12. Abbot
ABBOT
Abbot has to wait through two lights to make it to where Pat waits on the corner, his sweatshirt hood pulled up and his face chapped with cold.
“Sorry,” Abbot says, turning up the heat as Pat jumps in. “There was construction.”
“Course there was,” Pat says. “Good weekend?”
No.
Yes, in that any time with Ned is better than time alone, but Ned had been withdrawn and troubled since yesterday morning, and the mood had hung over their weekend together.
If only Abbot could keep Adams open through sheer force of will. Keep Ned’s job there and cleave open a position for himself, so they can live out the dream Abbot had decided on.
Instead, he needs to call Beverly about Newbury.
He will. Tomorrow morning, so he’s not bothering her on a weekend, or sure his call will go straight to her voicemail. Or the afternoon, perhaps, so he’s not interrupting her first thing on a Monday.
Tuesday might work even better.
“Well, that’s some silence as an answer,” Pat says. “What happened?”
“Did you see the news?”
“Honestly didn’t come up for air even once,” Pat says brightly.
“Adams is closing.”
“Oh shit.”
“Ned’s not taking it well.”
“Yeah, our guy isn’t known for calm, rational reactions. Is he that bad?”
He’d tossed and turned next to Abbot last night, then spent a long while on his phone, the glare shining over his face.
Twice, Abbot had thought about taking it just so Ned could get some rest, but he wasn’t sure that would actually help.
Sex hadn’t, which was particularly telling.
Sorry, Ned had muttered when they’d finished.
Not that Abbot is going to share that with Pat. “Pretty bad,” he says. Sorry rings in his head. “Perhaps even really bad.”
“Yikes.”
“Yes.”
Pat leans back in his seat and blows out a long breath. “Baxter better be okay, because our Ned can’t handle too much or his head will actually explode. Or he’ll curl up on the couch and stare at the wall for several days in a row.”
A fair assessment, but—“Baxter?”
“Isn’t he a little, I don’t know, off?”
“Is he?”
“Like super thirsty,” Pat says. “Claire should really see him. She said she was definitely worried.”
“Actually see him, as opposed to telling her to see him and then going off with her on your own all weekend?”
“Okay, but look.” Pat holds up a finger like an explanation is coming.
He pauses like that as Abbot pulls onto the street, and then sighs loudly, melting to a huge smile.
“Yeah, it was a great weekend. She’s amazing.
She’s so—I just—you gotta give me a crash course in wine, so I can pretend I know what I’m talking about. ”
“Wine?”
“I told her I’d take her out, and Abbot, she knows stuff about the world. I need to be able to look at a wine menu and make this face.” Pat pinches his eyebrows, purses his lips, and taps his chin with a finger. “And then point to a bottle.”
“It seems you have it down already.”
“But you just know the waiter will say something like, oh, the ’02?
And I’m absolutely going to need a response to that.
My wheelhouse is the ‘on sale’ section. She’s super smart and put together and have you ever met someone and needed to get it right so bad you’re going to actually die if it doesn’t work out? ”
“No,” Abbot says, and Pat truly is caught up on this woman to not recognize the lie. “But if you keep seeing her, what’ll she do when she eventually finds out what you’re actually like?”
“Wow. Rude. Let me live in my little bubble of pretend. Though you’re forgiven for giving me the chocolate. That was a hit.”
Yes, living in a bubble sounds nice. One where Ned’s never upset by the machinations of the world around them, and Abbot can move down to Boston and he and Ned will—
Will what? They never got a chance to talk about what comes next for them, what with the sharp turn their weekend took.
They will. Once Abbot reaches out to Beverly. Which he’s going to do really very soon.
“Is Ned shit out of luck finding another job?”
Abbot flicks the lever to spray his windshield, then waits as the wipers clear away the fluid and salt. “There’s always a chance,” he says finally.
“But.” Pat fills in the rest of that statement with one word.
Abbot nods. “But. He’s the newest faculty in the department, and a lot of professors will be looking for jobs in Boston.”
“Sure, but they don’t have us rooting for them. You and I are Team Ned. We should get T-shirts.”
The levity feels good, better than the mire the weekend became, and Abbot latches onto it. “Perhaps with Baxter’s face on it.”
“Let’s get them ordered. That’s our first order of business. Second is: Fix Ned’s life.”
“So simple.” He pretends to focus on finding the turn for the highway, but traffic is lighter than it was on Friday, and soon enough he merges into the stream of cars.
