Chapter 41
12 December 2023
Brynn:
I know it’s late there, but if you’re up can you Skype me please?
Chris:
Everything okay?
Brynn:
Yep, but I’ve got news and I need to talk.
I’m sitting on Jenny wearing my Veronika Maine interview suit, crying, when Corey gets home from work. My laptop is on the coffee table, Skype still open after I’ve had a long call with Chris going over logistics for the next few weeks.
‘What?’ Corey says, freezing in the middle of the doorway. ‘What is it? Did you and Sienna break up?’
‘No, we’re fine,’ I sniff.
Corey’s eyes narrow but she kicks the front door shut and ventures closer to me.
A text from Sienna lights up my phone, which is on the coffee table, and Corey, standing right next to the table, glances down as ‘Good luck talking with Corey xxx’ flashes up on the unlocked screen. Her eyes widen and she takes a step back.
‘Good luck talking with me about what?’ she demands, hands on her hips.
‘Um,’ I say, turning the phone over so the screen is facing the coffee table. ‘I got a job. A proper one. In publishing!’
Her body relaxes and she breaks into a grin. ‘Oh my god, that’s amazing! Congratulations! With Darnell? I thought he told you there wasn’t anything when you had drinks the other day?’ Her words come tumbling out in her excitement for me.
‘There isn’t,’ I say, biting my lip. I have no idea how to tell her the rest of my news. I thought telling Sienna would be the worst, but she already had a plan when I showed her the email from Charlie, which had come right after Darnell said there weren’t any jobs at his office that would work with the time left on my visa.
Because we’d already been looking into Sienna coming to Australia, we knew there was a course she could do online to transfer her vet tech qualifications so she could work over there, and she’s already exchanged emails with a couple of bars in Sydney about burlesque bookings.
‘Corey, Charlie offered me a job!’
I watch Corey’s face twist as she processes my words. ‘Charlie, as in the Australian publisher from the other day?’ she asks, and I see the moment she realises. Her lip wobbles a little and then she starts to cry. ‘Oh Brynn. You’re going home, aren’t you?’
‘Sort of,’ I say, fresh tears pouring down my face. ‘Back to Chris and Matty in February and then Charlie wants me to start in March. It’s too good an opportunity, Cor. She wants to train me up from assistant so I can take over a list of my own. She and Robbie have been talking about it for ages, apparently. They want to start an Indigenous publishing imprint and eventually I’ll be an editor. It’s going to be so different to working in a predominantly white publishing house and I’ll be able to commission mob to write for me. It’s a dream job. A dream job I’d never even considered.’
‘Wow,’ she breathes. ‘Bloody Ancestors have outplayed me this time.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I knew that author talk with Robbie would be your moment,’ she says. ‘Fuck, I know it sounds woo-woo, but they told me to buy those tickets and I just knew you’d get a job from it. But why did it have to be one in Australia?’
‘I’m sorry,’ I say, and she comes over, flopping down on the couch and pulling me into a hug.
‘You’ve got nothing to be sorry for,’ she says. ‘But I am going to miss you, sis.’
I sniffle and try to memorise everything about the way Corey’s hug feels. Everything about the way we sink into Jenny together. ‘I love you, Cor. You’ve made all my dreams come true, you know.’
‘Nah,’ she says. ‘I think it was your mom, ay. She’s one of those Ancestors watching you now.’
I close my eyes and lean into my New York best friend, and I know that she’s right.