“I mean, my flight was today, so I’m back . . . from Montreal. . . where my parents live.” Jesus. I’m stuttering like an idiot. This is not how I wanted things to start. But I’m stunned. I can’t believe Trinity is pulling passive-aggressive throat-clearing. I invented passive-aggressive throat-clearing. The understudy is coming for me and she’s taking “break a leg” rather seriously.
“Good. So glad we didn’t make you cut your holidays short,” Agnes says, still smiling. She seems perfectly pleasant, but I’m pulling the mask over my grill anyway.
“Not a problem at all, Ms.—”
“Goodness, call me Agnes, please.”
“Oh, of course. Right.” Smile served back at you. It’s clear that locking in on Agnes is best, because I’m pretty sure Trinity is busy packing her musket with more gunpowder. I’ll clock her in the peripheral; make her think I’m not paying attention.
“So, I’m definitely excited to hear what you want to talk to me about,” I say, cheerful.
“It’s about this story, on the young woman who survived that harrowing ordeal at her father’s hands. Just horrific. She’s quite remarkable. Fatima, was it?”
“Yes, Fatima Imam. And yes, she is remarkable. Fascinating, inspiring, but so humble and so solid, especially given everything she’s had to endure.”
Agnes nods as I speak. And she does that thing where she makes you feel as though you’re the only one in the room with anything important to say. Nik does something similar, although he takes it up a notch, leaving you giddy and giggling inside because he chose you to show his magic trick up close. Part of me is waiting for him to swoop in, take that empty seat next to Agnes and start singing a psalm about my story, about me, and we all chuckle about the minor missteps I took to land this thing.
“Speaking of solid, I found your writing throughout the entire piece to be just that: solid.” It’s the Robot chiming in, and I think I just passed out. “You did a really great job on this, Best. Great command of your voice. You really knew what you wanted to say, and the organization and flow of the piece was really strong.”
Holy. Shit.
The Robot looks legitimately pleased with me, and even sat up in her chair excitedly midway through saying all that. She’s defanged and brushed back—even her outfit is softer (muted colored cashmere separates replace dark wool suiting). It’s less Robot and all human Joan right now. It’s all so unbelievable. I should really pinch myself. Maybe I’ve already had the heart attack and am now witnessing this whole thing from the afterlife. I’m a hologram.
“Agreed, Joan,” Agnes says. “Really fine job all the way around. Actually, that’s why Trinity and I are here. We want to work together—Hudson and James—on this story, and I think there’s a smart way to hold hands on this as a special project. We can go multipurpose, multi-platform without being redundant.” She gestures to Trinity: “This one is falling over with great ideas on how we can do it.”
Trinity gives me that horse-grin. The growing nut sack on this girl, she’s got to be bowlegged by now.
“That sounds great, Agnes. Thank you. Thanks, Joan,” I say. “And Trinity has worked for me before. We can definitely come up with something sharp and fresh.”
“Actually, a quick step backwards to dot all of our I’s and cross our T’s,” Robot says. “Let’s make sure we have all your research notes first, Best. Would you be able to file those today?”
“Yeah, of course. No problem, Joan. I would need to head back home. Everything’s on my laptop.”
“Excellent. So we’ll wait for source copy from you, then, before we take next steps,” Agnes says, and goes around the room waiting for a nod and visual confirmation from each of us. “We have a plan. Fantastic.” She gathers her short stack of papers and her signature blinged-out lanyard with her fourteen keys, and turns to Trinity. “Did you want to walk with me back to my office to finish talking about that shoot?” Trinity quickly nods and collects her things from the table too: a green Sharpie and a notebook, which is orange and neat and glossy and basically a total replica of the one I always carry. What part of the game is that? My eyes want to jump out of their sockets and roll over next to her rip-off notebook so she sees (clearly) that I see (literally) that she’s biting my style, and that I do not approve.
Damn it. She just caught me looking at the notebook. And now she’s roughly scooping the thing up to her chest.
