by Natalie Wrye
I glance at Brett, who watches me closely. “Yes, Kay. I’m here. With Brett. And he’s helping me out.” My body runs cold. “I just wish you would have given me a heads-up before you made that move. I was totally caught off-guard. I just…” I look at Brett, meeting his eye. “Didn’t expect this.”
“Hello?” my best friend asks, her voice lilting up and down. “My name is Kayla Rachel Jackson. I never ask permission. Have we met?”
I laugh, my hand floating upwards to my head, which is currently swimming. I can’t believe I’m caught in this situation, having this conversation. I exhale loudly. “Well, I wouldn’t say we ‘met’ so much as you dropped your chocolate milk all over me on my first day of school in fourth grade.”
“See? No lies here. I’ve been making mistakes and somehow getting my way since birth.”
“I think you’ve been getting your way since even before then,” I smirk.
“I know,” she shoots back. “Remember it was me who made you promise to move to Manhattan… And here you are. On the eve of discovery. You ready for your audition tomorrow?”
Shit. My audition. I almost forgot.
She chirps into the phone, rambling on and on about the first round of American Superstar auditions happening in Manhattan tomorrow, and my heart sinks. She’s so excited. And I’m such scum. I decide to cut the call short.
“That’s exactly what I’m doing now, Kay. Getting ready for the audition…”
Kayla interrupts me. “Say no more. Remember—I’m only a hop, skip and a jump away.” She laughs lightly. “In Paris. Kiss my brother for me. Call me after the audition. Oh and have a great night!”
I smile, the sides of my mouth quivering as I hang up. “You, too, Kay.”
And with those final words, Brett backs up, and I jump off the kitchen counter. I can barely look at him. His mouth hangs open, ready to say something to me, but I bypass him, clutching my hoodie to my body, heading for the bathroom before the tears can begin to fall. I don’t look back.
Chapter 13
BRETT
“I can’t believe I leave the city for two seconds, and I come back to you—with a girlfriend. The apocalypse must be coming.”
Heath’s arms outstretch, his mouth hangs wide. In a t-shirt and jeans worth more than my whole wardrobe, he paces back and forth across the tiled floor, his hands lowering to his hips before rising in the air again. I think I might have given the guy a temporary stroke. He’s sure acting like it.
“Like I said,” I declare, putting the finishing touches on my first appointment’s tattoo. “She’s not my girlfriend. She’s just a…” I hesitate. “Friend. My sister’s friend, to be exact. I’m only looking after her while she’s in a tight spot.”
Heath laughs, long and loud. “‘Looking after her’?” he asks to the air. “That’s rich. Is that what they’re calling it these days? When you’re looking at a woman so hard you could melt her clothes off?”
I remove the needle from my client’s skin, glaring quickly at Heath. I cut him a scathing stare. “You know, you should be in acting. You’ve got the dramatics for it. I was there last night in the apartment. And it was nothing like that, Robert DeNiro. Quit with the dramatics.”
“Oh, please,” Heath fires back. “You basically had ‘Do Not Touch Her’ printed on your fucking forehead. If I had shaken her hand any harder, I could have sworn you would have taken a swing at me with that bat.”
“I still might.” I finish the last of the ink. I push my seat back, looking up at Angela—one of my cool-ass regulars. “You’re good, Ang. I’ll just bandage you up and you’ll be good to go. And don’t listen to this dick to your right,” I motion towards a scowling Heath.
Ang stands to her feet, her grin broadening under a sheet of black hair. “Fine, I won’t listen to him…” She looks down at me on my stool. “But you should. Sounds like you’ve got a keeper on your hands. And if you’re anywhere as savvy as I think you are, you won’t let her go. I’ve seen this mistake happen too much with your type.”
“My type?” I lift an eyebrow, grabbing for the white bandage. I start to place it on Ang’s skin. “What exactly is my type, Ang?”
She shrugs. “Beautiful. Bad. Boarded up worse than an abandoned house.” She gazes at me once more. “You sexy talented sort are pretty typical. Someone always wants something from you. Sex. A shot at infamy. A chance to shine in your sun…” Her voice grows quieter. “But it makes you closed off. Wary. You push away people because it seems the smart thing to do but in the end, you wind up hurting yourself. Because in the process, you push away the one person who might make all the difference.” I finish placing the bandage and Ang lowers her shirt, grabbing for her coat. She winks. “You boys have a nice day.”
