I slide the phone in my skirt pocket; the coins clink around it. I wiggle out of my coat, letting it fall wherever it does. It’s cold out here. I can see the shadow of my breath pluming around my nose. I’m shivering and my shoulders are up to my ears again, but it feels like something. Not necessarily good, but something. I’m going to stay out for a while longer, exchanging knowing looks with the clock tower.
CHAPTER 6
They’ve posted another Tell Me More piece, about Grant and me, and this one doesn’t rely on old photos from past stories from legit publications. With Grant, they used a studio pic from his new mid-season replacement show “that’s spilling over with hot-bod dudes barely wearing shirts, flexin’, sexin’, and also fighting crime.” (Barf.) The pseudo-candid photo, an expertly posed behind-the-scenes shot, probably came from one of his asshole costars. Or maybe the studio happily handed it over. Any light is considered shine by that lot. And for me, they have not one picture, but an entire click-through photo gallery of me stomping the night, cobblestone street in the Meatpacking District, throat laughing (with my mouth wide and head back) in a dim-ish bar, smiling like an idiot on the sidewalk, walking arm in arm with what looks like Tyson, and generally having a grand time in life while my cracked-egg boyfriend cries alone in a half-full bathtub in a deserted mansion in Vermont. Vermont? Jesus. How these people refer to themselves as journalists—and with a straight face—takes some serious balls.
My work phone won’t stop, because Clark Bauer, the stalker “reporter” on the case, won’t stop. Even with the ringer completely muted, I’m still harassed by the fucking flashing light. And here goes the phone again.
Shit. It’s a 514 number. My parents never call me at work.
“Bathsheba?”
“Dad, is everything okay? Is Mum all right?”
“Yes. She gone out for a home visit with she church.”
“In the morning?”
“You know I don’t know.”
“Right. But she’s okay?”
“Bathsheba, I didn’t call you to talk about your mother. She is how she is. She stays on her side and I keep to mine.” The song of his Trini accent doesn’t cover up the sharpness of his tone. “However, she did come to me the other day telling me that you say you have no plans on coming home this year. Now, you know I don’t fault any person, especially a young person who’s out there working, trying to claim their own, but they are your brothers. And December twenty-fourth will be ten years.”
“Dad, I know—”
“I am still speaking.”
“Yes, Daddy.”
“I said it will be ten years. Are you trying to tell me that you can’t look past yourself to see the significance of that?”
(I know better than to utter a word right now.)
“You are needed here,” he says, his voice rising. “So you will be here. You can sort out your travel details and let us know when we can expect to see you. You have a good day.”
And click. He’s gone.
The tears aren’t rushing; they’re already here. When Trinity barges in, her face is flushed too.
“Oh my God. You saw it already,” she says, sliding the door closed with a bang.
I can only squint.
“What the hell happened? I thought she was getting help, treatment,” Trinity says. “Maybe she got tired of fighting. Got to the end of her rope and figured it was easier to let go.” She puts her hand over her mouth, shaking her head. “So sad. She was stunning. And now she’s just gone.”
I lean into Trinity and try to talk, but no words come.
“The blogs are saying that she hanged herself. Ugh—so awful. I’m sorry. I know you know her. Knew her. You probably don’t want to get into all the horrible details about Lana Scott and—I’m just really sorry, Best.”
“I—I didn’t . . . she was. I didn’t know that—”
“Oh my God! I thought you heard. I’m sorry. I came in and you were cry—you looked upset. I thought you knew.”
“I didn’t know that she—I don’t know what to . . . I’m sorry, Trinity, do you mind just giving me a minute?”
“Jesus. I’m sorry, but . . . um, Joan wants to see you. I told her assistant I would get you because I thought you’d be in here upset because of the Lana Scott news.”
“See me? About what?”
“Oh, shit, this is the worst.” Trinity runs her hands up over her face and through her hair. “She saw the gossip stories, about you secretly dating Grant King, and . . . she wants—they want you to do a first-person about dating a celebrity and all this other stuff rolled into it.”
