The Maverick

BRUNO

Age Twenty-two

Snideand surly as blue balls, Kelly chided, “Honestly, why do you two play that game all the time?”

Two of my roommates, Josh and Eric, constantly hovered around our loft’s pool table, playing endless rounds of weak-ass eight ball. Neither ever won because they were just so terrible. In general Josh and Eric were a conundrum. Somehow both were musical phenoms and totally dork city. Eric was a straightforward dork. He liked Star Wars and numbers and was basically still a virgin, bar one night a few years back with an apparently unforgettable lavender-haired pixie. Josh looked like Elvis had a baby with Prince Charming and then a farmer raised that child on corn bread and hay bales. He was also the guy who would still laugh at someone attempting to burp the alphabet. Literally, they were the equivalent of Olympians when it came to manning a recording studio. Either dude could rock a soundboard and mix music like no one else I’d ever met, and I’d known the absolute best. But at a pool table, they were just nonsense, fledglings trying to look like men.

Happily racking the balls for his pointless game, Josh replied to Kels’ question with a question. “Fun?”

Kelly laughed and shook her head. “Yeah, nope.”

Nothing about Kels was soft. She was a bitch and I loved her for it. Like a pirate king, she lounged across the room from the pool table, surrounded by my other roommates, James, Meredith, and Marcus. They nursed beers as they nestled on our multicolored crazy-ass Missoni sectional couch, which belonged in an opium den. The couch cost more than most people’s cars. When I bought it, I thought it was beyond rad, loud and outlandish, but after three years under the butts of nine rowdy music majors, it felt dated to me. We’d graduated from college earlier in the day and like my collegiate experiences, my time with the couch was about to go the way of the dodo bird. I imagined that in the next few weeks, when we moved out, I’d donate it to a homeless shelter and delight in how that choice irritated my father.

Eric stood poised at the far end of the pool table, chalking his cue like it was going to make a difference. Eventually, Josh lifted the triangle and Eric bent, aiming at the cue ball, pulling his arm back and jamming his stick in a pathetic attempt to start the game. The cue ball careened forward, jumping the rail and cascading toward the couch crowd. Completely unfazed, Marcus crossed his legs but didn’t look up from his phone. James and Meredith jumped, tucking their ankles tight against the couch, and Kels made a face and jutted out her hands, silently saying, Do you see this nonsense?

James, who was perhaps the smoothest of us all, laughed. “I’m with Kels, man,” he prodded, tilting his head inquisitively. “What the two of you are doing cannot be understood as fun. It’s more like self-flagellation.”

As usual, Mer took a tiny crumb of conversation and jumped right into theorizing.

Shifting into the smush of the couch, she pontificated, “To survive the changing landscape of the patriarchal culture, lots of men need to feel mastery and inadequacy in manageable doses. Soooo…” She drew out the O sound before dropping her conclusion. “You might be onto something with that self-flagellation bit.”

Kels rolled her eyes and took a swig from her unlabeled beer bottle. She always picked at the labels. It was a quirk and it made me smile because I liked knowing people’s quirks. I knew all my friends' quirks. I took comfort in their familiarity. Being surrounded by people I understood, people I could count on kept my anxiety at bay. The thought that we would part, that college was over and we were going to have to go our separate ways and forge our own paths, felt a little like being strangled. I’d survived such a scenario once before—when I graduated from boarding school—but this felt different. Back then I knew I was going to college—that there was a place for me. Now, there was nothing ahead, no landing strip, no final destination, just the unruly expanse of wide-open space. Facing the future without them—without Garrett—that was some heady shit. And I wasn’t having it. Not on a day when we should have been celebrating.

So rather than choke on a future of infinite options, I opened my phone, selected “1999” by Prince, pushed off the breakfast bar I’d been leaning on, crossed the room, and turned the knob on the wall that was connected to the surround sound system. Upping the volume of the music to max, I started gallivanting around our apartment, singing at the top of my lungs, “Toooo-night we gonna party like it’s nineteen ninety-nine, doot-doo-doot-doo-doo-doot.”

Kelly smiled and shook her head before getting up and starting to dance with me. For a second it was just the two of us jumping up and down and jamming—both singing into her bottle-slash-makeshift microphone. Midway through the second verse, James and Mer followed suit. They also sang, elevating the musical prowess in the room. Josh and Eric bopped around the table as they fussed with the pool balls. Marcus didn’t get up, but he was bouncing in his seat. It was a quick shift, and it felt powerful and playful. My friends were showing me that even though we were all still carrying the loss of Garrett, they also wanted to just have fun together, to really celebrate this momentous day in our lives.

We danced like maniacs for a few songs, egging each other on and being ridiculous, and then the doorbell rang. It was weird for the chime of the buzzer to just happen out of the blue. Usually there was a call first. We had a doorman, Stew. He was a fucking Nazi and there was always a call before someone was allowed up to the penthouse. Nobody got past him without consent. But I didn’t think much about that as I crossed to the door. I was still laughing and whooping it up. I wasn’t even facing the entry when I pulled it open, but I stilled when the playfulness on my friends' faces vanished as they took in our visitor.

Turning, I found Ava standing on my threshold. Ava’s presence explained Stew’s lack of rule adherence. She was on the permanent list. She was on every list that required access to a Difranco. She and I were a long way from the naïve boy who kissed her and then took the fall for her. Ava was my nemesis. Well, sort of. She was my parents' golden girl. The child they wished they gave birth to. The saint who never did anything wrong, never questioned their authority, never got caught with a kilo of cocaine in broad daylight. Sure, I didn’t go to jail. I had a moneyed lawyer who got the charges dropped, but my parents never forgot it happened and Ava didn’t see fit to tell them otherwise. So my motto was fuck Ava Childs and her pretty fat lips and her curvy hips. Also fuck my parents who didn’t give two shits about me but dedicated their lives to making autotuned garbage pop music sung by airbrushed Barbies and plastic Ken dolls. I couldn’t care less about any of them.