“You too Ang,” I try to call out as she walks away, but my voice is soft. My thoughts are lost. I can’t stop thinking about Elsie, about last night. And if any of what Ang is saying is true, then maybe… Just maybe, I…
The bell over the front door dings before I can finish that thought. I push the curtain of my room aside, gazing to the front as Marilyn strolls in, a crop top and tattered jeans showing her inked skin. She walks right up.
“Hey guys,” she calls to me and Heath. “Long time no see. Missing two days in the shop is like missing a week on the streets. So much drama. No wonder Reed Hutton wants to cover it all.” She sits on a rolling stool. “What’d I miss?”
“Not much,” Heath pipes up. “Tony’s girlfriend came in here last night. Punched him in the nose after catching him finishing up a tattoo on his other girlfriend. Drunk bachelor party came in the night before. Decided to spring for group Tweety Bird tats. On their asses.” He taps his bottom lip. “And Brett’s been hiding a girlfriend from us. A beautiful blonde with a great smile and Brett’s cock in a vice.”
He grins at me as he finishes. I glance over at Marilyn.
“How do you feel about being part owner of a local Brooklyn tattoo shop, Mare? Looks like a position just opened up.”
Heath frowns, and I roll my tattered red stool away, grabbing the bottles to clean my needles. I turn my back to them both, focusing on the task. Until Marilyn slaps a hand on my shoulder, whirling me around.
“Oh come on,” she groans, her blue eyes bright and smiling. “You can’t leave it at that, Brett. That’s the juiciest news I’ve gotten all week.”
“The ass tats of Tweety weren’t enough?”
“You? Brett Jackson? Eternal bachelor and hottest tattoo artist in the city…? With a girlfriend?” She blows a breath over her teeth. “Sheesh. Hearts are breaking all over town.”
“And what about you?” I glare up, my eyes slanting. “Aren’t you the eternal ‘bachelorette’?”
“Sure,” she shrugs, her bare shoulders lifting. “But people expect that. I’m an actress, not a housewife.”
“I thought that’s exactly what you were…”
Marilyn quirks a perfect brown brow. “It’s called television, heartbreaker. Real life does not follow fiction.”
I shoot her look. “Don’t I know it.” And she slaps my shoulder again, a laugh on her red lips, her dark hair falling over her face as she sits, spinning on a nearby stool. After several seconds, she finally stops, glaring at my face, a glint in her eye.
“So?”
“So what?”
Marilyn shoots to her feet. “Give! I’m dying to hear all about this girlfriend.”
I continue to clean my needles. “There is no girlfriend. She…”
“Aha!” Marilyn cuts in. “So there is a ‘she.’ Well, I want to know all about this ‘she.’” She glances over as Heath shifts his attention to a customer, walking away, and the beautiful actress winks, her voice sliding into a whisper. “He’s gone.” She smiles. “So you can start from the beginning.”
I look at Marilyn’s eager face, almost ready to say no. No, Elsie’s not a girlfriend. But she is something more. And that something more puts me in a rare mood to tell someone—at least,
someone I can trust—about the wily woman who just left my house this morning. It’s not like I can tell Heath—who’s like a toddler. And I certainly can’t tell Kayla.
I drop the needles on the table, sighing. “Fuck. Well, it’s complicated. But I figure I’m on my way to Hell, anyway, so here goes…”
Chapter 14
ELSIE
This is Hell. This must be what Hell looks like. I’m sure of it. I’ve used so many four-letter curse words today that I’ve lost count.
CRASH!
“Whoops!” I hear from the other room amidst the tune of Taylor Swift in the background. “I hope that blue plate of yours wasn’t that important.”
“Oh no,” I call back, packing another box, my shouts mingling among the music. “It’s only one of eleven possessions I have to my name, Vi.”
Just then, the petite lawyer emerges from the doorway, a smile on her face, a swing in her red hair as she saunters towards me, as if on beat, a navy blue skirt suit on her tiny frame. She takes my hand.
