Fever

by Carnal, MJ

  “You take medication,” he says, sitting on the barstool in front of me.

  “I haven’t in a year and that was for my depression, not for my supposed addiction. What the hell, Hendrix?”

  He’s starting to irritate the shit out of me. I’m trying to keep my cool, but it’s hard when I’m being given the third degree this early in the morning on a day that I’m already nervous about as it is. A nagging feeling tells me this has something to do with his conversation with my mother, but if I ask him and he confirms that, I will go ape shit, so I would rather not know.

  “Sorry. Sorry. I just worry, and for some reason it’s easier to worry about you when you’re on the other side of the country. I can pretend that you’re just sitting at home working on microphone designs every night and not out with friends at bars and stuff,” he says with a long exhale, running his hand over his hair again.

  “It’s fine. It’s just … it’s really early for this. I’m already freaking out about work and doing a good job and hoping people like me—not that it matters because either way I’ll be stuck there and now everyone is gonna think I’m only there because I’m your sister and I get everything handed to me on a silver platter—and it sucks because this isn’t even anything I wanted to do. I’ve never done this openly and for real, and now that I am, I’m thinking I might suck at it or maybe I’ve lost my touch and can’t find anybody good. I’m going to end up letting everybody down and Daddy’s going to think I suck and tell Mom and she’s gonna rub it in my face.”

  My words are pouring out of me quickly and my heart is hammering just as fast. In this moment I feel absolutely lost and afraid, and not for the first time I wonder what the hell I let my father talk me into. Hendrix’s face falls and he shakes his head slowly, standing up and walking around the table to hug me to his side.

  “You’re going to be fine, Bee. You’re going to be more than fine. And let people think whatever they want to think. Everyone thinks I’m the CCO because I’m Dad’s kid, and though that may be true, I also worked my ass off in school and have been working my ass off for years to get to where I am. So fuck ‘em, let ‘em say whatever they wanna say.”

  I nod and take a deep breath. “Thanks.”

  Nina joins us, wearing one of the Tshirts I bought yesterday. Her dark hair is pulled into a high ponytail and she’s barefoot, lazily swinging the black stilettos she wore last night in her left hand.

  “What’s up, bitches?” she greets. “You got coffee? Or are hens not domesticated?”

  Hendrix grumbles something that sounds like “fucking moron” under his breath as he reaches in the cabinet to get her a mug.

  “Sweeeet,” Nina says, placing her mug on the table and serving herself coffee. “I like this mug, you asshole.”

  I laugh, covering my mouth with both hands to keep the cereal from sputtering out of my mouth when I read the mug he handed her: I am surrounded by fucking idiots.

  “You can thank Bee, she gave it to me for Christmas,” Hendrix says.

  Nina rolls her big brown eyes at us. “Why do I hang out with you? You guys are so fucking weird.”

  “Because you have no friends,” Hendrix comments.

  “Because you love us,” I say at the same time.

  Hendrix makes a face. “That’s not corny,” he says, looking at me.

  I shrug and continue eating while they talk about Nina’s plays and the lack of clothing in the one she invited him to watch. I tune them out as I begin to worry about the day and how it’ll be to work with my brother every day. I make mental notes of things I have to do as soon as I get a break. Call Allie and ask her about the two pending microphones. Figure out what wholesaler we can get the earphones from. Find out who can put us in contact with a supplier for recording studios to see if bedazzled earphones are even a good option for us. I know I need to simmer down so I don’t stress myself out more than I am, but it’s so hard when I know I have things to do.

  “You’ll have to go to my next one, Hen,” Nina says. “It’s not nude. It’s actually a rockstar themed musical. You’d love it.”

  “Cool. I’ll go to that. Has Uncle Rob gone at all lately?” I ask, chiming into their conversation.

  “Sometimes. He’s been busy helping Victor set up his new store, so he hasn’t been by in a couple of months,” Nina explains as she slips her shoes on. “All right guys, have a good day at work. Bee, call me later and tell me how it went.”

