Broken Carts ✔️

Aisle 31: Worth

Brighton's campus was small, but made up for the lack of area with intricate architecture and exquisitely manicured landscaping. When I toured the campus as a senior in high school, I sneered at its tiny size; now, I was awestruck by the fact that its academic buildings were works of art as opposed to the concrete-and-brick monsters that were crammed together on my previous school's campus.

Thanks to Sonja and her mom, I met up with Professor Andrea Lamkin from the music production department at a local coffee shop that looked like a hippie's VW bus combusted inside of it and the owner just said, "yes, this is exactly the aesthetic I want for my business." I got a black coffee and a pastry with hemp seeds on it.

Andrea showed up in a mustard-colored pantsuit and an iPad containing track-by-track notes of my work. At first I was intimidated by her mere presence, but the tension dissipated when she asked for a bite of my hemp seed scone.

"You're going for music production, right?" she asked after drowning the bite of scone with a sip of her oat milk latte. "You won't technically need a portfolio to apply, but bring it to the interview anyway. Never hurts to have some sample work on you."

"Right," I said as I jotted her advice in a notebook. "I'm just unsure of which work I want to highlight in my portfolio. Between the EDM and the more... low-key stuff."

Andrea raised an eyebrow. "What speaks to you more?"

"Well, I think... uh," I stammered. My ability to speak in-touch-with-my-feelings-ese was pretty rusty. "What exactly do you mean?"

"Which songs ignite your passion? Which communicate hidden parts of your soul?" She rested her chin in her hand. "In less cosmic terms— which genre do you really, deep down, want to pursue?"

The question left a crater in my heart. "I'd have to think about it," I admitted.

She smiled. "Right answer," she assured me. "Though if you want a professional opinion, I feel more connected to the music when I listen to your— what did you call it— 'low-key stuff.' That's not to say EDM can't portray emotions, because it absolutely can. But while your EDM pieces were exciting, they were also lacking a direction. Your other selections are confident and purposeful."

Andrea's words hit me more like a psychoanalysis than a music review. The songs I wrote as DJ HighLo were the reason for my rugby team nickname and the hallmark of my first two years of school: explosive, energetic, but ultimately hollow, missing something. Now that I'd experienced so many new sides of life, so many new sides of myself, I was shedding DJ HighLo like an old skin and stepping into a new role. Maybe without the sharmy DJ persona to hide my vapid music, I'd become a better musician. Maybe I'd even become a more developed human being.

After idling in the quad to sort out the thoughts that were leftover from my meeting with Andrea, I headed over to Vinny's, a queasy pit growing in my stomach at the idea of seeing Ezra.

But when I arrived, it was clear that Vinny was the sole occupant of his spacious duplex. This brought forth a new challenge: spending time alone with someone who I had learned not to trust.

•

Vinny looked as sharp as ever, giving me reason to believe he was still in the dark about the rift between Lynette and Ezra. "I would've prepared dinner, but I got stuck at work today," he sighed as he rummaged through his fridge. "Plenty of leftovers, though— you're a meat-eater, aren't you?"

"Yeah, but don't worry. I'm not hungry right now. Filled up on coffee and pastries earlier."

"Oh?" he said, emerging from the fridge door to study my expression. I tried, and failed, to mask the nervousness coursing through my body. "Seems like you're ready for cocktail hour, then." He opened a glass-doored cabinet to reveal an immense collection of wine bottles. My mind flashed on Ezra's erratic alcohol stash that was crammed into a cupboard.