Remake

by A. J. Sand

  People had always said that they had fallen too fast and too soon, but sometimes an inexplicable connection happened in a sweep, a flood, and a whole upending of the universe, where nothing could possibly be the same after that moment. But wasn't love dangerous and consuming at any age? Anyone was susceptible, and the way Bryson had captured her heart was so irrevocable, so catalytic in changing everything she had ever believed about relationships after having Karen Evigan for a mother, that walking away from him had sent her into a deeper spiral. So maybe it was too soon, and maybe it was too fast, but it was definitely love.

  It seemed like those most critical of their relationship had also been hinting at how different their lives were. Bryson had grown up as the heir to a music throne by being the son—the only child—of Jeff Ellis, the wunderkind turned music titan creator of Silver Method Records and SM South Records, the labels Jeff and his brother, Aaron, had started out of their apartment while attending UCLA. Bryson was a hard worker and he had the willingness and patience to learn his craft, but he had all but been given the keys to the entertainment industry on pressed Armani coattails, while Erica, who had spent her entire life in L.A far, far away from the glow of the Hollywood sign, had managed to crawl in when no one was looking. The genetic combination that she had loathed early in life—her height, her slenderness and her red hair—had suddenly provided her with a fantasy lifestyle through modeling. Modeling was a career she had only considered in a few daydreams as a kid inside the protection of her locked bedroom when her mom and one of her many boyfriends, chosen from the queue of alcoholics and deadbeats that was her dating pool after Mike Evigan left, were engaging in drug and booze-fueled furniture throwing.

  Yes, she and Bryson were different but it worked.

  Bryson knew he’d had the benefit of a charmed life. He had never done laundry, cooked or cleaned for himself ever before they moved in together, but she had changed that. The things that Bryson had admired about her, he had told her, was her independence, strength, perseverance and how she always took care of everyone around her.

  What would he see now? Especially when he found out she hadn’t been able to face anything or anyone, including him, afterward, and that maybe this made her not as strong as he believed? That she hadn’t been astute enough to spot the terrible darkness in Jeremy, even after knowing him for years? The vulnerability involved in even thinking about expressing that to someone, even someone who knew her as intimately as he did, someone who she trusted the way she did, strangled her. She hated how people’s eyes filled with sadness or the way their faces became immobilized when she shared the story of the trauma. While freeing in a lot of instances, talking about it also brought on insecurities that were once unimaginable before.

  “I think this is the house.” She pointed to one of the many massive structures hulking over them as Bryson maneuvered up the narrow, sinuous street currently flanked with luxury cars that rivaled his. “I’ve been calling Fitz for the last hour, but he’s not answering, but Hayden said he called to make sure I could get in,” she explained, grasping at any topic to prevent their conversation from slipping into silence for even a second.

  Bryson eased his car into a parking spot across from the house. “You want me to wait out here?” he asked. He turned all the way toward her and hot tingles spread all over her skin. She found herself yearning for his touch, wanting to know how she would react to it right now. He was tapping his fingers absently on the black leather center console. Those fingers had brought tons of pleasure before. Just the thought made her warm up between her thighs.

  “Yeah, I got it,” she said with a bright smile. Erica reached for the door handle, but she could tell that he wanted to say more.

  He exhaled on a tight smile. “You know, I spent the whole drive wondering what I would say to you when we got face-to-face—”

  “Probably a lot of angry words,” she interjected.

  “Yeah,” he said, nodding. “I was a little mad.” His brow furrowed for a blink. “A lot mad, but the minute I saw you standing outside of your building, I remembered how much I love the crazy ass girl in that short blue dress.” The words brought a rush of relief, but it was quickly wrestled away by guilt. The turmoil she must have put him through; she couldn’t imagine how devastated and confused he must have felt, not really understanding why she had left and accepting that she wasn’t coming back.

  And the way she had left upon returning from Thailand was still too horrible to think about. She had spoken to him a few times from her grandparents’ house in Pennsylvania, where she had gone before moving to New York. And she had reinitiated contact with him shortly after she had done so with her group of friends at the Wintervention music festival earlier in the year, to let him know she would be back on the West Coast. Everything was much harder with him, though, because no apology seemed adequate enough.

  “I love you, too, Bryce.” It felt really good to say, and she saw his eyes flash.

  “I know… So I know it wasn’t about another guy…” Bryson said in a confident tone as he fiddled with the radio dials absently. He settled for a pop/Top 40 station before he looked back at her, smiling.

  In a twisted and morose way, another guy had been the exact reason for her needing to get away. “Of course not.”

  His cocky smile spread. “You’d never leave me for another guy; you spent way too much time and effort on me.”

  Erica chuckled, appreciating that he was trying to lighten their awkward interaction. “Right?! You sort and separate laundry, and you even use Woolite for the delicates. I’d never be able to find that again.”

  He puckered his lips and blew out a breath. “Well, then, I’m ashamed to admit that I re-hired Joseline.” Joseline was his family’s longtime housekeeper, and she was practically a second mom for him.

  Erica scoffed in disbelief. “What? Why? You came so far!”

