12. Abbot #2
There’s a gentle joke there that Abbot could respond to.
It’s a drain on a department to put together a search for applicants and go through the tedium of interviews and talks and dinners together.
They’ll get hours back this semester, days even.
And if their new dean shoehorns him into their department with no input from them, they might even be happy for it in exchange for that free time.
Instead, he stares down the street at the gray, grimy slush of winter in Portland.
Ned would pick up the thread of humor. He’d commiserate about the work it takes to hire a new professor, earnestly and graciously thank her for doing so much to cut through that process, then probably insist he meet the faculty to soothe any ruffled feathers and charm them into welcoming him.
Ned, laying on his back last night, blinking at the ceiling. Sorry.
Abbot could wait until he has an official job offer in hand.
He should wait, like Steve did, make the university extend itself with a salary and benefits written on official letterhead.
Make it harder for them to rescind their offer while he starts the course of negotiations.
Put them through that very hiring process so they’ve invested time and resources into him, and finding a different candidate will be all the less appealing than finding common ground with him.
The common ground being a second position for Ned. Just ask, he silently commands himself. It’s Beverly, which is both the problem and a solution.
“You know, if you wanted to come to campus, we could—”
“You heard about Adams University.” Abbot closes his eyes. Yes, bring up the topic in an oblique, roundabout way, and interrupt her as he does it.
But Beverly has always forgiven him any rudeness. Has always been so very gentle with him, and he stiffens under it now as much as he did when he was a child, following her meekly into the hospital because his father was busy and his mother was sick, and he had no choice in either matter.
“Sorry,” Abbot says. Sorry.
“Yes, I did hear.” Beverly likely knows why he’s brought this up. His father, if he mentioned Ned, would have also mentioned his position at Adams. Shared details of Abbot’s life without permission. “It’s so unfortunate for Ned. Liesl told me all about his baseball team.”
Abbot softens. I can do it, Liesl had said last summer, grabbing a bat and Ned had coached her through how to swing it, cheering when she finally connected with the ball.
He focuses on the memory of Ned’s smile and says, “I’d like to have him considered by Newbury too, if I were to accept the position there.”
No. That was an entirely unclear way to say what he meant. He should have written down the right words. Practiced. Put this phone call off until he was truly ready.
And never made it, he knows. He grips the phone, hand sweaty, fingers cold as winter’s chill seeps into his car.
“Okay,” Beverly says, as simple as that, sorting through the mess of his request without making him repeat himself. “Bring him down for a meeting with me. And we’ll see what we can do.”
It’s not a no. Not a clear yes either, but spousal hires never are. It’s a pain for a department to find another entire salary, to work in a whole second person.
Easier, though, if the dean of the college is in support. “Thank you,” Abbot says.
“Of course. Henry, I’m really glad you called. How are you, really?”
Crushed, nearly, from the weight of having her so suddenly back in his life.
Reproach rises through him, an old anger with himself that’s mired in a twist of shame.
He pushes it away now like he has for years, knowing even as he does so that he’s only adding layers to the instances he’s met her kindness with his own discourtesy.
“I’ll send you an email to coordinate.”
“Okay,” she says again, so very gently. “I’ll take a look, and hope we’ll get you two in this week or next.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m looking forward to seeing you both. Getting to know Ned, and catching up with you.”
“Bye,” Abbot says, and he knows it’s too abrupt, but Beverly will forgive him that, too.
Her laughing in his parents’ kitchen. Mom gesturing with a glass of wine as they talked. Shhh, Beverly had whispered, slipping him another slice of the marjolaine she and Mom had baked, no matter that he was in his pajamas already, his teeth brushed, and ought to be in bed.
He startles at a tap on the window.
“Dude,” Pat says, opening the door. “You okay? Car troubles?”
Abbot searches for the button to turn on the engine, groping for it like he’s never driven this car before. “I just had a call to make.”
“You good?”
“Yes.”
Pat points to the cafe. “I was gonna check in on things after abandoning work all weekend. Want a tea? Some wine?”
“No.” Yes, there. The car hums to life. “I need to get home.”
“Alright.” Pat gives him a long look before he presses the door shut.
Ned calls before Abbot’s driven halfway down the block, and Abbot can nearly sense in the air the text Pat sent him. For a moment, he debates not answering, but it’s Ned.
“I’m going to set up a meeting with us and Newbury,” Abbot says, forgetting he was supposed to start with hello.
But Ned will forgive him this as well. “Great,” he says, easy and light. “Good drive? Did Pat talk your ear off?”
Abbot has to work to manage a response, but Ned has always been worth that extra push of effort. “Both are still firmly attached.”
“What a relief. Get any juicy details?”
“He’s going to become a sommelier.”
“Like I know what that is.”
“Graduate from drinking wine from a bag.”
“Oh, he’s head over heels. Abbot—”
“I’m nearly home. I should stop at the grocery store.”
“Okay,” Ned says, his voice soft. “Do you want to talk?”
“No.”
“You can,” Ned says. “To me.”
“I know.”
“Hey. I love you.”
“I love you too.”
“We’ll figure all this out.”
Newbury, he means. Jobs and moving and the shifting in their lives.
But Abbot is suddenly too tired for a genuine discussion, and any of Ned’s usual gentle probing. “Luckily you already know how to uncork a bottle of wine.”
“You’d hope as a bartender, Pat would too,” Ned says, and Thank you, Abbot thinks, for following him down this other path, away from sincerity to a mercifully easy, useless conversation.
“I’ll have to investigate if all his bottles are actually twist-off.”
“Wouldn’t put it past him,” Ned says. “Think he’s just refilling them from a bag?”
“I may reconsider letting him serve me.”
Ned laughs, and yes, this will be fine. Everything will be.
It has to be. For Ned.