BRUNO
Age Fourteen
I followed her.
I shouldn’t have. I didn’t know shit about neighborhoods like Ava’s, but I wanted to see how she lived. I wanted to get under her skin. I wanted to haunt her every thought because she was haunting mine.
Ava had interned for my parents’ record company for six months but literally weeks after they hired her, there was nothing intern-y about her internship. She wasn’t sorting mail and grabbing coffee. My parents weren’t dumb—they immediately noticed she was special. Even though she was just a teen, she had a talent for herding people and managing situations. Give her the room and she had it all handled. Got a mascara-streaked manic diva on your hands? Ava could have her cleaned up and giggling in ten. A mother/manager having a self-aggrandizing tantrum about her important role in the life and finances of her son, the preteen heartthrob? Not to worry, Ava would quietly usher that Karen right out the door. Worried that a drug addled drummer needed to be sober long enough to finish a record? Trust Ava would keep him in line. Her talents seemed absolutely endless and utterly innate.
I hungered for the details. I wanted to see the grit and grind that created the magnificent creature who slithered her way into my family's life. So, I waited for hours in the dark alley across the street from the entrance to the LSA Records tower. It was evening, after eight. Ava didn’t squeeze in her dedication to the company around a school schedule. Even though we were the same age, merely freshmen in high school, Ava was so devoted to working for my parents that when they offered her their “diversity” internship, she promptly took her GED. She came to our house, with her passing scores in hand and announced that while it might seem odd, she wanted to dedicate herself full-time to their company. Looking all doe-eyed and innocent, she added that she hoped my parents would welcome her unyielding commitment. She actually used that phrase, “Unyielding commitment.” I smirked at her across the table, wondering if she bought her own bullshit, but also fully grasping the momentum of our chef adding an extra place setting of coq au vin before her. Somehow, she snuck her way into our home and our lives without ever seeming to slip from our sight.
But Ava wasn’t always in plain view. The soft spoken, confident beauty who copied my table manners and laughed at my father’s jokes, she had another life. One we knew very little about. I pretended that was why I was following her. I told myself that I was being cautious, that my curiosity was actually some kind of protective instinct. I was heeding my hearth, playing the role of the consecrated son, the protector of our temple, with no fucks given to the reality that our world was clearly less than holy.
I watched her through the pane of glass as she waved her goodbyes in the lobby, and then I kept my distance as I skulked along behind her, moving from shadow to shadow in my navy hoodie and old dark jeans. She strode through the night air, the heels of her boots click-clacking on the pavement of the city streets. I expected her to head down into the subway station, but she passed the nearest entrance and kept going. Three blocks farther down the avenue, she pulled open the door of a brightly lit, multistory corporate bookstore. Again, I lurked across the street, watching her through the floor-to-ceiling windows as she rode the escalator up to the second floor and disappeared toward the back of the building. She had to ride back down the escalator to leave, so I waited and watched some more. Fifteen minutes passed, and I pulled a soft pack of cigarettes and a lighter from my back pocket, tapped one out of the package, and lit it, drawing the nicotine and smoke into my lungs with a sizzle.
I almost missed her because she wasn’t browsing or buying books. She was transforming. Around my parents, Ava always looked sweet, docile even. She dressed like my mother—almost no makeup, lip gloss and mascara paired with a simple black sheath dress or a white blouse and a knee-length skirt. Her clothes were cheap, what she could afford, but always clean and professional. The Ava coming down the escalator wasn’t that girl. Gobsmacked by the change, I almost forgot to follow her.
This Ava was bold and brash. Think The Commodores, “Brick House.” She strutted fast and powerfully toward the door with her shoulders back. This Ava was a badass. She had an edge, she’d cut a bitch. I sucked hard on my cigarette and stared. She was like watching a fire blaze. Her dark shiny ringlets that usually cascaded down her back and kissed the waistband of her pants, were pulled tight into a ponytail, swinging from the top of her head. Her subtle professional attire was gone, replaced by ripped jeans, a tight white midriff-baring T-shirt, an oversized zip-front sweatshirt and heavy-looking Adidas-style sneakers. Her lips were blood red and she’d drawn thick black cat eyeliner around her eyes, making the shift from gentle to hard and seductive. Ava left her sheep costume in the bathroom, to become a wolf.
