Chapter 4. Brynn
brYNN
The shower pelts my back as I rake a wide-tooth comb through my hair, trying not to think about the dark mildew between the tiles inches from my face or the two-inch rust ring around the tub drain. Yuck. Who would ever take a bath in here?
I squint at the digital wall clock before the conditioner comes for my eye. Less than two minutes. Soon, a stranger will knock and start jiggling the handle.
The water cuts off from the white-encrusted showerhead with-out warning, leaving me to pat my soapy skin dry. Why does this keep happening? And today, of all mornings. My showers aren’t getting longer—the building manager’s a tightwad.
I avoid looking through the mirror’s black-rotted spots at the cringy dark circles underneath my eyes. No amount of makeup magic can fix that. Cody said makeup accentuated my features, so I wore it for him. Never was me anyway.
Wrapped in a robe, my hair in a towel, swinging my all-purpose cleaner in one hand (a must before every shower) and a toiletry basket in the other, I hold my breath while my flip-flops squish along the gray tile to my door.
I sigh, grateful not to have an audience like the other day when the beer-belly guy from 4D kept poking out his head at me.
At the first crack of sunlight bending around my blinds this morning, I wanted to roll over and sleep the day away like I did yesterday and the day before.
Moving hurts; the downward pull on my body is like being drawn into a vortex.
Not the oceanic whirlpool kind, more like an ear-splitting airplane lavatory.
I can’t get sucked in now, though—I need to nail this interview. The funds from the sale of our Bushwick apartment barely covered my family’s bucket o’ debt. It was the best Rhonda, my parents’ accountant, could do. Not her fault Mom and Dad were better musicians than businesspeople.
Tears spring to my eyes when I think about how much they kept from me.
My parents pooled everything, including my college fund, into a dumpy single-stage venue—and look where it got them. Rhonda has had to liquidate just about every last asset they had just to keep me off the street.
This place on Bleecker Street was their first apartment.
Mom found it in the Village Voice after they graduated Berklee.
They pinched themselves at the prospect of living in the heart of the Village.
Their googly eyes for one another glossed over its many shortcomings—the biggest one being, no private bathroom.
They used Mom’s graduate school money to help buy the place, which infuriated her mami, my abuela.
What my grandmother didn’t know was that a month after graduation, my parents found themselves pregnant.
Sadly, at twenty-three weeks along, after they’d moved into their new studio apartment, Mom awoke to sharp lower back pain and feeling like she’d wet the bed.
She said something about an incompetent cervix taking away their first baby girl.
A year later, I came along. She always called me their miracle baby.
I wished they’d listened to my abuela. The communal bathroom is where they’ll find my body.
I see it all unfold. Act One: 3:00 a.m. I need to pee. A stranger comes around the corner as I unlock the bathroom door and pushes me inside, a sweaty hand stifling my screams.
Day or night, I listen outside my door for any movement coming from the bathroom before I dare venture out.
Once I’ve assured myself it’s unoccupied, I bolt down the hall and secure the door behind me.
I need to make haste before another tenant pulls on the handle—which always seems to happen when I’m going number two, changing a tampon, or standing naked in the shower.
Sometimes I call out, “In use!”—but then all I can think is, Great, now they know a female’s in here.
Act Two: 7:00 a.m. Someone is waiting for me on the other side of the door or behind the shower curtain. From there, the same horrid scene plays out in my head. My eager imagination never delivers a happy ending, which only adds to my constipation.
After moving to Brooklyn, my parents rented out this place to broke “promising” musicians.
This resulted in my parents being frequently behind in mortgage payments.
With rising taxes and interest rates, Rhonda says it’s no wonder they hadn’t paid it off yet.
When she couldn’t sell this place, she suggested I live here.
Now I need a real job so I can stop waking up with heart palpitations over the monthly mortgage.
Speaking of which. Focus, Brynn. You have an interview to get to.
I head toward the subway at West Fourth. My feet pinch big-time in my mom’s best shoes as I dodge commuters like I’m in a video game. Her suit restricts my diaphragm, robbing me from getting a full breath. When I raise my arms, it pulls across my back. Leaving it unbuttoned will have to do.
I think she wore it back when Sex and the City was popular, as evidenced by the Carrie-esque flower on the shoulder. My petite mother was more compact than I am, from her boobs to her butt.
I favor my dad’s side and the curvy, Rubenesque women in his family.
Mom said I should be grateful for my figure. Today, I can’t quite get there.
I swear, once I get hired, no more heels, no more suits. I hope I can wear jeans. Don’t ad agencies dress like super casual? They’re creative types, right?
