The Beginning of Always (2 page)

“Hey!” I cried out, awkwardly stumbling to follow him, my heavy bags weighing on my shoulders. “Nicolas! Wait up, I can’t walk as fast as you.”

Nicolas stopped and turned around with a condescending grin on his face.

“Come on, shorty, try to keep up.”

I bobbled side to side a couple steps, my center of balance offset by the purse and laptop bag. “You’re so annoying.”

“Only to the people I love.”

I trotted after him, feeling as if I was trailing a giant. “You know, I could have taken a cab to the city. You didn’t have to drive here in rush hour.”

“Yeah, yeah. Now be quiet and help me look for your baggage claim.” He walked into me so our shoulders nudged each other. “You know I wouldn’t miss picking you up for anything.”

“Of course, so you can assault me with witnesses.”

“Hilarious. Carousel number, drama queen.”

I wracked my brain. “Five?” I guessed.

Before Nicolas could contribute another witty comeback, we got swept up in a crush of people coming off more flights, and the next two minutes were spent jostling through crowds and pushing our way to the baggage carousel. When we finally arrived at number five, I was winded and a bit irritated, ready for a shower and bed. Nicolas was reading the flashing LCD screen situated at the top of the carousel.

“After it spits out New Mexico, Chicago O’Hare is next,” he said while scratching his stubble.

“Okay.” I absentmindedly hiked my purse up my shoulder to redistribute the weight.

Nicolas snapped his fingers in realization. “Oh yeah, you should call Tracy. She’s nearly breaking my phone with all the texts she’s been sending asking about you.”

“Oh no, I totally forgot to text her this morning. Alright.” Tracy was a college roommate and work colleague who had been waiting for my move back to New York for years now. She was a good friend, and being long-distance for the better part of a decade hadn’t weakened it, which was more than I could say for most of my human interactions. I turned my phone on and scrolled to her number.

As I dialed, I raised the phone to my ear and widened my eyes at Nick in excitement. He grinned in response.

“Florence!” A shrill voice rang through the speaker.

“The prodigal son hath returned,” I said with a grin. Nicolas gave an audible groan next to me.

Thumping echoed from the other side of the receiver, as if feet were stamping wildly against a piece of furniture. “You’re back? In New York? This isn’t a sick joke, right?”

I laughed. “Sick joke or not, I’m back. For good. Tired of plane rides, staying put.”

An incoherent babbling bubbled and the next several minutes was a stream of Tracy chattering happily about all the things to do and places to eat. I nodded, with the occasional grunt of agreement, and finally, a loud bell rang through the cavernous hall.

“Oh, hey, Tracy, my luggage is here. I have to go, but I’ll call you when I’m at Nic’s place.” Nicolas was standing on the other end of the carousel, mingling with the crowd.

“Wait! Wait!” Tracy screamed and I had to hold the earpiece away.

“I’m still here, no need to shout.”

“Oh. Sorry. Anyway, when are you coming into the office? Gordon has been asking about you.”

I made an impatient sound at the base of my throat. “I already told him I’m going to be in the office starting Wednesday. Don’t tell me he got you to try to drag me in earlier.”

“Nothing like that. He just asked when you were showing up. Probably can’t wait to dump something on your plate. He promised me your next assignment is going to be jui-cy.”

“He didn’t tell you that at all.”

Tracy laughed with a snort. “Oh, okay, you got me. Well, I’ll see you on Wednesday. Let’s get dinner afterwards.”

“It’s a date. Got to go, see you in a couple days.”

“Bye!”

Just as I hung up, Nicolas split the crowd and trudged over with my luggage.

“You only had a duffel bag and a suitcase, right?”

I peered around Nicolas to double-check his selections. “Yeah, how did you know?”

“You have the same luggage tags as the ones you bought me from Korea. The ones with the cows on them.”

I laughed. “Good eye.”

“Alright, well, come on, let’s get you out of here.” Nicolas heaved my duffel bag over his shoulder and pulled the house-sized suitcase after him. I jumped up in a vain attempt to snatch the duffel bag from his grip, but he held it away from my reach.

“Nic! Let me carry something.”

Nicolas nudged my face away with his elbow. “Why are you being so difficult? Just let me take your stuff.” Nicolas turned around while muttering under his breath and began walking away.

