34. Ned
NED
The dark slate of the winter sky hangs low as Ned walks into his office, and turning on the lights does little to brighten the room’s gloominess.
The break room is a little better as he tucks the lunch he brought into the refrigerator.
He won’t want to eat it, he already knows.
A soggy sandwich when he could go get something much tastier from one of the spots near campus?
He doesn’t have a choice. He has Baxter, and Peggy, and now a crappy lunch.
He should text Abbot. That was a really shitty way to leave things last night. Instead, he pulls a mug down from the cupboard. They’ll talk. Later.
“Morning,” Steve says, cheerful as he comes in, coffee mug in hand. “What a lucky day, there’s even some coffee left. Want it?”
“I’ll make more,” Ned says as Steve pours the last inch of coffee for himself. It’s likely burnt and probably weak too.
At least the department is still stocking them with beans. Will that little pleasure run out as the semester starts to wind down? First no coffee, then no printer paper, then worrying their paychecks won’t come? That’d be a damn treat.
“I won’t say no to another cup.” Steve raises his mug in a toast. “Got my offer letter from Callahan. I ought to send Henry something for so kindly leaving at just the right time.”
“Call it even with giving us a heads up,” Ned says. “And dinner last night, thank you. The girls had a blast.”
“I’m glad that worked out,” Steve says. “What’d you guys think?”
Ned opens his mouth. Then he quickly rinses out the carafe, pouring brown-tinged water down the drain before he concentrates on filling it again. “It’s a great house.”
“Is that a polite ‘Thanks but no thanks’? It’s fine if it is, no pressure. I just wanted a chance for it to go to someone I know. Memories, and all.”
“Of course,” Ned says. The house is full of them, he’s sure. With more to come for whoever buys it, kids running up and down those stairs, snowmen built in the backyard, marks on the wall to record heights year after year.
Abbot, maybe, it’ll be, taking the keys from Steve.
Weird as hell if he does. And it’d be better if Ned had liked the house less. If it was too far from his folks, or too huge, or too small, or in such disrepair he couldn’t imagine dealing with a roof, a septic system, or a foundation.
And maybe it is. It’s not like they saw an inspection report. Maybe the entire place is rotting, and that’d just be so very convenient.
“We can be flexible on price,” Steve says.
Free? Ned wants to ask. Cause that’d be close enough to what he needs. That, or Steve paying him to live there. He can dream, can’t he?
“If that makes a difference at all,” Steve continues. “I talked to Jess, and she said she’d be open to a lower price, if it got sold soon.”
“She really doesn’t want to hang onto it, huh?”
“Isn’t marriage fun?” Steve asks.
Fun. Yeah. Ned stabs at the button to start the coffee brewing.
“Though I’m sure you two are just fine with this stuff,” Steve says.
Ned nearly laughs. Had he and Jen been disagreeing so quickly after they got married?
He can’t remember, not really, but even if they had, he wouldn’t have known to worry about it.
He’d thought she was it for him, and had lived blissfully with that certainty up until she left him. “We’re figuring it out,” Ned says.
“Well, no matter what, you’re better than the lovely Louis,” Steve says.
Ned pulls his head up. “You knew him?”
“Knew him?” Steve laughs. “C’mon.”
But Ned just stares. Steve and Abbot did their doctorates together, and then Steve had gotten this job at Adams and Abbot had gone to Callahan and—and met Louis there?
No, Abbot had gone back to Geneva at some point in there. And Louis never lived in Portland. Did he? He didn’t work at Callahan, certainly, so Abbot didn’t meet him through teaching there. A conference? Ned wonders now, or some other academic context?
“He’s never said,” Ned says slowly.
Steve laughs again. “Well, I guess that’s Henry for you. Didn’t you wonder how Henry got tenure so young?”
“He’s pretty smart,” Ned offers and it sounds so weak.
“Okay, there’s an understatement,” Steve says. “I can’t even tell you what I had to suffer through being in the same courses as that man.”
“Well, I did have to take his class.”
“Fair. But imagine the entirety of our cohort, facing down a couple years of coursework, right? Then our qualifying exams, and the entire process of our dissertation, we figured we’d be together for a while, right?
When I say I did my doctorate with Henry, what I really mean is that we started together and then he just casually left us all in the dust. Took extra courses like it was easy as anything, asked to take his exams early, and he must have sat down and written his dissertation in one shot, it seemed like, because all of a sudden he was done. ”
What does this have to do with Louis? Ned doesn’t ask. He already, horribly, knows.
