Page 7 of The Cadence
“Thanks.” I used several and then went to the bar area and refilled my glass with more than what he’d given me before. “Crying over my whiskey. I’m like a country music song.”
“Don’t have too much. It never turns out well for the singers when they do.”
I looked at the glass and put it down on the bar top. “Were you going to drink this alone tonight, if I hadn’t come here?”
“I probably would have done some work.” His eyes flicked toward one of the desks, where I saw an ultra-slim laptop and a few file folders.
“You’re still going at it hard,” I said admiringly. “Mr. Valedictorian.”
“I got my college degree,” he told me. “I only stayed for three years, but I went back to finish. I plan to get my MBA, too, and I’m starting a business.”
“You certainly don’t have to prove to me how smart and capable you are. I knew right away, from the moment you came over to my grandma’s house and lined up all your supplies on the table.You had the nicest, most confusing calculator, and books for stuff that I had never even heard of.”
“They didn’t help you much. You could hardly read.”
I nodded, looking at the bottle of whiskey. I could read the label now, but it had taken a lot of work. Will wasn’t trying to be mean with what he’d said about my illiteracy—it was true. Also, there was the whole issue with math, in that I hadn’t ever done any before. I hadn’t played sports either and that was why physical education class had been rough. It hadn’t helped that I’d started out wearing my grandma’s tennis shoes, ones that were a few sizes too small. They had been an orthopedic type so they weren’t great for running around…
But the real problem hadn’t been the shoes or my total lack of athletic coordination. I’d also skipped PE due to mean remarks from other students and I had spent that time in a bathroom stall. In fact, there were only two things at which I had been competent during my freshman year: lunch, because I knew how to eat (and it was free because we were so low-income), and art class.
“I graduated too, from high school,” I mentioned. “I did it. Are you surprised? I never got up to the level that you reached, so I never needed the big books you brought over the first time we met. But I got the credits I needed. I made it.”
“Good for you. I figured you would.”
“Really?” I wiped my eyes again, but then I smiled. “It was because of my grandma. She wanted me to so much that I couldn’t quit. And after you left, I had other tutors. It turned outthat one of the ladies from church had been a teacher and they formed a whole network to pull me through.”
“You were ready to learn.”
“Now I want to learn what you’re doing,” I said. “Tell me more about this business idea.”
“It’s very dull,” he answered.
“I still want to know,” I countered. “You used to tell me about football and I liked to hear it.”
“I thought you were trying to get out of studying, but you did seem interested,” he recalled. “So was your grandma, standing in the kitchen.”
“How did you know she was right there?”
“Your house wasn’t big enough for her to go far. Anyway, I could see her shadow and sometimes she nodded when I talked about our games.” He looked again toward the desk. “Do you really want to hear about my business idea?”
I did, so he told me. It wasn’t simple, like opening a store or running a restaurant—not that those were snap-your-fingers-and-done, but maybe I would have understood them better. This was all financial stuff that I wasn’t familiar with at all. Will explained just like he had when he’d tried to teach me pre-algebra and had discovered that I couldn’t really do multiplication and division. He started at the basics and then worked up.
It took a while and reviewing some charts on his computer, and as I learned, I finished the second glass of whiskey. He hadanother as well. He also ordered room service and he asked me if I wanted anything.
“You said before that you weren’t hungry but that was hours ago,” he noted. We had been talking for a long time, but not just about his business idea. I’d learned some more about his life in Michigan, too, and about his team there.
“I haven’t even wanted to look at food,” I agreed, and he stared over at me.
“You mean that you were drinking on an empty stomach?”
“I’ve eaten now and then, but I haven’t had much appetite for a while,” I explained.
He ordered a lot and when it came, he said it was for both of us. I tried my best to partake so we wouldn’t be wasteful, but I still didn’t have the urge to partake very much. And then after not too long, I started to feel sick.
“Maybe I’ll sit on the couch,” I remarked, and moved away from the table. I ended up lying on the couch and closing my eyes. “You did warn me about becoming a country song, and I’m sure there are one or two about whiskey and upset…oh, I shouldn’t have said that.” I breathed and waited for the sick dizziness to pass. “I’m usually in perfect health. I barely missed any school, except for one time when they sent me home after first period because I had a high fever.”
“Why’d you go to class if you were sick?”
“I didn’t want to make my grandma worried. When I came home, she made me a grilled cheese sandwich.” I felt tears start and I tried to sit up, but Will said no.
