Brynn and Sebastian Hate Each Other, page 18
When I first got to New York I loved the novelty of running in Central Park, but that hadn’t lasted long. Soon I was recognizable. And as much as I loved the validation that came with that, I did start to miss the freedom of running. And then, at some point, I guess I didn’t seek the freedom anymore. I sought staying in shape. I sought the perfect amount of muscle definition. And that was what those trainers with the sleek, perfect ponytails were for.
My trainer’s name was Rasmus. He didn’t have a ponytail, but the shorts were pretty accurate.
I pulled my pillow from under my head and used it to shield my eyes from the sun streaming through the window. It was a strange sensation, having nowhere to be. After Sebastian stormed out of the Bean Franklin the morning before, we hadn’t had a lot of luck finding a new “babysitter.” Doc had patients to see, and Mrs. Stoddard managed to get away before we could inquire as to her availability. Old Man Kimball made the generous offer to drive us around for a bit, but after getting me to run into the pharmacy to pick up his blood pressure medication for him, he insisted he had to head home so he didn’t get stuck driving after dark.
That was at about 11:00 a.m.
Orly managed to get some beautiful exterior footage on our walk back—we had been dropped off at the end of the county road—and he filmed me talking through some mildly entertaining memories from my childhood. And then we were at the inn, all alone and effectively stranded. Apart from sneaking down to the kitchen for food as needed, I hadn’t left my room for the rest of the day.
Orly had texted me at about 9:00 p.m. to inform me Mrs. Stoddard had offered to drive us around the next morning and that he thought the goal should be to conduct as many B-roll interviews with the citizens of Adelaide Springs as possible. Even I could see the writing on the wall about how well that might go if I was standing there staring at people as they were asked to share honest reflections and recollections about me. I told him to have fun without me and then jokingly encouraged him to just get people to talk about anything so that we could piece something together later. Like the critic quotes in a movie trailer. “‘Mind-blowing!’ says so-and-so of the Chicago Tribune,” and you can’t help but wonder if the actual quote was something like, “It’s mind-blowing that anyone would pay twelve dollars to see this junk!” With any luck, we could at least salvage “Brynn Cornell might not . . . actually be . . . the devil” out of the week.
I’d spent the rest of my evening attempting to research Sebastian Sudworth. And since the internet in Adelaide Springs was only about two infrastructure advancement steps ahead of the old AOL floppy disks we used to get in the mail, it had taken a while to dive deep. Not that he was difficult to find on the World Wide Web, of course. It was just like Orly and Colton had said. Emmys, Peabodys, Pulitzers, war zones, anchor desks, presidents, kings, dictators, and then . . . nothing.
It was the six years of nothing that fascinated me most, but sometime around 3:00 a.m. I gave up.
Truthfully, I’d been hoping to pull up some of his crap that I could call him on. Colton and Orly had referenced NDAs and buyouts, but those could be the results of so many different things. I wondered if he’d had some sort of breakdown, but even then I had more questions than answers. Had he suffered a complete mental breakdown? A breakdown from sheer exhaustion? And who among us hadn’t broken down in tears of joy and relief whenever Jennifer Aniston found love, and even more so when Jen reminded us all that she is her own true love and soulmate?
No matter what Colton and Orly thought of me, I would never judge anyone for any of those types of breakdowns. We were all just human, after all.
My phone buzzed—again—on the bed beside me, and I groaned as I turned over to grab it. It had been buzzing all morning, and each time I had ignored it and fallen back asleep. But now I was awake, and I couldn’t live in denial any longer. I had to face reality. A reality that had already been active for five hours or so on the East Coast.
Colton Passik, 4:54 a.m. MDT
Update?
Robyn Morgenstern, 5:09 a.m. MDT
Are you watching? What time is it there? Elena’s with Mark today. Please tell me things are going well. She and Mark aren’t awful together.
Robyn Morgenstern, 5:11 a.m. MDT
I take that back. But it’s not Elena’s fault. She’s reaching for the brass ring.
Colton Passik, 5:31 a.m. MDT
Bob wants you in live segments Friday, all 3 hours. Footage of you making nice with the city council people was good stuff. Running promos starting tomorrow. Tell Orly to send me whatever he can today.
Colton Passik, 5:36 a.m. MDT
Seriously, Brynn, I need an update.
Orly Hill, 6:29 a.m. MDT
Good morning, Brynn. This is Orly. Jo made homemade scores. I managed to leave you one at great personal sacrifice. LOL
Orly Hill, 6:30 a.m. MDT
Scones. Not scores.
Hayley Oswell, 6:41 a.m. MDT
We sure miss you around here! Cheering you on! Xoxo -H
Unknown Number, 8:07 a.m. MDT
Hey, it’s Sebastian. Sorry about (some of) what I said yesterday. This is my number, in case you need a ride or something.
I smiled at the last four messages and chose to continue ignoring the first five for as long as I could. And the best way to do that wasn’t by taking a ride but by taking a run. Well, first a shower, then a run.
No, scratch that. First: one of those homemade scores.