“What?”
“I know. Miyuki came up with it, I think. It’s for the shame issue. I’m sorry, Best. It’s totally shitty and I’m sorry.”
“What the fuck? Who are these people?”
“I know. I know. But, she wants to see you. I have to tell her something. Do you need a moment?”
I don’t even realize I’m standing until my heels are clacking against the tile. I’m running. I can hear my labored breath in my ears, my pulse thumping high in my throat. I don’t know where I’m heading. I push through a band of blurred people gathered near the fashion closet. They’re saying something to me. Yelling, squawking, cursing—I can’t tell. The noise only turns my run into a desperate sprint as I break for the glass doors. I run into the deep elevator lobby, past where I should stop, and barrel right into the silver cage reserved for Millhause-Steig’s golden few. I don’t care. I need out of here, and if it means hijacking the special elevator, then that’s what’s happening.
As the sleek doors finish their slow close, I can’t even muster a sigh of relief. All I have are stunted gasps, like hiccups but painful, and the tears are practically raining from my face. I’m a mess. Reduced to a dull stereotype: the sloppy, weepy girl running away from it all.
It takes four floors before I realize that there’s a man in the elevator. He’s been standing there since I poured myself in here. My breath gets loud, uneven. I’m reaching for a railing, a wall, anything. That’s when he says it. “Take my hand.” He says it and I’m instantly in a movie—a thriller or horror story—something with blood on the floor.
“Take my hand.” Three words, said simply, with the ease of a man who knows his strength, a man who knows that there’s safety within that one uncomplicated action.
“Take my hand.” His eyes sparkle. Who in real life, besides babies and Aunt Lucille’s cancerous cat Telly, has eyes that sparkle?
He inches his cupped palm toward me. Of course it looks soft and firm and capable. The one out-of-place thing about it—the small red line, a paper cut at the base of his index finger—is the only thing I can relate to. It’s the one thing assuring me that this man, this whole moment is actual, no figment.
His face finally comes into focus. I’ve seen him many times before: talking quietly to editors and underlings in the hallways of the important floors, leaning in slightly, an attempt to cut his height down a level. In the main lobby, the lofty, lean figure breezing by the chattering cogs—one arm resting limber with the hand tucked casually into his pants pocket and the other swinging forward and back, back, back, as if waiting for a baton. He’s all charm and grace and a thin layer of hubris or aplomb, or whatever it is that allows him to walk the long stretch of high-polished marble from the oversized revolving door along the enclosed breezeway and farther still, down to the executive elevator bay without so much as look down at his pristine shoes. I’ve seen him out front by the curb, sliding—never hurried, always collected, always cool—into a taxi. Once, maybe (but ask me tomorrow and I won’t be so sure), I saw him in the cafeteria; the juice line, or maybe it was the sushi kiosk. It never matters when I think back to it. It doesn’t matter now. What matters now is that he’s real and he’s trying to save me.
He’s saying something. I can’t hear. My brain is locking up. I strain, lean in, but nothing is getting through. It feels like I’ve pulled a muscle—everywhere. But
honestly, no one has any sympathy for me right now. I should know better. This elevator is famous. I have no business on it. People have been crushed, their insides splayed out in color, because of something said, suggested, decided in this wintry, steel box. It’s no place for the weak and considerate. But here I am, snotty, sweaty, and in pieces, following his advice—his command—and grabbing for his hand.
“In and out,” he says.
Breathing. He’s talking about breathing. I smile—or try to curl my lip—because I can hear again.
“Slowly. In and out,” he says.
My eyes finally adjust to the room, to the moment, and I notice his mouth first. It’s his turn to smile. His lips are full, plump, especially the bottom one. They’re not thin, as one expects on a man his age. But then not much about him fits under that column. He’s excellent; dapper and slim, not even a hint of paunch can be seen through his now-unbuttoned suit jacket. His hair is mostly gray, but thick and groomed. The lines—around his eyes, his mouth, above his brows—etched into his yacht-tanned face look right and intentional. He smiles again, wider now, and I trust him, instantly. The noise in my brain is quieting to stage whispers.