  He shrugged. “Laundry started to pile up while I was trying to keep myself busy after you…” He trailed off into silence and stared away from her with a clenching jaw. “…Left.”

  “Bryce, you know I ran from everybody.”

  When he looked back at her, he was frowning. “I don’t care about everybody else. You ran from me. I thought you knew you would never have to run.”

  “I just needed…” Her voice trailed off this time when the song on the radio transitioned, and hot bile raced into her throat as she listened. Her stomach jerked inward twice. Jeremy Bunyan was singing a love song. She rolled her eyes and growled quietly.

  Fuck his timing. And fuck him.

  “I should probably go get Fitz,” she said, and she watched his face fall a little before she slipped out of the car. She smoothed her blue strapless sundress down.

  “I always loved that one on you. And off you. You look good, E,” Bryson called out from the driver’s side window. She was blushing when she turned around to thank him, and she heard him mutter, “Really good,” as she continued to the chateau mansion.

  The rest of the neighborhood was quiet, but the house in front of her was vibrating to the pace of a marathoner’s heartbeat. She praised Hayden when the security guard found her name and permitted her to step inside the house. Only the foyer was fully lit, and over the speakers, she heard a D.J. murmuring into a microphone. A techno beat bridged Lady Gaga’s “LoveGame” and Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” before Journey won out with the addition of a classic hip-hop arrangement under it. She pushed through hordes of impatient people waiting in a line presumably for the bathroom to get to the large space in the back where vibrant lights swirled above and spread deep blues and purples over the shaded dancing figures.

  She had started referring to herself as “Captain Vigilance,” after she developed a knee-jerk reaction about massive, darkened places like this, where the eye didn’t have to stray too far to land on unattended cups and acts of sexual aggression. But she tried her best not to irrationally draw conclusions about who was in danger and who was dangerous, a
nd decidedly settled for only going after the most obvious situations that signaled her instincts.

  Erica searched the crowd with squinted eyes, trying to pinpoint Fitz. He was a younger version of Hayden: a preppy haircut on dark brown hair, gray eyes, average build and height, but the difference came down to Fitz’s supernatural ability to wear his preppy American boy look as sloppily as possible. He was all untucked shirts and sagging khakis with ragged hems dragging behind him. Naomi and Hayden had been together for a few years now, but Erica had only recently become close with the nineteen-year-old Fitz.

  Everyone was either too drunk or too concerned with who they were going home with to be helpful, but across the room, she finally spotted a guy leaning against the wall alone, gaze darting between his cell screen and the crowd. He still had agile motor function and no discernible daze. The most sober guy in the room was usually sober for a reason, and that also meant he knew everything going on in the place. As Erica approached the man on the wall, he straightened his shoulders and his eyes widened in nervousness. He raked his hand through his black hair as he took her in.

  “Hey, I’m looking for Fitz…Van Der Bausch.” Erica held her hand above her head with her palm facing the ground. “About this tall. Brown hair. Preppy, probably drunk, saying rude things…” she shouted. “I’m his ride. You know him?”

  “Yeah…VD! Of course, I know him. What do you want with him? You don’t seem like his type…well, you’re a chick, so you’re his type, but he doesn’t seem like he’s your type.”

  She laughed before ending it on an amused smirk. “You guys call him ‘VD’?”

  He nodded. “Van Der Bausch is long as hell.”

  “Right…so is Fitzgerald; that’s why we call him ‘Fitz.’”

  “‘Fitz’ sounds like the name of someone who grows up to be a congressman or even the President. ‘VD’ seems to fit whatever he’s gonna grow up to be.”

  “Assuming he actually grows up…” Erica said, laughing.

  “So, how does a guy like VD end up with a girl like you picking him up?”

  “I’m his future sister-in-law,” Erica explained with a playful eye roll.

  “He’s always talking about you. Think he has a crush.”

  “Fitz has a crush on anyone with a pulse.” She shrugged.

  “Come with me…I’m Carlos, by the way.” She followed him to a staircase near the back of the house. Once up the stairs, Carlos smiled when they reached a door at the end of the hallway. “VD! Your ride’s here.” There was no response and Carlos shrugged after three rounds of knocks. “Maybe he passed out.” He swung the door opened and Erica screamed in surprise at the scene inside before jumping back and shutting the door.

  “Shit, I knew I heard knocking,” the young woman inside yelled; the young woman Erica had just seen on her knees with her face planted in Fitz’s crotch.

  “Erica? Is that you, Erica?” Fitz slurred happily, and within a few seconds, the door flew open to reveal him standing there, holding up one side of his slouching khakis at arm’s length with his bare thighs visible below his shirt. Erica was just grateful nothing else was showing. She still couldn’t understand how the Van Der Bausches managed to be so judgmental of where she and Naomi came from, to the point of bitter arguments between them and Hayden, but largely ignored the J. Crew-clad alcoholic pink elephant under their expansive 90210-situated roof.

  The woman squeezed past without a word to them or Fitz other than, “Excuse me.”

  “See ya…um…shit…I forget.” Fitz turned pensive as he watched her go, before shrugging. Then he shot a devilish smile at Erica as he raised his pants. “Just because our siblings are getting married doesn’t mean we’re actually related, E. I don’t mind if you look.”

