Sublimate

Chapter 10 #3

“No, it wasn’t any of those people, and you don’t need to do anything. You’ve done enough!” I told him. “You gave me money, you paid for tons of stuff—including your mother’s huge bill. Food, bread-making supplies, the flight to Detroit and back—”

“I should tell you that a new car will be delivered tomorrow. It’s not for you,” he said, “but you’re on my insurance now and you can drive it as long as you need it, wherever you want to go.”

“But it’s not for me.”

“No, because you said you wouldn’t accept it. Let’s return to the assault,” he said.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I stated firmly.

We drove the rest of the trip to the restaurant in silence, but before we got out, Nolan put his hand on my arm.

“Twice, I’ve woken up alone in the hospital and it scared the hell out of me.

I was ashamed so I never talked about it.

I told my friends that I had gone off someplace that they would admire, Mauritius, I think, and then Brazil.

” He shook his head. “Why did it matter what they thought? You were right when you said that they didn’t care about me. ”

“You were hospitalized?” I put my hand over his. “That’s so scary. If you ever have to go again, for any reason, I’ll be there, ok? You won’t be alone.”

“Thank you, but I’m trying to say—”

Beau knocked on the window, looking questioning. We all hurried through the rain into the little restaurant. “This is on me,” I announced as we sat.

Cadence shook her head and murmured something about splitting it, but Beau just seemed confused. “What?” he asked.

“I’ll pay for this dinner,” I explained.

I had some money in my own bank account and for the first time ever, I had a debit card.

It felt really official but Cadence had insisted on having a serious discussion about credit use and overuse.

She didn’t need to worry, because I’d seen that go wrong with Kolter’s mom and also when my sister had stolen all those numbers and spent a pretty outrageous amount.

Plastic was dangerous, whether it belonged to you or not.

“You don’t need to do that,” Beau said, and smiled at his friend. “Nolan, tell her.”

“Are you suggesting that he should pay?” I asked. “That’s not very fair. Why should he when you were the one who suggested going out? Why should he have to take care of us like that?”

“It’s ok, Viv,” Nolan told me. He changed the subject by asking Cadence about the library. She turned bright red and twirled her hair quite a bit, but she did manage to talk to him.

The dinner was good. I got full and that usually made me feel better, like a sense of relief that I didn’t have to worry for a while about getting my next meal, but I was upset and I couldn’t figure out exactly why.

I didn’t care what Madeline Whitaker said to her son about me.

Why would I have? Words meant nothing, so when people insulted you, saying that you were a street walker like your mom or that you were worthless because you couldn’t even do the laundry, you could just ignore them.

But I found that I did care what Nolan thought.

I didn’t want to owe him and then run away.

I didn’t want to drive his new car and snarf down all his bread and give him nothing in return! It wasn’t right.

As I finished the chicken sandwich that I was definitely going to pay for, I was also thinking more about his mom trying to dig up dirt on me.

She didn’t actually know why I’d been in that parking lot, and she wouldn’t have been able to understand that sometimes you needed to do what you needed to do!

You had to eat and you didn’t always have money for chicken sandwiches or even for the cheapest thing in a vending machine.

You had to have a safe place to sleep, and sometimes it was in the house of a guy who scared you and whose moods you had to try to manage.

And if you weren’t going to steal credit card numbers?

Then you had to make it happen another way.

“That was good,” Cadence said at the end of the meal.

She had relaxed a lot, to the point that she wasn’t turning red when Nolan looked at her or when she heard him speak.

She also hadn’t checked her phone for the whole time we’d been here, but Beau had.

Every few seconds, he would look down and sometimes he was also texting stuff.

“I just want to make sure that Victoria remembers that Finley likes to hear ‘Back in Black’ while his diaper gets changed,” he noted at one point. “It soothes him.”

“You sing that?” Nolan asked. “How the hell do you hit those high notes? Pardon me, I meant to say ‘heck.’” As he spoke, the waitress put the check on our table and he reached in his back pocket for his wallet.

“No, I have it,” I said, and took the little tray from him. “I said that I was going to pay for this.”

“You and I will settle up later,” Cadence told me in her library voice.

“You don’t have to do that,” Beau announced. He looked over at Nolan. “Don’t let her.”

“I can pick up one, single dinner after everything that he has done for me,” I said. “He got all my paperwork. He gave me a place to live. I use his nice ovens even though I can’t make anything good in them. He lets me fly in his plane, drive his car, eat his food—”

“Vivi, you don’t owe me,” Nolan broke in.

Beau nodded. “He’s in a position to do it for you.”

“And I’m very grateful,” I answered. “I’m so grateful for all that and more. But it doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t give back.”

Beau frowned like I was wrong and I took that personally. “I don’t understand you,” I told him. “You shouldn’t be a scammer, either!”

“A scammer? I think you may be projecting.” He laced together his fingers and put them under his chin. “I believe this may be a personal issue.” He tapped his lower lip.

He was probably right about that. I didn’t want to be a scammer like other people in my family, especially not to Nolan—and it made me furious to think that I was.

“You went on for about an hour about installing the baby car seat and going to three different police agencies and a fire department to make sure that you’d done it right.

