Evan heard the tap of a keyboard in the background. “Yeah.”
A long pause from Jason’s end. “Ev, what’s wrong?”
Evan nodded to a security guard near the front desk in the lobby, marveling that it was the last time he would do so, and pushed into the crisp spring air of the city.
“I don’t want to get into it on the phone.”
“Shit. Okay. Meet me at Aran’s after work.”
A light mist fell as he strode across the parking lot, the mid-afternoon sounds of traffic and smells of wet concrete invading his senses.
“I’m leaving work now.”
Another pause. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
“Jason, no, I’m going home—”
“Aran’s, ten.”
The call ended, and Evan stared at the screen as he stood beside his minivan. “Shit,” he said to the deserted parking lot, and climbed inside the vehicle.
2
“You’re kidding me.”
The bar was quiet for this time of day, the regulars that adorned the barstools like drunken hood ornaments each night still at their day jobs, or wherever they spent their time when they weren’t here. No clack of pool balls rang out, and no calls for another beer echoed off the stained oak walls. Even the sun seemed less inclined to shine through the wide glass windows near the door, opting instead to hide behind a cluster of tumorous-looking clouds above the buildings across the street.
Evan took a sip of his beer, quenching the dryness in his throat, which hadn’t left since his meeting with Christy and Colt. He shook his head and met Jason’s stare from across the table.
“No, I’m afraid I’m not.”
Jason’s mouth, almost always curled in a half smile, hung partially open. His wavy blond hair, still wet from the mist outside, fell limp on his forehead.
“I can’t believe you did that.”
Evan nodded. “I know.”
“You never stole as much as a dime in your life, you always left that to me.”
“And you ended up as an investment banker, how’s that for fate.”
Jason looked poised to offer a contradiction and then merely shrugged. “I wish you would’ve come to me, buddy.”
Evan shook his head. “This was when everyone was hurting, remember? You didn’t have fifty grand to loan me, and I wasn’t going to ask.”
“So you took it from your company?”
“Yes,” Evan said, with more force than he meant to. The bartender looked over a set of bifocals at their table before returning his gaze to a report on CNN. “Yes,” Evan repeated, in a lower voice. “There was sixty-three thousand dollars in their wonderful little account for the annual party every year. I took out fifty and paid it back from Elle’s—” He glanced across the bar. “Elle’s life insurance.”
“Christ,” Jason said.
Evan brought his gaze back to his friend. Jason stared off into space, his fingers stroking the blond stubble of his goatee. How many times had he watched him do that? Evan wondered. Ever since he was old enough to grow it, he supposed. He recalled the first time they’d met in third grade, their desks pushed together by the firm hands of Mrs. Carmichael. Evan Tormer, meet Jason Price. You two are going to be friends, she’d said. And they had been. Two kids couldn’t have been more different: Jason tall and lanky, with GQ-model good looks; Evan shorter and dark. Years later he’d read Something Wicked This Way Comes and thought, That’s us, except I look like Jim Nightshade and Jason is more like Will Halloway. Jason always took the risks, his calculations paying off every time, while Evan stood by his side no matter what, along for the ride, for better or worse.
“I still would’ve helped you guys, you know that. I would’ve found a way.”
Jason’s words brought Evan back to the present, and he blinked. “You mean you would’ve ripped off Kimball and Owens to help pay our bills? No, I’m good with how things went down, the Zine didn’t lose anything when I took that money. No one knew it was gone until a week ago, and if I had any inkling that a few more thousand would’ve made a difference for Elle, I would’ve taken that too.”
Evan took a long pull from his beer, the last dregs washing against his upper lip. He set the mug down and looked at Jason, his friend’s face full of concern.
“Will you be okay?”
“Yeah,” Evan answered, too fast, he realized a moment too late. “Yes, we’ll be fine.”
“What’s your plan?”
“I’m going to finish one more beer, go down to the corner of Broadway and Central, and take my pants off. Everything will work itself out.”
Jason burst out laughing and shook his head. Evan offered a small smile and spun his empty mug in a circle.
“Seriously, though, what’s your plan?” Jason asked.
“I don’t fucking have one,” Evan said. Tears sprung to his eyes without warning, and suddenly the bar became a blurry mess. “I’m two months behind on our mortgage, Shaun needs more oxygen therapy that I don’t have the money for because I have to pay for his personal-care attendant every day I’m at work.”
“What about,” Jason said, in a soft voice, “what about the rest of Elle’s—”
“Her life insurance?” His words cracked with emotion. “Her policy was for a hundred grand. I mean, who would’ve thought we should’ve had it for more? Elle was thirty when she got diagnosed. Fifty of the hundred went back to the Zine. The other fifty went to the hospital, and guess what. I still owe them over forty thousand dollars.” He gritted his teeth. “For my dead wife.”
Evan placed a hand against his forehead and braced himself. More anguish, like a rotten soup, wanted to spill out from inside him. Years of turmoil and pain, festering, a sore that wouldn’t heal like everyone else claimed it would with time. It only got worse with each passing day, with the addition of bills, the weight of Shaun’s treatments, her absence.