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Inside, the shop buzzed with the early-morning clamor of productive people fueling up to set out into the world. A handful of devotees braced against the noise with headphones as they hunched over laptops to work on whatever creative venture had brought them to the City of Angels. Every single person in line with Gemma was on their phone, tapping, scrolling, or talking as if connection to something elsewhere was keeping them alive.
Gemma opened her texting thread with her brother, expecting to have heard that he landed and wondering if the message had somehow slipped through without her noticing. But she only saw his message from before. She tried to ignore the nervous spike it put in her blood.
To her dismay, she did have a new message from herfather. It was short, and she could see the whole thing in the preview without even opening it.
Looking forward to seeing you.
She did not return the sentiment, so she left the message unread.
As much as she loved her brother, he was the harbinger of a family reunion she’d rather forgo. Something sweet inextricably linked with discomfort. Like a hangover after a frivolous night with Lila, she couldn’t have one without the other. Her father’s efforts to spend time with her were directly related to his advancing age, but she didn’t share the view that getting older was justification for reconciliation. Especially not after the lifetime of selective attention he’d paid her. But Patrick held a different view, so she begrudgingly put on a neutral face and went along on his biannual visits.
Sometimes she wished she had a normal family and that living in the same city as her father was a comforting resource instead of a chronic ache she tried to ignore.
“What can I get you?” the barista asked when she arrived at the front of the line.
Gemma shook her thoughts and ordered an iced coffee for herself and, feeling generous, got a round of lattes for her coworkers. It was a big day for them. She would be in the booth with Carmen, her co-producer, and Hugo, their sound tech, as Marsha, their boss and the show’s host, interviewed Nigel Black, her childhood and current personal idol and the biggest guest they’d ever had. The thought of being inthe same room, even if separated by a piece of soundproof glass, made her giggle in delight. Not only was she a huge fan, but she had also pulled an exhausting number of strings and called in favors she did not wish to mention to get a rock legend on the show. She couldn’t wait to hear his iconic, gravelly voice answering the questions she had written for Marsha to ask as if it were the two of them having a conversation instead. If she played her cards right—and worked up the nerve—it might even be her hosting someday.
She stepped aside after she ordered to wait in the crowded wing with other patrons. Conversations bubbled around her, many one-sided as people spoke to invisible microphones stowed in their earbuds. The tall, thin woman beside her let out a loud bark of a laugh at nothing apparent, and then Gemma saw the tiny white pegs hooked in her ears. She marveled at how strange they all would have looked to anyone from twenty years before.
Her own phone rang, her brother’s name flashing across the screen. Where she expected to feel a surge of warmth, the sight of it shot a sense of unexpected anxiety through her as if she were somehow anticipating bad news.
“Hey! There you are,” she greeted him, nonetheless. She pressed her phone to her ear because her earbuds were buried at the bottom of her purse.
“Hey, Gem,” Patrick said. Jet lag slowed his voice like thick syrup, but Gemma detected an edge to his tone.
“What’s wrong?”
“Gemma?” a barista called over the squeal of milk mercilessly being steamed into boiling froth. The young man with flannel sleeves rolled to his elbows wedged four to-go cups into a cardboard tray and slid it across the counter.
Gemma threw up a hand to let him know she was the customer coming to collect. She pushed her way through the herd of phone tappers and squeezed her own phone to her ear with her shoulder. The crowd was distracting her, but a flicker of familiarity danced like a flame in her brain. She repeated her question to her brother.
“Patrick? What’s wrong?”
She smiled at the barista with a nod and grabbed her tray before turning back into the busy room.
“I’m stuck in New York.”
“You’re what?”
Gemma turned sideways to slip through a gap in the line and head for the exit. She could hardly hear him through all the noise—on her end and his.
“My first flight took off late, and I missed the connection.” He audibly yawned, and Gemma envisioned him running a hand through his shaggy blond surfer hair and scrubbing his baby face. They shared fair hair and brown eyes, though Patrick’s tended toward an enviable shade of hazel. “I’m trying to get another, but I might check into a hotel and sleep for a week.”
“What?” Gemma fought her way toward the door, phone squeezed to ear, one hand holding the tray and the other balancing the cups from the top, and purse swinging from her arm. Her heart sank at the thought of waiting longer to see him, and she got the sense she’d had the same sinking feeling before. “Don’t do that!”
He laughed. “I’m kidding, Gem. Don’t freak out.”
“I’m not freaking out.”
“Yes, you are. I can hear it in your voice. I’ve known you for twenty-five years, remember?”
“Aren’t you twenty-six now?”
“Am I? I don’t know. I’ve lost count.”
She smiled, missing him more. “Just come home.”
The noise on his end grew louder. She imagined him in a crowded New York airport, bedraggled and wrinkled, surrounded by a steady stream of travelers threatening to swallow him whole.