“Hi, my name is Violet Cynthia Keats. I’ve got toes for thumbs. Have we met?”
I take her hand, shaking it. “You’re so much like my best friend from back home, it’s scary.”
Violet nods. “Well, then your best friend must be one hell of a chick.” She waves her opposite hand in front of my face. “See? No lies here. Toes for thumbs. I was put together clumsy in the womb, I think. Pretty sure that’s why I became a lawyer.”
“And I guess your lying ability had nothing to do with it,” I smirk. “I still owe you one for that Brett trick you pulled.”
Violet smiles. “You owe me one what? Favor?” She reaches for a small box. “Honey, that man has the kind of scruff you can comfortably sit on. And I suggest you do so as quickly as possible. For God’s sake, the man paid for clothes, accessories and furniture for your new apartment.” She winces. “Lord knows that this roommate you found on ‘Post-Mates’ has none. I mean, seriously? No plates? Was that rumor about models not eating actually true?”
I shrug. “Maybe just for this one. She’s barely here, it seems.”
“Anyhoo,” Violet comments, placing another brown box on the kitchen counter and wiping her hands. “How was the audition?”
I turn to her. “Better than I could have imagined.”
She grins back at me. “I would hope so. I mean, they did put you through to the next round! What exactly did you sing to blow them away?”
A blush hits my face. I think of this morning, of the long line to be one of a million numbers performing in front of the straight-faced judges… And I think of Brett, the inspiration behind the first few lines that unexpectedly left my mouth when I was told to sing.
The words “I knew you were trouble when you walked in…” had never rung so true. I stack a plate, my fingers tapping on the countertop.
“I sang ‘Trouble’ by Taylor Swift,” I tell Violet, holding in the rest of the story. I hide the red on my cheeks.
“Ah,” she comments, clearly distracted. “You’re a Swiftie. Could have figured that by the first few albums you played this entire morning,” she stresses. “My eardrums are seriously fried.”
“Hey.” I wave a butterknife towards her in warning. “Taylor Swift writes great music.”
Violet laughs. “She does. There’s no denying that. But after the first dozen songs, my listening palate starts to get stale. Didn’t know you were deaf to other types of music.” She smacks my hovering butterknife with a fork, opening another drawer. She slips some utensils inside.
“I know.” I turn to my own drawer. “It’s just that… her music got me through some dark times. My first talent shows. Some school mean girls. My parents’ divorce.”
Violet turns silent. Her voice is soft when she responds. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know…” Her words trail off.
I place my hands on my hips. “It’s really okay. It’s not a problem. Anymore…” I smile. “I’m alright. “ As soon as the word leaves my lips, a bout of thunder shakes the tiny apartment in which we stand. The summer storms have already begun. And just a week into May, the rain, thick and heavy, has beat over Manhattan, making moving just that much harder. Especially when I’ve relocated to a city where I knew no one. Well, not ‘no one’ if you count… I shake the thought away, forcing another smile on my face towards Vi. I point to the brown package. “You want to help me with this last box?”
She nods and together we carry it to the bedroom. As we sit the box of stuff Brent sent over, Violet looks at me, her formerly bright gaze glassy. She twists her bottom lip. “You know, coming out of my own divorce has taught me so much about empathy. I came from one of those…” She rolls her eyes. “Sickeningly perfect families. The kind that makes you gag. Matching white teeth and all that. I’d never seen a divorce… until I went through my own.” Her hands hangs as she reaches for the box-cutter, dragging the sharp edge through the flaps with a Rip! My eyes follow her every movement.
“Yeah?” I ask, not wanting to pry. This is the first time she’s brought up her situation. Her divorce. One I’ve inadvertently known about since we collided on the sidewalk that first day in the city when her briefcase went flying and contracts featuring the name “Violet Stanton” came tumbling out. I wait patiently. “You know… we don’t have to talk about this. Not if you don’t want to.”
“I know.” She continues working on the box. “I guess part of me needs to. To talk about the lessons divorce taught me.”
I lean forward. “And what were those?”
