22 McKenna #2
After a couple of hours of job hunting, I finally opened the binder Glory gave me and tried to make sense of just how flush we are based on her investments.
But once I started reading, it quickly became obvious that the binder is full of ramblings, errors, and delusions.
All those notes in the margins turned out to be as crazy as they’d first appeared.
One notation said the money in the savings account had been invested in “overseas love affairs,” and right below it, in smaller print, were the words “Love be unkind and unkindness is best forgotten.” I still don’t know what any of that means, except that when I checked the savings account, it didn’t show $330,000 like the binder said, but a meager $28,000.
No investments, no stocks. None of the funds referred to in the binder seem to exist. It has all been spent or moved, or maybe it never existed in the first place.
She thought she had me all set up, but the dementia clearly affected her reasoning.
Now all I know for sure is that Glory and I are well and truly fucked.
There’s only one solution, which is why I emailed a real estate broker last night. I’m ready for him to start showing our
house to potential buyers, and the sooner the better. But Beck doesn’t need to know any of that.
We’re both silent for a moment. I look down into my coffee, stirring it idly with the skinny wooden stirrer.
“You did the best you could for the kids,” Beck says. “And besides, it would have been pretty awkward for me to start seriously
dating my kid brother’s teacher, don’t you think?”
“Seriously dating?” I ask, suddenly pulled back from my little pity party. “Who said anything about that?” I should tell him
I don’t have time for things like boyfriends in my life, that I have too many commitments and a mountain of expenses that
may soon bury me. But I want so badly to pretend for a minute that I can enjoy things like this, that I can just be on a date
with a cute guy, worrying only about whether I’m having a good hair day. Looking at Beck across from me with his caramel-colored
eyes and that flirty smirk, I want to live in that version of reality for a few moments longer.
“We’ll see,” he says, and I can’t deny that I’m being pulled in by the mischief in his eyes.
As we continue looking at each other, he seems to be studying my face.
I wonder what he sees, if he’s going to say more.
But then he goes back to casual conversation.
“So how’d you end up teaching those lessons at the club anyhow? ”
“Full disclosure?”
He nods.
“The manager at Hollyhock. She knew I needed community service hours to keep my scholarship, and I was way behind. I actually
shot her down when she first suggested it. I mean, what do I know about kids with special needs?”
“From the looks of it, you’ve figured out a lot,” he says. “I’ve seen plenty of well-meaning people do everything wrong when
it comes to Leo. Making too many demands of him, trying to force eye contact, shouting at him like he’s hard of hearing, you
name it. Somehow you’ve just known how to behave with him from the beginning.”
“I mean, I guess.” I think over Beck’s words. “But it’s pretty basic when you think about it. Treating him with respect, acknowledging
that different doesn’t mean lesser. I was so nervous at the beginning that I’d screw up by, like, offending one of the kids
or being too awkward with them. On the flip side, fucking around with Hollyhock royalty . . . I never saw that particular
screwup coming.”
“But why kids with autism?” Beck asks. “If they freaked you out, why not get your service hours with other underserved groups,
like kids from the wrong side of the tracks or something?”
I snort at the suggestion. “The wrong side of the tracks? Hollyhockers would sooner get rid of all the train tracks on earth, or abolish rail travel altogether, before letting any kids like that step foot on their hallowed country club grounds. So my manager suggested special needs. I guess because even rich kids can have autism. I fought her on it in the beginning. But when it seemed like the only way I could get my hours . . .” I shrug, a little sorry I can’t give him a more flattering reason, but I’m just too tired to try spinning it any other way.
Beck sips his coffee without responding, and I wonder if I’ve shown too much of myself. The silence makes me nervous, and
after a beat, I start talking again.
“I recently saw a statistic that more than forty percent of Americans don’t know how to swim. Swimming was just given to me
though, and in a way where I thought I had the right to question whether I even liked it. I never understood what a privilege
it is to be able to exist and move inside water, in this whole other dimension. It’s like an alternate reality. But some people,
they don’t ever get the chance to feel that.” Beck’s eyes haven’t left mine. The level of focus feels intense, as if I’m speaking
about something he understands. I take it as encouragement and keep going.
“I saw online that the percentage of kids with autism who can’t swim is even bigger because the adults in their life fail