  Hendrix and I get our stuff and leave shortly after Nina does, and he explains to me that he always tries to leave at the same time because even though the building is only ten blocks away, it’s taken him over an hour to get there sometimes. I’ve been to New York countless times, but I’ve never had to worry about how long it takes to get somewhere in the mornings, so this bit of information is shocking. My eyes are glued to the sidewalk where hundreds of people are walking and talking on their phones and texting. It amazes me that only a handful of them actually speak to each other and not the device in their hand. Not that I’m one to talk because I’m always on my phone, but it kind of makes me wonder how many landmarks and things are unappreciated by the people who walk past them daily.

  My phone vibrates in my lap, which makes me laugh quietly, and I see an email from Allie with images of the microphones she’s assembled. I practically squeal at the sight of them. Every time I see my little logo on a new one, the happiness in my heart blooms a little more. It’s a little bee with a crown on it, simple but elegant, and more importantly it’s very personal to me. It’s the little image that my best friend Ryan used to draw for me whenever we exchanged notes in the hallways in school. All of the little notes had that little bee on them. It’s the same little bee I have tattooed on my back in honor of him. Having it displayed on our line of microphones doesn’t take the pain of him being gone away, but it definitely makes me feel like I’m keeping his memory alive.

  I reply back to Allie and hit send right as we’re pulling up to the Harmon Records building. Waiting for Marcus to open the door for me, I check my face in my compact mirror one last time, making sure that I don’t embarrass myself by having food between my teeth or something. I snap it shut just as my door is being opened and slide out, Hendrix following closely behind.

  “Welcome to your new home away from home,” Hendrix says, draping his arm over my shoulder.

  “Yep. God, I should’ve taken a shot of something before coming here,” I say, shaking my head when I feel Hendrix stiffen beside me.

  “Geez, Hen, it was a joke and please don’t make me repeat my whole spiel again,” I counter.

  “All right, I’ll drop it,” he mutters ushering me toward the elevators. “I’ll give you the tour now since we’re on our way up anyway. Not much has changed since you last came, but we’ve added a couple of wings that I know you haven’t seen since, well, when you come you usually go straight to my office and right back out.”

  We move toward the back, making space for the people stepping into the elevator and ride up to the forty-third floor in silence, only listening to the chatter around us. A couple of men and women say hi to Hendrix as they spot him, but other than that, we remain uninterrupted. Most people get off as we ascend, leaving only a handful of Harmon employees to continue the ride with us. When the elevator is more comfortable, we move away from each other, and Hendrix starts talking to one of the guys standing beside us. The guy is in his early twenties, I think, and keeps eyeing me as he talks to my brother. I offer him a small smile as I stand there awkwardly, waiting for my brother to either stop talking or introduce us. Thankfully, we make it to the forty-second floor and Hendrix tells “Bradley” that he’ll “catch him later” as he pulls me out of the elevator, which catches me off guard since this isn’t our stop.

  “All right, you remember how Dad was thinking about building a gym so that the employees could just use the facilities here?” Hendrix asks as we walk to the right.

  I nod, remembering how my father was on a health trip
a couple of years ago after he had a heart scare. I know in most families the mother is what keeps the household together, she’s usually the driving force behind things and holds down the front while the father busies himself with work and other things, but in our family our strength is my father. In my eyes he is anyway, and I realized it the day Hendrix called to tell me that Dad had been taken to the hospital because of shortness of breath and chest pains. It happened in Los Angeles so I got in my car after I got out of a Micromanagement class I was taking and drove straight over there.

  On my way to see him so many things flashed through my head. Would I be okay if he died? Did I feel like I told him everything I needed to? Would I feel the way I felt when I lost my best friend Ryan? I knew the answer to that question was hell no because I didn’t see my father enough for his death to affect me in that magnitude. As sad as it sounds, and even I realize it’s a terrible thing to say, but the loss of my best friend was definitely more hurtful to me than the loss of either one of my parents would be. I’m certain about one thing—if my father died, I would have absolutely no relationship with my mother.

