Chapter 22
29 September 2023
From: Rusty Wallace [email protected]
To: Brynn Wallace [email protected]
Subject: an email from nan and me
brynn
im writing this for nan, shes sitting behind me in her armchair dictating (I wanted to say on her throne but she growled me til I changed it)
Hi Brynny, hope u good over there in new york
Matty’s been here this weekend and we got him some guinea pigs. Now he says he wants to move to Ipswich because he does not trust me to not let them runaway. Chris says that henry has taken to sleeping on your bed so we r not the only ones who miss you. They are all good tho.
Is it cold there yet? We’ve gone from warm to bloody hot in about the space of a week but its snowing in Tasmania apparently. Will be snowing for you soon too! Make sure you send some pictures.
Love nan
(and uncle rusty)
People say dogs pick up on human’s energy and if that’s true, every single dog in daycare is feeling the electric prickle of anticipation about my date with Lucas that’s been flowing through my body since I woke up. They bark and run around manically, never seeming to settle for the entire shift. The one saving grace is that Doug isn’t around, which means I can leave Corey’s Halloween petition on the desk without anyone asking questions. I decide to seek forgiveness if I get caught, rather than permission.
When midday finally arrives, with Lucas waving at me through the window, my head is pounding from a sake headache and the constant barking.
He waits for me to change into fresh jeans and a soft pink cashmere sweater that I pinched off Corey’s bedroom floor, and then we race to the subway and head uptown. I cringe when he ushers me off the train at Times Square.
‘Urgh, Times Square is not my favourite part of New York.’ I have to shout to be heard over the crowd. ‘What are we doing here?’
‘You’ll see,’ he says, grinning.
He leads me down a back street that looks darker and dingier than most and smells like rotting garbage and urine. ‘Wow, Lucas. This is the best surprise ever,’ I say, holding my nose.
‘Brynn, would you quit complaining for two seconds. This is going to be terrific.’ He looks like the proverbial kid in a candy store and it’s impossible not to get caught up in his excitement.
We stop at a nondescript red door, which Lucas opens and ushers me through. Total darkness greets me when he closes the door behind us, and I stumble as my eyes fight to readjust.
‘Lucas, where the hell are we?’ I whisper.
I feel his finger press against my lips, shushing me silent without even saying a word. My insides tingle; this is incredibly sexy.
Then a band starts playing—no, not a band, an orchestra, and some light trickles in. My eyes adjust and I realise that we’re backstage somewhere. I look at Lucas with wide eyes.
‘So, I met this girl last year, she’s an actress and is currently a chorus member in ...’
But then the singing starts, and I know exactly which show she’s in. I don’t even care that she’s probably a former girlfriend, because the show is Wicked and we’re backstage. Lucas grins at me.
‘How are we allowed to be here?’ I breathe. ‘What are they doing performing right now, don’t they have a matinee?’
‘ Wicked doesn’t have matinees on a weekday. They’ve got some new dancers because the big twentieth-anniversary shows are coming up. They’re rehearsing the dance numbers with the new cast members. My friend said we can go side stage and watch.’
We sneak around and Lucas goes to say hello to the stage manager while I peer out from the wings.
The cast are dressed in dance gear, not costumes, but the way they move across the stage, and their wonderful voices, take me to Oz. I’ve watched a bootleg of the original broadway cast a million times and I’ve seen the show twice back home, so it’s not hard for me to imagine them in their costumes. I can’t believe I’m in the wings of the Gershwin Theatre and that’s the Wicked set right there.
It’s wonderful and it makes tears prickle in the corner of my eyes.
Lucas stands behind me, his arms wrapped around me and his head resting on my shoulder. Every now and then he nuzzles against me and though it sends tingles through my body, I can’t tear my eyes away from the show. It doesn’t matter that there’s no Glinda or Elphaba, that they’re just running some of the big dance numbers and they keep stopping and starting—it’s magic and I don’t want it to end.
But it does end and before long the dancers are traipsing past us while we move further backstage and try to stay out of their way. When we finally emerge through the stage door, blinking in the weak fall sun, I feel almost sad to return to the real world.
At the end of the alleyway, still kind of speechless, I automatically turn in the direction of the subway, but Lucas gently leads me up Eighth Avenue. ‘Date’s not over yet,’ he says.
We stroll up the street, hand in hand, and I feel like a New York spell is falling over me. It’s taken a while for the weather to change, but now there’s a definite chill in the air. People are wearing heavier clothes than a few weeks ago and lots of stores are leaning into the Halloween decorations. It gives me a little shiver of excitement: this is so different to being in Australia at the end of September. In Brisbane we’d be starting to shed our light winter layers. To me, the sun is bearable around this time back home and I always spend a lot of the day outside. Last September I was getting ready for the end of semester, thinking about assignments being due and putting in long hours at my part-time job and at the vanity publishing house.
We go into a coffee shop, and I let Lucas open his wallet to buy coffees. We take our cups and head back out on the street, hand in hand. The city hums with the sound of traffic and the smell of hot dogs and kebabs from the street vendors teases my nostrils. It’s such a perfect moment in time and before I know it, we’ve walked all the way to Columbus Circle and then into Central Park West. We trail our way along the pathway, through the trees that are bright orange, red and green. I sigh out loud and Lucas laughs.
‘This city is so incredible,’ I say.
‘It’s nice seeing it through your eyes,’ he says.