He’s squeezing and stroking my hand with his thumb at once. I try to focus in on his paper cut.
“I’m here. I’m here with you,” he says. He nods; small, even nods, as if confirming all of this with me. “This elevator isn’t going anywhere. It’s the ground floor. We’re here. Just keep going, in and out, that’s your job. When you catch your breath, get a rhythm, I’m going to open these doors and we’re going to walk out of here like everything is okay, because it is.” He pushes his suit jacket open further. I can make enough time-place connections to know that it’s freezing outside and the man’s just wearing a suit. There’s a cuff link peeking out from the trim jacket. It looks like a face. A profile. It looks like one of my coins. I feel the flutter return to my temples, my chin is back on quivering. I’m trying to catch the rhythm he mentioned, but it’s not working. My ears tingle and too quickly those pins and pricks spread to my jaw, my neck, my chest. Now black clouds are circling, getting bigger, crowding the light. My knees, they’re wobbling. Did I accidently lock them? Shit. This is it. I’m going down, and all I can hope is that he’s still holding my hand.
“Hey, hey.” He’s got me propped up on him. His knees are bent and he’s close to my face now. “You’re good. You’re doing fine. Back to breathing, okay? Watch me, watch my chest. It’s rise and let go. Rise, let go.”
The nods, they’re helping.
I take a deep one and let it go. My breath is hot and tumbles out of my smeared, chapped lips. I do it again and another, slower still, in and out. I get more nods, a soft squeeze to my hand, and finally I’m standing on my own, I’ve caught a rhythm.
“You don’t have a coat,” he says as the elevator doors open.
“Right.”
“Do you want to go back up to seventeen and grab it?”
“How did you know I’m on seventeen?”
“James magazine, I know,” he says.
“Of course you know. You’re Nik Steig.”
“And you’re Best Lightburn. I know that too.”
“Yeah. I am. Making this whole elevator meltdown that much more fantastic. This is . . . mortifying.”
“Come on. Leave that in there.” He tilts his head toward the closing elevator door. “We’re out here now.”
Nik Steig does up his jacket buttons as we walk to the main entrance. He pulls out a scarf from a black hat, or some other magical place next to a rabbit, and ties it in that cool, European loop. “So, what now? Heading home?”
Say yes. “No.”
He nods. “Do you want go somewhere else?”
Say no. “Yes.”
“Well, since you’re missing a coat, do you want me to get you a cab? Or my driver, he’s circling, we can take you where you’re going.”
Decline. “Yes, thanks. Your driver.”
“Good. But we’ll need a bit more to go on than yes and no. Hank’s going to need actual directions, I’m afraid.”
“Actually, I just need to go home. Brooklyn.”
“Let’s go,” he says without a pause, and gestures to the revolving doors. “Wait.” He slips off his jacket and scarf. “I know you’re Canadian and all, but I can’t let you go out like that.”
“How do you know . . . wait, I can’t take your jacket.”
“Sure you can.” He opens it up for me. I should refuse again. I should. “Come on. Hank’s probably crawling up to the curb now. Take it. It’s nothing. I’ve got a meeting. I don’t need it.”
I turn, he helps the jacket over my shoulders and hands me his scarf.
This is not happening. This is not a soap opera. I must have fallen down the elevator shaft, because this is Nikolai Steig and this is not happening.
“Shall we?” he says and tilts his head toward the door.
Just go with him. Say yes. “I’m sorry, Mr. Steig—”
“Nik.”
“Nik. I’m sorry, but I just need a minute here alone to just pull my shit together. You have a meeting. You should go ahead. I’ll get home all right.” I raise my phone to his eye line like an idiot. As if the thin thing holds the salve for all that just went down.
“It’s not a problem”—my cell phone’s ringing cuts him off—“Listen. Take your call. I’ll be in the car with Hank. No rush.”
Before I can refuse again, he walks off, and I just watch him glide away. He knows I’m staring at him too.
I press yes on the phone, blindly. “Best here.”