  “Yeah, I know he built a nice gym in here. I saw the plans,” I respond just as Hendrix stops in front of a glass door, pulling it open and letting me step in first. Even though I had seen the architectural plans for the gym, seeing it in person is much more magnificent than I could have imagined. All of the walls are glass so you can see the machines and the people working out regardless of where in the gym they are. When I walk to the back, where the treadmills are, my breath leaves my body for a moment. The view of Manhattan is breathtaking from here.

  “Wow. I would totally work out here.” I breathe as my eyes scan over the Empire State Building and Central Park.

  Hendrix chuckles. “That’s the idea. This way, employees can get here early, or come during break, or even after work. Between you and me, I think Dad built this to make the studios more enticing to work in, not that anybody is going to want to work out while they’re recording, but whatever.”

  “Hen,” I say, putting a hand up. “You’re killing my vibe. Let me enjoy the view for five more minutes without all the blabbing.”

  “You’re such a brat,” he says with a laugh. “What do you think your view is going to be like from your office?”

  My eyes widen at that and I turn my head to look at him, trying to gage whether or not he’s serious. He only nods, which makes me giddy but I contain it, only offering him a smile.

  We walk around and then move up to the floor above, which holds twenty recording studios. It’s big enough to have double that, but that’s what makes Studios Forty-Four exclusive. Well, that and the fact that it’s in the Harmon Records building. Artists from all labels love to record their projects here in hopes of running into others and possibly collaborating with them.

  We see a couple of familiar faces and wave as we walk the halls before taking the elevator up one more time. When the doors open again, we reach the floor of Hendrix’s office and my new place of employment. A sense of pride washes over me when I see the big silver letters on the wall behind the receptionist that read: Harmon Records. My dad may be a jerk, but he’s built an empire that nobody can touch or tarnish. And for that, I respect him. I smile at the girl behind the desk. Her jet-black hair is teased up into an Afro that is shaped like a snow cone. Her eyes are big and brown and the eyeliner around them enhances their almond shape. When she stands and sorts through the papers on her desk, I notice that she’s wearing an outfit similar to mine, except her top is teal and enhances the color of her dark skin.

  She smiles a welcoming smile as she extends a folder to Hendrix.

  “Mornin’, Hendrix,” she says. Her voice is husky and smooth. She sounds a lot like Beyonce when she speaks. “Here are the files you asked Bradley to get for you.”

  “Thank you, Kina.” Hendrix smiles at her and takes the files from her hand. “You’re looking extra pretty today. Special occasion?”

  “Husband’s birthday,” she explains with a shy smile. “Going to lunch with him on break.”

  “That’s nice. Be sure to wish him a happy birthday from me,” Hendrix says as he turns to me. “This is my sister, Brooklyn. She’ll be working here for a while. I already showed her most of the place, but I want to show her this floor so she can get acquainted. Is Stacey in yet?”

  Kina looks at me and smiles warmly as she replies to Hendrix. “She should be in her office. Pleased to meet you, Brooklyn.”

  “Likewise,” I say, offering her my hand. “Have a good lunch,” I call over my shoulder as Hendrix and I walk away.

  For some reason my brother’s interaction with the receptionist makes me happy. One thing our father taught us was to always be kind to others and treat them, whoever they are, with the same respect you would want to be treated.

  “You never know when your ladder is going to wobble or break,” he would say. “So no matter how high up you are, you need to be mindful of the ones holding the legs on the ground. They have the power to pull you down or help you if you fall. And more importantly, you never know when you’ll be the one at the bottom of that ladder, because that happens—tables can turn quickly in life.”

  Hendrix walks me down a long corridor that I know well. At the end of the hall is my father’s massive office. To the right of my dad’s office is Hendrix’s, but instead of turning that way he walks the other way and goes into Stacey’s office. Stacey’s blue eyes immediately pop up and she smiles. Her smile brightens when she sees that I’m standing beside my brother.