  Behind him, the bed was a disarray of bundled sheets with crushed beer cans lined along the fireplace mantle. “Something tells me this carpet has seen more than its fair share of vomit tonight, and if you’d love for me to add to it, please keep it up.” Erica pretended to gag as Carlos burst into laughter. She shook her head at Fitz. “Were you at least being safe?”

  He scoffed as his head swung loosely. “It was in her mouth, E. Babies…can’t come out of mouths.”

  “Thanks for the Sex Ed lesson, Fitz. Now, let’s go!” She extended her hand to Carlos. “I can take it from here,” she promised when they shook. “Thank you.”

  He nodded before walking away, but Fitz had lumbered back to the bed. “I was just talking about you tonight, Erica. With a guy…Lots of questions about you.”

  “Um, okay, Fitz.” Groaning, Erica stepped into the room after spotting his wallet near the bathroom. She hoped she was the only one who had noticed it tonight. “Where the hell are your keys?”

  “My keys? Put them on…on…something. Fuck. Fuck! I’m gonna throw up!”

  “Well, get up, dummy!” Erica gripped him under the armpits and dragged him to the floor. She tried not to laugh too hard when he crawled toward the toilet, but she wasn’t nearly as annoyed as someone else might have been. She loved helping people and fixing problems. She had been doing it for as long as she could remember. Naomi was two years older than she was, but Erica had found herself in the big sister role early on. Naomi was sensitive and didn’t fare well under pressure. Her sister needed coddling and had had the misfortune of being born of a woman incapable of providing it. Karen didn’t know how to care for herself, so the chances of her nurturing two children properly, especially when booze needed drinking and deadbeats needed dating, had been slim. Erica had been in charge of the household from age eleven on, and she had known it wasn’t how it was supposed to be, but what she hadn’t known was if something far worse existed outside of her mother’s “care,” and she held it together as best she could, so that she and Naomi would never have to find out. And after experiencing that, she vowed early on to never ever not be able to care for herself.

  And it was through this unsolicited role that at thirteen she discovered the potential of her problem-fixing prowess, when her grandparents, who had been threatening to sue their mom for custody for years, planned a visit. Erica had recently booked a commercial after her neighbor took her to a casting call, and she just knew her fate, her way out from repeating Karen’s mistakes, was still in L.A, even if it meant staying in a home too detrimental for children.

  Erica was savvy enough to bargain with her mother with an offer of the few measly dollars she made “under the table” at a local salon sweeping up hair, if she toned the drinking down long enough to fool their grandparents. With Naomi’s help, she cleared out any obvious evidence of alcoholism and cleaned the house in a way that left it unfamiliar. Erica had pulled out her mother’s old middle-management attire, and with curlers and a dab of old melted lipstick, the girls managed to pull off their ruse. After that, Erica was helping students at her high school with all sorts of issues, then the other models she did shoots with, before she discovered that being a “fixer” was a real thing through public relations. And all of this had made it incredibly difficult to currently be the one everyone wanted to help, to be the one who suddenly had a problem that she couldn’t fix on her own.

  “Found my Erica, keys,” Fitz said in a weak proclamation after a grunt. “Shit. Keys, Erica.”

  Erica stood over him as he clung to the toilet bowl with his cheek pressed against the seat. When he pointed at the bowl, she said, “Yeah, I’m going to leave you to take care of that.” Maybe she had sent Carlos away too soon, because Fitz was in no condition for her to get him down the stairs without the two of them just tumbling to the first floor. She headed back down alone and discovered that Bryson was inside, and speaking with a guy. He was skinny, heavily tattooed, and dreads hung down one side of his head, but the other side was completely shaved off.

  “E!” Bryson gestured at her, grinning, and she adored seeing that smile directed at her. It was really nice to know that she could still be a reason for him to do that in spite of how things were between them. “This
is Donnie and he’s the deejay. He’s one-half of Fading Fast, they’re a two-person group. He just landed them a new manager and, sadly, it’s not me, but they’re lacking a publicist,” Bryson said excitedly, winking at her. “I told him I knew someone. Tell her what you do. Sounds awesome.”

  One of the best parts about being with Bryson was having someone who loved music as much as she did. He had gotten good at his job and had the caliber of clientele he did because his ability to spot someone on the brink of popularity was effortless.

  “We need you, Erica. Cas and I have a cool setup. I deejay and she plays the violin to any song I mix. We’ve been doing a lot of parties like these—she’s sick tonight—but we need more exposure, more love from bloggers. Hardly ever get to play real club venues.”

  “Oh! I’m back in college, though not full-time yet, but it’s kind of my priority,” Erica explained to Donnie. But she had been thinking recently that she wanted to start working again right away, but not just with Kai. L.A. was a city filled with big dreamers.

  Donnie shook his head. “This guy’s been telling me your résumé. You repped Kai White, right? We want you. I already sent a text to Cas, and she’s down with it. Come on!” Donnie pressed his palms together. “Please? Please?” From the corner of her eye, she saw Bryson smiling encouragingly at her.