‘I can’t get over these colours.’ I gesture to the elm and oak trees with their leaves turning a kaleidoscope of autumnal colours. ‘In Brisbane, where I live, we don’t have a lot of trees that change colours so this is a huge novelty for me.’
‘Want to sit for a second?’ he asks, pointing to a picnic table. We’ve almost reached the Pinebank Arch, and this is the ideal place to sit and breathe with the trees.
‘This has been the most wonderful day,’ I say to Lucas. ‘Thank you for Wicked. And for bringing me here.’
‘I do have one more thing,’ he says, leaning down and pulling something out of his messenger bag. He passes it over and I see it’s a black baseball cap that has a green and white Wicked 20th Anniversary logo on it. ‘And I’m just letting you know that I did not pay for this, my friend in the cast gave it to me for you, and also, it’s a special edition cap that hasn’t even been released yet. I think people are going to be given them with their tickets to one of the anniversary shows, so it’s both free and priceless.’
I look down at the cap with tears welling in my eyes.
‘Do you like it?’
‘Are you kidding me? This has been such a magical date.’ I put the cap on my head and know I’m going to wear it to death.
‘I packed lunch too,’ he says, pulling brown-paper-wrapped sandwiches out of his bag and passing one across to me. Chicken salad deli sandwiches.
‘So, how’d I do?’ Lucas asks, as though he knows I’m about to comment on him spending money on food when he could have packed sandwiches from home.
‘How did you do with what?’ I reply, grinning at him.
‘The date. It was what, eight bucks for the coffees? That’s pretty good for not opening my wallet.’
‘What are you angling for here?’ I tease.
He chews his mouthful thoughtfully. ‘Well, I don’t know, maybe if you think hard, you’ll come up with something.’
I put my sandwich down and lean over the table to give him a kiss. ‘But you also spent money on these sandwiches.’
He laughs. ‘Okay, so it was like a twenty-dollar date. I think I did pretty good.’
I nod my head and he looks pleased with himself.
‘You wanna go?’ he says when we’re done eating. And kissing.
I look out at the path leading deeper into the park. I want to go home with the beautiful man, but I also want to draw this New York moment out a little longer. I’m thinking about what I’d like to do next, when Lucas glances at a text that’s flashed up on his screen. He puts his phone away in his pocket and looks at me, as if to prompt my answer.
‘Can we ...?’ I grab his hand and gesture at the bridge.
‘Sure we can. But I have some work due today so just another hour or so and then I need to get back downtown.’
I pretend that I’m not surprised he’s planning on working this afternoon. I thought we’d spend the night together; I was sure that was where all the kissing was leading to.
We head along the path and the conversation turns to his friends and his work. Since he’s brought up work twice now, I can’t resist asking him about his editing contacts.
‘Oh, so the Penguin thing fell through,’ he says. ‘But not to worry, I’m having a drink with Chad from n+1 tonight and I will definitely tell him all about you.’
‘Chad as in Chad Harbach?’ I say, unable to keep my voice from raising about two octaves above normal. ‘Oh my god, I love his work. I read The Art of Fielding when I was at uni.’
‘Oh yeah, he’s great,’ Lucas says. ‘You really are a lit-journal nerd, aren’t you?’ He smiles.
‘Obviously. I actually applied for the n+1 fall internship last month.’
‘Didn’t get it?’ he asks.
I shake my head. ‘Never heard from them, but it was supposed to start at the beginning of this month so I guess I didn’t.’
‘Doesn’t mean they won’t have a job for you in the future. I personally think you’re far too overqualified for an internship, that’s probably why you’re not getting these jobs.’
I beam. He’d asked me to send him my résumé last week and this is the first feedback he’s given me. ‘Really?’
‘Really. That’s why I’ll mention you to Chad tonight and give you a glowing verbal reference.’
‘What sort of drinks are these?’ I ask.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, is it like a plus-one kind of event? I’d love to meet him.’ Seeing the way his smile slightly drops I hurry to add, ‘I can be professional, I promise—no job stuff if it wasn’t appropriate. It would just be so cool to meet him.’
‘It’s an invite-only thing,’ he says. ‘I RSVP’d before we started seeing each other, unfortunately. But I promise you, I will make sure anyone literary, including Chad, hears all about brilliant Brynn from Australia. I’ll even quote from your CV.’ He pulls me into his side then, wrapping his arm around me and the warmth of his affection spreads through my body.
I nod. ‘Sounds like a plan.’
We walk for a bit longer and I ache a little when I notice he’s leading me to a park exit. Once we’re on the street, he seems to have given up on our budget date and hails a cab.
‘Well, babe, can I drop you at home?’ he says as a cab pulls to a stop and he holds the door open.
I frown. This is not the ending to our date that I’d expected. I can’t tell if I’m reading too much into the situation but it feels like he was running hot but now he’s a bit colder. I shake my head, as much as to clear my thoughts as to let Lucas know I don’t need a ride. ‘It’s okay, I’m only a couple of blocks east,’ I say. ‘I’ll walk.’
He hesitates and for a second I think he’s going to invite me back downtown to his place, but he nods, gives me a kiss and then he’s gone, leaving me in my Wicked baseball cap. With the fall-coloured park behind, it occurs to me that up to now this has been a New York moment to remember. But instead of being the deeply romantic scene from a romcom, it feels more like the part where you realise that things are not going to go the way you’ve planned. And I don’t know if I can articulate why.
Just as I turn to start the walk home—the walk that’s much longer than I let on to Lucas—it starts to rain.