The wolf exited the building and then, like me, she pulled her hood up, concealing her new face from plain sight. She headed uptown, farther away from LSA Records, descending the steps into the subway and catching the six farther down the line. My parents had an address on file for Ava, but I wasn’t sure it was real, so I risked being on the same platform as her. Quietly, I moved down the steps, catching a glimpse of her back before I disappeared behind a tiled pole. She might sense I was there, but with the bulk of my body and face obstructed, her eyes couldn’t turn to linger on me and discern my identity. When the train pulled in, I boarded the car next to hers and at each station as the doors opened, I stood next to the exit, ready to jump out if she passed by.
It took about thirty minutes for me to see her again. She got out at Brook Ave. Station. Patiently, I slipped from the train at the last second, leaving as much space between us as possible. Unlike the downtown subway stations that I was used to, this one was above ground. So we had to climb down the stairs to reach the street. There were people around, a few guys hanging outside a glowing convenience store, and a cop car on the corner. I took a deep breath, trying to calm my nerves, and sunk a little deeper into my sweatshirt. Ava’s New York was not mine.
In Manhattan, I was a god. Even though I was barely breaching the gates of puberty, I was treated like a man wherever I went, welcome in places others were denied, fawned on by women twice my age. I never felt threatened. Never had to walk down a dark alley alone late at night. Never had to make a bed or worry about a meal. I was a prince. But two blocks away from the Brook Ave. subway station, I wasn’t anyone special. I crossed the street, staying out of Ava’s line of sight. She walked with purpose, her head held high. Her hood slipped down, but she didn’t fix it. She just kept moving, past the decrepit brownstones with rickety looming fire escape ladders.
After four or so blocks, a male voice called out to her. “Where you coming from late, every day, little A.”
Ava slowed and then stopped. I ducked behind a parked minivan. From a crouched position, I peeked over the passenger windowsill and watched the scene unfold. The man who had been sitting with a group of other men on the wall that framed the steps up to a brownstone’s door, hopped down and approached her. He was tall and lanky, an awkward-looking white guy dressed in jeans, a long-sleeve black cotton T-shirt and a thick gold chain. He had a scar on his forehead that sliced through his left eyebrow. He was older than her and me, maybe twenty, and he carried himself like he owned the planet.
The streetlamp above shrouded them in a circle of light, making it possible for me to see everything that was happening. Ava obviously knew him but for the first time in my life, what I read in her posture wasn’t comfort, confidence, or familiarity. Her shoulders were tight and she had her arms folded over her chest, but she couldn't look the man in the eye. She was scared and I hated it.
Somehow, she kept her voice steady when she answered him, “Nowhere.”
One of the lackies on the stoop called out, “You got you a sugar daddy?”
There was a cacophony of raucous laughter as Ava shook her head no.
The man standing in front of her didn’t laugh. Instead, he dipped his head down to look her in the eyes. He stared at her, searched her face hard, and then looking back at the crowd behind him, he said, “You know what I heard, boys?” He didn’t wait for them to answer. He turned back and said, “I heard, little A has a big new job. I heard we should be proud. That she’s moving up in the world, using that big old brain of hers to fix problems for people who are high and mighty compared to the likes of us.” He was clearly being condescending.
Ava stayed calm and tried to downplay her gig with my parents. “It’s just an internship, Wilson.”
Wilson smiled sickly at her, and then he pulled her into his chest and kissed her forehead. He whispered something in her ear that made her posture grow even stiffer. I couldn’t hear his words, but nonetheless my stomach turned. His affection wasn’t kind and it wasn’t welcome. When he let her go, she took a step back. With narrowed eyes, he continued to smile as he crooned, “I got a package I need you to take into the city with you tomorrow.”
The door behind him opened and a kid, who couldn’t have been ten yet, came out with something wrapped in brown paper. Bypassing Wilson, the boy handed the package directly to Ava. She took it tentatively, her eyes wide and her nostrils flared.
Wilson laughed, and then he reached out and caressed her jaw. “Such a pretty little thing.” I wanted to fucking kill him. I wanted to gouge his eyes out with my thumbs, but I didn’t know the first thing about fighting and I wasn’t ready to die so I stayed put, letting my cowardice burn my throat. Ava stood tall, awaiting his instructions. Her failure to crack seemed to irk him. The smile melted from his face and he stepped back toward the stoop as he said, “Geo will meet you at Spring Street and Cleveland Place around nine. Don’t be late and don’t be early.” She took her backpack from her shoulder, unzipped it, and put the package inside. Before she left, he pointed to her attire and said, “No need for this, I’m a hoodlum getup. Dress like the corporate cunt you’ve become.”
Obviously, I wasn’t the only one following Ava Childs.