Two by Two

She came home on Friday afternoon at the start of Labor Day weekend, catching me slightly off-guard. Actually, part of me was shocked to see her at all, even though I didn’t want to admit that to myself. London was thrilled. Vivian picked her up from school and took her to dance, then eventually got London ready for bed. She told me when it was my turn to go up, and I read four stories, staying upstairs longer than I had to, because I was afraid to face Vivian alone.

But she said nothing that frightened me. Though date night was off the table—even I wasn’t in the mood—Vivian was strangely pleasant, making small talk, but I wasn’t in the mood for that either.

Saturday and Sunday were quiet days. Vivian spent nearly all her time with London—just the two of them—while I worked out, cleaned the house, reviewed the footage for the commercials and made some notes, and visited my parents. I avoided Vivian because by then, I was afraid of what she was going to tell me.

On Monday, Labor Day, Marge and Liz had a barbecue at their place. Vivian, London, and I spent most of the afternoon there. I didn’t want to go home because I knew what would happen once we did.

I ended up being right. After I read to London and shut off the lights, Vivian was sitting at the dining room table. “We should talk,” she began. Her words are mostly a jumble to me even now but I caught the major points. It just happened, she said; she hadn’t mean for it to happen. She’d fallen in love with Walter. She was moving to Atlanta. We could talk next week, but she was traveling to Florida and Washington, D.C., and besides, I probably needed time to sort through what she’d told me. She didn’t see the point in arguing about it; it had nothing to do with me; things just happen. She was leaving tonight, too. She’d told London that she would be working out of town again, but hadn’t told London yet that she was leaving me. It was easier that way, for now, but we’d talk about London when emotions weren’t so fraught. And, she added, she wouldn’t be staying the night.

The private jet, she said, was waiting.



CHAPTER 14



Shock


When I was in college, my friends and I used to go out on the weekends, which typically began Thursday around three and concluded upon waking late on Sunday morning. One of the guys I hung out with most—a guy named Danny Jackson—shared the same major and we ended up in many of the same classes. Given NC State’s sizable student population, it seemed to me that the class-scheduling gods must have decided that we needed to see more of each other.

Danny was as easygoing a guy as I ever met. Born and raised in Mobile, Alabama, he had a very pretty older sister who was dating the punter for the Auburn Tigers, and he never said a bad word about his parents. He seemed to imply they were pretty cool as far as parents went and they must have passed that on to him, because I felt the same way about him. Whatever I wanted to do—grab a burger at two in the morning, or swing by a frat party or watch a ball game at the local sports bar—Danny was always up for it. Whenever we met up, we’d find ourselves picking up our conversation in the same spot we’d left it, even if it had been weeks since we’d seen each other. He drank PBR—he swore it was the best beer in the world, as evidenced by the blue ribbon—and while he would often drink enough to acquire a buzz, he had an automatic slow-down switch in his head that pretty much prevented him from ever becoming drunk. Which was quite a contrast with the rest of the college population—for them, getting smashed seemed the entire point of drinking.

One Saturday night, Danny and I were out with a few other guys at one of the more crowded college bars. With finals looming, most of us were a bit anxious, which of course we tried to downplay. Instead, we drank as we usually did—a bit past buzzed—all except Danny, whose slow-down switch had flipped to the “on” position.

He got the call a little past eleven; I have no idea how he even heard the ring over the noise in the bar. But he did, and after glancing at the screen, he got up from the table and went outside. We thought nothing about it. Why would we? Nor did we consider it amiss when he walked past our table after coming back inside and made a beeline for the bar.

I watched him wedge himself between some people, vying for the bartender’s attention. It took a few minutes before he received his drink, but when he turned, I saw that he’d ordered a cocktail—a very tall glass of something golden brown. He wandered off toward another area of the bar, as if he’d forgotten us entirely.

Of everyone there, I was probably his closest friend, so I followed him. By then, he was leaning against the wall near the restroom. As I approached, he took a huge swallow from his glass, finishing nearly a third of its contents.

“What do you have there?” I asked.

“Bourbon.”

“Wow. That’s a pretty big glass.”

“I told them to fill it,” he said.

“Did I miss the contest where Pabst got second place, not first?”

It wasn’t particularly funny and I don’t know why I said it, other than that the way he was acting was making me nervous.

“It’s what my dad drinks,” he said.

For the first time, I noticed his shell-shocked expression. Not the effect of alcohol. Something else.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

He took another long drink. By then, the glass was half empty. It had to be at least four, maybe five shots. Danny was going to be drunk, maybe very drunk, in a very short while.

“No,” he said. “I’m not okay.”

“What happened? Who called?”

“My mom,” he said. “It was my mom who called.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “She just told me my dad died.”

“Your dad?”

“He was in a car accident. She found out just a few minutes ago. Someone from Highway Patrol came by the house.”

“That’s… awful,” I said, truly at a loss for words. “Is—is there anything I can do? Can I bring you to your place?”

“She’s getting me a ticket to fly home tomorrow. I don’t know what I’m going to do about finals, though. Will they let me retake them next week?”

“I don’t know, but that’s the last thing you should be thinking about right now. Is your mom okay?”

It took him a long time to answer. Instead, he seemed to be staring into the distance.

“No,” he said. He gulped at his drink, finishing it. “She’s not. I need to sit down.”

“Sure,” I said. “Let’s go.”

I led him back to the table. Despite the alcohol he’d consumed, he didn’t seem affected at all. Instead, he sat quietly, adding nothing to the conversation. He didn’t mention the death of his father to anyone else at the table, and an hour later, I drove him back to his apartment.

He went home on Sunday, just as he’d told me he would. And though we were friends, I never saw or heard from him again.



“Hold on,” Marge said. After I dropped London off at school on Tuesday morning, she’d come straight to my house, where we sat at the kitchen table. “So she just… left?”

“Last night,” I said.

“Did she at least say she was sorry?”

“I don’t remember.” I shook my head. “I can’t even… um… I mean… I…”

I couldn’t keep my thoughts straight; my roiling emotions—shock and fear, disbelief and anger—had me veering from one extreme to the next. Though I knew I’d done it, I couldn’t remember driving London to school only a few minutes earlier; the drive had been consigned to nothingness.

“Your hands are shaking,” Marge said.

“Yeah… I’m okay.” Trailing off, I took a long breath. “Shouldn’t you be at work? I can scramble up some eggs.”

Marge would tell me later that I got up from the table and went to the fridge; as soon as I pulled it open, I must have decided I needed coffee instead. I went to the coffee cabinet and then realized I should probably get cups out for Marge and me first. But I must have thought I still needed coffee so I set the cups beside the coffeemaker. She watched as I went to the fridge and pulled out the eggs before returning them to the same location. She said I then wandered to the pantry and came out with a bowl and…

“How about I make breakfast?” she suggested, rising from the table.

“Huh?”

“Have a seat.”

“Don’t you need to go to work?”

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