“Thanks for coming in,” Trinity says. “I know you were probably—”
“Nonsense,” I say, again cheerfully. “It was a total pleasure. I’ve always been such fan of Hudson and, of course, a fan of you, Agnes. I’m honored and excited to finally have an opportunity to work with you and learn from the best. So, again, thank you.” I give them each that New Age, bullshit, hand-to-heart, modesty head-bow (even the two silent partners get one, despite sitting there on mute like they’re conducting an audit). On Trinity’s bow I add a side squint. I’m the battle-tested champion of these war games, young’un. Stand down.
Walking back to the spooky lobby, I want to pass by the receptionist’s desk on my way out and drop a snark bomb, just for shiggles. Maybe a drive-by cut-eye will suffice. But, really, who cares about that lame receptionist? I’m going to have a story in Hudson while she’s still going to be sitting there answering the phones. My dream is finally coming true. I’m moving on up to all those bigger-better things that were waiting for me to claim. At least I had the decency to hold off until the elevator door closed before busting out my boogie-breakdown move. (It involves a slim portion of Janet Jackson’s “Rhythm Nation” choreography, and should really be contained behind closed doors anyway.) When the elevator opens again on the main floor, I’m basically jittering in place. I want to tell the first person I see to hold fast to their dreams or keep reaching for the stars or the world is their oyster if they float on cloud nine next to the silver lining or whatever. I’m feeling corny and happy and excited, a combination that I haven’t experienced in a really long time. It’s good.
Everything feels brighter, better. I barely notice the black snow on the curb below me. All I can see when I look down is my foot tapping out some jittery, joyful beat. These people jostling me and calling me a dumb tourist? Ignored. I only see the gloriousness that is the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree shimmering in the crisp, clear sky.
I’m taking a cab home. I don’t want to fuck up my mood with any subway struggles. One hit of warmed-over urine under the subway stairs can puncture even the sturdiest glee bubble.
My cabbie is so breezy and kind, he actually just got out to open the door for me. In the brick of winter. On Fifth Avenue. I’m tempted to ask if he’s new to this cab-life thing, but a hearty “thank you” seems to work better. We reach Brooklyn without any objections from him or any traffic, not even when we hit Flatbush Avenue. It’s all going my way. Finally. And it’s not just the Hudson story or talking through all that stuff about the accident with my parents. It’s more. It’s palpable, and it’s more. Something has switched over to the other side, opened up for me, and I feel saved. I feel good. I feel like I want to share all of this with someone.
And like an obvious brick, it hits me: I want to share it with him. I want to be in it with him, rolling around in the grass of it like blissed-out fools with our shoes kicked off.
I need to tell him. I need to tell him now.
As I hit the top of my stoop, he’s taking over my mind, playing large in every corner. I can picture his face, hear his voice, his laugh. I want to talk to him. More than anything, I want to see him. It’s urgent and desperate and I can’t think about anything else but him. It’s settling in, this truth, so quickly and sure that I’m taking the steps two at a time. I need to be near him, with him for any of this goodness and happy to feel real. The fact that he probably doesn’t want to have anything to do with me feels like a minor setback.
I reach the roof, breathless, and push the heavy exit door open with everything inside of me. The freezing air, the s
now-covered concrete, none of it matters, and I rifle through my dumb, jumbled bag for my phone, deadweight I’ve been carrying around for too long. I turn it on. The bars drag to a climb. This search for a signal feels like an eternity.
Seeing his name in my contacts, I’m frightened and thrilled and about to burst or scream or all of it. I’m committed to hitting this call button. I have to talk to him.
But the goddamn thing vibrates, bouncing almost clean out of my hand.
“Mum, is everything okay? What’s wrong?”
“It’s your father, he’s gone to ICU. This time they say it’s likely cancer in the liver. I think you should come back, if you can.”
“Of course. But, is he—”
“No, no. He’s alert. No pain at present,” she says, the cool undertone completely missing from her voice. She sounds dazed, flattened. “It’s not late stages nor nothing, but he did ask after you a few times already.”