Chapter 18
Sebastian
Tuesday, March 22
8:08 a.m. Mountain Daylight Time
He’d been prepared to feel text regret the moment he sent it, but so far he was okay. Truthfully, he did regret (some of) what he’d said. Not because he didn’t stand behind every last word of it, but because it wasn’t Brynn’s fault he had dared to believe she was more or better than she proclaimed to be.
Sebastian sat outside Cassidy’s in the parked Bronco, glancing back and forth between his phone and the front door. He wasn’t scheduled to work until that evening, when the adventures and misadventures of the PTA group would await him, but he needed to stay busy. Cole’s Wrangler was parked in the back, and if Sebastian joined him inside, he would inevitably be given inventory to stock or vegetables to prep or glasses to clean. That all sounded great. Mindless work that would require focus but not intense concentration.
On the other hand, he owed his mother a phone call. If he didn’t return her call soon, she would contact the Bureau of Land Management or the National Park Service or ski patrol—she really had no concept of his life in Colorado—and have them begin searching the peaks and canyons for him.
His choice was clear.
“Sebastian?” She squealed his name in her unique I-love-you-and-I-want-to-kill-you high-pitched mom voice. “I was beginning to worry. Are you okay? Why haven’t you called me?”
He smiled in spite of himself. “Hi, Mom. I’m fine. I texted you on Saturday—”
“Oh.” The word was long and drawn out and filled with impatience and disapproval. “You know I don’t look at my texts. What’s wrong with a good old-fashioned phone call every now and then?”
“You mean like we had last Wednesday?” Her end of the call went silent for a little too long, and he found himself hoping his dad wasn’t listening. If so, a lecture about respect would be imminent. Dial it back. We’re clearly not in a teasing mood. “Sorry, Mom. It’s been busy.”
“Tell me again, what is it they have you doing out there?”
It had been six years. Six years. And still, no one in his family understood what he was doing in Adelaide Springs. They didn’t understand what had taken him there, and they certainly didn’t understand what had kept him there. At least his mother tried to understand. The woman was brilliant. High performing. A Rhodes scholar who had spent a few years clerking for Sandra Day O’Connor. Clearly she didn’t put too much effort into understanding—otherwise she would have understood. But she pretended to try. She pretended to care. That was more than he could say about his father and brothers.
“What is it that who has me doing out here, Mom?”
“The newspaper you’re working for.”
Sure. No problem. We can go through this again.
“I’m not really working for a newspaper. I bought the newspaper.”
“Which one?”
“The one here in Adelaide Springs. It’s just a little local paper that had sort of fizzled out, and I’m trying to give it some new life. That’s all. I probably won’t even launch the first issue for several months still, and then my readership will max out at about two hundred people.” He was being generous. “It’s really just a passion project more than anything else.”
He held his breath and anticipated her next question. At least she’d led up to it. It was always the one his dad started with.
“Well, that can’t pay very much, surely. What are you doing for money?”
Sebastian switched his phone to his right ear and used his left hand to grab the lever and recline his seat. He might as well settle in. “I’m fine, Mom. I work odd jobs. Remember? I told you about the bartending job and the driver job?” And, technically, his local government job, though the $150-a-month stipend and up to two free movie rentals a week from Video Palace probably wouldn’t ease the worried mind of Dr. Elizabeth Haney-Sudworth, JD, MBA.
“Do you work for Uber? I don’t feel comfortable having you work for Uber. There was a woman in McLean last year who reserved an Uber driver to take her to an event in Arlington, and they found her two days later in Silver Spring, disheveled and unsure as to her whereabouts.”
“It’s DC, Mom. People show up disheveled and unsure of their whereabouts all the time.”
Again, silence.
“Look, I don’t work for Uber. This is a really small town, and everything is privately owned. We don’t even have an app, okay? You have to pick up the phone and talk to a person in order to get a ride.”
“Well, that’s something.”
Besides, don’t you remember? I got a huge payout from the network when I went off the deep end and they wanted out of my contract. And Erin only got about half of that. I could have a high six-figure deal tomorrow if I would agree to write my memoir, yet I choose to borrow a 1974 Ford Bronco, I live essentially in a yurt, and on PTA Night I make a killing in tips. I’m good.
Of course they didn’t know any of that. Or who knows? Maybe they did. Sebastian always figured his dad would have had to go out of his way not to learn the truth with the circles he ran in. And there was a very real possibility that he had done exactly that. It wasn’t difficult to imagine he continually went out of his way to avoid learning something about his son he would consider humiliating. Regardless, the Sudworths were experts at being a loving, caring family who stayed in regular contact with each other and never actually talked about anything.
“How are you? How’s Dad? You guys staying put for a bit?”
She sighed so melodramatically that it wouldn’t have been surprising to hear her say the word sigh in a very onomatopoeia sort of way. “You know your father.”
Sure. He supposed he did. As much as anyone could. “So where is he now?”
“Turkey. He wants me to join him there next week, but Betsy Marsh has her annual fundraiser for the Bethesda animal shelter, and she’s counting on me being there.”
“Well, you certainly wouldn’t want to miss that.”
“Seb, are you sassing me?”
No, actually. That time he wasn’t.
“No, ma’am. I wouldn’t dream of it.”
