CHAPTER 4: NEW YORK

Alone in New York, Adrian followed her morning routine. She got up

with her alarm, did her morning yoga. She showered, dealt with her hair—

always a chore—applied minimal makeup—she’d always had a love affair

with makeup.

She dressed in the detested school uniform—navy pants, white shirt,

navy blazer. Every day she donned the uniform she vowed never to

voluntarily wear a navy blazer after graduation.

She put together a breakfast of mixed fruit with Greek yogurt, a slice of

ten-grain toast, and juice.

Because Mimi had ingrained the habit in her, she did her dishes, made

her bed.

A quick check of the weather on her phone promised mostly sunny and

continued warm, so she didn’t bother with a jacket.

She shrugged on her backpack and took the penthouse’s private elevator

down.

She couldn’t complain about the five-block walk to school, especially

with the weather so fine. She used the time to go over her plan—her

deviation from routine.

And the single rule laid down she fully intended to break.

When her phone rang, she checked the display. “Hi, Mimi.”

“Just doing my duty.”

“You can tell Mom when she asks that I was on my way to school when

you checked. Of course, instead of going there, I’m going to grab a train to

the Jersey Shore and soak up some rays, use my fake ID to buy a bunch of

beer, and have lots of sex with strangers in a cheap motel.”

“Good plan, but I think I’ll leave that part out of my report. I know

you’re fine, honey, but checking in is the right and loving thing to do.”

“I get it.”

“Do you want to come here for the weekend?”

“Thanks, but I’m good. If that changes, you’ll find me on your doorstep.”

“If you need anything, you call me.”

“I will. Talk soon.”

With that done, she put her phone away.

She had a backup plan if her first didn’t work. But she’d done her

research, and thought Plan A had real potential.

She clipped her ID on the blazer as she walked up the short stone steps to

the dignified brownstone that served as a school for grades nine through

twelve—if you were rich enough and smart enough.

She went inside, through the small security vestibule.

The quiet, the gleaming wood floor, the pristine walls contrasted with the

noise and movement and slight dinge of her old school.

She missed it, all of it.

Two years, she reminded herself as she turned away from the wide

entrance to the hall on the left. Two years and she could make her own

choices.

She intended to preview that by making one today.

By junior year, most of the students had formed their own tribes. Making

room for the new girl took time, and she hadn’t had a full three weeks.

She knew those established tribes studied her, sized her up, considered.

Though she’d never been shy, Adrian took her time as well.

The jocks could make sense for the next couple of years. Sports might

not be so much her thing, but athleticism was. The fashionable girls could

be fun, as she did love clothes. (Another reason to hate the uniform.)

The party animals didn’t interest her any more than the scarily serious

eggheads.

As always, the group as a whole had scatters of the snobs, the bullies—

often intertwined.

The nerds were, always, anywhere, deadly to social strata.

But for her project, that’s exactly where she aimed.

She made the choice during lunch period that would almost certainly

doom her chances of joining the social hierarchy.

In the dining hall, Adrian carried her tray—field green salad with grilled

chicken, seasonal fruit, sparkling water—past the table of jocks, away from

the fashionable girls, and to the lowest of the rung, the nerd table.

She caught the lag in some of the conversational buzz, and a few

snickers, as she paused by the lowly table and its three occupants.

Since she’d done her due diligence—reading back issues of the school

newspaper, combing last year’s yearbook—she targeted Hector Sung.

Asian, coat-hanger thin, square-framed black glasses with dark brown

eyes behind them. Those eyes blinked at her now as he stopped in the act of

biting into a slice of veggie pizza.

“Is it okay if I sit here?”

He said, “Um.”

She just smiled and sat across from him. “I’m Adrian Rizzo.”

“Okay. Hi.”

The girl beside him, with skin like caramel cream and a gorgeous head of

braids, rolled big, round, black eyes. “He’s Hector Sung, and he’s thinking

nobody sits here but us. I’m Teesha Kirk.”

She jerked a thumb with a thick silver ring to the boy sitting warily and

red-faced beside Adrian. “The ginger is Loren Moorhead—the third.

You’ve got about five-point-three seconds to move before you’re infected

by nerd germs and permanently ostracized from society.”