My animosity toward Ava didn’t mean that I failed to notice something was off about her. She looked haggard, like she’d been caught in a rainstorm, a mere shadow of the full-blown bossy bitch I loved to hate. I didn’t let myself care. The Ava I knew never had a single hair out of place. She was about appearances and projecting the version of the story that best served her. So, if she looked frazzled and pale, she had a reason. She was a magnificent mirage, everything and nothing all at once. Also, she was supposed to be on a plane to Cannes.

I narrowed my eyes and glared at her as I spoke. “Did you miss the flight to the all-important film festival that trumped my parents’ need to see their own son graduate from college?”

Her eyes widened and glassed over as she nodded.

I shook my head and turned, heading toward a new beer and leaving her in the open doorway behind me. From my new perch in the kitchen, I begrudgingly spat, “What do you want, Ava? Or more specifically, what have my overlords sent their pretty little lackey to take care of?”

Behind me I heard the door click closed. She entered with unhurried, unsure steps, and again it registered that she was not herself, but I didn’t drop my guard. Pulling an amber bottle from the fridge, I used my shirt to twist off the cap.

She cleared her throat uncomfortably and then asked, “Could I speak to you alone for a moment?”

Eric started to put down his pool cue and Mer turned toward the room she shared with Kelly. James, who was closest to the wall, adjusted the knob to turn down the music volume. My friends were shifting to give Ava and me the privacy she was requesting, but it was unnecessary.

“There is no need for that,” I said coldly. “Whatever you have to discuss, you can say here.”

Josh came up behind me and squeezed my shoulder before gently saying, “She looks shook, man. Maybe tone it down just a notch.”

Fuck that. I stared at her and then flippantly said, “Nah, Ava loves to be a fucking buzzkill. She gets off on that shit.”

Out of nowhere, tears streaked down Ava’s cheeks, leaving melted black stripes of mascara in their wake. That was new. I’d never seen her cry, never. The sight of her unhappy made my feet heavy in my shoes and I bit the inside of my cheek.

On a tiny gasp Ava shook her head and whimpered, “Please stop, Bruno.” Then she stilled and closed her eyes. Her head dropped back a touch and for a second I imagined kissing her neck, right where I could feel her pulse beneath my lips. She pulled a heavy breath through her nose as she composed herself. When she faced me again, she was the Ava I knew best, my parents’ corporate drone. In a tone utterly devoid of emotion, she said, “Following a distress call, air traffic control lost all communication with your parents’ plane at 1:57 p.m. this afternoon.”

To my right, Mer gasped, her hand jumping to cover her mouth.

It was after five. My stomach rolled, but I stood tall, unflinching, holding Ava’s gaze. “And?”

Mirroring my stance and demeanor, she was robotic when she responded, “There has been no contact. I kept the press at bay because I wanted you to hear it from me, not a newscaster.”

They were dead. My parents were dead. I didn’t blink. Instead, I held her gaze like a lifeline. “So, they’re dead then?”

Her lip trembled, but she kept her tone unwavering. “Presumed, yes.”

She’d slipped. I could see the care in her eyes. I didn’t know if it was for them or for me, but I hated it. I kept looking right at her, and I heard the dark sarcastic sickness in my voice when I snarled, “Lucky you weren’t with them, Ava. I’m pretty sure you're still suckling at my mom’s teat so wonder of wonders.”

Kels shook her head and threw me a nasty look. “Dude, what the fuck?”

A weird, uncomfortable laugh bubbled up from deep in my gut. I threw my arms in the air and manically said, “Looks like I’m alone.” My parents were dead. They were fucking dead. They didn’t come to my college graduation and they wouldn’t be at my wedding. They’d never meet a grandchild or see me win a fucking Grammy. Nothing. My relationship with them was over. Loud and angry, I punched my beer bottle into the counter as I snapped, “Guess that bridge is gonna stay burned, huh?”

The thick brown glass shattered, slicing into the side of my hand. My blood ran free, pooling on the white stone countertop. I heard Mer gasp again, but it was Marcus that rushed in my direction, grabbing a paper towel on his way. “I got you, man,” he said, grabbing my hand.

I stared at the blood flowing from my skin and he inspected it and then removed the glass and cleaned the wound. He spoke as he worked. “This cut is nothing. You don’t even need stitches.” He continued as if what he said next was a normal segue. “You’re not alone, bro. We got you.” I looked up from my hand. Kels, James, Mer, Josh, and Eric had circled around Marcus and me. He kept talking. “As long as you need us, we are here.” James handed him a butterfly Band-Aid and he fixed it so it pulled the skin on my hand together before repeating, “You’ll never be alone. We’re your family.”

Then they all hugged me—a silly giant group hug. They murmured sentiments similar to what Marcus had said. I didn’t feel alone. I felt sickened but not alone. Marcus was right, I wasn’t alone.

Just over Kelly’s shoulder I saw Ava. She was looking at me, right into my eyes. She held my gaze for a minute and I could see her grief. I could see that every breath she took was labored, that a piece of her went down on their plane. I kept staring at her until she gave me a sad little nod and turned away. I watched her exit the apartment, silently shutting the door behind her.

I wasn’t alone, but Ava was.