Chapter 11
Help. I needed help, a lot of it. How did any of this make sense?
“Viv? Can you come taste something?”
I heard Nolan’s voice only vaguely, because he was in the kitchen and I was hiding out in my bedroom to work on my project. I got up and walked toward where I knew he was testing a theory he’d had about how to improve his recipe for whole wheat bread. The house smelled delicious.
The bread tasted that way, too. “Mmmm,” I said. Nolan didn’t believe in waiting to release the steam so the slice I’d bitten into was tasty and also warm. “I think that might be your best one yet.”
“You say that about everything I bake,” he reminded me, and it could have been true.
“You know, this could be more than a hobby for you. You could become a professional,” I suggested. “People would line up to buy this.”
“Mrs. Harrison next door is still hiding when she sees me.”
“It’s only due to her fear of carbs and she’s missing out,” I assured him. “I would buy a hundred loaves.”
“You get it for free. And I have no desire to be a baker,” he told me. “I like the science and math of it, though.”
Maybe that was my problem with baking: I wasn’t scientific or mathematic. I took another bite and sighed inwardly. “You spend a lot of time in the kitchen,” I pointed out. “I think it’s because you like being productive.”
“I’ve never been accused of that.”
“I’m accusing you now. Je…” Never mind, I didn’t know how to say it.
“Je t'accuse,” he supplied. “I’m not going to become a professional baker. Désolé.”
“Well, what about the other ideas for jobs that we came up with? There were lots of things on that list we made when we were in Detroit. What about your engineering stuff? You have a degree.” I heard envy in my voice.
He had two degrees, high school and college.
It was pretty amazing for someone who had never had to study, according to Cadence.
He had never done any homework either—it just came to him that easily.
“I was terrible at that job,” he said.
“Because you used to be an asshat who didn’t listen and didn’t want to be told what to do. Those were your words, not mine,” I quickly added.
“Did I call myself an asshat? Yes, I probably did, because I was,” he answered his question. “I was an awful employee then and I would be again.”
“Why?” I asked. “You stopped drinking and I bet that was a big part of your bad behavior. And you changed other things, like not going out all the time and traveling constantly. I’m sure that also got in the way of doing your job.”
He was nodding slowly. “But it was fun to go places. We should take a trip.”
I got sidetracked. “Where? Where do you want to go?”
He had lots of ideas about warm destinations, which sounded wonderful. It was only getting colder outside and I had very vivid memories of the prior winter, the one I’d spent in Kolter’s lukewarm house. I shivered.
“Turn the heat up,” Nolan said immediately. It was just one of the differences in my life now: I was living with a man who cared about my temperature. I also wasn’t afraid of him. I really liked him, too, which would have made traveling fun.
“It must have taken a long time to get to Maui,” I noted. Later, I could look up exactly what that distance had been. “Did you have to make a stop along the way?”
“You don’t have to, but you could,” he said. “If we went, we could stop in Nevada and visit people.”
I considered that. “I’m not sure if I know anyone there anymore. Patchouli’s in prison and my mom…I have no idea where she is.”
“We could look into it, through a person besides my nosy mother,” he offered. “Think about it.”
“And you should think about a profession. Not just a job to fill your time, but something that you really enjoy. You could also get a job for now to fill your time because I think you need that.”
“Are you sick of me being around?”
“Nolan!” I stared at him. “This is your house! Do you think I would order you out of it?”
“I feel like it’s ours,” he told me and I may have whistled.
“This house is mine? No, it isn’t,” I answered, “and even if it were, I wouldn’t tell you to leave. I like being together.”
“Because I feed you bread,” he said. He cut another slice which he handed over. “I have been thinking about the future.”
“About a career?”
“That and other aspects of it. I’ve been considering Beau’s life.”
Things seemed to be turning out all right for Beau—a lot better than I would have predicted.
He was forging ahead with his business and from what I’d heard, he was doing it right (meaning that he was doing it legally and in an organized way).
He already had a few clients, like a football player who was married to his former assistant, some other guys from the team, and also non-sports people who had enough money to pay for his sartorial assistance.