Adrian had done her due diligence on Teesha as well, who’d have ranked

with the scarily smart eggheads but for her nerd bones. She preferred

Dungeons & Dragons tournaments or Doctor Who marathons to meetings

of the National Honor Society or National Merit Scholars.

“Oh well.” Adrian shrugged, added a squirt of lemon to her salad, took a

delicate bite. “Guess time’s up. So, nice to meet you, Hector, Teesha, Loren.

Anyway, Hector, I’ve got a proposition for you.”

He dropped the pizza onto his plate with a little splat. “A what?”

“Business proposition. I need a videographer, and since that’s your

interest, I thought you could help me out with a project.”

His gaze darted between his two friends. “For school?”

“No. I want to do a series of seven fifteen-minute videos. One for each

day of the week. I’d want voice-overs for some of them, real-time audio for

others. I thought about setting up like a tripod and camera, just doing it

myself. But that’s not the look I want.”

His gaze finally came back to hers, and she read interest in it. “What kind

of videos?”

“Fitness. Yoga, cardio, strength training, and so on. To put on YouTube.”

“Maybe you’re messing with us.”

She shifted to Loren. His hair, painfully red and cut close to his head,

framed a milk-white, freckled face. He had soft blue eyes and a good fifteen

pounds of extra pudge.

She thought she could help him with that if he wanted.

“Why would I? I need somebody to video my segments, and I’ll pay fifty

dollars for each one. That’s three-fifty for seven. I guess that’s negotiable,

within reason.”

“I could think about it. When did you want to start?”

“Saturday morning—sunrise. I want to do segments at sunrise, and at

sunset. I have a big terrace, and it would work for this.”

“I’d probably need assistants.”

Adrian ate more salad, considered. “Seventy-five per segment. Split it

however you want.”

“What time’s sunrise?” Loren wondered.

Before Adrian could speak—because she’d looked it up—Teesha said,

“Sunrise on Saturday, six-twenty-seven a.m. Sunset, seven-twenty p.m.

EDT.”

“Don’t ask,” Loren suggested. “She just knows stuff like that.”

“Great. You’d need to get there in time to set up and whatever you need

to do. I’ve got my address, and what I’ve outlined, the basic scripts.”

Adrian took a thumb drive out of her pocket, set it beside Hector’s tray.

“Look it over, think it over, let me know.”

“Your mom’s the Yoga Baby lady, right?”

Adrian nodded at Teesha. “That’s right.”

“How come you don’t have her people do it? She’s got her own

production company.”

“Because this is for me. It’s mine. So, if you decide to take the job, I’ll

have you cleared to come up. It’ll probably take the whole weekend. Maybe

longer. I don’t know how much postproduction time you’d need to get it

done, get it up.”

“I’ll take a look, let you know maybe tomorrow.” Hector offered her a

little smile. “You know, you really are screwed around here now. I hope it’s

worth it for you.”

“Me, too.”

She got through the rest of the day by ignoring the smirks, the snide

comments, and the snickers.

When she stepped back out into the air, Hector and his little tribe came

after her.

“So hey, listen. I had a chance to look at some of your outline. Seems

doable.”

“Great.”

“I’d want to see the space, though, before committing. Make sure it’ll

work for what you’re after.”

“I can show you now if you’ve got time. I’m only a few blocks from

here.”

“Now’s good.”

“We’re all going,” Teesha told her.

“Fine.”

“So …” As he trooped along beside her, Hector shoved up his glasses. “I

took a look at a couple of your mother’s videos during my free period. Her

production values are total, right? I’ve got some good equipment, but I’m

not going to be able to match what she’s got going in the studio.”

“I don’t want what she’s got. I want mine.”

“I looked up stuff about her, and you.”

Adrian glanced back over her shoulder at Loren.

Debate team nerd, she remembered. Always picked last for any team in

PE—and first to volunteer for hall monitor.

“And?”

“People are always running scams and stuff, so I wanted to take a look.

Your mom seriously killed your dad.”

It wasn’t the first time someone had prodded her on it, but Adrian had to

admit, Loren hit the most direct.

“He wasn’t my dad, he was my biological father. And he was trying to

kill me at the time.”

