Page 37 of The Cadence
“It worked out, because once the state was involved, I got to live with my grandma,” I continued. “It was the best thing that ever could have happened to me. And she did her best to teach me how to cook. First, she had to fix the way I thought about food, too, so that I didn’t hide it in my room or eat so much that I got sick. It was hard for me to stop behaving that way, but she was patient.”
I slid the slightly burned chicken onto two plates and put a little salad on each one, too. “Here we go, and I hope this tastes good.”
“It looks very nice,” Will told me.
That was generous, but he did tuck right in and ate more than what my grandma and I would have finished in a week. I’d had to really adjust my quantities when I made things for the two of us.
“Thanks for listening to me, Calla.”
“You’re welcome and vice versa,” I answered. “I’m done.” I pushed most of my dinner over to him. “I ate so much popcorn at the stadium because I was nervous. These guys hit you harder than they did in high school.”
“That’s true.”
I watched him finish my share. “Do you think you could go talk to a psychiatrist-like person? I worry about you getting hurt, like your ankle, but what you said about those thoughts makes me worried, too.”
He put down his fork. “That’s not why I told you.”
“I know. You had to say it, because it was weighing on you and you wanted to let it out. That happens. Remember when I cried on your arm on the day of the funeral? It felt like I had to.”
He handed me a napkin since I’d started again now, just a little. “I do remember. I was mean to you.”
“What? No, you weren’t!”
“No?”
“No, not at all,” I affirmed. “You were surprised that I threw myself on you, since we hadn’t seen each other in so long and didn’t really know each other anymore. Maybe we hadn’t actually known each other back, either. We used to be tutor and student but we weren’t friends.”
“I count you as my friend now, though,” Will said. “Don’t cry more.”
“You’re my friend, too, and I’m glad I have you. Really glad.”
“That makes two of us,” he answered.
And being two together was almost always better than being one alone.
Chapter 8
Annie Whitaker-Gassman’s eyes widened. “I love this!” she said, so enthusiastically that I totally believed her. “I love this! Show me more.”
“Annie, we have an appointment in six minutes and it’s across town,” her partner broke in. There wasn’t a lot of traffic here, but things were far apart. That woman, Remy, gave me an apologetic look but she repeated that they really needed to leave. “Also, you’re supposed to be at Bjarni’s horn lesson later, so we can’t start running late,” she added.
Annie nodded and quickly gathered the materials that she’d laid out on the kitchen counter next to where I’d also put mine. “My son plays what I would call the ‘French horn,’” she explained to me, “but real musicians just say ‘horn.’ Isn’t that interesting? It’s all like another world.”
“That is interesting,” I agreed. “I don’t know much about musical instruments.”
She opened her mouth and I was sure that she had more to say on that subject, but then she looked at her partner. “Remy’s right, and we had better get going. But I was serious about what I said,” she told me, and Remy nodded, also with a lot of enthusiasm. “We’ll be in touch about the roman shades and about your furniture.”
The two of them rushed out and I heard the roar of Annie’s giant engine. They had come over to take more measurements, to show me fabric and tile samples, and to make decisions about the rest of the renovations for Will’s house. His idea that he needed furniture had morphed into something much more, like also painting the exterior, redoing the kitchen, and tearing apart one of the bathrooms. Annie would be supervising everything. She sometimes came across as flakey and unorganized, but she actually stayed in communication and got things done in a way that impressed me a lot.
But still, this was a major undertaking, with a lot of money going out of Will’s bank account. “I understand that you need chairs, but why do you want to do all this other stuff? I think that the bathroom is perfectly nice,” I’d told him. “The toilet flushes, there’s plenty of hot water, and most importantly, there are no holes in the floor. What else do you want?”
“You set a low bar, and I still think it should be fixed,” he’d said, and then had headed off in his car. He was driving the new one now, which I had insisted on. It was so new that it had cameras all over it and they could record everything that happened on the road. It would give him more peace of mind, I thought, to be able to verify that there had been absolutely no accidents.
I was also pushing for him to talk to a professional, someone besides me about this issue. It was an idea he seemed to be quietly resisting. “I’m busy,” he’d said many times in response.
That was true. He had so many things to do for the team, especially now that they were traveling for their games. When he was home, I was mostly encouraging him to sleep and eat, but I hadn’t let up on the idea that he needed to talk to someone in the psychiatry realm.
Right now, Will was in West Virginia…I checked my phone for his exact location. I sent him little updates now and then—this would be a good time for another one.