She smiles up at me, her blue eyes sad. “That plotting every point of your life is bullshit.” She turns back to the box. “It taught me that life is unexpected, that you can’t map out every little piece.” She gazes up at the ceiling. “God, I once thought that I had ‘it’. Whatever ‘it’ is. I swore I had it all planned out—Life. Love.” She spreads her palms into the air as she crouches. “Harvard Law. A husband and then a baby. A nice little beach house in the Hamptons.” She snorts. “I had my degree in hand and I had cemented a plan.” Her stare drops down to the floor. “And then that plan went off and had an affair with my best friend.” She shakes her head. “Life doesn’t exactly follow a blueprint, no matter how you sketch it out. But it’s okay.” She sighs, her head rising once more. “I’m alright.”
And there it is. That word. Alright.
Such a dangerous fake sentiment. Alright. It even sounds empty to my ears, and hearing Violet say it reminds me of the many times I’ve said it to myself. When my father left. When my mother shut her eyes to her pain… and mine. I stare at Violet, my lower lip dropping. I rein it back in, my chest squeezing with emotion as she bends over the brown box, slowly unpacking it, her glossy veneer unraveling before my eyes. A stinging finds its way behind my eyelids… and stays. I stare.
“I’m so, so sorry, Vi. I can’t imagine what you’ve been through.”
My heart hurts for the strong woman in front of me, the one still holding up a fancy facade as she shakes off sadness, standing to her feet with a small smile. The room looks dull under the dimmed lighting of the gray evening and with my last few belongings stowed away, I hug the closest friend I have in the city, inhaling her lavender-scented hair. I let her go with tears in my eyes.
“Listen. If you ever need someone to break this, uh, plan of yours’ legs…” I raise my right hand. “I volunteer as tribute.” I grin.
She laughs, a light sound that brings a butterfly to my stomach. “You know, I just might take you up on that offer.” She spins towards the window, looking outside. Swearing, she pushes her sleeve up, glancing at the watch wrapped around her wrist.“Okay,” she exhales over the drumbeat of the falling rain. “No tears. Call me if you decide to come out tonight. I’m meeting a friend at the pub we love so much for drinks. I’ll be waiting by the phone if you decide to dump the packing and dance with us.”
“I will.” I give her a watery grin, wiping at my eyes. “Wish me luck.”
“Hey,” Vi warns.
“If you’re going to be in the business, you’ve got to know the lingo. It’s ‘break a leg,’ Elles. Not ‘good luck’.”
I nudge her shoulder. “If you keep talking like this, I’m going to break something of yours.”
“You mean one of my ‘toe-thumbs’?” She slaps me on the ass. “I’ll see you later.”
And with that, she leaves, sashaying her way out of the front door. I watch her go. She exits, and a mover knocks on the open door, hesitating before coming in.
“Um, ma’am, where would you like these last boxes?”
I swallow. Hard. My finger shakes as I raise it. “Over there is fine.”
I step away from the bedroom door, mentally beating myself, feeling a sensation I thought I’d long buried. Along with the memory of the one man who won’t leave my mind. The one person in Manhattan, even now, whose name I won’t allow myself to repeat.
How long has it been? How long since I’ve felt anything like what I experienced inside of his apartment?
In Kansas, it was always the same. Another Friday night. Another date with my triple A batteries. And even that was a rare occurrence. Sex was a faint memory. A sixty minute bath in my new apartment wasn’t enough; I needed to wash the whole day away to get him out of my head.
The former guy of my dreams left me alone in his bathroom and bedroom at nine o’clock at night. By eleven, I was stir-crazy in his place, and by midnight, I was wandering around past his ginormous windows, a book balanced on my head, my favorite Taylor Swift album playing on my phone, and one of his button-down shirts draped over my shoulders.
Everything inside of his spacious suite was driving me insane. I knew I shouldn’t have stayed.
His imprint was everywhere, scorched in my brain since I was sixteen. The man-boy I’d known when I was a kid had grown up… and out. His frame had filled with even more muscle, and though his shirts were a size larger than I had remembered them, last night, I marveled at the perfect fit of the fabric wrapped around me, how quickly the cotton cooled at my touch when I slid my hands inside his sleeves.