“How come?”

“Because he was drunk and mean and maybe crazy. I don’t know. It was

the first and the last I’d seen of him. And since it was almost ten years ago,

it’s not relevant to any of this.”

“Jesus, Loren, let it go.” Teesha gave him a solid poke with her elbow.

“Didn’t your uncle do time for insider trading?”

“Well yeah, but that’s a white-collar crime, not—”

“Said by the whitest white boy in white boy history,” Teesha tossed back.

“Loren’s family’s the WASPiest of the WASPs. Three generations of highclass, high-priced lawyers.”

“So he likes to argue,” Adrian said.

“You got that. You say up, Loren’s going to say down and go off about it

for an hour.”

“Up depends on where you’re standing.”

Teesha poked him again. “Don’t get him started.”

“Well, we’re standing down here, so we’re going in, then up. Hi,

George.”

The doorman gave Adrian a big smile as he opened the door. “How was

school today?”

“Same as always. This is Hector. And Teesha and Loren. They’ll be

visiting now and again.”

“All right. You all have a real nice day.”

As they crossed the fragrant lobby with its small, exclusive shops, Adrian

took out her key swipe. She passed the banks of elevators to one marked

PRIVATE. PENTHOUSE A.

“If you decide to come Saturday, I’ll give your names to security and the

desk. The desk will call up, and I can release the elevator to bring you up.”

“How high up are you?” Loren asked as they got on.

“Forty-eighth floor. That’s the rooftop level.”

“Uh-oh,” Teesha murmured as Loren blanched. “He’s got a thing about

heights.”

Since that hadn’t come out in her research on him, she turned to him now

with genuine sympathy.

“Sorry. You don’t have to come out to the terrace.”

“It’s no big.” He stuck his hands in his pockets. “No big. I’m cool on it.

I’m cool.”

The opposite thereof, Adrian thought, as he already had a little bead of

sweat sliding down his right temple.

But she let it go. Nobody liked being embarrassed.

“Well, anyway, you’d take the other elevator on Saturday, and that would

bring you to the main level, front door. You need a swipe for this way, then

the alarm code.”

Teesha wiggled her eyebrows. “Swank.”

And Adrian shrugged. “My mother likes swank.”

The elevator opened into Lina’s home gym. A rack of free weights ran

along a mirrored wall, and racks and shelves—stability balls, yoga mats and

blocks, exercise bands, jump ropes, medicine balls, and kettlebells—

flanked it.

A huge flat screen dominated the wall over a long, narrow gas fireplace.

In the small, open kitchen area, energy drinks filled a wine fridge. A glassfront cabinet held Yoga Baby water bottles.

A wall of glass doors opened to the expansive terrace, and the city

beyond.

“No machines?” Teesha wandered the space.

“Your body’s the machine, in my mother’s world.”

“Well, organic complexities are different from mechanical complexities.”

“The Terminator had both organic and mechanical complexities,” Loren

pointed out.

“We’re years from Skynet,” Teesha pointed out. “Anyway, I get she

means you use your body, your body weight, keep it in tune and all that.”

Adrian waited a beat. “Right. There’s a bathroom around the left of the

kitchen if anybody needs it.” Adrian unlocked and pulled open the glass

doors. “I want to do the videos out here.”

“Awesome.” Hector stepped out. “Awesome. We’ll want to move the

furniture, have a clear space.” He glanced over to the hot tub humming

under its cover on a platform. “And turn that off. You get some city noises,

even way up here, but that’ll just add to it. Shoot this way, you get the river

in the background.”

“And the sunrise,” Adrian added. “For the sunset shoots, we go the other

way. You could see the Chrysler Building, the Empire State. I’m not sure

what’s best for late morning or afternoon. I just want different angles.”

“Yeah, yeah. I can maybe hit my dad up for some equipment, bounce the

light. Maybe he’d let me use his good camera.”

“Hector’s dad’s a cinematographer.” Loren spoke from just inside the

doorway, where he’d stopped. And stayed. “He’s on Blue Line—the cop

show. So, is there like anything to drink besides that health stuff? Like, you

know, sodas?”

