Chapter 5 Brynn #3
middle of nowhere. It was going to be a week of trying to keep my cool and playing nice and not letting things get to me.
But Han here did not get to start on me before I even stepped off the plane. “Whom you report to. I realize you may not know
who I am—”
He spoke over me. “If only someone had tried to introduce us.”
“There are people waiting for me. People I need to impress. And I need everything— everything —to go perfectly for the next few days.”
“And you don’t think this is meeting that standard?” He stood up straight again and smiled as he looked down at me. “Don’t
sell yourself short. I think you’re doing great.”
What is with this guy?!
“Let’s go, Orly,” I stated in my most authoritative New Yorker voice, mastered in the early days of my career on Sunup3 , when we still hailed cabs rather than ordering them on an app. I didn’t show an ounce of intimidation as I stepped forward.
“You need to move now.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he responded as he tipped his hat and stepped aside. As he did, I read the emblem. Manchester United. Okay,
yeah. Some jerk of a pilot who supported a European soccer team was going to last about a minute in Adelaide Springs.
I stepped in front of him and finally turned to head down the stairs and off the plane but was blocked by another man in a
different baseball cap. Bass Pro Shops. Now that was the Adelaide Springs style.
“You’re still here?” the man asked, most unnecessarily. “I have to refuel and get back to Telluride. No offense, but can we move it along a little?”
I snapped my head back to look at the other guy. After witnessing the smug expression on his face, I began noticing the differences
between the two men. I turned and faced the one I now understood to be the actual pilot and noticed the short gray hair peeking
out from under his hat. The clean-shaven face. The other guy had stubble. Dark, matching the slightly longer, seemingly shaggy
locks. Those characteristics combined with the Smashing Pumpkins concert tee evident under his jacket made me really glad
that Mr. Bass Pro Shops had been the one responsible for our safety.
“Sorry about that,” I said to him. “We’re going now.”
He sat down in the pilot’s seat, and I walked past him and exited, followed by Orly and then the other guy.
“Thanks, Steve. Have a safe flight back.”
“Will do. See ya, Seb.”
Our other bags were waiting for us on the ground, having been unloaded from the cargo area. I looked around. It all looked
the exact same as it always had. Mountains. Nothing but mountains. The airport still essentially looked like a to-scale Snoopy
Sno-Cone Machine made of dilapidated pine and a green metal roof. There were two vehicles parked near the building—an ugly
red pickup truck and an even uglier orange-and-white-striped thing that looked like it belonged on safari. Apart from the
color. The color wouldn’t blend in with anything, with the possible exception of the Nerf gun you carried to protect you from
stampeding lions.
“Should I keep filming?” Orly asked quietly, shivering in his boots.
Okay. It’s go time. Orly wanted to film my reaction to being back here. And what was my reaction? No, Brynn. That’s the wrong question. What did my reaction need to be?
I turned and faced Orly, a Sunup -worthy smile painted on my face. “The feel of stepping off a plane onto this ground... It’s crazy how little that’s changed.
I remember the second time I ever flew on a plane was over Christmas break my junior year of high school.” I forced myself
to think of the memories in a positive light. I knew I needed Orly to film me waxing nostalgic about my beloved hometown.
And truth be told, I didn’t have to work all that hard to focus on the good memories of that trip. “These four friends of
mine and I saved up as much money as we could, for months, to go on this ski trip to Telluride. There were closer slopes,
certainly, but we skied those all the time. And we could have driven there, but it’s a five-hour trip. None of us wanted to
waste that much time.” I blocked the ever-lower sun from my eyes with my hand and looked around the flat valley surrounding
us. A little bit in the distance, to the east, I could just make out the grand Adelaide Springs skyline: some aspen trees,
a few redbrick buildings, and a radio tower that was the tallest man-made structure in town, though it wasn’t quite as high
as Berlin. “That trip was special. Just like I know this one will be.”
I pulled my sunglasses down from the top of my head and covered my eyes. “Okay, that’s enough for now, Orly.”
I heard a slow clap behind me. “Wow. You really can just flip the switch like that .” He snapped his fingers. “It’s impressive.”
“I’m sorry, who are you?” I whipped around to face him. “Don’t get me wrong, I’ve really enjoyed this little tête-à-tête thing we’ve got
going on, but I don’t know that I’m super comfortable being followed around by a complete stranger any longer.”
He chuckled. “Fair enough. I mean, you didn’t pay enough attention to the man transporting you at four hundred miles an hour
to know I wasn’t him, but no... Makes sense.” He zipped up his jacket and walked into the wind, toward me, with his arm
outstretched. “Sebastian Sudworth.”
I glanced at Orly and confirmed he had his camera put away before crossing my arms. “Great. But I’ll ask again: Who are you ?”
His arm remained in front of him, and the grin on his face widened as he looked down at my closed-off stance. “Oh, you really
are America’s Ray of Sunshine, aren’t you?”
Orly spoke up sheepishly. “Brynn, I’m not sure if you know, but Sebastian is—”
“A big fan of yours,” he interjected. He winked at Orly and turned back to me. I rolled my eyes, then I remembered I still
had my sunglasses on. What a waste of a good eye roll. “Yeah. Guilty as charged. I’ve always loved the fake emotions and the
tears on cue, and the way you are everyone’s biggest fan. From George Clooney to Boy George. Tony Blair to Tony Danza. That’s really some great stuff. But then, as if
that wasn’t enough, you went and humiliated the town I love on national television. The people I love.” He threw his hands up in the air. “I mean, after that I just had to rush out and buy a Brynn Cornell poster to hang
on my wall.”
I grabbed the hinge of my sunglasses between my thumb and forefinger and pulled them off. “Okay, I see what this is. You’re
a protester or something. A troll.” A nagging voice in my head tried to remind me that this troll somehow knew Orly, but my
righteous anger was seeing to it that that got pushed to the background. “Well done. You managed to get on my plane. That’s
impressive and certainly shows more dedication than the usual hater who gives up after trying to slip into my DMs.” That’s also scary, come to think of it. Except the pilot knew him by name... Nope. Righteous anger now. Sort out the facts
later. “But this ends now!” I yelled at him, my anger reaching its boiling point. “I’m here to do a job—”
“Oh yeah? And what is that job, exactly?” He was cool as a cucumber. And that just made me mad.
“Convincing the people in this stupid little town that I’m America’s freaking sweetheart, so the rest of the world can know they should still love me!”
“Well, may I just say you’re off to a fantastic start.”
He chewed on his twitching bottom lip and barely suppressed a smug smile as he pulled his sunglasses from his jacket pocket.
He opened them up and put them on, patted Orly on the shoulder, and then bent over and picked up my suitcase in one hand,
Orly’s in the other, and began walking toward the ugly orange-and-white thing.
I stood there, flabbergasted, as Orly followed him.
“He’s okay, Brynn. Come on,” Orly instructed.
“Not until he tells me who he really is!”
Sebastian spun on his heel. “I’m the lucky city councilor of this ‘stupid little town’ who gets to babysit you all week. So
if you don’t mind, would America’s freaking sweetheart please move her freaking feet and get in the freaking vehicle?” He
turned back around and kept walking, but I heard him mutter, “America and I would appreciate it ever so much.”