The Clover was usually empty in the very early morning. Business regulars would start coming in around eight (they didn’t need to be uptown until nine). Artists never arrived until at least ten, unless they were like Dorothy and there weren’t many of them.
So it was a surprise on the morning Brooke arrived to find Blair talking with someone. She didn’t know who he was, but he looked messy, like he might have been up all night and needed a shower. Maybe he just got off work, she thought. No matter – she fixed her own oatmeal and got some coffee.
Lately, the messy guy who needed a shower (and a shave) was with Blair more mornings than not. He never looked any better so his work must be hard. Brooke didn’t spend much time worrying about his job. She still needed one of her own.
One morning Blair walked over, “We haven’t been talking much lately, Brooke. I miss our mornings.”
“Me too,” said Brooke. “We’ve both been busy. My job search isn’t going well, and I know I’m behind with the rent. I’ll have something soon, I hope.”
“You go on enough interviews, why no offers?” Blair asked in his usual way of speaking.
Blair and his brother both spoke with an accent they’d had since their parents sent them to live with her sister in Sumpter when they were little. The neighborhood was changing back then and the parents thought it would be better for the young boys to be away from the city, in a small, “safe” town.
To this day, Blair and his brother spoke in slow, measured tones – pronouncing each syllable. They rarely used contractions, especially when they were serious. They also matched each other’s pitch. Listening to them speak was listening to a lilting melodic duet in unison, something else to make it near impossible to tell them apart.
“I’m not sure.” Brooke answered. “My references are from all the leading citizens, thanks to my being part of that tall steeple church since birth.”
Where you went to church was one of the first questions people asked in Charlotte; the first question if the inquisitor was over 60. Even if your church was a synagogue or a mosque or a temple – it was still “church” to the people in this still colloquial town, now growing up too fast for most old-timers. Then came where you went to school. Then maybe where you worked. Eventually, they would ask about you.
Brooke graduated from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill with mostly A’s, a smattering of B’s, and that one tear-bumped C+. She received a scholarship for being one of the captains on the cross country team. Her outgoing personality helped; Tar Heels prided themselves on their gregariousness, not like those serious Blue Devils a short drive away.
“My major was Political Science, maybe that scares the banks, but my dad thought it would be good if I wanted to go to law school like Bobby someday.” Brooke told Blair.
She’d also thought about social media management. She was first of her friends on Myspace in 2003, finding it a good way to fit in.
She’d chosen not to join a sorority, even though her mother encouraged her. Instead, she spent time with her cross country teammates, feeling less pressure to party than when she was around “Greeks.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s how I answer questions in the job interview that puts me in the ‘don’t hire’ pile,” Brooke told Blair. “Business is about results, so you need result-oriented words in each answer. I can’t seem to do that.”
Brooke always came at things differently. One of her favorite teachers explained how she used the right side of her brain, and most questions were best answered with the other half. “Your right side is creative and artsy, but life wants analytical and factual left-brained things,” the teacher said in a way Brooke remembered, but never agreed with.
It had always been that way. If a teacher took time, Brooke was okay, but most didn’t.
As for that one C+, the art teacher wanted Brooke to learn different styles from different artists, but all Brooke wanted to paint were child like people and animals with flowers. And always in primary colors, because too many tones or shades were a distraction. If the woman’s dress was red, then paint it red. Don’t try to make it blend into the sunset, was Brooke’s belief.
She told Blair about the day back in high school when she needed to get her hair cut, something she did every other month when it got out over three inches or so.
“I usually only needed half an hour, but that day I asked for a full,” she told Blair. “I had a plan.”
Sitting down in the chair, she told the barber, or whatever he called himself, how she wanted something different this time. She’d been thinking about adding a color to her already spiky curls. The stylist, (his real title) suggested she look through the magazines for an idea. He couldn’t see her with pink or green hair, but why not? It was a new millennium, new things were happening every day.
“It should be easy enough,” Brooke told the barber.
“I just want some silver put here, on the right,” holding her finger to the spot. She was pointing to the right side of her forehead, where her face turned into hair.
The stylist looked puzzled but nodded and went to work. Brooke kept her eyes on the mirror to be sure he didn’t get the sides mixed up – that would’t work for her plan.
Brooke went on, telling Blair how, when he was finished, but before he picked up his dryer (those were a waste of time too, just like cream and sugar), she had jumped out of the chair, took a towel from his stack and quickly dried her short dark brown wavy hair with its new patch of silver. A twist or pinch with the damp towel, then her fingers, and the mirror confirmed she had gotten what she came for.
“That was the answer,” she told Blair. Then at school, she could tell her teachers, the ones who would listen, how the patch of silver was to remind them how she was a right-brained girl living in a left-brained world and that maybe her answers didn’t make sense now, but someday, somewhere, somehow, someone would listen and understand.
“How is that working out on your job search, Brooke?” Blair asked.
“Well, HR doesn’t have time for any of that, they don’t even look away from their screens,” she told Blair.
Her answers got her application tossed in the pile for a letter beginning all nice, but ending with, “We wish you every success and hope you will look to us for your every banking need.”
Blair could feel the tension in Brooke’s voice. He knew she wanted to be working, paying her rent (it had been two months now, but he was good with that).
It was becoming obvious Brooke was not going to be a banker. But something had to be out there for her. And that something was closer than she thought.