“Banned in this house—but I’ll get some for Saturday. There’s juice

down in the main kitchen.”

“I’ll live without it.”

“Okay, so …” Hector did another walk around, studying angles. “Can we

do like a rehearsal, one segment, get a solid feel?”

“Oh, sure. I need to change. I can’t work out in this.”

“How about you do that?” Teesha said. “Me and Hector can move some

of the furniture. Loren can go out and maybe buy some Cokes.”

“There’s a shop right off the lobby downstairs if you want.” Adrian

walked back, dug into her backpack, and took out ten dollars. “On me.”

“Cool.”

By the time Adrian had changed into yoga pants and a tank, Hector and

Teesha had muscled two tables, two sofas, and a chair to the far side of the

terrace.

She brought out a yoga mat, angled it so she faced southeast.

“I tested this out the other day, and you should be able to get me, the

river, the sunrise.”

“I’m gonna video with my camera, just to test it. I mean, the light’ll be

different and all that jazz, but we can check the timing, the angles, and I can

plan better.”

“Great.” She glanced back as the elevator opened. Loren put her swipe

on top of her backpack, then set the bag on the counter in the kitchen.

“Got Cokes, got some chips and stuff.”

Adrian thought of her mother, and had to laugh. “That would be the first

time either of those came into this place since we moved in.”

“Man, what do you eat?”

“You mean for snacks?” Adrian smiled at Loren as he passed out Cokes.

“Fruit, raw veggies, hummus, almonds, baked sweet potato fries are

sometimes acceptable. It’s not so bad. I’m used to it.”

“Your mom’s way strict.”

“Fitness and nutrition? That’s her religion. She practices what she

preaches, so it’s hard to bitch too much. Anyway.” She stepped to the front

of her mat. “I want to do this, like I said, without the vocals, then voiceover after.”

“Fifteen, right?” Teesha pulled out her phone. “I’ll time it.”

She’d practiced the routine countless times, tweaked it until she felt it

met her goals. A gentle and, well, pretty morning salute to the sun.

She let her mind go.

Since she was used to camera and crew when she did videos with her

mother, Hector and the others didn’t distract her. When she ended with

Savasana, she added the vocals.

“I’m going to talk this part out now, so you don’t think I’ve just fallen

asleep. The voice-over’s going to instruct how to breathe, how to empty the

mind, allow the body to fully let go. Relaxing from the toes, to the ankles,

the shins, and up the body, how to visualize soft colors or light on inhales,

expel dark and stress on the exhales.”

“You’ve got like ninety seconds left,” Teesha told her.

“That’s right. I’ll say to stay in Savasana as long as they like, then …”

She stretched out, arms overhead, before turning on her side, knees

drawn up. Smoothly, she rolled into a cross-legged position on the center of

the mat.

“Meditation position,” she said, putting her right palm over her left,

thumbs touching. “Breathing in and out, blah blah.” She crossed her arms

over her midsection, bowed forward. “Thanking yourself for showing up,

holding the practice in, then …”

She sat up again, put her palms together, bowed her head. “Namaste.

That’s it.”

“Fifteen minutes, four seconds.” Lips pursed, Teesha nodded. “That’s

really good.”

“You’re really bendy.” Loren had edged out onto the terrace to sit on one

of the sofas and munch chips. “I can’t even touch my toes.”

“Flexibility’s important. The thing is, a flexible person has to go farther

than an inflexible one to get any benefit.” She could help him, she thought

again. “Stand up, try to touch your toes.”

“It’s embarrassing.”

“It’s only embarrassing when you don’t try.”

He gave her a doubtful look but bent over from the waist, arms down.

His fingertips didn’t come within six inches of his toes.

“You’re feeling the stretch.”

“Shit, yeah!”

She mimicked his pose. “I get nothing, nothing until I go all the way

down.” She stretched down, palms on the floor, nose to her knees. “We’re

getting the same benefit. Stand up, now inhale. No, when you inhale, you’re

inflating the balloon. Fill your lungs, extend the belly.”

“Mine’s extended twenty-four-seven.” He laughed with it; so did the

others. Adrian only smiled. “Just try it. Inhale, fill the balloon. Now you’re

going to deflate it, drawing the belly to the spine as you bend over to touch

your toes.”

