2. Garrett
2
Garrett
“ I t’s a system error,” I say, impatiently eying the guard at the front desk. “It was working yesterday and now…” I tap my credential badge to get through the gate the same way I have for the last seven years I’ve worked at Holt and Walker. The light blinks red and the security system emits a low, angry beep for the third time this morning. “This keeps happening.”
I just want to get to work and move on with my day. I’m fucking tired after only getting a few hours of sleep, but that doesn’t change the fact that the copyright case I was working on yesterday before my unfortunate incident is still waiting for me in my office. Taking time off would likely only trigger another one of the stress-induced migraines that caused me to faint last night. Well, that and a mix of exhaustion and dehydration, according to what the doctor told me yesterday.
“Let me check, again,” the guard says as he taps away at the computer.
“Don’t bother,” says a familiar whiskey-smooth voice from behind me. “Nothing’s broken.”
I turn as a tall brunette in a gray pantsuit and dagger sharp stilettos strides toward me. “It’s a wonder. You were in the hospital only what, five hours ago? And you still manage to come to work early. Wow. Really setting a high bar for all of us,” Calista Holt muses, maintaining a neutral mask. But based on the fact that I'm locked out and she’s one of a select few with the authority to block my entry to the building, I doubt her expression is concealing delight.
“Expected me to stay home?” I ask.
The guard stops typing next to me. Holt is one of those people authority rolls off of in waves. When she tells you not to bother, you don’t.
“No, that's why I’m here earlier than I’d like to be to haul you and your Armani suit to breakfast. We should hurry, we have a reservation.” She doesn’t wait for an answer. Instead, she turns on a heel and heads back toward the bank of windows at the entrance. After I take a beat to register the massive pile of shit I’ve found myself in, I follow, closing the distance between us in time to catch the door.
Her driver is already holding a door open for the sleek Rolls Royce from the company she hires.
“You have to understand—” I start.
“Not a fucking word until I have another coffee,” Holt says, holding up a manicured finger. “Or you will never see your office again.”
I slam my mouth shut, knowing that given the chance, Holt will follow through on her threat.
It’s another twenty minutes before we arrive at the breakfast spot Holt selected. Fern. A sun drenched restaurant draped in so many vines you’d think it was an upscale Rainforest Cafe. The host seats us along the wall of windows then promises our server will be with us shortly. Unable to wait much longer, I flag down a passing server with a carafe of coffee to fill Holt’s cup.
“There’s no reason I shouldn’t be able to get back to work today.” I jump right back into my defense from earlier. This breakfast is a waste of both of our time.
“You must have hit your head quite hard,” she says as she pours cream into her coffee. “Remind me, whose name is on the wall the moment you walk out of the elevators?”
“Walker’s.”
“Funny, so glad you think it’s the right time for jokes,” she says. “My name is on that wall first. A name that means something in the world of entertainment labor law. So, imagine what would happen if it came out that one of my employees had worked himself to the point of collapse? Not any employee, either. One of my most public-facing senior associates.”
In my late teens and early twenties, I was headlining international tours and writing platinum records. Now at thirty-three, I have a conventional career working as an entertainment lawyer and leveraging my old connections. But there are still eyes on me, reporters more than happy to make a paycheck from a whiff of gossip. I’m not just an employee who fainted on company time. Up until now, being a public figure has been an asset. But after last night, it's turned me into a liability.
“Okay, so I'll take a few days off.” I shrug, trying not to show my distaste for the idea. Time off just means time to fall behind. It means I’ll send myself back into a spiral with even more of the episodic migraines I’ve been apparently failing to manage.
“Two weeks minimum.”
“No,” I bark, immediately shutting down the idea. The longest I’ve ever been away from the office is a few days. Two weeks? Forget that.
“You fainted in my firm. At my firm.” Iron strikes through her words. “If you had done so in the comfort of your own home, sure, you could avoid this. But that would imply you spend any time at home. You take two days of PTO every year around this time, and you have weeks you can use. So this is me approving your request for time off.”
“I don’t need it,” I bite out. Tension starts to build behind my eyes. I can’t have another migraine here. Not when I’m supposed to be proving I’m good to get back to work.
“You do, and your denial of it makes me think it’s been long overdue.”
“I take two weeks off and then I get to come back?” I ask.
“You take two weeks off, then I’ll determine if you seem like you’ll repeat the same mistake. Then we move on from there.” For the first time this morning, Holt smiles and it has everything to do with the platters being carried toward us. She raises her mug to her ruby-painted lips and says, “Now we’re going to enjoy a meal celebrating the start of a well-earned vacation.”
My best friend, Wes, is a dick, but that’s common knowledge. Buying the security footage from my little accident at the office and playing it on my eighty-inch TV when I walk into my living room, is just an unwelcome reminder.
“I’ve watched it ten times already. Gotta get my money’s worth,” he says as he kicks his cowboy boot clad feet up on my coffee table, sending a dusting of dirt onto the glass tabletop. He loves those damn boots. Grew up on a ranch in rural Tennessee and brought them with him to boarding school in Nashville, pissing off our teachers with the blatant breach of dress code.
In addition to the boots, he’s wearing a faded, cropped sweatshirt and jeans. His overgrown brown hair is tucked under a backward baseball cap.
