybe I should just call him. Maybe I should just wait. I wrestle with the idea for a moment longer before I do what any normal woman with a beating heart does: I call Nina.
“Do not text him back again. And definitely no calling,” she says firmly. “Make him sweat it out, that asshat.”
I nod once, making up my mind to do just that. “Good. I needed to hear that.”
When I hang up with her, I decide to go to a Pilates class that I’d signed up for eons ago and never went to. The rest of my day is spent pampering myself. I think whenever I get down on myself like that, this is what I need to do—make myself leave the house and pamper myself. It’s easier said than done, obviously, but since this is the first time I’m actually doing it, I feel proud of myself. That night, Hendrix walks in with a box of pizza, completely fucking up the “I’m going to start leading a healthy lifestyle” mentality I practiced throughout the day.
“Bastard,” I say to him as he puts down the box and greets me with a kiss.
He laughs. “What? Just because you did Pilates today you’re a changed woman?”
“No,” I grumble, my stomach growling. “Hey, you wanna go with me to get a tattoo?”
“Another one?” he asks, pulling out disposable plates and napkins.
“You act like I’m a tatted up shrine,” I say, taking a bite of pizza.
He makes an annoyed face. “What will you get?”
“Breathe,” I state simply.
He scratches his head and tilts his head at me. “Breathe? The word? Where?”
“Here,” I say, tracing a line over my wrist with my finger.
He blinks his caramel eyes a couple of times. My brother is so not a tattoo kind of guy. He’s so straight-laced it’s disgusting. The real reason he hasn’t gotten any is because he knows my mom hates them. I’ve gotten three: the bee on my hip and the anchors on my foot, because I know my mom hates them. And because they’re meaningful, but my mom hating them definitely factored in to my reasoning when I got them.
“Because you need a reminder to breathe,” he says sarcastically.
I nod. “Yeah, sometimes.”
He looks at me again, gauging whether or not I’m serious. When he sees that I am he agrees to go with me. After we eat our pizza, we head out to Shea’s favorite tattoo parlor in Soho. I tell the guy what I want and he squeezes me in with no appointment since it’s so small and simple. My phone rings as he prepares the needle, and I ask Hendrix to pick it up since it’s my mother. I listen to his conversation with her. He’s smiling for the beginning part of it and then frowns and then cringes and then grimaces; his facial expressions match exactly what I feel as the needle hits my wrist and begins to move.
“She wants to talk to you,” he says, holding the phone on his chest.
I shrug with my free arm. “Okay.” He holds the phone to my ear. “Hey, Mom.”
“Brooklyn Paige Harmon, tell me you are not getting another tattoo,” she scolds.
I roll my eyes. “I am,” I respond, smiling.
“So trashy,” she says. “Anyway, I was calling to inform you that you have a date for the party on Saturday.”
My jaw drops. “What?”
“Yeah. He’s pretty popular, unsigned, he goes by the name Rapture … is it Rapture?” she asks somebody in the background. “Yeah, it’s Rapture.”
For the sake of not arguing with her, I go along with it, like I always do. I’m not losing anything by going along with her. I stopped trying to make her proud years ago, but if I’m lucky, I’ll gain a commission from this Rapture guy. “Okay. Whatever. It’s not like I had a date anyway,” I mutter under my breath, rolling my eyes again. When I speak to my mother, I might as well be in a state of permanent eye roll.
“Good girl,” she says. I hate when she says that to me. “Talk soon,” she says right before hanging up on me.
I shake my head and look at my brother. “Who the eff is Rapture?”
Hendrix laughs. “No fucking idea. He must suck if you don’t know him.”
Ain’t that the truth. I’m a little worried about what I may find on YouTube when I get home and look him up.
The tattoo artist chuckles and cleans me up, smearing the ink on his cloth and letting me look at my new tattoo: Breathe
“I love it,” I say, smiling. “Thank you.”