“Louis started a couple years before us, and Henry graduated with him,” Steve says. “Henry hit fast-forward while the rest of us were struggling to stay on track with our own timelines, and then off they went.”
Off to Europe, Ned can fill in with what little information he has. While Abbot tried to deal with the reality of his mom, and Louis was probably shitty as hell to him.
And Abbot carried on the momentum of his career that saw him finish his doctorate lightning-quick, and it’s landed him at Newbury, as if it was always meant to be.
The coffee pot beeps. Steve pours himself a cup, then holds the carafe out to Ned.
Numbly, Ned takes it. Abbot spent years catching up to Louis. That’s the kind of guy he’s used to being with. The one from that fancy Swiss university he went to, and then Louis, and however many others he isn’t talking about. And here Ned is, struggling to keep up to him.
“Anyway, you’re way better,” Steve says.
Ned splatters coffee onto his hand as he pours a cup.
“And I’m really just so happy for you guys.” Steve grins. “Happier if you buy my place.”
He’s mostly joking, Ned is sure. He’ll be fine if they don’t buy it, and bumping into him at a conference in the future will be nothing but the joy of catching up with an old friend.
We’re not going to, Ned needs to tell him, so Steve and Jess can list the house and find a buyer who can afford the place, so they can move on with their lives.
“We’re talking about it still,” Ned says instead.
“Well, let me know what you figure out.” Steve lifts his mug in a toast and backs toward the door. “And congrats again.”
“Thanks,” Ned manages and stands there, unable to shake the thought that he’ll keep running and running in this life, and never keep up with Abbot. He won’t even come close.
When he’d been a doctoral candidate, the difference between them hadn’t seemed insurmountable, but now, being a professor?
He’s face to face with how far apart their lives are.
Their careers, their paths to get here, and certainly where their futures are going.
Together at Newbury, yes, but Ned will always be second fiddle to Abbot, always the one helped along by a spousal hire, always trailing him.
Maybe that doesn’t matter now, when Ned’s working through the very early stages of his career, but in a couple years?
When it takes him ages to earn promotions that are handed to Abbot?
When he struggles for funding, and has to scrape by on smaller grants?
Always ends up at smaller conferences, and even then he’s giving a talk in a side room during a morning session, when Abbot has the entire main auditorium packed?
Ned’s a weight to be dragged around. And not just professionally. He can’t even live with his husband. Can’t visit his family, either.
If Ned had more time—would it matter, though? Has he been thinking about this all wrong? Will he always be a step behind? Slow to get his life in gear, unable to catch up? That’s not a partnership. That’s Abbot tugging Ned along, while Ned barely has his feet under him.
Do they want a life like that?
He clutches his coffee, his ring glinting where he’s gripping the handle too tight.
The distractions of the workday don’t help, and when the building empties, Ned stays at his desk as winter’s early evening darkens the windows and the room around him.
He startles at a knock and gathers himself as best he can, drawing his focus back from the blank computer screen he’s been staring at.
“Come in,” he calls, steeling himself to focus on listening to whoever it is.
A student, probably, and he’ll have to dredge up reassurances.
It’ll be another set of questions about transferring to a different college, wanting guidance about what they should do, and they’ll look to Ned like he has all the answers, hope plain on their faces that he’ll manage to fix the mess they’re in.
Yeah, well. Good luck to them all, if Ned’s the one dispensing advice.
But Dad stands in the doorway, looking around the small room. Dan, the name on his shirt reads in red embroidered letters, oil stains on the cloth and the faint scent of diesel that always follows him when he leaves the shop.
Ned half stands. “Is everything okay? Is it Peggy?” Oh shit, was he supposed to pick her up?
What time is it even, that Dad’s here? Ned grabs his phone, but there are no notifications.
Though it’s late for Peggy to be getting out of school, and Jen has her tonight anyway, so none of that explains Dad here, at Adams.
“Wanted to see the place before you move on and up in the world,” Dad says, running his finger along the books on the shelf, then pulling out the chair in front of Ned’s desk and sitting in it.
“I imagine Newbury is all carved mahogany walls and you’ll have one of those fancy leather chairs. And a fireplace in your office too?”
“You just came by?”