“Do I want to know how much it cost you?” I glare at my TV where I’m met with the image of me at my desk tapping away at a keyboard.
“Less than it should have. I would have given the guy three grand but he settled for one. Your firm should invest in better security.”
“You could watch this at your own place.”
Wes shakes his head. “Too many paparazzi.”
“Bullshit. You have four places to pick from in Manhattan alone,” I say, knowing the reason Wes is here is because he’s bored. The guy is rarely ever satiated by what’s in front of him, and more often than not this becomes my problem.
“But your couch is more comfortable than mine,” he whines. “Also, I'm getting a poster made of this frame. Do you want me to send you one too?” Wes pauses the video right before I hit the ground face down. Up until seeing the clip, I was happily living under the delusion that I was found at my desk. Watching myself stand up to reach for my bag before I hit the thinly carpeted flooring is something I could have lived without.
I shouldn’t be looking at screens to begin with. The doctor told me I have a minor concussion from the fall. I’m actually surprised it wasn’t worse now that I’ve been given this viewing experience.
God, then Evelyn was there. Of course she was, I didn’t give her much of a choice in the matter since I was the one who put her name down as my emergency contact the moment she moved here.
Evelyn’s one of those people who will do anything for anyone if they so much as ask. But that’s not the reason why I chose her. If someone had to show up for me, I wanted it to be her. I just didn’t expect it to ever happen. Or for her to show up in that tiny fucking dress that showed off those lethal legs of hers. Those damn legs. Any small amount of pleasure I got from her being there was shut down with the reminder I screwed up all those months ago.
She’s been in my life forever. It was years after the band broke up when I started seeing her differently. It snuck up on me and I still can’t shake it. When it came to her moving day, I wanted to help but being alone with her for hours on end? I just couldn’t do it. I ran away at the last minute and fucked the whole thing up.
“At any point are you going to ask me how I’m doing, or should I go change and lock myself upstairs until you leave?” I ask as I take a step toward the doorway. I might as well get Holt’s mandated vacation over with and start packing.
“I was under the assumption you would deflect if I did.” Wes smirks. Fair. If he didn’t show up, I’d have avoided talking to him about it. My guess is that Evelyn told Avery, who told Wes. Lovely.
“So, your response instead was bribing security guards so you could shove it in my face? Really warms my heart.”
“Eh, you don’t have one of those,” he says, then pats the couch next to him. “Come tell me about your worries and woes.”
I accept his weak invitation and slump onto the couch next to him. “I had another migraine.”
“Shit, man.” Wes sits upright and turns to me with the first hint of genuine concern. He knows about the migraines. They’re episodic and only really triggered by stress or major life changes. Usually, if I can keep everything together then I don't have to worry. I rarely had them on tour, but once I started at Columbia Law School, they were a constant companion. A reminder that if I wasn’t ahead of everyone else, I was falling behind.
“I’ll be fine,” I insist. “I’ll make junior partner at the firm at the end of the year then I’ll be fine.” It’s what I’ve been promising myself for months. It’s been what I’ve been working for since I was fourteen and was sent off to get the best high school education I could. I’m so close I can practically taste it.
Wes’s eyes narrow. “Is this the first one you’ve had recently?”
“Yes.” No. They’ve gotten bad enough that I’ve been keeping medication with me. That’s what I was reaching for in the video. “I’m taking a vacation, though. There’s no need to worry about it.” Wes doesn’t need to know the vacation is against my will.
“Glad you’re taking care of yourself this time. This way I won’t have to worry about you in LA. I mean, you could come with me now that you have some time off. Be like the good old days when it was us on stage.”
“And babysit you so you don’t ditch rehearsal for a once in a lifetime party with a rooftop pool that is exactly like every other party we’ve gone to with rooftop pools?” I say to avoid a conversation I don’t want to have.
I don’t mind an award show after party or helping my clients, but two weeks around rehearsals for a tour I’m not a part of? I can’t do that. Music was only part of my path, but it’s a part I’m done with. I don’t need to be distracted by that now.
“I’m turning over a new leaf. I’m a new man. I started meditating,” he says.
“Since when?”
“This morning, but that’s not the point,” he explains too quickly for me to comment. “I’m going to try. It’s going to be different this time.”
I know he’s not talking about trying for the tour or rehearsal, or even the endless interviews, he has an easy charm that the public hasn’t stopped falling for since he was seventeen. No, Avery is who he’s concerned about.
“Great. See you don’t need me there. You’re an adult, even if most fifth graders are better at communicating their feelings.”
“It’s not my fault these younger generations are all about mental health and self-advocacy. I’m repressed, as is my right as a millennial,” he asserts.
“I already know where I’m headed,” I remind him. “There’s a porch railing I’ve been needing to fix, and I should work on my truck.”
“You’re going home for two weeks? The last time you did that was…” his cheeks puff as he lets out a long, contemplative breath. “Damn, we were in high school,” he says referring to the times I would fly home from St. George’s. It was the boarding school in Nashville where we and the other two members of the band, Drew and Jared, met.
“I guess I’m due for a longer visit then.” I shrug, like I haven’t been avoiding this since I was eighteen.