Page 1 of Mr Best Friend's Brother Grump

Chapter 1

Rosa

I know one person in the whole of New York, and that’s my best friend, Kendra. I can’t wait to see her.

I could do with seeing a friendly face. When you’re walking the streets with a backpack, it’s hard to look like you belong. I am conscious of blending in, but as I notice the variety of faces around me, it seems as if New York is a place of travelers and people not from here, so I relax a little when I leave the subway at 18th Street.

Alicia Keys’ ‘Empire State of Mind’ is playing on rotation in my head: New York, the concrete jungle where dreams come true. I take a moment to look up at the tall shiny glass towers pointing skyward, glinting in the sunshine. Clouds gallop overhead colliding with their own reflections. The streets are inspiring me already. I even smile at an old man who is slumped against a wall, begging. But I regret this straight away as he shouts at me to leave him the hell alone. His howling obscenities follow me down the street. He has problems, I think. You just don’t know what some people have been through.

The shouty street man experience makes me wary, and I scurry on my way to The Chelsea Coffee Company, where I had arranged to meet up with Kendra. I check the map on my phone. ‘Can’t miss it,’ she said.

I’m early, so I order a latte and a cream cheese bagel with sesame topping and take up position at a table near the window. An ideal spot for watching the world go by and looking out for my best friend.

When Kendra told me she had a place in Chelsea, Manhattan, I laughed. No one lives in Manhattan. No one real anyway. Or no one that I would know. Manhattan is reserved for the rich and famous only. People who have made it. The winners at the top of their game. Maybe in the past real people could afford to live here, but not now. Or so I thought. Or I totally underestimated the socio-economic level of my best friend from law school. She was living here in Manhattan. And I did know her. So that dispelled my ‘rich and famous’ theory.

A group of suits come in and order a late lunch. They are young, confident, and easy-going with each other. They chat and share a joke. I make up names for each of the three guys and two women and imagine my future self, dressed in city clothes, joining them in their lunchbreak chat. Could they be my new friends? I sip my coffee and nibble a corner of my bagel. I thought I was hungry but the reality of moving to New York is beginning to finally sink in, and I’ve lost my appetite. I think about taking my almost complete bagel and giving it to the homeless man at the subway when Kendra appears.

“You made it!” she squeals into my ear as she hugs me.

There’s only one other person in the world who hugs as good as Kendra and that’s my grandma who hugged me this morning when I left Miami.

I pull back from Kendra, and she looks me up and down. Her eyes shine and she gives me a wink.

“Damn you look good, girl,” she says, smiling. “Got your curves back now you’re not stressed out with trying to be the lawyer that you’re not.”

“Are you saying I’m fat?” I laugh. But I know what she means. At the University of Illinois College of Law, where we met, I had almost put myself in hospital trying to get through class. Kendra was the one who made me see the light.

“Why are you doing this when your heart clearly isn’t in it?” Kendra asked one day when I had done yet another all-nighter, cramming for a test.

The question made me rethink… everything. And I dropped out after my second year.

Kendra on the other hand was born to be a lawyer. She aced everything, finishing with top scores. She had the pick of law firms begging her to start her golden career with them. I swear, there was a bidding war, although Kendra being Kendra, she always played it down. She weighed up her options, of which there were many, and signed on the dotted line, for an unbelievable sum, at a swanky New York office. Which is why she lives here and has a couch for me to crash on for a couple of days, while I find my feet.

“My apartment is just across the street,” Kendra says and picks up my backpack. We leave the café. “Okay, so it’s not my apartment. I share with my bro.” We walk briskly up to the crossing at the lights and dodge pedestrians who all seem to be late for something, they walk so fast. “It’s his apartment, but he’s hardly ever there,” Kendra says over her shoulder as I follow. “We’ll get you settled in, then I’ll show you around.” City noise makes it difficult to hear what she is saying. “You’re going to love New York. It’s so great to have you here,” Kendra yells as she pushes open a glass door. I’m close behind. “This is it.”

We’re inside an elegant lofty foyer of grey marble. A huge sculptural light fitting is suspended overhead: a statement piece made up of frosted glass tubes of varying lengths. Two sets of elevators are on either side. My eyes are wide, and I have to contain my ‘Wow!’ Kendra stands by an elevator where she swipes a card over a sensor pad. The door slides open.

“We’re on the twenty-first floor,” Kendra says. “The views are great, and we get the afternoon sun for about half an hour.” She laughs. “But Nathan says that’s only in summertime.”

Down a corridor, at the end, Kendra enters some numbers on a keypad beside a door.

“Ah yes. Nathan. How is he?” I ask, as casually as I can. Flutters of nerves in my stomach flap heat up to my cheeks.

Nathan, Kendra’s older, enigmatic brother, whom I had never met, but only ever heard about, is a hugely successful photographer. He spends most of his time in exotic locations snapping gorgeous models in skimpy outfits and gets paid gazillions, according to my bestie.

“Yeah, he’s good, I think. He’ll be back in a couple of days, so you’ll finally get to meet him.”

Kendra had shown me photos of her tall, handsome sibling pictured arm in arm with her at family gatherings. They are close, despite the age difference. She was hurt that he couldn’t make it to her graduation. He was in Hong Kong, shooting for some magazine or something.

“So, I’m maxing out Nathan’s guilt about that by living here, virtually rent-free.” Kendra flashes a cheeky grin my way and stands aside to let me in. “Until I start my proper job, anyway.”

I walk through to a stylish open-plan living area with floor-to-ceiling windows across the far wall, framing the outline of buildings opposite and flooding the space with natural light. A spiral staircase leads to a mezzanine above the industrial-style, stainless steel kitchen. It’s all moody greys and browns. Rich hardwood floors complement colorful Moroccan rugs. A large framed black and white movie poster for On the Waterfront hangs perfectly on an otherwise empty side wall: the only piece of artwork on show. I feel as if I’m on set for film or TV. If the cast of Gossip Girl appeared, I wouldn’t be at all surprised.

“You get the couch on the mezz.” Kendra points up to the balcony as she dumps my pack. “I’m in here.” She points to the nearest door. “This one’s the bathroom.” Kendra opens the door which clicks on the automatic light and extractor fan. She closes it again. “It’s just for us because Nathan has an ensuite, of course.” Kendra indicates the door at the far end. “He also gets the city view. It’s a really nice room.”

I wander over to the enormous window and look down at the scurrying people and queues of traffic waiting at the lights below.

“This is wonderful! Pinch me. I can’t believe I’m here and this is real,” I say holding back grateful tears. “Thank you so much.”

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