Okay . . . that time he was.
It had to have been difficult for her, being married to a man who claimed he needed only his copy of the US Constitution and his passport in order to be fulfilled in life, plus raising three sons who had spent so much time trying to become who they believed their dad wanted them to be that they tended to overlook the strong, brilliant, accomplished woman who folded their laundry and cooked their meals.
Or who at least had daily household meetings to determine what meals the housekeeper would cook for them.
“Oh!” Her voice had risen about three octaves. “I almost forgot the reason I called.”
“I called you.”
“You called me back. Finally. And the reason I called was to tell you I ran into Paul and Becky at the Mediterranean Way.”
“What were they doing there?”
“It’s the only place you can find decent grocer’s goose liver pâté, Sebastian. You know that. They also have a truffle oil that—”
“Mom!” He squeezed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “I meant what were they doing in Dupont Circle?”
“That’s what I called to tell you. They aren’t in Chicago anymore. Becky started teaching foreign policy at Georgetown this semester, which makes no sense to your father and me. She was head of the department and had tenure at Northwestern, but of course Paul can be a surgeon anywhere.”
Paul and Becky Whitford. Adventurous, hilarious intellectuals who didn’t come across as intellectuals. Becky had been his favorite poli-sci professor at Northwestern, and when one of her student research assistant positions opened up sophomore year, he’d jumped at it. Within six months he’d fallen in love with her daughter. While he and Erin were together, Paul and Becky had been his mentors, his friends, and the parents he’d secretly wished he had. And when Erin left him, Paul and Becky were added to the very long list of important people in his life who no longer seemed to care if he was dead or alive.
He couldn’t blame them. Not really. They may have claimed to love him like a son, but she was their actual daughter. And, as it all became clear in the end, he hadn’t been a very good husband to her. Besides, Sebastian got to keep the London apartment in the divorce. He couldn’t have expected to get to keep his in-laws too.
He raised his seat back to a sitting position. “So how was that? Seeing them, I mean. Was it awkward?”
“Why would it be awkward? Paul and Becky and I weren’t the ones who made a mess of things.”
He exhaled. “Thanks for that, Mom.”
She gasped softly. “I’m sorry, Seb. I don’t know why I said that. Truly.”
Because that’s probably what Dad’s been saying, verbatim. Because it’s how you secretly feel. Because it’s true.
“It’s fine. Well, look, Mom . . . I need to—”
“Erin’s pregnant, Sebastian. That’s why they moved to DC.”
The floor dropped out from under him, and he grabbed on to the steering wheel to stabilize himself. He took a deep breath and let it out. And then again. His eyes began to sting, and he raised them up to focus on the visor and began chewing on his lip. “I see,” he muttered through his nearly closed mouth.
“Her husband is investigative counsel for the Office of Congressional Ethics, or something pretentious like that. I mean, seriously, Sebastian. Have you ever heard anything so pretentious in your life?”
No. No, I haven’t. At least not since the uttering of the words “decent grocer’s goose liver pâté.”
“I didn’t even know she was married.” He did say that, right? Had the words actually made their way out of his mouth, or had they gotten caught up in his teeth, which were clamping down tighter and tighter by the moment?
“Mom, I really have to go. Tell Dad hi for me. I love you.”
“I love you, too, dear—”
He hit the End button on his phone before she could ask if he had messages to pass along to Darius or Xavier or their wives or his nieces and nephews or, most likely, her pet cockatiel, Edna.
He pulled the keys out of the ignition as quickly as he could—which wasn’t nearly quick enough, with the way his hands were shaking—and opened the door. He slammed it behind him and then ignored the instant guilt he felt for treating Andi’s classic Bronco with so little regard, stomped the ten yards to the forest of pines that surrounded the perimeter of Cassidy’s, and screamed as loud and as long as his lungs would allow.
Chapter 19
Brynn
Tuesday, March 22
9:18 a.m. Mountain Daylight Time
Nineteen feet. Pathetic.
The exhilaration of my brisk morning mountain run had awakened something in me, and when I found myself just on the other side of the fence from the 152-foot-tall Ponderosa pine tree that had bested me a lifetime ago, I’d been confident my foe was finally going to meet its match. I would claim victory over the failures of my past as I scaled the tree’s mighty branches and surveyed the majestic landscape. Adelaide Springs and all the challenges awaiting me would appear smaller and smaller beneath me the higher I climbed. And if that wasn’t darn near poetic, nothing was.
Frost and Keats would have been quick to abandon poetry in favor of self-preservation if a squirrel had skittered past on a branch right by their faces too.
Now here I was, nineteen feet in the air, practically paralyzed by an unexpected wave of fear that this climbing attempt wasn’t going to turn out any better than the last. I weighed my options, and I really didn’t care for either one of them. I could call Orly, of course, but he was with Mrs. Stoddard. I could still remember the way she’d fussed at me the last time I had tried climbing this tree.
And the only other phone number I had was sure to lead to a lecture, too, but I really didn’t see what choice I had. At least Sebastian wouldn’t have state-of-the-art film equipment on him.
Although I wouldn’t put it past him to track some down, just for the occasion.