“Ms. Lightburn? It’s Clark Bauer from Tell Me More. Please-donthangup. Please. I’m reaching out because . . . well, we want to run a proper profile on you. It’s nothing bad. We’re talking regular story about you, no rumors. It just that . . . well, I had a few questions for you . . . about your brothers.”
CHAPTER 7
Brooklyn
Three Months Earlier.
He hands me the torn-out scrap of paper, damp and trembling, like his hands. On it, an uneven collection of wobbly letters colliding into each other—the directions to his uncle’s home in northern Connecticut. I rest the paper on my lap; the crumply thing sticks to my bare leg. It’s late August, near the end of a relentlessly hot, unkind summer, and we’re sitting in his convertible with sun-warmed leather seats. There’s a breeze, though, a slight one. It’s odd that no one else is on the street yet. When it’s hot like this for this long, people tend to make moves early in the morning, get to the subway before the oven of it all clicks over to broil. But there’s none of it, as if the neighborhood decided to grant him some privacy to come unglued in peace.
Actually, if I were writing this as a feature story, that’s the headline right there: Grant Him Peace. And for the subhead something like:
When a young actor living the dream life in New York City suddenly finds himself on the sharp edge of a nightmare, he figures he has two choices: sink or swim. Grant King decided to just drift away.
“This makes no sense,” I say, looking down at the directions.
“I know. I just feel fucked up, like my brain’s sweating.”
“No, this, these directions. There’s no house number. Partridge Hollow, Finders Way. Is this irony?” My chuckle sounds nervous, forced.
“Best, I’m a mess—I can’t.”
“I know. I don’t want you to. But I just don’t understand these directions you wrote. I can’t punch this into my phone, even.”
“Drive. I’ll guide you.”
Grant wants to believe this. He wants to believe a lot of things right now, but none of them are true.
“It’s okay. I’ll figure it out. Don’t worry about any of this.” I’m cringing at my own voice, all flossed like cotton candy. How is this reassuring? The man is crumbling, caving in on himself, and I tell him not to worry.
He looks horrible. Watching him, his mouth ajar, lips cracked, and his face ashy, I want to offer
something he could use: a cold compress, a blanket, a kiss. If this were flipped, he’d know exactly what to do for me, because Grant is the guy. He’s the guy. The guy who can fiddle around with that broken thing and actually fix it. The guy who knows how to skip rocks, mix a stiff drink, waltz, play the guitar, massage my scalp, and recite “The Raven” in full with the perfect layer of gravitas. He’s the guy posted up in the dim corner at a party, simple, just sipping a beer, while the room buckles and rolls toward him. And when he dips out only twenty minutes after he arrived, everyone misses him, instantly. He’s the guy and he stays in character.
Now he’s sitting next to me helpless, overcome and sweaty.
The magic spell started wearing off about a month before, in the middle of summer. We had a fight. One that I wasn’t even sure was real until he smashed his phone against the kitchen cabinet and stormed out. We had been talking, in bits and pieces over the course of a few days, about how a quirk becomes a habit and when either could be considered a flaw. Typical chatter for us (even sober). I said quirks were just smaller habits—the little, peculiar things we regularly do that make us adorable and interesting, like how Tyson refuses to drink anything cold that doesn’t have lots of ice in it—cubed or crushed. Or the way Grant insists on wearing socks to bed, despite sleeping nude. Or how I check to see if a kitchen appliance—toasters and electric kettles, mainly—has been resting in water by swiping the plug prongs against the back of my hand before pushing it into the outlet. (Forever scared by that sloppy horror movie I saw when I was nine, where a mother standing in spilled milk touches the overflowing coffeepot and is electrocuted.) Each of these things is unique and tinged with a little weirdness, but nothing in them spells flaw. They’re not defects in character like greed or jealousy, I told Grant.
“Or dishonesty,” Grant said, and reached into his front pocket for his phone.
“Right. Or dishonesty. Um, aren’t we talking here?” I said, exaggerating my wide-eye stare at the phone in his hand.
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