11. Ned #2
Ned unfolds it, holding it beneath the lip of the counter, and sweeps a handful of flour over the photograph of the admin building at Adams University. Financial Woes Force Adams University Closure, the headline reads.
“Ned,” Abbot whispers.
“Baking soda has cream of tartar,” Peggy says.
“Oh,” Dad says. “Smoked salmon. Of course. That’s a fishy breakfast treat right there.”
“It’s baking powder that has it,” Abbot says. “Ned?”
“Because it needs the acid,” Peggy says.
“Yes, that’s exactly right,” Abbot says. “Ned.”
“But can you fry smoked salmon?” Dad asks. “We can try, I suppose.”
Ned sinks into a chair. He brushes the flour away, but the picture remains, as does the headline. He reads the first paragraph of the article, then has to read it again because he didn’t absorb any of the words. After a third time, he gives up.
Adams is closing, after this semester. That he can manage to comprehend, as the rest of the words swim before his eyes.
His new job. His tenure-track professorship. His entire career. Just gone. Poof.
“What acid?” Dad asks, too loud and cheerful. “Peggy, tell me all about what you’ve learned from Henry about baking.”
“Ned.” Abbot sits next to him, taking his hand.
Steve was supposed to be wrong about Adams. That was the way this was going to go.
Ned has his future at that school. The years and years to come of teaching and research and commuting to that campus day after day, season after season.
Peggy is going to college there, since it’ll be so cheap for her with him being faculty, and she’ll graduate from a private university with no debt.
Oh, he’s going to be sick.
Abbot rubs his palm over the back of Ned’s hand. “It’s going to be alright.”
That’s a huge fucking lie. Abbot doesn’t know that.
Ned has bills to pay. A kid to support. A life he just stitched back together after all that time barely clinging on with his fingertips, staying in Pat’s extra room, waiting for every other Friday to arrive so he could see his daughter, charging more and more to his credit card.
He’s been trying to pay that off now. And he has a new, nicer car he’d let himself get. Something he could be prouder to drive, like at least outwardly he doesn’t have to be humiliated by the weight of the balance he owes.
Yeah, sure, great advice from Steve to go find something. Exactly what Ned will do, the most junior faculty in the department, up against professors swarming the job market with publications and funding and prestige.
Professors like Abbot, who Newbury is recruiting. And Ned’s Ned, and he’s suddenly hotly embarrassed Abbot’s sitting here holding his hand.
“I should take Baxter out,” he mutters, but Baxter’s leash is wet with melted snow when he grabs it because Baxter was just out minutes ago and doesn’t want to budge from the rug.
“Get up,” Ned pleads, tugging him. He can’t be in here. He’s sweating, and the paper is still sitting right there, and Peggy’s asking for chocolate chips, and this morning was so wonderful before it slid sideways.
Outside, he hurries to zip his coat. He should’ve grabbed a hat and gloves, but he also should have a job to go back to next fall. What the actual fuck? They can’t just go and close an entire university. What about the students? And the buildings, what will they do with those?
The door behind him opens. Baxter stares balefully at the house before Abbot pulls it closed behind him.
“I’m fine,” Ned says quickly.
Abbot puts Ned’s hat on for him, as if he’s little like Peggy, and then folds him close so Ned can bury his freezing hands between their bodies, Baxter’s leash clutched tight.
“I am,” Ned says into Abbot’s shoulder.
“It’s alright not to be.”
Ned squeezes his eyes shut. “This isn’t happening.”
“I know.”
Ned tenses. Abbot doesn’t know, because the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Newbury University, established sixteen what-fucking-ever, personally wants him to work there. With Abbot’s sparkling career, an influx of professors on the job hunt won’t change that.
Abbot, who doesn’t have to take the job offered to him. He has tenure, and Callahan isn’t going anywhere. He can stay where he is, in his house and driving his very fun, very sporty car.
Ned lets out a sigh. No, that’s not fair. It’s not Abbot’s fault Ned is right back where he started. It just feels like shit to have to stand here next to him, knowing that the next time Abbot suggests takeout, Ned’s going to have to ask if they can cook instead.
And the amount he owes—
Well. He’ll just be saddled with that a bit longer. A lot longer, maybe. More months and years of sitting on that huge balance, a number so large he tries not to think of its total too often, sure the reality will swamp him.
And it’ll only grow, too, if he’s without a paycheck. How wonderful. Fucking fabulous.
“This sucks,” Ned mumbles.
“It does.”
“I just got that job.”
“You did.”
“And I love it at Adams.”
Abbot hugs him tighter. “Your baseball team.”
Ned lets out a hard laugh. “My baseball team. Dammit.”
“You can start a new one.”
“I just started that one.”
“We’ll figure this out.” Abbot kisses his hair.
Ned squeezes his eyes shut.
Yeah. Great. Abbot will get to witness this latest crash and burn of Ned’s life. Not find him on the tail end of disaster, when he’s ready to start clawing his way toward the upswing.
Ned moves back from him. “We should go in. I don’t want Peggy to worry.”
“You don’t want to talk about this,” Abbot says.
“About losing my job? No, I don’t.” They can add it to the list of everything Abbot never wants to talk about either.
His family, Beverly, even that guy in college.
Abbot knows the open book of Ned’s life with Jen, and he’s going to get front-row seats to this latest spiraling catastrophe.
Can’t Ned have the chance to keep quiet too?
No, apparently, because Abbot doesn’t let him move far, keeping a grip on Ned’s arms, his eyes soft and too gentle.
“Don’t,” Ned says before Abbot can start.
“This isn’t what you planned.”
“No shit.”
“Me neither. I was really hoping Steve’s position would open up.”
“Yeah.” Ned sniffs against the cold air. “That would have been great.” It really would have. Abbot would have been a big old fish in a small pond at Adams, but it would have been their pond, together.
But still. “You have Callahan,” Ned says, and maybe that’s unfair, but it’s true too. “Or Newbury. Wherever.”
“I don’t want to work at Newbury.”
He’s lucky to have a choice. Ned bites this back, because the last thing he needs today is to pick a fight just because he’s miserable. None of this is Abbot’s fault.
Besides, Ned already drove one relationship straight into the ground with Jen. He’s doing this one right, and that includes not being an ass just because it feels good in the moment. He and Abbot don’t argue, and Ned’s not going to start now.
“Then don’t,” Ned says. “Stay where you are, and you can be looking, right? Something will come up eventually.”
“I don’t want to wait, either.”
“You can still move closer. Down to southern Maine, or even northern Mass. It’s not a terrible commute back to Portland.”
Abbot squeezes his arms. “That’s not even counting the eighteen miles of New Hampshire’s coastline as an option.”
Ned wrinkles his nose, searching for a joke. “Well, no one does.”