  “Brooklyn! So good to see you. Hendrix told me you would be here for a while,” she says, walking over to me and throwing her arms around me.

  Stacey is one of the few people that can get away with hugging the crap out of anybody. She just has that friendly, but not so overly friendly that she’s creepy vibe to her that makes people instantly comfortable with her. She’s short and a little on the heavier size for her height, but she’s gorgeous. She’s in her mid-thirties and has been a friend of the family since we were kids. Now she has her own kids, one of which Hendrix and Sarah are godparents of. Stacey is also one of the only people that can put up with our attitudes. My father’s, Hendrix’s, my mother’s and mine—because we all have terrible attitudes sometimes. Save for my mother, she always has a bad attitude. Stacey has a gift in how she deals with us, though.

  “So good to see you too! How’s Zach? How are the babies?” I ask.

  “Zach is good, the babies are great! You have to go by and see them sometime now that you’re here for good.”

  “I will!”

  “Stace, I need you to send Kina’s husband a gift. I just don’t know what … fuck … maybe tickets to the Jets game this Sunday?” Hendrix says distractedly as he sorts through the file in his hand.

  “Sure. The opener?” Stacey asks as she rounds her desk and takes a seat again.

  “Yeah, I guess. Good seats, though. I don’t want him sitting nosebleed,” Hendrix specifies.

  Stacey rolls her eyes. “Obviously.”

  “Good. See you later. Hold my calls for the next half hour, I gotta show Brooklyn some stuff.”

  We walk to the office beside his and he opens the door. He doesn’t need to switch the light on because the sun that bathes the room is perfect. I hear myself gasp as I take it all in. It’s not the size of the office that I’m amazed by because it’s much smaller than my father’s and Hendrix’s. It’s not even the view, which is absolutely stunning, just as he promised. The office must be directly below the wing of the gym that I was looking at earlier because I get the same view of Central Park and the Empire State. The floors are dark wood and the desk is a modern white with a matching chair. It looks totally girly but chic, and I wonder whose idea it was to throw this together for me. There’s a chandelier suspended from the ceiling that reminds me a lot of one I had in my childhood room. To the right there’s a big wooden shelf, and that’s what really takes my breath away. The shelf must
hold hundreds, if not thousands of vinyl records, which is what gives the room a mix of wood and a scent that I can instantly correlate to my father and the times he’d lay my head on his chest while he listened to his old Marvin Gaye albums.

  In this moment I realize how much small things matter because no matter how many hurtful things that man has said to me in the past, something that he may not have thought was such a big deal like this, makes me feel like I’m home. And for once home doesn’t feel like such a bad place, after all.

  ***

  “So you mean to tell me that you have no going out clothes?” Nina shouts, so loudly that I have to hold the phone away from my ear.

  “Geez, will you simmer the fuck down?” I groan.

  “You simmer the fuck down! No! You pipe the fuck up, actually! It’s seven o’clock right now. You still have time to go to the store and buy a little black dress. DO. IT. BROOKLYN.”

  I let out another frustrated groan, throwing my head back. I placate her by telling her that I’ll go as soon as I shower and hang up the phone. Nina’s been talking about going to a club all week. She insists that it has to be today since she rarely gets weekends off and her “kind of nude, but not really” play just wrapped up. She’s using the end of my first week of work as her excuse to get me to go with her, which is fine, but I really wish she would be okay with getting a drink at a low key bar instead. As it is, I have to go check out a local band at a hole in the wall bar tomorrow because they impressed me on a video I caught of them on YouTube the other day.

  In reality all I want to do is have some wine, kick my feet up, and watch old Curb Your Enthusiasm episodes. I relax into the dark leather recliner and pop up the foot stand, covering myself with the Lakers fleece throw that Hendrix adorns his couch with as I snuggle into the headrest. As soon as I close my eyes, my phone rings again and I want to die. I begrudgingly open my eyes and stretch my arm to look at it. When I see that it’s Allie, I swipe my finger over the screen with a smile.