Page 19 of Filthy Beautiful
Maybe if he ever left the house.
Fully dressed and ready to start my workday—in cutoff sweats and an oversized T-shirt; no point dressing up for this, either—I opened my laptop. I had it sitting on my desk next to my backpack, which I figured I’d unpack in-between checking my emails and figuring out what the hell I was actuallydoingwith the rest of my summer.
I’d gone to my parents’ house for dinner last night out of sheer boredom—big mistake—and grabbed a few more of my things. Which basically meant enduring the bullshit-questions-that-deserved-bullshit-answers lightning round.
How’s your brother?
He’s fine. (I haven’t seen him.)
How’s the new job?
It’s good. (It’s not a real job.)
Is he happy with what you’re doing?
I think so. (I’m doing crap-all, but I’m sure he’s delighted about it, thanks for asking.)
At least I wastryingto do a job, even if I didn’t quite know what it was.
Yesterday, I’d emailed the staff at Little Black Hole to “introduce” myself. I’d met them before, but never really had much contact. My brother had emailed me the list of contact info I’d asked for, so there was that.
I knew the studio manager worked pretty closely with Cary, and the studio assistants sometimes ran deliveries between the studio and his home; mail, equipment, whatever. I wanted them to know who I was, where I was, and how to reach me.Please let me know if there’s anything at all I can do to help.
They’d already emailed me back, quickly and incredibly politely. My brother definitely kept top notch staff.
Something told me, though, that they were never going to ask me for anything.
Which meant I had no real job to do.
Last month, when I’d finished high school, I came to see my brother as soon as I got home from school. And when I talked to him and to Rose, I’d pieced together the fact that he’d barely set foot outside of his home studio in like five straight weeks or something. He was working on his latest album, producing for this up-and-coming band he was obsessed with.
Nothing new, exactly, but this time, I’d gotten really worried.
I was already worried about him enough. But now, lucky me, I had the guilt of knowing that I was leaving for college in the fall. I was moving across the country.
I was worried that when I wasn’t around, my brother might backslide into the Dark Place.
I’d been to the Dark Place myself for a little while. Or at least, I’d peeked in the door and had a little look around—before turning tail and running like hell in the other direction.
Not a good place to be.
I’d managed to calm my worries, somewhat, by coming up with what I hoped was a brilliant solution: to help my brother hire an assistant. I’d gone ahead and done that, thinking he’d now have someone involved in his daily life, who would help to keep himengagedin life—instead of just closing everything out to work obsessively.
And keeping tabs on him for me, of course. Making sure he was okay.
Someone who could let me know if he wasn’t doing well.
That was the idea.
Then last week, when I got the news about Joseph Fetterman… it was two days before the anniversary of Gabe’s death. Not great timing. I’d dropped by to check in on Cary. I didn’t actually see him, but I saw Rose. And after I’d pretty much begged her and threatened her with tears, she admitted to me that he’d fired the assistant, but didn’t tell me.
After that, there were real tears. I went home feeling physically sick about leaving for university at the end of summer.
I hardly ever saw my brother as it was, and yet I felt like I was one of his last true connections to the outside world.
How could I take that away from him?
And that was when I proposed the idea that he hireme.