I chased after him, saying, “I’m just not used to people doing things for me.”

“Well, don’t get accustomed to it. This is a forty-eight-hour airport special. Once we’re out of the parking lot, the clock ticks down, and ends with me kicking your butt onto the sidewalk.”

I aimed a kick at his shins, but he predicted it and sidestepped away.

“Ha-ha! Still got it.”

I punched his back and he gave a fake groan.

Nicolas and I didn’t speak much as we navigated our way out of the airport. We finally ascended to the parking lot, and Nicolas led me to a car parked in the corner. It was an aged sedan in dirty ashen white with a giant dent in the back bumper. He popped the trunk and heaved my luggage into it.

“Nice car.” There were paper bags crowding the trunk, and Nicolas spent a while trying to Tetris-fit everything in.

“Thanks,” Nicolas responded sarcastically. “But I went on a grocery run before your flight got in. It’s not often I get to drive to the store.”

“Is this thing even safe to drive?”

Nicolas slammed the trunk shut and gave the bumper of the car an affectionate pat. “It’ll do until I get that Porsche.”

I made a face as we slipped in the front seats. “A Porsche?”

“Oh yeah.” Nicolas fired up the engine with a ratchet-y sounding clank. “My heart has been stolen by that financial unicorn called the Porsche Cayman. One day,” he said wistfully. The car struggled and the brakes squealed as we rocketed down the garage floors and poured out into the street. “Once the hell of school has evaporated into the past and I can start earning a living and living like a decent human being.”

“You’re close,” I pointed out as he navigated us across several lane changes and then onto a freeway on-ramp. “Residency is, what? Three years?”

“Four. More if I want to specialize. We’ll see,” he said.

“Time will go by pretty fast. Don’t get too excited about being an adult just yet. The lie of our lives is that this is preferable to school,” I said.

Nicolas snorted at my comment. “Try working eighty hours a week at below minimum wage, and then we’ll talk about adult life. Indentured servitude is probably a notch below a nine-to-five.” He sighed. “Thank God I’m in psych. Internal med and peds have it way worse.”

I glanced over to Nicolas as he turned his head to the left to check his blind spot before changing lanes. He was four years younger than me, but with his prodigious height and broad shoulders, I now had to struggle to think of myself as the big sister who used to chase him down the driveway, screaming for him to bring the cookie tin back.

“You cut your hair,” I said. Nicolas’s dirty-blond hair was excessively neat, neater than I ever remembered it being. He had messy waves for as long as I could recall, but now, his hair was closely cropped. It suited him. The cut brought his razor-sharp cheekbones out and accentuated his square jawline. Still, it was strangely disconcerting, as if he had finally grown up.

Nicolas ran an open palm over his scalp and scuffed the buzz cut. “Hospital policy. Needed to get rid of it. It’s alright.” He shrugged. “Easier to keep clean anyway.”

I snorted. “As if you were trying to keep clean before.”

Before I could react, Nicolas’s fist rushed out and cuffed me on my upper arm.

“Ow!” I yelped in protest, immediately massaging the sore spot.

“Talk about your own hair! It’s like a raccoon took up residence in it.”

My chestnut-brown hair was always much too thick for its own good and was now unceremoniously piled up on top of my head in a sloppy bun. Bangs and several layers hung down past my ears to frame my face, and I indignantly pushed them back from my eyeline.

“Don’t talk about Meeko that way. He keeps my head warm and my hair big and full of secrets.” I petted my bun delicately.

“He’s got a rough job. You probably know secrets that could topple a nation.”

“Brother, dear, you have no idea.”

Nicolas clicked his tongue several times. “Spill it.”

“I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”

Nicolas rolled his eyes at my answer. “Good cliché, James Bond Villain Number Eight. Sit back and rest up if you’re tired. Traffic is rough at this hour.”

It was good to be around Nicolas again. My little brother was annoying and loud, but this was the reason I’d wanted to come back to the States—to be with family and to finally gain some stability in my life. Life on the road was wearisome, and I was finally ready to tap the brakes on my career and let the cards fall where they may.

I reclined the seat and curled my legs up underneath me. The car rocked slowly as it chugged along the freeway.

