The Break(27)

My mother lets out a laugh spiked with arsenic as she glances around the teeny odd space. “Well, here you go, June,” my mother says, and I can feel the air change like it always does when she’s about to tank me. “Is it everything you’ve dreamt of?”

“It actually is,” I say, and even though I’m staring at my feet and I can’t meet her eyes, I know that I mean it wholly and truly, that indeed this city is turning out to be everything I’ve ever dreamt of and there’s nothing she can do that will change that. And to Sean I say, “Thank you so much for letting me live here.”

I turn back to my mother. “I suppose that’s all, Mom?” I ask, sadness wringing me like a washcloth. I need her to go. “Dad can bring up the last box? You didn’t plan to have dinner with me or anything like that?” I ask, knowing full well she hasn’t given a single thought to taking me out for a meal.

She bristles. Even Sean goes quiet. His eyes dart from her to me.

“I guess that’s all, June,” she says. And then she does the thing she always does; she turns and walks away from me. When I was little and she was having a bad day, it felt as if we were magnets with the same polarity and she couldn’t get away from me fast enough. If I was in one room in our house, she was in another. But then sometimes, out of nowhere, for weeks at a time she was healthy—strong—and not depressed out of her skull, and she’d hold me. And those moments were what I lived for. Her love was the ultimate dopamine hit—intermittent and unpredictable—and now I look for it everywhere.

“Thank you for moving me in,” I say to my parents.

My dad wraps his arms around me. My mother watches from a cool distance before she comes toward me, kissing the top of my head.

“Good luck, June,” she whispers.





ELEVEN


Rowan. Wednesday evening. November 9th.


June is gone,” I say to Gabe, still staring down at my phone after Art disconnected us. I don’t know why I say it like that. She’s not gone, of course; she could be anywhere beautiful girls find themselves in New York City: in the theater district at a new show, at the farmers’ market in Union Square, in Cobble Hill shacking up with a new love. But she feels gone to me as I grip the phone, sweat against the plastic case, my fingers finally releasing it. The screen still glows as it drops onto the bed.

I finally look up at Gabe. His thick eyebrows almost connect. He has a baby face when he’s concerned, all wide brown eyes and pursed lips.

“What do you mean, she’s gone?” he asks.

“You heard the detective,” I say. “Do you think something terrible happened to her?”

Gabe comes closer to me, puts a hand on my knee. We’re facing each other now, sitting cross-legged on our sheets. My back aches with the awkwardness of it.

“You saw her,” he says.

I nod, mortified.



“Didn’t you think you should run that by me?” he asks.

“I took Lila to meet her in a café to apologize,” I say. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, I really am.”

Gabe shakes his head. “You can’t just do this now. We have a daughter, together. She’s mine, too.”

“I know that,” I say.

“You’ve always done this, Rowan. You’ve always played outside the rules, or at least bent them when it suited you. You can’t now; not where Lila’s concerned.”

I nod, chastened. It’s fair.

“What did he say before you put me on speaker?” Gabe asks.

“Just that June said she was going home to her parents and she never showed. Her father was waiting for her at the train station.”

Gabe is quiet. He almost never says anything right away when he needs to think. It’s the opposite of what I do. “Gabe,” I push. “Don’t you think that’s bizarre?”

Another beat of thinking. “I mean, it doesn’t sound good,” he says. “But we don’t know their relationship. Maybe she doesn’t like her parents. Wasn’t her mom difficult?”

“She told you that?”

“Yeah,” he says, nodding. “I think she did, actually, once.” He looks away and fumbles for his phone. “We should call Harrison,” he says.

“Call Louisa first,” I say.





TWELVE


June. Four months ago. July 6th.


I can feel the air fizzing as I walk through the chic hallways of Williamson Talent Agency to interview with talent agent Louisa Smith. I clutch the glossy white folder with my résumé tucked inside, and a sharp pang of longing lodges in my chest as I pass the glistening photos of actors and movies lining the walls. I want people to see me and know that I can be someone special—someone like the actresses lining these walls, someone good.

“This way to reception,” says a girl with two messy buns. Her Doc Martens thud against the oak planks as I follow her down the hall. She’s walking just enough ahead of me that I know she’s not looking for a conversation. She opens a glass door into a large lobby with potted plants and a sleek reception desk where three women wear headsets and take calls.

I approach the reception desk and smile bigger than I mean to because it’s all so exciting: I can’t believe that only two weeks of being Sean’s roommate led to something like this interview. I still have to get the job, of course, and it’s only an assistant position, but still: WTA is a prestigious boutique talent agency, representing actors and screenwriters and on-air hosts.