Page 10 of Brenna, Brat

“Yes, because someone there stole my boots.”

“I’m sorry that happened. I should have gotten us a locker.”

I should have done that myself. Why hadn’t I done that? “Too late now,” I commented. “See you around.”

“How far away did you park? Your feet must be cold,” he said, and that was true.

“I’m right over there,” I answered, indicating my vehicle. “Bye.”

“This wasn’t my fault,” he pointed out.

“I know that, but I’m really upset. I loved them and I don’t have extras, like how some people have surplus cars. I only have one of those, and I only have one pair of nice boots. I mean, Ihadthem.” We had reached my spot. “Thanks for paying for me and trying to teach me how to skate. I know I was terrible and it couldn’t have been fun for you to drag me around like that.”

“I did have fun,” he said offhandedly. He was wincing and rubbing his temple as he looked at my car, which admittedly wasn’t in the best shape. Since I parked on the street at my building, it had a huge dent in the fender where someone had hit it and then driven away, and the passenger window had a crack which ran from one side to the other. There was no point in fixing those things, since they would only happen again. Besides, I was saving my money for other stuff…like new boots, which I would have to buy, since winter would suck a lot without them.

Had he said that he’d had fun? No, that was a lie, because I wasn’t the kind of girl that men enjoyed dating. I was the kind that they might ask out once, but then they’d make an excuse and leave after having drinks and instead of continuing on todinner. I knew it very well, so there was no need to pretend. And if they couldn’t handle me?

Too bad for them. I didn’t care, I really didn’t. Better to be alone than with one of those idiots.

“Bye,” Campbell Bates repeated as I got into my car. I backed out with him still standing there, not smiling anymore at all and squinting, blocking the weak sun from his eyes. When he’d driven away from the gallery on the night he’d bought his sculpture, I’d thought it was the last time I would see him. But this, right now, was the real end.

It was fine. Maybe it had been slightly fun to skate and hang out with him, to do something different and to feel like I had a friend. But I didn’t care about that, either. I really didn’t.

Chapter 3

Dion glared at me and if hatred in someone’s eyes had lethal power, then I would have keeled over immediately. “I will not,” he announced, and drew a trembling breath before placing his hand over his heart. “Never. Never!”

“Do you have to be so dramatic?” I sighed. He reminded me of my brother. Patrick also got this way at times and made every little thing in his life into a national emergency. Over the past few years, though, he had experienced some stuff that actually deserved a dramatic response. He had gotten a job across the country, moved, and failed at it; he had wrecked a relationship with his fiancée and ruined his chances for happiness with her; he fathered a baby with another woman; finally, he had come home to Michigan in disgrace to live in his childhood bedroom.

Now, those were things to get up in arms about. Taking out the garbage? Not as much. “It’s your turn,” I told Dion. “I did it last week.”

“I have more important things to do. And it’s sleeting and my shoes are a lot nicer than yours,” he pointed out.

The first part of that was probably not true, but the second and third parts were very accurate. The weather was truly disgusting and Dion did dress expensively, while I had replaced my stolen Schöne boots with a cheap pair that I’d borrowed from my sister Sophie. It didn’t mean that I wanted to go outside wearing them, though, because the trash was his responsibility. “Dion,” I stated, but while I was prepared to argue all day, he dealt with our issue in a different way. He ran out, splashing right through the slush that he had claimed would ruin his shoes, and jumped into the car that he’d conveniently and illegally left in the loading zone again. Then he was gone.

Fine, I would take out the trash, and I would take care of all the other closing procedures that he was also supposed to do tonight as per the schedule that I’d taped on the door of the employee break room. That was actually our boss Alecta’s office, but she was rarely here to use it. I’d pushed her rococo desk to the side and pulled in some chairs that I’d found upstairs in the old atelier area. They were postmodern chrome and leather and they were a little worn, but I loved them.

It was dark outside as I rolled the can to the curb and I tried to be as alert as I usually was, but I had something else on my mind. I still had a few more things to accomplish before I left for the night and one of those was an idea I’d come up with that was not on our closing checklist. Earlier, Dion had started complaining about how many spammy texts he got and how they interferedwith some dumb game he played, and it had sparked an idea for me.

When I was back at the lacquer table, I typed for a while before I felt satisfied with the result. “Good evening,” I read out loud from my phone. “Thank you for your interest in the Alecta Alberne Gallery. We are pleased to announce that we will represent a promising new Detroit artist in an upcoming show. Stay tuned for details.”

I’d made the message very vague on purpose, because it was all a lie. We had no plans for a show and we had no new artists, either. My boss Alecta was away on a trip and there was no room for anything else, anyway, since the gum sculptures weren’t selling at all.

“You were automatically added to our preferred customer list due to your previous interest in our gallery,” I typed, also a lie. We had no such list. “Reply with ‘yes’ to continue to receive our important messages and ‘no’ to be removed from any future communication.”

I read it silently this time and decided that it sounded really good. I’d gotten all kinds of texts like this myself, and Dion had just been whining about them. It was a great way to remind a person—our customers, I meant, of our existence. I sent it.

I held the phone in my hand as I started to complete the actual items on the closing checklist, and it wasn’t too long before I received a response: “No.” Just “no,” that was it, and I looked at the screen and sighed. It had been a stupid idea and I wasn’t sure why I’d thought of it, let alone gone ahead and done it. Icontinued to move the vacuum around the floor, kind of cursing myself, when another word arrived, too.

“Hi.”

I looked at it, wondering how I should respond. I decided that a professional veneer was best, so I typed, “You have reached a representative from the Alecta Alberne Gallery.” I nodded, pleased with how impersonal that sounded, and sent it. Then I waited.

“Brenna, I know it’s you,” Campbell Bates wrote. “These messages are coming from your number.”

What? I wasn’t texting him! I’d used a messaging app that was supposed to hide the sender, with the gallery logo as the profile picture. So why was my number visible? “With whom am I conversing?” I wrote, and this time? There was no answer at all. Holy Mary, this was ridiculous! I was so embarrassed that I wanted to throw my phone out into the street and run, but that wasn’t going to change the fact that he’d already seen and written back, “Brenna, I know it’s you.”

Ok, that was bad. Terrible. I looked for a moment at my screen and heat turned my face into a Brenna oven. The good news was that I’d never have to see him again, I told myself. At least I’d be spared the humiliation of that.

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