That just meant he was helping them pick clothes, and he had a great eye for it.
I was glad that it was working out for him and I was also glad that he wasn’t still upset with me butting into his life over dinner.
He actually seemed kind of grateful that I had been worried about his son.
“He and his ex-wife were never planning to have children, and I thought that made a lot of sense,” Nolan said. “I thought they would have been as bad at that job as my parents were and I also thought that Beau was satisfied with his setup.”
“I thought you said that they had problems from the beginning, that his wife hated him for being lazy, and then she cheated on him.”
“You have a very good memory.”
“I know. Sometimes I wish that I didn’t because there are things I’ve wanted to forget.”
“A long time ago, I told you my phone number and I was sure that you wouldn’t remember…
” We both looked over at the kitchen table, where his phone was currently ringing.
I thought it might have been some type of ghostly phenomenon but he wasn’t bothered.
“It’s my mother,” he said, and went ahead and answered.
“All?—”
I watched his face change, going from slightly annoyed to shocked, and then to very worried. “What?” I whispered. “What’s wrong?”
“Il va bien? Qu’a dit le docteur?” He listened, still frowning. “Bon, je pars maintenant.” He put down the phone and seemed to talk to himself. “With the weather today, driving will be best.” He swiveled and ran up the narrow staircase that connected the second and third floors to the kitchen.
I followed. “What’s going on?” I called as I went toward his room. He had a bag on his bed and was already putting in clothes.
“That was my mom. She believes that my dad had a heart attack. He’s at the hospital now but she doesn’t have much information. Someone is supposed to call her.”
“Why would they call her? Can’t they just talk face to face?”
“She’s at her law office,” he explained. “I have to go and be there with him.”
I thought of how both he and Cadence had come to the hospital for me—me, someone who was pretty much a stranger. His mom and dad must have been married for thirty years, and she hadn’t left work? “I can drive,” I said.
“What? You don’t have to come. Don’t you have houses to do?”
“Not really.” That had been a problem—my income had dropped even further because I’d lost another client.
She had texted a few days before and told me not to come back, and she hadn’t answered when I’d asked why and if I’d done something wrong.
“I’ll keep looking for jobs while I’m downstate with you.
” I had already filled out a lot of applications and Cadence and I had started a new spreadsheet to keep track of my progress.
“It’s better for me to drive since you’re upset.
I remember that when I first left Las Vegas, I was a wreck so I almost wrecked. That was dangerous.”
“I’m not upset,” he said. “I’m concerned.”
“Ok, I would still like to come if you don’t mind it. It won’t take me too long to pack.” I was already planning to grab the shirts that his mom would find the least offensive and the best fitting.
He zipped shut his bag. “I would be glad if you came. I’ll be in the car.”
It really didn’t take me too long to join him there and we started off, heading southeast through the sleety, cold rain.
I was now licensed but I was still careful, especially in someone else’s vehicle.
“This car is bigger than your old one and it’s twice as large as mine,” I mentioned.
“Cadence says that safety in a crash doesn’t depend on the size but it does seem like there’s more metal to protect us.
” Maybe it would help him to have a distracting conversation about various car models rather than thinking about how his dad was sick and alone in a hospital.
“I liked what I used to drive.”
“Why did you switch, then?” I asked.
“I had a crash and the car wasn’t repairable,” he said. “It was the week before I went to rehab.”
“Did you get hurt?” I asked anxiously.
“No. I went off the road and hit a tree but miraculously, I was completely fine.”
I thought of my mom’s boyfriend, the one who had walked away from the rollover accident that we’d had when I was a kid. “Sometimes you get lucky,” I said.
“There were a few things that convinced me to go to quit drinking and that was one of them. I realized that I had been very lucky, but it couldn’t last.”
“You could have gotten hurt or the worst thing could have happened. You could have been killed,” I told him.
“Is that the worst?” He shook his head. “I think it would have been if I’d hurt someone else. I checked myself in three days later.”
This conversation might have been distracting but it also probably made him feel terrible. I called his attention to something very positive. “And now, how many months sober do you have?”