In only minutes at this speed, Boston will fade behind them, the crush of buildings beginning to sprawl out into suburbia, and then the strip malls and gas stations will be traded for trees as they drive north, houses peeking out from between them.
He and Pat will be back in Portland, until the next time Abbot drives down, and Ned will be in the same spot, worrying and wondering about his future.
“I have the opportunity to ask for a spousal hire for Ned,” Abbot says slowly. Maybe he shouldn’t share this with Pat, but—but he doesn’t have anyone else to talk to. Odd, to not be able to talk to Ned himself about what’s troubling him. “But I’m not sure he wants me to.”
“Of course he doesn’t.” Pat says it so simply that Abbot takes his eyes from the road to look at him. Pat shrugs. “Like I told you, he’s going to need ages to come around.”
“I’m not sure we have that much time.” Which is why he should have reached out to Beverly already. Done so yesterday, as the news of Adams washed across academia. She’ll be fielding interest from other professors, everyone desperate to land somewhere next fall.
Do you want to talk? she’d asked him as he tried to ignore her on the walk back from the hospital, chin tucked into his coat, hands stuffed in his pockets.
He blinks and sprays his windshield again, though there’s hardly any salt to wipe away.
“You gotta push him,” Pat says. “He hates relying on other people, because he has dumb, noble ideas about doing everything himself.”
“But it’s me,” Abbot says.
“Yeah, but it’s Ned. Though that’s the great thing about having you around. I know you’ll always take care of him.”
Abbot stares at the tail lights in front of them. Yes, he will. He wants to, at least. He just wishes there was another avenue than calling Beverly, of all people.
But what can he do? Help Ned with his job talk materials?
Ned just put them together last year, so he hardly needs to update much.
Abbot can ask the few contacts he has if they’re hiring, but the whole of Boston will be absorbing Adams’ faculty who don’t want to move.
Besides, it’s not as if Abbot has a long list of people to reach out to.
Ned is the one who makes connections at conferences, ends each one with new numbers in his phone and emails exchanged, when Abbot would rather retreat to his hotel room and wait for the event to end.
Abbot knows Steve, and he’s the reason Ned’s at Adams at all.
And he knows Beverly.
He sits in his car for a long time after he drops Pat off, as if he needs to make sure Pat has made it home safe, gotten inside his door and locked it behind him.
Team Ned. He likes the sound of that. Trust Pat to come up with it on the spur of the moment.
Or maybe Pat thought of that a long while ago. Maybe he’s always considered himself Team Ned, watching out for Ned as surely as Dan and Cheryl do.
He pictures going back to the Coppolas’ house and facing them if he hasn’t done everything he possibly can for Ned. He can’t. There’s no choice in the end, so he steels himself and pulls out his phone.
Don’t answer, he silently pleads as his call rings.
“Henry?” Beverly asks, delight in her voice. “I can’t believe you still have this number.”
She still has hers, he could point out, though at least their text thread died with his last phone.
Funeral arrangements, that had been. All the work she’d done to ensure everything was just so, keeping Abbot in the loop, as she’d promised she would.
Asked for his opinions too, about food and flowers, and if he didn’t respond, she’d call him until he answered just to make sure you’re okay.
“Hello,” he manages.
“How are you?”
“Fine.”
“Fine,” she repeats, and he can hear the smile in her voice. “It was so good to see you the other day. And to meet Ned! I’ve heard so much about him from your father.”
Abbot stares down at his lap. Say something, he instructs himself.
“And from Liesl, of course,” Beverly goes on when he doesn’t. “I think she’s Ned’s biggest fan.”
Desperate, Abbot looks at Pat’s door again like he’ll reappear and save him.
And then what? Ask Abbot why he can’t manage to talk to his mother’s best friend? “He’s very good with her,” Abbot pushes out.
“Well, she is really excited to visit you soon. I heard all about her plans. I think you’re making clafoutis with her.”
She pronounces it with a strong American accent and Abbot nearly corrects her. The pronunciation and the fact he won’t make those. Zuger kirschtorte, maybe, depending on how Ned feels about Peggy having a bit of kirsch. Or they could find a cherry syrup to use.
But nothing so French, and especially not clafoutis. “I wanted to talk about your offer,” Abbot says, which is a bald lie, since he really just wants to hang up.
“I’m so glad to hear that.”
Abbot tips the phone away from his mouth to gather himself. Then, he presses his fingernail hard into the pad of his thumb. “I’m very interested in pursuing it.”
“I’ve been hoping so,” Beverly says. “The department chair couldn’t be more excited. And the other faculty too, not just because they can skip forming a hiring committee.”