Page 5 of The Cadence
I’d said hello and my grandma had thanked him for coming to help, but he hadn’t wanted to bother with small talk on that hot August evening. We’d gotten right down to business and he had asked what I needed help with…and the answer to that question was “everything,” because I was already failing almost all my classes, including PE. Before I started ninth grade at that school, I had never believed that I was stupid, or maybe I had just never been made aware. I quickly found out, and every time I’d listened to a teacher without a glimmer of understanding or had a paper returned with a ridiculously low number circled at the top, it had felt like another scoop out of my supply of confidence.
Right now I had no idea of the answers to any of Will’s questions about mortgages and foreclosures, but I wasn’t that teenager anymore. I didn’t have to go cry in the bathroom, pulling up my feet and pushing my palm against my mouth so that no one would see or hear.
“To be honest, the situation with my grandma’s house isn’t any of your business,” I told him. “I shouldn’t have said anything about it and I wouldn’t have under normal circumstances. I’m upset and worried, so it popped out.”
Will stared at me again, but it wasn’t the same as seven years before when I’d told him about my academic issues. Back then, he’d looked equal parts horrified and shocked, like he couldn’t believe that he was stuck with me and he also couldn’t believe that anyone could fail PE.
Now, his features didn’t move to show any emotion, so it was hard to determine if he was angry at what I’d just said. “I wasn’t trying to be ugly,” I told him.
“Neither was I, and your financial situation is none of my business.” His voice sounded flat but that did give me a clue that he might have been mad.
“I appreciate your concern and I appreciate your presence, too. Even if you didn’t fly home for the funeral, you still came to pay your respects. You’re here again, and you said that you hadn’t forgotten your wallet or something like that. Right?” I nodded. “Thank you.”
“I was remembering how your grandma used to send me home with food.”
“She was worried that you’d get hungry along the way,” I explained. “You used to eat a lot.”
“I was stupid,” Will said. “I hadn’t realized that y’all didn’t have enough for yourselves.”
“Oh, no,” I reassured him. “We never went without. It’s just that, in the last few years, she couldn’t work and I wasn’t able to very much either because she needed me here. But she was always very happy to see you enjoy her cooking, so don’t worry about that.”
He nodded, just a brief movement of his chin. Another thing that was different from high school was that he’d grown a beard, which covered the lower part of his face and made it even harder to figure out his expression.
“Is that why you came over again?” I asked. “Was it because you were thinking about my finances, or because you felt guilty for taking food out of our mouths? You don’t need to worry about either one.”
“And you don’t need to try to console me on the day of your grandmother’s funeral. Should we leave?” He stood up fast from his chair and it rocked back and forth pretty wildly.
“Leave? Where do you want to go?”
“We could…” He seemed to be at a loss. “You can’t be hungry after the buffet you put out today.”
“No, I haven’t been hungry in days,” I agreed. “I’m not sure what we could do around here, because I bet that you can’t walk six inches without getting swarmed.” I stood too, more careful of my chair. “You’re the most famous person in town.”
“Besides the woman who just broke a record for having the longest toenails.”
“You’ve been keeping up with the local news,” I approved. “But she’s a seven-day wonder. Anyway, no one can gawk at her because she can’t enter any establishment barefoot.”
“We could go to my hotel.”
That could have been what my grandmother called “suggestive.” But even with him holding his face so steady behind that beard, I could tell that nothing about him suggested any interest in sex with me. Nothing had changed in that arena.
“Ok,” I agreed. “Let me get shoes on.”
“You were taller today when you wore the black ones.”
I stopped partway into the house. “Did you remember how tall I was when we knew each other before?”
“I remember,” Will Bodine said. “I remember everything.”
So did I.
Chapter 2
It was a good thing that I put on those shoes, that was my first thought. This was not a barefoot kind of place.
“I’ve never been in here before,” I mentioned. “I’ve never had somebody take off with my car like that, either.” They would have had a hard time if they tried, since you had to know the trick of jiggling the accelerator with your foot while you put it in drive or it wouldn’t go. Once you did that, though, it could really move.
“That was a valet,” Will said. “I always stay in this hotel when I have to come home.” We were striding through the lobby as he spoke and he looked straight in front, not glancing either right or left. Since he was so tall, his sightline was above the heads of most of the other people in here. He moved fast, too, and I was equally glad that I’d put on my tennis shoes instead of flip flops because I had to jog to keep pace. As fast as we went, though, we still had to wait for the elevator with a few other people who had gotten there before us.
