6. Audrey
AUDREY
PLAYLIST: LET ME DOWN SLOWLY – ALEC BENJAMIN
Isit on a red sofa with a fabric I dislike in the Four Seasons penthouse suite my manager rented for me and ignore him by staring at a glass table with questionable golden ram horns as legs.
My manager flew in from L.A. to bail me out and now paces up and down in front of me.
“The headlines!” he roars at me. “Look at your face! That won't heal properly for years! The producers will freak out!”
“I don’t fucking care,” I say, disengaged. It is now, back in my world, that I realize how much I hate it. How everything I am is a role. Not just the roles I play for money, but my entire life.
I performed what I had to perform to get into Hollywood.
I played the businesswoman for the suits in the company, and the untouchable bitch for the streets.
I don’t know who I am or where I belong.
Between all who I pretend to be, I have lost track of the person I am.
No, that’s not true.
I never knew who I am. The only thing I always knew was the love for cars.
My manager stops pacing and looks angrily at me.
“You will cost us millions,” he says. “That’s an entire existence. If you can’t keep your contracts, who’s gonna book you?”
“Shall they drop me, I don’t care,” I say, staring out of the window. My soul still lingers between those warehouses as I spun the car around. It was the thrill. The one moment where I have felt so alive. Everything was so real.
“BUT I CARE!!!” he roars. “I manage only you; have you forgotten?”
I close my eyes. I am so done with men shouting at me and telling me what my responsibilities are. First those lawyers asshole, now him.
I take a deep breath.
Open my eyes and look him directly in the eyes.
“You work for me,” I say silently. “If you mismanage your own business by only taking on one client, it’s a you problem, not a me one. If I were you, I’d be very careful now before you don’t have any clients at all.”
I get up and walk to the three elevators leading to the suite, and press the button, signaling him to leave. He is too flabbergasted to say a word. I know he will do whatever I say, because I am his only client. I also have nothing to lose.
I don’t care if I am dropped or shunned by the industry or anything else. I don’t need a penthouse suite in the Four Seasons. The only thing I need is a road, a car with more than 500 horsepower, and a bit of motor grease under my fingernails.
But now, people are relying on me. Thousands—no—millions of people.
So much about responsibilities.
My manager walks past me into the elevator opening, looking angry and whispering something that sounds like “We’re not done.”
I roll my eyes. What is it with men that they always need to have the last word?
I wait until the elevator doors have closed without another glance. It’s not the first dispute we have, and he’ll come around anyway.
I turn to the right and let myself fall onto the bed. It has a view overlooking Central Park; some people might sell their soul for this suite, while I’d sell mine to be anywhere else.
So instead of enjoying the view, I stare at the ceiling. The fan-folded beige fabric.
Like the curtains around me. Like the floor.
Beige and wood.
Usually, I am able to pretend I belong in this world. Right now, I can’t. I want to vomit all over it.
Why am I even here? I ask myself.
I could rent every other hotel in the city.
I could just tell everyone to fuck off and go live somewhere off-grid where no one recognizes me.
And right this moment as I lie in this room, I understand my sister more and more.
Caged lioness. Exhibit A. Bred in captivity. Transferred to a different zoo. Kept in line by responsibilities and expectations.
I should sleep. But I am too awake to find rest. Instead I get up, slip on my sunglasses and cap, change into a hoodie and pull the hood over the cap so no one recognizes me.
I haven’t checked the Mustang out of the impound lot yet; my manager should have done so, but he won’t do anything right now.
I take the private elevators downstairs and ask the concierge to be let out via the service entrance because I can already see paps lingering outside.
I get out on 58th Street; from there, I walk to Park Avenue. I walk all the way Downtown. Walking past the scrapers and the suits, past the Whitney-Morgan Bank building without a single glance at it.
They will be freaking out because I didn’t show up to the meeting. But right now, I feel so much of nothing that I can’t even bring myself to care about all the people.
I walk.
And walk.
Over the Brooklyn Bridge with the annoying tourists before I get down the stairs into Brooklyn, past the red-brick houses and brownstones, until the area gets more industrial.
I realize where my mindless walking brought me when I’m standing in front of a closed-off area with green construction fences around.