“I have to do a couple things around here first, then I’ll look into another flight out. I probably won’t get there before tomorrow or tomorrow night.”
“That’s okay. I’ll tell him we spoke. Your father gon’ be pleased to know you’re coming back. He has . . .” There’s a long pause. I know the call didn’t drop. I can hear the busy atmosphere buzzing behind her loud breathing. I press the phone closer to my ear as if that changes anything. “He still has the coins,” she says.
Now I go silent.
“Are you there? Hello?”
“Yeah, I’m here, Mum. I’ll call when I know my flight info.”
“All right, then. Good enough.”
“Okay. Bye.”
I definitely can’t call him now.
I glance down at my phone. The notifications are out of hand, everything is lit up and red. It’s clear that Bauer’s back on stalker duty, but his messages have become curt and impatient. It’s giving me a bad feeling. I scroll through my favorite numbers again and dial. I need to bolster the bridges before they’re completely burned to the ground. It can’t be left up to Bauer. The apology, the explanation, the details; it all needs to come from me. This is going to be rough, that’s a given. Might as well start from underneath the heaviest, most unmovable rock and push my way up from there.
I couldn’t read anything in Lindee’s voice on the phone, and there was nothing specific behind it when it came through the downstairs intercom, either. But then everyone sounds like they’re broadcasting through a static storm when they use that thing.
“Hey,” I say and step aside so she can come in. I’ve left enough room between us, in case this goes way wrong and there’s a bottle of hot cat piss hidden in her super-deep coat pockets.
“Hey,” Lindee says. She walks in, easy, relaxed, as if the last month never happened. “So, this whole cryptic text-message bit, is that going to be your thing?” Lindee slips her coat off and drapes it next to her on my couch. “What was it again? ‘I’m sorry, we’ll catch up when I get back.’ Then poof, you disappear, never to be heard from again, like the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. And now you’re back, but the mystery . . . that seems to live on.”
“Lindee, look, you and Kendra have every right to feel like that.”
“Oh, Kendra is particularly pissy about all of it. You already know I’m made up of scraps of bone and skin; I don’t feel much. But my sister’s totally different. She’s all about caring and shit.”
“Is she coming later?”
“No. She and Flav are in LA for a wedding. This photographer friend of his is getting married to a model on a beach in Malibu, of all places. Dress code said all white and barefoot. It’s like, can you buy a bottle of originality somewhere? Just a sixteen-ouncer.”
“I’m guessing you didn’t want to go? I mean, barefoot on a beach isn’t completely horrendous.”
“Please, you don’t know that crew. The whole thing is just a hair above reprehensible,” Lindee says. “Plus, I have plans with New Mark. He’s taking me to a party in Chappaqua with his family—well, his mother, stepdad, brothers and their wives, and his great-aunt or great-cousin or something.”
“So basically his entire family.”
“Basically.”
“Holy—Lindee?” I plop down next to her. “That’s fantastic. So you and Mark are doing this thing for real. That’s . . . I’m really happy for you.”
She lets a grin break through her stone-locked jaw, nodding. “Yeah. I think we are. I know, it’s corny as all what-the-fuck. I’m like a giddy idiot from Planet Girl.”
“You’re hardly giddy and never an idiot. You’re just happy.”
Lindee looks around the living room and spots my open laptop on the flat side of my suitcase and my coat bunched up beside it. “So, guess you literally just got back.”
“I did. But I’m gone again in a minute. That’s why I asked you to come over, to try to explain a little. There’s a lot going on. I thought I figured out where to start this, but now that you’re here, I’m kind of losing my nerve.”
“Nerve? You don’t need nerve. Just say what’s going on.”
“What’s going on right-right now is my dad. He’s not well. It’s his liver. My mother called just before I called you. It might be cancer. I’m looking for a flight back up there.”
“Shit. Is it late-stage?”
“No, I don’t think so. But he’s been drinking for more than half his life and that liver is basically saying, ‘Peace out, bitch.’ ”
“Cancer is the fucking worst. I’m sorry, Best.” She rests her hand on mine briefly and shifts positions on the couch so we’re closer, but not touching. “That’s just so fucked up. Is your mother freaking out?”
