Chapter 15. Brynn
brYNN
I ditch team bonding night soon after Micah leaves.
Something about him unsettles me. Not his khaki eyes or the way his sculpted fingers strum the side of his glass.
The way he acts. The guy insinuates I hate everyone at the agency, then bolts.
“Most of us aren’t that bad. I hope you enjoy your time at the agency. ”
I barely pull my thoughts together and he runs out. Why bother if you don’t care what I have to say?
I catch the F train downtown while my head stacks with excuses of why I didn’t stay at Meredith’s table tonight.
For one, I don’t have the money to keep up with them.
Second, having to be on with people drains me.
Ironic, since my parents never left a party early.
They could bend anyone’s ear, from the moody Grand Union checkout lady to the taxi driver with the shifty eyes in the rearview mirror.
Have them grinning, their faces animated, in minutes.
Not me. I piss off people the second I open my mouth, like with Donovan today.
I need to prove I can play nice. Be team-player Brynn.
I didn’t always act this way. I used to be social, had two best friends. Tess and I met when we auditioned for LaGuardia in eighth grade. Along came Lucy, and we started calling ourselves the BLT.
Then sophomore year happened.
It began in the doorway of Dr. Kendrick’s homeroom. My heart airlifted out of my chest at the sight of Cody Waters, a California surfer type with twinkling green eyes and sun-kissed blond hair that swooped to the side and dipped below his chin.
He seemed oblivious to how everyone was staring.
Some snickered at the leather messenger bag slung over his shoulder, which made it look like he’d just stepped off a yacht circling the Greek Isles and not off a subway with a sooty film on his skin, like the rest of us city kids.
Dr. Kendrick passed Cody his new student paperwork and I became enraptured watching the pen thread through his fingers, his strong hand bracing the paper. I daydreamed about those digits tracing the length of me.
We both auditioned that spring for LaGuardia’s school musical.
By then I’d practiced ignoring him and steering clear of his fluttering flock.
In addition to his highly pleasing looks, the boy could stream magic from his lips.
His rich, throaty voice and unique tone made him a standout.
Next to him, everyone else’s talent dimmed.
Our last performance junior year, Cody’s finale propelled the audience to its feet. Mr. Prescott, our musical director, declared it the longest ovation in our school’s history.
The curtain closed and throngs of our classmates surrounded him, nibbling for a morsel of that magic.
His bottle-green eyes searched over the tops of their heads and found my face.
We fell hard, we fell fast, with an intensity that eclipsed everything in my life before him. I’d never felt more alive and filled with possibility than I did in Cody’s orbit. He was rocketing for the stars, and I wanted whatever galactic leftovers fell my way.
Like that, BLT lost their B—so instantaneous it gave Tess and Lucy whiplash. But I was too wrapped up in Cody to care.
I get home to the coffin and kick off my shoes. I strip off my mother’s blouse and the black dress pants I wore in all my LaGuardia performances. I pick up the long T-shirt that’s still tangled in my sheet on the floor and slip it over my head.
Tess and Lucy would have laughed at this place. Neither of them even speak to me now, especially Tess. What happened senior year cemented that we’d never be friends again.
What was I supposed to do? My parents and Cody were gone.
I open the fridge and pull out a bag of baby carrots and hummus. My daily cuisine these days. I’m going to turn into a carrot. I should have let someone from my team buy me food at the pub tonight. It’s the least they can do since I’m working for free.
God, I need this job to work out.
The stained dome light above, filled with dead flies, flickers then turns off—along with the air-conditioning. Great, power’s out. Yet again. Walking conversations on Bleecker fill my ears, the sound of a large truck revs in the distance.
I fist up my hands, gritting my teeth.
I yank on the fridge door and return the food to the shelves untouched.
I lie back on my mattress, knowing I’m in for another long night.
This wasn’t supposed to be my life.
Cody and I had a chance at making it. We planned to sing all over the country, and one day the world.
Summer before our senior year, we were on a mission, writing new songs together at his family’s studio apartment on the Upper West Side.
His parents spent the majority of the year in the Cayman Islands for his dad’s job.
Mine lived at the Flaming Flamingo. In between fooling around, we composed and harmonized as he played guitar.
Cody dazzled me with his stories of performing on the road from Maine down to Florida. His band in Elmsford had gained a following and was headed on tour.
Lounging together in bed, he announced the band’s new name for the tour: CB Drunken Waters. I told him how cute it sounded putting our initials together, then I kissed him.
Will you join us, Brynn? he asked. I need you there.
We’re not going to finish high school? My parents will flip. What about college?
We’ll light up the night sky together, Brynn.
Going on the road meant living together. I knew that wouldn’t fly with my dad.
It didn’t stop us.
Not long after that conversation, I hit my parents with this new plan—including the fact that I wouldn’t be applying to schools in the fall, arguing that since they’d spent my college fund bailing out their precious club, I might as well have a go at a musical career first.
They didn’t appreciate the guilt trip.
You going on the road feels like losing our first baby girl all over again, Mom said.
Geez, I’m not dead, Mom.
Later after I cooled off, I told myself they’d come around in time.
Then . . . time ran out.
The air in the apartment clunks on, along with the overhead light. Its brightness forces me to shield my eyes.
We’ll light up the night sky together, Brynn.