The next couple of days fly by, and before I know it it’s Friday and I’m headed for The Hamptons with my brother and Nina. A drive that usually takes us two hours is going on three today. It took us forever to get out of the city and on the road, but we finally make it to the gates of my parents’ Water Mill mansion. I used to love coming here when I was a kid and laying out in the pool or going boating with the guests. The house looks as beautiful as ever, sitting on the luscious green lawn. It’s so big—twenty-two thousand square feet of house—that when we were kids, it would take us hours to find each other when we played hide and seek. After the millionth time Hendrix forgot that we were playing and gave up on looking for us, Nina and I decided that we would only play if we set perimeters for the game. We were sick of being left alone in one hiding spot for hours. The house was built in the 1920s, but my parents remodeled it when they bought it and keep on updating it every couple of years. They’ve kept its original colonial style with a modern twist.
There are white event trucks cased out on the further end of the lawn, already setting up for tomorrow’s party, and I actually begin to feel a little bit excited.
“We are going to paaarty,” Nina sings, making Hendrix and I laugh. “Is Sarah coming up for the party?” she asks Hendrix.
“Nope,” he says quietly. “She has work to do, and Mel is sick so she doesn’t want to leave her or make her fly.”
“Bummer,” I say. “I always like partying with Sarah.”
“You like partying with a tree, Brooklyn,” Hendrix mutters.
“Liked,” I correct. “I don’t usually party anymore.”
Nina scoffs. “Seriously, going out with her is like going out with a dead guy.”
As soon as she says that, her eyes widen apologetically. Hendrix shakes his head in disbelief, but I smile at her.
“You know what I love about you, Nina? The way you can take the most tragic things and joke about them and not make me want to cry when you do it.” I let out a breath, blowing my new side swept bangs out of my face. “Besides, you’re right, partying with me is pretty much like partying with a dead guy.” I bite the inside of my lip after I say it and train my vision to the sunny clear sky, blinking my eyes rapidly so that I won’t shed any tears for the part of my heart that is gone but will never be forgotten. Eight years is a long time, but no time is long enough to heal the loss of a life.
We settle in, Hendrix in his room and Nina and I in mine. One of my mother’s maids comes in and informs us that my mother wants us to join them for a dinner party they’re having tonight.
“That Rapture guy will be here tonight too,” Nina says when she walks back into my room after we’ve lounged by the pool and she’s flipped through a dozen gossip magazines.
I’ve been getting ready for the past fifteen minutes and still don’t know what I’m going to wear.
“Oh yeah? How do you know?” I ask, putting down my blush.
“Your mom just told me. Apparently he’s one of those YouTube sensations,” Nina explains.
“Yet we’ve never heard of him,” I mumble as I apply my eyeliner.
Nina laughs. “True.”
I decide on a short sequined silver dress and black wedged heels.
“Nice,” Nina says
when she sees me. “Very nice. I hope you don’t have to bend over at any point.”
I laugh, finger combing my hair to separate the big curls at the end. “No vagina shows from me. That’s your job,” I say, pointing at her short little black dress.
We bump into Hendrix on our way down the stairs and link arms with him, each of us on one side. We always do this and I think he must feel so cool when we do. I can picture him internally high fiving himself and thinking, “I’m a pimp” as he nods at other guys in the room.
When we enter the sitting room, my dad is talking to an older man with white hair, but catches my eye and stops talking to him, turning his body and opening his arms to embrace me as I walk up.
“Hey, baby girl,” he coos into my hair, hugging me tight. “So glad you made it.”
“Me too,” I respond, kissing his cheek.
He’s wearing a white button down shirt with the first button popped open, just like Hendrix. I notice they’re both wearing black slacks too, like father like son. If they stood beside each other, they’d make a perfect whiskey commercial too, the way they’re holding their drinks in their hands so casually.
“What a nightmare, huh?” my dad comments.
I raise my eyebrows and nod. “That’s exactly what it’s been.”
He tips my chin and looks at me for a long moment, his wise green eyes assuring me that it’ll be okay, and then walks away talking to somebody else.
I get a glass of wine with Nina and try to find out the dirt on who’s coming tomorrow night, mainly because I want to know if Shea will be here, and in turn, maybe Nick. We’re talking to my mom’s friend and model, Giselle, about it; she usually knows things that are going on even when they’re not in gossip magazines. The moment Giselle stops talking and gasps, looking up with admiration, I know my mother has entered the room. That’s how people, mainly models, react to her: they stop and stare as if she’s the light they live for. I’ve always thought it was ridiculous, but she’s my mother, so maybe I don’t appreciate her as much as everybody else does. Or maybe I just see her for who she is.
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