The same place where everything started last night.
I climb over the fence.
Walk over sand and gravel through piles of demolition remnants until I reach the water.
I sit on a low wall, swing my legs to the waterside, remove my hood, and let my legs dangle as I look over at the Statue of Liberty.
Liberty.
A word that gives me goosebumps. Not of the good kind.
Because to a caged animal like me, freedom means nothing. It’s this dream others talk about that would require me to leave everything behind, to escape a world I can’t escape and be entirely on my own.
So I appease and pretend, and escape into the small tastes of life I have when recklessly speeding along a highway, with a part of me hoping someone pulls out so I can finally be done with it.
A tear fights its way over my cheek.
Because I admire my sister for her strength in doing what she did.
“We could’ve run away together,” I tell her, glancing up at the blue sky. “But I left and never looked back. Thinking you’d be fine. Father’s favorite. Guess you were just as good as me in pretending.”
More tears come, and I throw my sunglasses away as I wipe away the tears.
But they won’t stop.
Sobs follow.
I suck in my lips, but it’s too late.
I feel too much.
Too much guilt.
She was so little when I left.
I should have taken care of her.
Checked in.
Called.
Be there.
Maybe I could’ve—
A heavy rock appears in my stomach.
One that drags me down.
Down into a feeling of drowning on dry land.
Suffocating me slowly.
I stare at the water.
I could just walk into it and never return.
Just like her.
“What are you doing here?” asks a voice suddenly from behind.
I close my eyes. Because of all the people who could find me here, it had to be her. While I am crying my eyes out.
“Go away,” I say with a way to croaky voice.
“You’re trespassing on private property,” she says.
“Just leave. I’ll be gone in a minute,” I say, trying to wipe away my tears, but they just won’t stop.
Instead of leaving, she leans backward onto the low wall at a respectful distance. I look away. I don’t want yet another person to see what a mess I am.
I don’t want her to sit with me, because the presence of someone makes everything just worse. Goosebumps spread over my arms as another surge of tears overcomes me.
I bite the insides of my cheeks to cause pain. Pain that hopefully overrides the tears. Unsuccessfully.
More tears just come.
And I cry.
Why is she fucking sitting here with me? It’s making everything worse!
She just sits there. Probably judging me as the weakest weakling on earth.
I cry so long that dawn falls over us.
I shudder as the cold night air gets to me.
My hands tremble from all the crying, but eventually, I stop crying.
I am exhausted, and the skin on my cheeks burns from the salty fluid.
Long after my sobs died, she finally speaks.
“You’re a good driver,” she says. “And as much as I hate to say it, thank you for saving my ass.”
“Who says I did it for you?” I say, staring into the distance.
“No one, but it was a tight call. So whyever you did it, thank you.”
I look at her.
She has a light-blueish swelling on her cheekbone.
“I got you, huh?” I ask.
“Not as bad as I got you,” she says dryly.
“Fair enough,” I say, because, yeah, the cut on my cheek, the blue eye, and the probably cracked nose are quite bad. Bad enough that my manager had a complete freak out.
We look at each other, and suddenly we both crack into a grin followed by a snigger. Painful, and yet, it’s a grin. A grin between all the tears and despair.
“You really got your ass served by me, didn’t you?” I ask playfully. “How does it feel to see the backlights of a car for the first time?”
“I was distracted,” she says. “Won’t happen again.”
“I’ll happily prove you wrong.”
“I know your move now,” she says. “Definitely won’t.”
“Hhhhhm,” I say. “Overconfidence and a big mouth, daring combination.”
She chuckles as she stands up.
“How about another race,” she says while she turns towards the water. “Quarter mile. That’s where real skill shows.”
I contemplate her. Governors Island and the ocean of lights called Manhattan behind her.
“Sure,” I say. “The moment I have the car back.”
“Where is it?”
“The Erie Basin Auto Pound, I have been told,” I say, reciting what the officer told me when I was released.
Cass laughs.
“Come,” she says.
“Where?” I ask, narrowing my eyes.
“We’re getting the Eleanor back,” she says, her mouth tugged into the hint of a smile.
A smile I mirror, because right this moment, for this infinitely small fracture of time, things aren’t as heavy as they were.