Page 24 of Anyone But the Superstar

I should be happy in my twelfth-floor condo after a night of restful sleep on a bed that inclines, declines and adjusts firmness based on a person’s weight while drinking fresh coffee and eating an apple rather than a dense catering muffin. Instead…

‘Something’s definitely going to happen,’ I mutter, placing my phone back on the counter and watching sailboats and seagulls drift across the lake through the large living room window.

Even though I’ve been called a hippie quite a few times in my life, mostly by my asshole non-father, I’ve never believed in manifesting things with my thoughts until, not ten minutes after I voiced my certainty that things were going to take a turn for the worse, the doorbell rings.

‘Fuck a duck.’

Sighing, I stare at the door, hoping that somehow my grocery delivery came early, while mentally preparing myself for an eviction notice or a pink slip – either or both delivered by some Hollywood gofer sent by Johnny Douchebag Felix Jones.

And yet, at no time before or after my Birkenstocks hit the wood floor and shuffled over to the door, did I manifest a man dressed like a city slicker off to the Hamptons – leather boat shoes, seersucker shorts and a white linen dress shirt – with a cat strapped to his chest.

‘Chase?’ I blink at my brother, confused by his presence and the beige lump under his chin. ‘Mikey?’

‘Hello, Lizzie.’ His frosty tone makes me pause.

Pushing his Wayfarers up over his forehead, Chase struts into the condo looking like he’s about to catch a ride on one of the sailboats outside my window.

‘It’s nice to know you’re alive.’ He holds Mikey to his chest with one hand while unhooking the baby carrier from around his waist, sliding it off him and the cat. It’s a complicated maneuver that he makes look effortless thanks to how often he’s done it.

‘Uh, yeah.’ Closing the door, I step toward him, wary of my brother’s stiff demeanor. Chase has always been the fun brother. The one up for a joke or a laugh. The one always on my side, even if I’m on the other side of right.

It’s usually Thomas I have to look out for.

I shift closer. ‘Was there any doubt?’

Dropping the baby carrier on the floor, Chase slips something out of his back pocket before settling into the oversized reading chair in the condo’s open-plan living room.

Chase crosses one leg, resting his ankle on the opposite knee, Mike, in all his hairless cat glory, perched on his lap.

I should’ve worn my flip-sequined t-shirt to match.

‘You tell me?’ He raises the hand holding the paper.

Slowly, I make my way over to the chair and take the folded document. The wordsurgent carecatching my eye when I open it.

Fuck a fucking duck.

‘Imagine my surprise whenthat—’ Chase points to the insurance bill in my hand ‘—came in the mail.’

‘What are you doing going through mom’s mail?’ Living in student housing before heading to Texas, any mail I get, from insurance or otherwise, gets sent to the Moore family residencein Manhattan – the 15,000 square foot mansion near Central Park I grew up in.

‘Really.’ Chase angles his chin down, his eyes boring into me. ‘That’swhat you want to go with?’

Sighing, I give in. Sort of. ‘I ah, ate something that didn’t agree with me.’ Not technically a lie. ‘I’m fine, really.’

He runs a hand down Mike’s back, the saggy skin sliding over the feline’s bones. ‘A call would’ve been nice.’

I read over the medical insurance charge notice, thankful that it doesn’t say what I was actually treated for. ‘How did you know where I was?’ While the urgent care’s address is listed, it doesn’t explain how he found mehere.

‘I could’ve called you, I guess,’ Chase goes on, ignoring my questions. ‘But would you have answered?’

I decide to circle back to my questions later, as it’s becoming more and more apparent that not only was Chase seriously worried, but now, after seeing me hale and hearty with his own eyes, I’m very much on my brother’s shit list.

Which I’ve never been on before.

In fact, with how happy-go-lucky and laid-back Chase always appears, it’s surprising he even has one.

I scuff my sandal across the area rug. ‘I would’ve answered.’ Probably. At least by the third or fourth try. But as my brother’s laugh lines are nowhere to be seen, I keep that to myself.