Page 85 of Tasty Cherry

Uncle Roger sighs. “I was hoping getting through college would give him some perspective.”

I swivel in my chair. “He bucks all authority. How did he even graduate?”

“It took some doing.” He sighs again. “We got him a campus advocate. She had the most to do with it.”

“Really? What did she do for him?”

And more importantly, could I hire her?

“I don’t know exactly. She did some paperwork. Got what she called ‘accommodations’ for him. He doesn’t talk to me, and since he’s an adult, she couldn’t get me his grades or anything. But he walked the stage. And he got a diploma, I know that. It came to the house.”

“Do you have her name?” Maybe she can shed some light on how to make him straighten up.

“Sure. I’ll track it down and send it to you.”

“Thanks.”

Uncle Roger sighs. “I appreciate it, Sebastian. I know it’s a burden. I didn’t know what to do. He wasn’t going to get anywhere if I didn’t intervene.”

“He didn’t have it easy. Neither did you, picking up where your sister left off.”

He’s quiet. Both of us imagine all the scenes from the past, and those only Maverick witnessed.

His mother Maura, Roger’s only daughter, is in jail for life. She did every drug imaginable, broke every law in the land other than murder, and very nearly did that too, with how she treated her only son.

I was twelve when a five-year-old Maverick appeared at Uncle Roger’s, where we spent every Sunday afternoon to give Mom a bit of time to herself.

But I remember. He was scrawny, mean, and half-feral. Bruised from eye to knee.

There were social workers all the time, even on Sunday. Therapists. Someone helped him with his speech.

He didn’t go to kindergarten that year. And when he did, he got held back. This made him bigger and tougher than the other kids, and he used that to always be on top.

We called him cousin, even though Uncle Roger was a family friend. But our lives were tightly intertwined growing up.

He seemed to be straightening out when I left for undergrad. I only heard the stories as told by Arya.

Maverick dated a lot, showed off his girlfriends, broke their hearts. This was a different track from the one where he sucker punched anyone who crossed him.

Now I wonder if he’s ever recovered. It’s like he wants to hurt the world for the hurt he got when he was little.

But apparently somebody in college found a way to make him productive. Someone who was helping him as recently as last year.

I’ll be calling her the first chance I get.

I’ve played it straight at this job for five years, but I’m really in it now. Forcing an intern into the program. Having an affair with a subordinate.

I rub my forehead. I would fire me, if I knew. At least call me in.

But I’m the one in charge. Havannah has already moved into a hands-off approach for everything she can pass to others. She only does the event management, her favorite. She’s been hiring an outside team to implement her visions, but that’s something she hopes to give to the intern she thinks can handle it.

In our meetings about the interns before they were hired, she liked all of the choices. Ilsa had shown true leadership, getting glowing reports from her professors and hotel references alike. She had a double major in business and hospitality and got things done.

Brooklyn had charmed everyone, and sometimes was given a difficult bride or mother-of-the-bride at the hotel where she did her undergrad internship. She excelled at handling hard customers.

Owen was a teddy bear of a choice, able to work with anyone, loyal, and thoroughly reliable.

And Mila. I only vaguely remember those discussions, before I knew their names, and overlay that early impression with what I know of her now. Hardworking. Diversity of experience. Minored in interior design.

---