by Holley Trent
“Who are you calling?”
“My girlfriend.” Bruce grimaced. “Well, not my girlfriend. I didn’t ask her to be. Maybe I should have but we were both coming and going and I didn’t know if that was how things are done.”
Arnold raised a brow.
“I imagine that shit’s easy for you. Always makes sense what you need to say and do and when you should do it.”
“It’s not that. You’ve just never said anything about a girlfriend before. I didn’t think you were the type to commit.”
“What’s that mean?”
Arnold put up his hands. “No offense meant, mate. We can just never tell where your head is at.”
“You mean without my translator here.”
“Well. Nan did have a certain knack for it. She was intuitive in a way none of the rest of us are.” Arnold shifted his weight and put the phone into his brother’s hand. “I think that’s why she and Mum didn’t get on. Nan would never explain anything. She’d just say that she knew and that was that. Mum needed facts. Logic.”
“And I’m completely lacking in those things.”
“No, that isn’t it at all. You don’t just say things. You have a tendency to make them stories, and I think some people get impatient. It’s too much information or not enough of the right information and sometimes we can’t fill in the missing bits on our own. We’re not on the same wavelength, as the saying goes.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
Arnold and Bruce had never really had the “communication conversation.” Bruce had always assumed that they’d just do their own things and wouldn’t interact, and that was that. He’d come to terms with it mostly, but there Arnold was, trying to understand, and Bruce was suddenly the one who didn’t understand.
“I’ll be straight with you. Went home last night after dinner and my girlfriend reamed me out. She said the whole lot of us are awful, miserable people.”
Bruce gaped with delayed mortification. “All of us? I barely spent twenty minutes with the woman. I didn’t tell her any of my stories, did I?”
“No, not you, Bruce. All of us except you. She thought we were ganging up on you and felt like she couldn’t say anything because she wasn’t blood and we’ve only been together for a year, you know? Doesn’t want to start earning imaginary strikes from Mum and Dad yet. So, I’m trying to figure this thing out. I’m trying to see it from an outsider’s perspective, but it’s hard.”
“You’ll have to let me know if you’re asking for pity.”
Arnold sighed and pushed his unkempt hair out of his eyes. He always had that frazzled professor vibe about him. “You don’t owe me any pity. I just want you to get that I’m making an effort. I don’t want you to think that it’s all of us against you by yourself, but you have to understand that none of us understand your decision-making process. You’re impulsive.”
“I’m not. At least, not the way I was when I was younger. Now, I fixate on every decision even when I speak it quickly. I don’t just do shit willy-nilly and then expect people to pick up the pieces.”
“Like quitting the band?”
“I quit the fuckin’ band, Arnold, because—” Bruce was shouting.
Shouting was unproductive.
Shouting wouldn’t make his arguments any stronger. It would only include the neighbors in Bruce’s personal business.
He took a breath, walked in a circle, shook out the tension he’d been holding in his hands, and returned to face his brother. In a more modulated tone, he said, “I quit the band because it was all fake, okay? They never considered themselves to be anything but babysitters for me because that was what the label told them I needed. They were paid excellently for it, I assure you. I don’t need to be babysat. I’m a grown man and I decided that either people are going to get me or not. I have choices and I’m exercising them.”
That was what Ev had told him. He had choices. So many choices.
“What do you mean? What are you doing? You didn’t say anything about it.”
“When could I have? All any of you have wanted to talk about since I’ve arrived are assets and investments, and the trail of havoc you think I’ve spun across South Africa in recent weeks. When could I have brought it up?”
“Well, I’m asking you now. What’s your plan?”
“I think it’s pretty simple. I’m just not going to record anymore.”
“What?” Arnold’s voice very nearly hit a C5 with that pinched shout.
Nodding, Bruce rocked back on his heels and clucked his tongue. He wasn’t going to get distracted by defensiveness. “You see. I’ve got a plan that takes me elsewhere. Ev helped.”
“Ev?”
“Everley.” Bruce waved off the distraction. Knowing Arnold, he was going to start probing, and Bruce had too much he needed to say before he got distracted. He’d sing the virtues of Everley Shannon all day if left up to his own devices. “I haven’t thrown a tantrum and decided that if I can’t have things my way then I’m going to quit. I’m just making some tweaks. Some adjustments.”
Everley had taught him that. He’d watched how she worked. She made small compromises until she could get something she could be satisfied with, even if it wasn’t quite what she’d envisioned at the start. The payoff would be the same in the end.
“I thought you loved recording.”
“No. I love being a musician. I can do that without the rigmarole. Did you know that in medieval—”
Arnold groaned.
Bruce grimaced. He’d done it again. “Sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry. It’s a reflex. We always wonder why you don’t get to the point, but you are making a point, or more than one, and...” He let out one of his patented self-deprecating laughs. “We can’t keep up.”
Bruce couldn’t have been more stunned if someone had poked him with a taser. Engles didn’t admit that they were lacking in capacity. Ever.