I’m banking on it, since it’s the whole reason I applied. If I can’t live my dream as a singer, I might as well work at a creative place. Beats flipping burgers, especially considering I’ve been vegan for years.
I trot up the stairs, escaping the sticky, humid subway, and emerge onto the streets of midtown’s fashion district. I swivel my body around to get my bearings. Seventh Avenue heads downtown . . . great, this way is east.
It lifted my spirits to see the agency’s address.
As a kid, I loved skipping across the Empire State Building’s marble floors and being mesmerized by its gold ceiling and metallic sunburst on the wall.
Waiting in line to take the elevator to the observation deck, my parents would distract me by taking my hands and swinging me between them .
. . One-two-three jump . . . come on, Brynnie-girl.
I sniffle, blinking watery eyes. I need to get a grip and wow this agency, the only one that looked past my obvious lack of experience and responded to my application.
Dining dollars have hit an all-time low this month, and I refuse to apply for state assistance.
Call it pride, call it stubbornness. I already grapple with enough guilt from that night, I couldn’t live with myself taking aid from families who have no other way. I must do this on my own.
I enter the building on the Fifth Avenue side and scramble through the lobby used by the building’s office tenants. After passing through security, I approach a long bank of facing elevators. The doors of the elevator at the far end are still open. I make a dash for it.
It’s empty except for a tall, olive-skinned guy in a skinny black tie with his head in his phone. I rush in before the doors close.
I turn and see someone’s grandmother waddling toward us. My heart squeezes. She reminds me of my late abuela. I hold the elevator, which sets skinny tie guy off into a symphony of sighs behind me.
He slings his black bag to his other shoulder and glowers at his phone, seemingly pissed at the world.
What a prick. He’s the least of my problems. With his untamed, dark prep school hair, fitted white dress shirt, and tapered black pants, he looks like an intern as well.
Or a waiter. Take those athletic quads and chill, dude.
The woman smiles at me.
My mom’s mother had thick white hair and dark, deep-set eyes similar to this woman, who’s wearing a rain slicker though it’s sunny and threatening to reach ninety today.
She rotates around, hovering her hand near the wall.
I envy her pink stretch pants and sensible white sneakers.
No purse, either. She travels light. Maybe she has an appointment in the building or she’s a tourist looking to go up to one of the observation decks on the eighty-sixth or hundred-and-second floor and doesn’t know she’s on the wrong side. How did she get through security?
Waiting for her to announce her floor, I look into her eyes.
My heart sinks. Vacant, like my abuela’s when she succumbed to dementia.
I get it. I’m lost, too. Come stand next to me and we’ll be lost together, I will silently.
Her perfume reminds me of those tea rose sachets, the ones my abuela used to place between her folded underwear and sweaters.
When I was little, I’d stand on my toes and peer into her dresser drawers, fascinated by the long silky slips that became sexy evening gowns for my many Miss America acceptance speeches.
A short-lived girlie-glam phase of mine.
I love how women from a certain era keep their clothing perfumed. Why doesn’t my generation do that? Healthier than using fabric softener filled with toxins. If I owned a proper dresser, I’d use sachets with herbs and essential oils. Yep, I love this woman already.
More attitude ambushes me from behind.
My skin bristles. What is up with this a-hole? Huffing like he’s a CEO. Wait your turn, buddy. Better yet, take another elevator. This is about my abuela and me.
I lift my chin. “What floor?”
She smiles like she understands.
My gut tells me I can’t leave her alone.
Maybe she needs to rest a moment on a bench in the lobby to figure out where she’s going or whom she’s meeting.
I can at least do that and get her some water from the vendor on the corner.
Maybe she’s dehydrated. My abuela would forgo water when she was away from home to avoid public restrooms. Getting her some shouldn’t make me late for my interview.
“What floor, ma’am?”
She looks away, her eyes unfocused. I point to the panel, hoping to help her understand, but she doesn’t respond.
“Are you okay? Do you need to sit down?” Not expecting her to answer, I motion my head toward the lobby—and away from the a-hole in the back. “Here.” I tuck my portfolio under my left arm and offer her my right. She takes it, and I help her shuffle out of the elevator.
Just before we get clear, she slips. Her body pitches forward.
I gasp. My portfolio goes flying.
We teeter like we’re on a log, grasping hands. She’ll break a hip if we both go down. My racing heart slides into my throat. My dad always handled my abuela when she had difficulty keeping her balance. I may look sturdy, but I’m not strong. These dumb heels don’t help.
I hold on to my new lost friend and call out, “Help!”
The a-hole ignores me.