“Not really. She’s not the outwardly freaking-out type.”
“When our stepdad went through some shit with his heart, my mother tried to do the steady-rock thing for a minute, but then she started to crumble and that was rough on everyone. Plus, it’s just you, so she’s going to want to lean hard on you. Get ready.”
“Actually, it’s been rough for a while for her, both of them. They’ve leaned hard on each other and I haven’t really been there for that, for them. They have no more room to lean on anything. They’re practically lying flat.”
“What do you mean? Is this a return of the big, bad cancer thing?”
“No. This is reason I called you and Kendra over. There’s a story—maybe a story. There’s this reporter from Tell Me More—”
“Still them? Jesus.”
“Yeah, this reporter Bauer, he’s been kind of hounding me about a story that’s going to post—or might post—about me soon.”
“With Grant again? People still care about this shit? He’s back in New York; I read that. But so are George Clooney, that disgraced mayor, and that cute kid from the werewolf show. I’m sure there’s more juice that they can pump from their celeb stories than stale Grant and his ex-girlfriend troubles. ”
“It’s not Grant. It’s me and my family. I don’t even know what he’s going to write, how much he’s going to say, but he’s been asking questions about my life in Montreal, before I moved here.”
“What, do you have a record or something?”
“No.” I want to take a beat here, a breath, but I also know that I can’t stall this further. Not anymore. “There’s something I’ve never told you or Kendra or anyone. And now I think Bauer knows and he’s going to expose this private thing that—”
“You’re killing me here. What are you saying? Did you murder somebody? Oh, Jesus Christ. You’re on the run!”
I shake my head before burying it in my lap. I need to keep talking through detached breath and the tears and snot slinking down my face. “It wasn’t always just me. I had two brothers, older, Benjamin and Bryant. There were three of us.” I keep my head cupped in my hands. My ears are on fire and I can’t look up to even glimpse Lindee. She’s moved back and away from me—I felt the shift in weight on the couch. “We were in an ice accident on Christmas Eve ten years ago. We were tak
ing a shortcut home, across a lake. The ice, it was too thin. We all fell through. They didn’t make it out. I did. So now it’s just me.”
Lindee shoots up from her seat. “Are you fucking kidding me?” she barks. I raise my head. Her mouth is staring open and her eyes are as wide as plates; she seems to be holding her breath. I want to say more, but I don’t know if she’ll even hear me.
“Jesus fucking Christ!” Lindee’s moon eyes are tearing up and her brows are twitching. I can see the broken words gathering up in her throat. “You’re serious. You are fucking serious right now?”
I can only nod.
“That’s really horrible. Shocking and horrible, what happened to your brothers. Really, it is. Your poor parents . . . But, honestly? I can’t even begin to process how you could go along all this time and never once say any of this. You’ve been lying to us for years. And now because there’s some gossip blog that might out your whole fraud life, you’re now saying something. Who does that?”
“Lindee, it’s not that simple.”
“No, it is that simple. You have another fucking life with real people that you’ve never once thought to mention. How sick is that?”
“Please, just—”
“Just what, Best? Just act like this is normal? You know, I’ve been representing you, defending you against my sister these last weeks. Kendra has this ability to see good where good is. But she also uses that to sniff out when something isn’t right, like with an apple days before it turns into ruined fruit. I couldn’t figure out why she wouldn’t let up on you, let you off the hook. I told her to give you a chance on all this shit that happened. And she just couldn’t. She knew. She knew you were ruined fruit.”
Before I can get another word out, Lindee snatches up her coat and heads toward the door.
“Lindee, I’m trying to do right here, tell the truth.”
She throws her arms into her coat and whips around to me in one smooth motion. Her mouth is twisted, more than usual, and her scowl is the most prominent thing about her. “That’s the thing: You’re not you. You’re a whole other person, with another life. Do you even know what the right thing is?” Lindee shakes her head. “Good luck with all that,” she spits, and flies through the door.
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