When he tried it, she nodded. “And that’s already a full inch closer.

Breathing. It’s all about the breath.”

She glanced over, saw Hector leaning against the wall, studying his

camera display.

“How does it look?”

“It’s okay. I can study it and work out the angles. I can talk my dad into

letting me use some stuff. You’re going to need to be mic’d for the other

stuff, and you need like an introduction or opening bit, right?”

“Yeah, I’ve been working on it. Oh, thanks.” She took the Coke Teesha

handed her, drank without thinking. Then stopped, closed her eyes. “Okay,

that’s so freaking good.”

“I’ve got about twenty before I have to get home.” Hector switched off

the video. “Maybe we could go over the opening, and the transitions

between each segment.”

“We could storm the brain tomorrow.” Loren tried another toe touch. “At

lunch period if you want to risk sitting with us two days in a row.”

“I’ll risk it.”

By the time they left, and Adrian disposed of empty Coke bottles and

chip bags, she realized she hadn’t just found the production team for her pet

project.

She’d found her tribe.

They brainstormed at lunch, rehearsed, and worked on details after

school.

On Friday evening, she ordered pizza, stocked drinks. She helped her

crew set up the equipment Hector scored. The light stand and barn doors

and gels for evening shoots, the bounce, the umbrella for afternoons, the

mic, the cables.

They managed to set up a makeshift studio with what Hector had begged

or borrowed.

They ate pizza in the main level dining room with Loren’s playlist of

’80s hits rocking out.

With Wham! demanding to be waked up, Adrian finally had to ask.

“Why the eighties?”

“Why not?”

“Because none of us were born?”

He pointed a finger. “That’s a why, not a why not. It’s history, dude.

Music history. I’m thinking of doing one of the nineties next. You know, to

analyze the societal fabric—where music plays into it—during our birth

decade.”

“That is totally nerd.”

“Accepted.” He bit into another slice. “I dig on music, man.”

“The Music Man,” Teesha said between bites. “Robert Preston, Shirley

Jones—the movie version, 1962. Preston also played the lead in the 1957

Broadway production, with Barbara Cook as Marian.”

“How do you know that?” Adrian stared in wonder. “And why?”

“She reads it, she remembers it,” Hector supplied.

“Hey, I should do a playlist of Broadway musical scores. Now that is

total nerd.”

“You get right on that, son.” Hector glanced around. “This is an awesome

space.”

“Says the kid who lives in a mansion every other week and a penthouse

not unlike this one the next.” Teesha gulped some Coke.

Hector just shrugged. “Parents split, so I bounce between. Step-parents

are okay, so far. And I got a little bro from the dad, little sis from the mom.

They’re cool.”

“I used to want siblings. I had to get over it because that’s never

happening. What about you?” Adrian asked Teesha.

“Two older brothers, and parents stuck together like glue. The brothers

are mostly okay, except when they’re pains in my ass.”

“Sister.” Loren peeled a pepperoni off the pizza, popped it into his

mouth. “She’s ten. Parents separated for a few months back when, worked it

out, got back together, and out popped Princess Rosalind. Kind of a brat.”

“Kind of?” Teesha said with a laugh.

“Okay, a complete brat, but she’s way spoiled, so it’s not her fault so

much. You got the only child deal,” he said to Adrian. “All the attention.”

“My mother’s career gets that, and I get what’s left. That’s okay,” she

said quickly. “It means she’s not on my back most of the time. And I’m

going to have my own career. You guys are helping me start that.”

“And when you’re a YouTube star …” Teesha heaved a big, exaggerated

sigh. “We’ll still be the three nerds while you sit at the cool kids’ table.”

“Not a chance. And since it’s the nerd table for me for the duration, I

should be an honorary nerd.”

“No honorary about it. You are a nerd,” Hector told her. “You drink

carrot juice and eat granola on purpose. Your mom’s gone for a couple

weeks, but you’re working instead of running on the wild side. You’re the

fitness nerd.”

She’d never considered herself a nerd, by any standards, but when she’d

finished her bedtime yoga practice and slipped under the covers by ten, she

realized the term applied.

And she really didn’t mind.