But you don’t have a job to protect your son’s future.

Maybe you’re not scamming but you’re not responsible,” I told him.

I could tell that he got mad right back but there was no way he could do anything to me in a public restaurant and anyway, I still had my knife. “I’m working on establishing my own company,” he answered frostily.

“Good for you,” Cadence murmured.

“No, it’s not good,” I said. “What if Finley fell down a storm drain tomorrow, before you have your company even started? Or if there was a bear attack when you were still struggling with getting it off the ground? Those things could happen.”

“A bear?” Beau repeated.

“I would step in,” Nolan said. “Unless there was an actual bear involved, and then I would encourage everyone to fight.”

“We have black bears here in Michigan,” Cadence explained quietly to me. “Definitely don’t play dead.”

“Nolan shouldn’t be your safety net,” I told Beau. “You have to be your own safety net.”

“You’re the one living with him,” he pointed out.

“You would be on the street if he hadn’t helped you.

He helps everyone, like that guy he took in whose name we never knew.

But I’m going to get my business off the ground, bears or no bears, and make it a success.

I’m doing this explicitly for my son. Finley also has a mom, by the way. Victoria is wonderful.”

I had kind of forgotten about the thing where people had two parents and both of them loved the kid.

“I don’t know why you’re are arguing,” Nolan said to us. “It’s unpleasant and I would like you to stop.”

“Me too,” Cadence piped up. “Oh, no.” She was now staring at her phone. “This is bad. My mom is really angry and she just said that she’s going to change the locks on our house!”

Dinner ended because Nolan put a large amount of cash on the bill tray and Cadence raced to the parking lot, sure that she was about to be put out on the street. Beau followed close behind and I went after him.

“I’m sorry,” I yelled, but he didn’t answer. By the time that Nolan arrived, their car was already slowly pulling away.

“I’ll drive,” he told me.

“I’m sorry,” I said to him, too. “I shouldn’t have done that at dinner. I hate when people fight over food. I mean, I hate when they try to grab it from each other and I also hate when you’re eating and there’s an argument. Either way.”

“Why did you start on Beau like that?”

“Because I think that he’s using you! And I think that I am, too, and I don’t like it. You deserve better than friends who take and take.”

“He doesn’t do that and neither do you.”

“Really? Speaking for myself, I actually do. I didn’t plan to go to your house for even one night, but I’ve been living with you for months! Living off you,” I corrected myself. “Just like how you used to take Beau on all those vacations and you let some stranger bunk for half a year with you.”

“I don’t know why you think you live off me.”

“Well, there’s the obvious, like the bills that I don’t pay!” I exclaimed. “You won’t let me give you any money.”

“I don’t need it and I’m happy when I see you check the banking app on your phone.

I like when you smile because the balance is going up.

But more than that, I like how we go on runs together, I like how you want to taste the bread I’m making, I like how I have to make coffee because you can’t get the machine to work. ”

“There are so many buttons on that thing.”

“You also supported me when we went to see my parents,” he continued.

“You only had to see them because I forced a connection with my paperwork problems,” I pointed out.

“No, I was going to have to show up sometime and it was much easier with you there,” he told me.

“Really?” It hadn’t seemed easy and I didn’t seem to have helped, but he was nodding like the answer was a strong “yes.”

He said it, too: “Yes. I’m glad you’re living with me. Otherwise, I’d be alone and that’s always been…”

“What?”

“Problematic,” he finished.

“Just as long as I’m not problematic. Just as long as you’re not bothered by the stuff that your mom found out,” I said.

“You’re not problematic. You’re nice,” Nolan told me.

“Maybe. Can I see your phone?” He didn’t ask why, but I told him. “I’m going to text Beau and apologize. His business is not mine. I mean, I’ll mind my own business and not his.”

“I don’t know,” he answered. “It probably didn’t hurt him to hear that. Sometimes we need to get hit with the hard stuff.”

“And sometimes a near-stranger should keep her mouth shut,” I suggested. “I’m writing to Cadence, too, to see if she’s ok or if she really did get put out on the curb. That’s always hard.”

“She can come stay with us.”

I thought of how Nolan had a habit of walking around shirtless and how she might have needed CPR after seeing that.

If you were someone interested in male bodies, you probably would have been very interested in his.

Because, since I’d first seen him in the road last fall, he had been getting stronger and healthier.

Personally, I was more interested in what that meant for his sobriety.

I was interested in him having a long and healthy life, and if I was a part of that? Then good.

“Did you hear me say thank you?” I asked.

“Yes. Thank you, too, for sticking around. You don’t have to anymore.”

“I want to,” I said. I never wanted to go.

He was quiet for a moment. “Would you say that you’re happy?”

“Me?” I thought about it. “I guess that’s kind of the same question that Cadence asked me today, when she was wondering if I’d had any unfulfilled plans for the future.

I never considered plans or happiness because those things didn’t matter.

I had to get through the day or even just the minute, and everything in front of me seemed so scary that I wasn’t sure how to face it.

So I didn’t.” I paused. “What about you? Would you say that you’re happy? ”

“I’m working on it,” Nolan answered.

And I decided that I would help him.