“Thanks for picking me up.”

Nicolas turned towards me with a small smile. “Hey, anytime.” He paused, and then reached over to rustle my raccoon hair. “Good to have you back, big sis.”

The drive back was long due to traffic, but Nicolas and I chatted sporadically. The rest of the time, I just took in the changing landscape and emerging New York skyline. I had been back last year for two weeks, so it wasn’t anything new. I just simply never tired of experiencing the rush of anticipation that surged as the city appeared on the horizon, in all its gray glory, speckled in golden light.

Darkness had fallen by the time we rolled up to his apartment. While Nicolas wrestled my suitcase from his pathetically small trunk, I gawked at the exterior of his building.

“Come on.” Nicolas intentionally bumped shoulders with me as he carted my suitcase up the steps into the lobby. “What are you spacing out for? Let’s get inside, I’m freezing.”

“You live here?” I hissed at him as I jumped up the stairs to keep up. I always knew he lived on the Upper West Side, but I’d never imagined he was shacking up in a high-rise of glossy glass and steel.

“You know I’ve been here since I moved to New York.”

“But
here
?”

Nicolas ignored me and entered the lobby, the doorman tipping his hat at both of us as we passed.

We rode the elevator to the sixteenth floor. Nicolas pushed open the door to his apartment, I followed, heaving the torturously heavy tote bag off my shoulder with a sigh of relief and allowing it to thud to the floor. The tiled entryway had a sad little table that appeared to have spent considerable time outdoors and the entryway opened up to an open living room, with a kitchen area outfitted with a dark granite peninsula that provided bar seating. To the left, there was a hallway that led to the bedrooms.

I noticed was that the place was insanely orderly and neat. But I knew better. It was unlived-in more so than kept-up. Nicolas worked long hours and only came home to sleep.

The entryway table was covered with frames. Nicolas was a bit of a picture hoarder. Ever since he was a kid, he’d loved collecting them. If he had been a serial killer, his trophies would have been photographs. He was fascinated with the instant quality of Polaroid cameras, but more so, Nicolas just adored amassing photos of every occasion and putting them up for display. Our attic back home was crammed with box after box of his collection, and when he’d moved to New York, he’d brought along his favorites. Those photos now took up an entire wall of his apartment, with more frames scattered about the mantel, side tables, bar area—basically anything with a flat surface. It was a wonder he had space to put anything else down.

“Okay, this place is really nice.” I walked towards the hallway, opening doors and cabinets, peeking around corners.

Nicolas called out after me, “Yeah, please, make yourself at home! No need to ask. Of course you can open everything, look around. Make sure to rifle through my broom closet, can’t miss that on your tour.”

I yelled back at him, “You don’t have a broom closet. You probably don’t even own a broom.”

“Why don’t you check for me?” came his response.

The apartment was huge. Two bedrooms, two baths with a living room and kitchen, it had to be at least two thousand square feet. The furniture was sparse, as if Nicolas had run out of money to furnish the place, but just like the building, the apartment was relatively new and immensely upgraded. Like I’d told Nicolas, it was nice. I entered the spacious master bedroom and immediately narrowed my eyes in suspicion. Too nice.

When I returned to the main living area, Nicolas was putting away his groceries. I took a quick inventory of what he had bought—toaster pastries, honey-roasted peanuts, assorted granola bars, and a ten-pound can of coffee. When he opened the cabinets to stow the items away, I could see all the way to the back of the cabinets. All of them were pretty much empty, devoid of anything, even tableware.

“Do you know your master en suite bathroom has a Jacuzzi?”

Nicolas didn’t turn when he answered, “I’ve been living here for the past four months, so I probably noticed.”

“How are you affording this place?” Recent medical school graduates made squat during their first year of residency. His salary was barely enough to afford those off-brand toaster pastries, much less New York City rent.

Nicolas shrugged, all ease. “I know the developer. I stayed in one of the smaller units for med school, but I decided to upgrade to a bigger place once my residency started since I needed an office. The guy gave me a good deal.”

“
A good deal?
” Every alarm in my brain was pinging furiously. “Where are we, still in St. Haven? Landlords don’t give tenants good deals on this side of the world,” I said. Nicolas didn’t answer me and my temper spiked.