“What’s going on?” I ask, a little miffed. I hate it when people look at their phones while they’re spending time with me. It makes me feel like I’m not worth their time.
“It’s my friend Svetlana.”
Svetlana?
“From Cornell,” he clarifies.
“Oh,” I say in a tiny voice. “Your girlfriend?”
His eyebrows pop up. He takes a little too long before responding, “No, she’s not.”
His cheeks blush pink, and it’s not from the coffee. If she’s not his girlfriend, then what is she to him? Has he hooked up with her? What kind of a name is Svetlana anyway? I start imagining a Russian gymnast who contorts herself into fancy sexual positions while spying on the United States.
“Do you talk to friends from Cornell a lot?” I ask.
He lifts a shoulder. “Mostly just Svetlana. And my old roommate, Justin.”
“Do you miss college?”
“Yeah, I miss my friends and intramural soccer. And I loved my frat.”
“Oh. I guess I figured you didn’t like it there. Since you’re back, you know?”
“I liked all the social aspects of college, especially the Sloppy Joe bar—”
“Sloppy Joe bar?”
“The dining hall had a Sloppy Joe bar on Tuesdays and Thursdays.”
My mouth waters at the idea. Unless there’s a Sloppy Kale Joe thing I don’t know about, Sloppy Joes will never be served at my house.
“But there were parts of college you didn’t like?” I press.
He rests his chin on his fist. “Yeah, the whole college part. The classes.”
Huh. Oliver and Jenna settled right in at their schools. “Really?”
“The business courses sucked. College writing sucked. It pretty much all sucked.”
“Is that why you left?”
He adjusts his ball cap. “I’m taking some time off. I need to figure out what I want to do.”
“So you’re going back in the spring? Or next year?”
“That’s what my father wants…and expects.”
As the largest shareholder in the Tennessee Asset Management Group, Mr. Carmichael is the wealthiest man in the state. He’s even richer than the royally connected Goodwins. He has tons of influence. He endorsed my dad’s reelection campaign. Lots of people depend on Mr. Carmichael. In turn, Mr. Carmichael expects a lot of Ezra.
“But?” I prompt.
“But the longer I’m away from Cornell, I’m not sure I should go back.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to be a business major. The classes…just aren’t for me.”
“Maybe change your major?”
“Try telling that to my father.”
I totally get what he’s saying. I care a lot about my future, and I work very hard. But if my parents—my dad in particular—hadn’t always been pushing me to be the best I can be, would I work so hard in school? Would I care? I don’t know.
“If you could change your major, what would you pick?” I ask.
He stares at his coffee cup. “I’m not sure. I like working on houses though. I like using my hands.”
I glance down at his strong, tanned hands and swallow hard.
I hope he didn’t use them on Svetlana.
? ? ?
Today Miss Brady left us a prompt that reads,
What’s the best gift you’ve ever gotten?
“That’s easy,” I say. “Chickadee!”
Ezra bursts out laughing. “I forgot all about him.”
“My mom sure hasn’t. I can still hear her hollering about that rooster poop on the back deck.”
When I was eleven, Ezra came over to our house bearing a gift for me, just because. He opened his hands, and out popped a little yellow chicken. It was so cute. I named him Chickadee.
Mom and Dad hated Chickadee, but I wouldn’t part with him. He was a gift from Ezra! Then Chickadee grew from a tiny chick into this giant rooster. He attacked anything and everything with his beak and flapped his wings like Dracula.
“Chickadee loved eating chicken,” I say. “It was sort of cannibalistic.”
“Remember that time he bit Oll’s finger?”
I clap my hands, laughing. “Yeah, and after that, Mom thought Chickadee needed a distraction, so she bought those hens. Bow-chick-a-wow-wow,” I sing.
“But he wasn’t interested in the hens.”
“Yup, because Chickadee was gay.”
Ezra snort-laughs, which makes me laugh even harder.
“Only you would manage to give me a gay rooster,” I say.
“You loved it.”
“Yup. I was so sad when Chickadee died.”
“But then I brought you that betta fish.”
“Mom was much happier about that. She probably thought you’d bring me a baby goat next. Which I would love, by the way.”
Ezra smiles widely before drinking from his cup.
“So what’s the best gift you’ve ever gotten?” I ask.
He takes another long draw of coffee before answering my question. “It’s not really a gift. It was more of an experience. Dad took me camping in Arkansas for my eighteenth birthday—it was just me and him and the river. We caught trout and cooked it over the campfire. Then we drank beer and just talked. I liked how he treated me like a man.”
I smile. “Sounds nice.”
“It was. I think it was the longest he and I have ever been alone together. He doesn’t usually have time, you know?”
“I get that. Both our dads are busy.”
His face darkens. “I doubt Dad and I will ever do anything like that again.”
“Why not?”
“He’s pissed that I left Cornell. We haven’t been talking much lately. I don’t really know what to do about it.”
I shouldn’t pry, because I understand how it feels having people poke around in your business, but I care about him. I need to know more. “So did you, um, officially drop out of school?”
Ezra gives me a hard look. “I took a leave of absence.”
“So you can go back?”
“Can we talk about something else?” He peers at the envelope Miss Brady left us at the counter. “Any other prompts in there?”
“You can talk to me,” I say quietly. “You know, if you want to.”
He eats the last doughnut hole and crushes the white paper bag into a ball. “I don’t want to talk about it here. You’ve got school, and I need to get to the work site.”
I take a deep breath. “Okay, so tell me when and where you want to talk.”
“Friday night? You, me, the Cumberland Science Museum?”
I’m scared to put myself back out there again, but this is Ezra.
The guy I’ve known forever. The friend I can talk to.
The one I can trust?
Queen Bee
“I don’t understand how we’re getting away with this.”
I’m walking with Ezra through the deserted Cumberland Science Museum on Friday evening, drinking a chocolate milk shake. I feel like I’m breaking every rule of museum etiquette.
“The curator owes Dad a favor.”
“I thought things are weird with your father.”
Ezra winks. “The curator doesn’t know that.”