“No,” I grumble. “You don’t have to move out.” That would make it final.
“Look, I am not trying to upset you. But there’s one more thing I have to say. I’m not sure I feel right about keeping this.” He stands up and moves to the corner of his room, where the guitar I gave him is balanced against the wall. “Maybe you want to return it.”
“No. Just no. I wanted you to have it and I still do. I want—” I break off again, because talking was never my strong suit. I’m failing at it right now, anyway. Nothing I say is getting through. “I want a lot of things. But I don’t want that back. Keep it. Sell it. Whatever you have to do.”
And then I leave the house and eat a takeout sandwich in my truck, because I’m too upset to be at home while Roderick plans a new life without me.
Kieran
Usually I drive to work at the ad agency straight from the bakery. But today I make a quick detour up the hill, where I swing by the house and check the mailbox. University classes start in four days, and I’ve been waiting for my financial aid award to arrive. I’ve already been admitted to the program, but it doesn’t mean much if I can’t afford to enroll.
When I pull down the mailbox’s metal door, I find a grocery-store flyer and a single fat envelope. Right here—behind the wheel, with the engine idling—I tear open the envelope and read the enclosed letter.
Dear Mr. Shipley, we are pleased to offer you the following tuition assistance package. This greeting is followed by a grant number that looks awfully generous, plus a student loan for two thousand dollars. The result is that I’ll have to pay upfront… Seven hundred and two dollars per course.
I read it twice more. The number remains entirely affordable, and I let out a whoop.
My first thought is: It worked! I can totally afford to become the oldest freshman on campus.
My second thought is: I can’t wait to tell Roddy.
And then—splat—I fall back down to Earth. Because Roderick and I aren’t a couple anymore.
It’s been over a week since Christmas. He’s spent every night downstairs in his new bed. While I’ve spent every night alone and upset.
He’s trying hard to be my friend. At work, he’ll bring me a bagel. Or one of the slices of pizza he’s been testing. His smile says, I’m sorry.
But I don’t know how to go back to being friends. So I avoid him. My subconscious hasn’t gotten the message, though. Every time I hear something funny, or I read something interesting, my first impulse is to share it with him.
He’s already looking around for another apartment. I heard him making a phone call last night, inquiring about a room for rent on a farm in Tuxbury.
“That would be a terrible commute,” I couldn’t help pointing out.
“I know,” he’d said quietly. “And they found a tenant already. But the price was right.”
The price is right here, I’d wanted to argue. But we’ve had that discussion a few times already, and he’s still determined to put some distance between us.
I get it. He isn’t willing to put himself back into the closet, and I can’t see a way out of mine. Sometimes I lie awake in my lonely bed and imagine things are different. That I’m some other guy who can make his own rules.
Meanwhile, it’s killing me to have him so close, but to only be friends. My heart can’t stop hoping for more.
So I don’t call him with the good news about my financial aid package. He’d be happy for me, but I refuse to be that needy. I’m back to being a loner, and it feels very familiar to me. I’ve kept my deepest thoughts and my personal victories to myself for twenty-five years. What’s one more?
To celebrate, I turn on the radio as I pull away from the curb. The truck’s cab fills with the music from the country station that Roddy hates. Now I can listen to it whenever I want.
When I get to Burlington, I find that everyone at the office is in a crappy mood. “You’re late,” Mr. Pratt barks as I take my seat. “You said you were going to start work at twelve thirty.”
“Yeah, next week,” I remind him. That’s when the schedule shifts. That’s when classes start, and when I’ve cut my Busy Bean hours.
He frowns down at me, possibly because he’s not used to me ever arguing with him. But I’m not taking any more crap from the Pratt family, I’ve decided. Not after the fiasco of Deacon’s portfolio.
“Look,” Pratt says. “We need to get these logo drafts ready for the client’s eyes before four o’clock. I have a conference call.”
“Sure,” I say coolly as I log in to the computer. “What changes am I making?”
“Deacon has my notes,” he says before heading back to his office.
Well, that’s going to slow things down. With a sigh, I cross the room to find Deacon in his dickweasel office. It’s taken extraordinary restraint on my behalf not to bring up Deacon’s treachery on his art-school portfolio. But the Pratts haven’t mentioned his application to me, and if I say anything, I could get the dean in hot water. That’s really not the way I want to start things off with the college.
So I say nothing. Mr. Pratt wrote me a recommendation, as promised. And it must have been decent. I can only guess that he pressured his son to apply, too. I wonder if he was rejected.
Since I’d like to keep my job, I guess I won’t ask.
“Hi there.” I lean against the doorframe. “Your dad said you had some notes on the Mayer Farm labels?”
“His notes are here.” He points me toward a sheet of paper in his father’s careful script. “He wants you to try some different typefaces.”
“Okay, sure.” That sounds easy.
“But I don’t like these cows you drew.”
My blood pressure jumps. You think you can do better? The words are on the tip of my tongue, but I bite them back. “What about the cows?”
“Those splotches look dopey. I was thinking we need something more like this.” He wakes up his computer monitor to show me two drawings from a stock-art site.
I let out a bark of laughter when I see them. “Oh, man. Not happening.”
“Think again,” he says with typical defiance. “This is the direction I’m taking it.”
This jerk. “Okay, the first problem is that those are bulls. This art is for a dairy farm, and you can’t get milk from a bull.”
His chin jerks toward the screen. His mouth gets tight, but he doesn’t acknowledge the mistake.
“The second problem is that the Mayers raise Randall cattle. It’s a specialty breed. And just because you think the patterning on their faces looks ‘dopey’—” I use air quotes. “—doesn’t mean you get to repopulate their herd.”
His lip curls, and I know he’s not going to back down. “Just do half the sketches the way I’m asking for, and the client can decide.”
And, yup, that’s when I sort of snap. “Seriously? You’re going to waste my time just so you don’t have to admit that you didn’t do your homework?”
“When you’re here, your time is my time,” he says in a low voice. “So just do what we pay you for.”