Overcome with relief, Bruce decided that he’d spare his brother the history lecture. Just that once.
“Nan wanted me to make my own money, okay? Money that wasn’t attached to the mines or the oil or goddamned sweatshops. That’s how I ended up with a label. That was the best path she could think of. But I know more now. I can work behind the scenes. I can produce. I can write scores. I can write entire fuckin’ musicals if I get the itch. Maybe I’ll take up one of those offers I’ve been getting for years to guest star in a limited production. More people on Broadway march to their own beat. I fit right in there.”
And he’d be closer to Everley. LA had its charms, and London was all right, but he was ready to make major changes. That was why he wanted to call. He wanted to let her know before he boarded a plane headed west what he had in mind. He hoped she’d like the idea.
“Just tell me your plan,” Arnold said wearily. “I’ll digest it and relay it to the rest of them. I’ll try to smooth it over, if you want. I’m stunned you even care, to be quite honest. Anyone else would have given up on their family by now.”
“I plan on making a new one.” He realized seconds too late that the statement was rude, but it was honest so Bruce decided not to recant or walk it back. Found family would plug in all the gaps left by his natural one. Affection? He’d learned he could find that. Support? Yes. He simply needed to ask the right people. Reality checks? Those, too.
And some things, he could learn to lean more on himself for. He could do anything he wanted as long as the framework was right.
Arnold grimaced, but nodded. “You’ll have enough money to live on after you’re done divesting?”
“My math says yes, but I would appreciate you looking over it. There’s always a risk I’ve forgotten something important. Helps that I plan on selling the LA house. Hate it there. Housekeepers are mean and the Uber drivers are mercenary.”
“Don’t you have a driver?”
“Fired him, too. I don’t have to pay people who don’t want to talk to me.”
“You should have told me.”
“Told you what? That people are assholes, even if you sign their paychecks? I shouldn’t have to tell you that.”
“I’m just shocked you’re not more assertive about it.”
Bruce shrugged. “Not in my constitution.”
That was what Nan used to tell him when he’d wished he was better at assertively defending himself. He just couldn’t. It was easier to walk away and hope that karma did its job, but karma evidently had a massive backlog.
“You need to pay someone who is, then,” Arnold insisted. “What did you have a manager for if he wasn’t doing some of those things?”
“He was too busy on the music end.” Bruce rocked back on his heels again. He found the movement meditative. “The contract had lapsed, but still, I sent him a formal termination letter right before I landed in Johannesburg. I managed to get that letter down to only five hundred words. Everley would be so proud of me. I’m getting better at self-editing.”
“So, you have no staff.”
“Just the cleaners, and naturally they’ll go away when I sell the house.”
“Christ,” Arnold groaned.
“Did you know that in the Bible, blasphemers were hanged or stoned?”
“Yes, actually I did know that. I was an altar boy when you were in Scotland.”
Bruce hadn’t known that. His shock must have been evident because Arnold sighed and walked away, muttering under his breath about brothers not knowing anything about the other and pondering whose fault it was.
Bruce didn’t know the answer to that, either.
When Arnold returned to his former position, clear eyed, he said, “All right. Let’s go in. Write this all out for me. Show me your plan and I’ll keep the folks off your back.”
“I’ll hardly be indigent, Arnold. I have various trusts that are staggered to mature every two years or so.”
“Where’d those come from?”
“Set them up when I signed that first contract. I may have my head in the clouds, but I do think about the future on occasion. Perhaps I don’t go about things as efficiently as some would like, but sometimes I get things right.”
“I think you get a lot of things right, but no one’s looking for the right things. They’re too busy peering at the things that don’t make sense, and those aren’t even the important ones. I’m sorry, Bruce.”
Bruce shrugged and clapped his brother on the back. “Plenty of hard feelings, but I’m sure I’ll recover in time. I can only hold a grudge for so long. You just started the countdown timer on yours.”
Arnold frowned. “How long’s left on it?”
“About ten years, is the average, but do enough good deeds and maybe you can shrink that down to a manageable three.”
Arnold sighed and pulled open the back door. “I suppose I deserve that. Anyone else you have long grudges with who aren’t related to you or haven’t gotten money because of you?”
“Of course. There’s one motherfucker in particular I’d like to push into an oubliette and piss on. You’d probably like him. He wears brogues.”
“Christ. What’d he do to you?”
“Broke my heart in less than twenty-four hours.”
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t do things right.”
“What things, Bruce?”
“Just things. You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
“Why? What do you know about passion, Arnold?”
“I’ll try not to be offended by that,” Arnold said, deadpan. “What happened?”
“Perhaps I wasn’t totally upfront about who I actually was.”
“So, you lied?”
“No!” He hated that l-word. It didn’t allow for nuances or extenuations, and there were always extenuations. “He assumed I did. I didn’t lie. I told him what I thought was important. That’s what matters. Not my problem that he took it personally.”
Bruce had told himself that countless times during his trip, as he navigated from one small township to the next, filing papers, waiting for approvals, arguing with bankers.
He’d almost convinced himself.
It was his problem, though, and if he could go back in time and edit that conversation at the concert, he might just do it, just to see what could have unfolded between them.
But it really didn’t matter. Ev was the loveliest thing to ever happen to him and he wasn’t going to squander that on what-ifs.
Yet again, Arnold dragged a hand down his face.
“Keep that up, and you’re going to pull wrinkles,” Bruce murmured. “I should look older than you, baby boy.”
“Bruce. You can’t do that. You’re not a typical run-of-the-mill arsehole. You’re a public figure. There are different rules. I don’t rightly know what they all are, but I imagine nobody would want to feel duped by someone they perceive to have used them as a stepping stone toward something else.”
“You think that’s what he thinks?”
“I think that if he doesn’t know you well and how your brain works—and God, who does?—he would have been extremely offended if he cared. The fact he was pissed meant he cared.”
“I...honestly hadn’t thought of it that way.” Bruce had taken the exchange at face value, because that was what he always did. He couldn’t second-guess every interaction in his life. Already, he spent too much time teetering on the edge of uncertainty.
Perhaps that one event had deserved more introspection beyond the pain of being rejected. But it was too late to matter.
“I suppose that’s that. You can’t do anything about it now, can you?” Arnold queried as though he’d been following the closed captioning of Bruce’s thoughts. “You’ve already moved on with...what was the name?”
“Everley. Everley Shannon.” Once more, Bruce shifted his weight. He felt heavier all of a sudden. Leaden. “They work together, actually.”
“For God’s sake, Bruce. Could you possibly make it more complicated?”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m only seeing one of them.”
“Because you replaced one with the other.”
“No! It’s not like that at all. I didn’t even know who she was. She sort of just rescued me at the exact right moment. I’m not used to being rescued. Hard not to be fond of someone like that.”
“I get it, I suppose,” Arnold said solemnly, looking up at the gray sky. “You trusted her. Still, maybe you didn’t mean to make her a replacement, but you did, knowing full well that if you had the opportunity, you’d go back.” He met Bruce’s gaze expectantly, but if he were waiting for validation, Bruce certainly couldn’t give it.
“That’s utter bullshit, Arnold. You can fuck right off with that. I wouldn’t give up Everley. I’m going to tell her that.” Bruce indicated the phone. Obviously, his brother had forgotten Bruce’s intentions.
“But what if this other guy decides he’s forgiven you?”
Bruce scoffed. “That’s about as likely as the US figuring out how to balance its budget.”
“All right. If you’re sure.”
“Quite sure.”
Besides, Raleigh had been unkind to Ev, and they had to stick together. As long as they were kind to each other, none of the rest of that shit mattered.
Bruce didn’t owe him any brainpower...even if he had cared enough to care that Bruce hadn’t been wholly honest.
Even if he had wanted him then.
Chapter Eighteen
“The debt may have already been repaid, but I brought you lunch just like I promised.”
Raleigh set a pile of paper napkins on Everley’s barren desk and set a greasy white bag atop it. “Not a hot dog, unfortunately. Just as good, though.” Hi
s red eyebrows danced. “Better, actually.”
Everley snapped out of the daze she was in from the sight of him and pulled the bag closer. She was surprised to see him. She really had assumed after he’d left her apartment the eventful night of the hot dogs that they’d revert back to their factory settings—that he’d avoid her like the plague and she’d bide her time until she’d served out her notice period.
But there he was.
And she was glad.
No one wanted to be so easily forgotten.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Pretzel burger. Probably has two thousand calories when fully loaded, but it’s the new year. Make a resolution to take the stairs every now and then and you’ll be all set.”
No one at Athena had ever spontaneously bought her lunch before, except her father, and that certainly didn’t count. He only did it on the rare occasion he was actually in the building, and she knew he had his motives for doing so. It had more to do with him wanting her to be seen with him than any sense of fatherly obligation.
She huffed.
Raleigh groaned. “You don’t have to eat it.”
“Oh, no. I’m sorry. That wasn’t meant for you. I was...thinking about my father.”
Raleigh leaned his forearms on her desk and whispered, “That is not what I want to hear from a woman when she’s staring at me.”
“My head is somewhere else today. Really. I appreciate the lunch. I’d lost track of time. Didn’t even realize I was hungry.”
“How were your holidays?”
“I...” She picked at a bit of lifting polish on her shellac manicure and gathered her words. She was used to doing the professional tap-dance routine and carefully tempering her words so she didn’t sound too familiar, too complaining, too...whatever.
But she didn’t see the point of that anymore. She had about a week left on her wind down. Come Friday, she’d be turning in her building badge and leaving publishing for good.
And Raleigh.
She could admit that she was going to miss seeing him strut past her open door every two hours or so. She was even going to miss the bickering.