I said, “A hundred percent?”
“A hundred percent what?” Reggie asked.
“My job is safe.”
“She’s asking for ‘dismissed with prejudice,’?” Nick supplied. “Permanently. Never to be raised again. Never showing up on a written evaluation.”
“Okay. I guess so. Sure.”
“Flowers are nice,” Nick continued, “but if I were Faith, I’d be looking for combat pay.”
“Huh?” said Reggie.
“You know exactly what I mean: a bonus, for Chrissake.”
“Jeez,” said Reggie. “I don’t have that in my budget. Plus, we don’t do bonuses. I mean, we’re here to raise money for the school.”
“Then how about a raise? When was the last time Faith got a bump in her salary?”
“Never,” I said.
“And, I’ll tell ya, buddy,” said Nick, “sometimes a raise at the right juncture can nip a lawsuit in the bud.”
“A lawsuit?” Reggie repeated. “For what?”
“I could see a defamation suit . . . slander—”
“Pain and suffering,” I added.
Nick said, “Both my brothers are lawyers. Did I ever mention that? Franconi and Franconi, LLC.” Feigning deep attention to some bogus matter on his screen—and in what he would later characterize as punching above his weight—Nick said, “Thank you, Reggie. That’s all. You can go now.”
With Reggie out of the room, I whispered, “Do you really think you should talk to him that way? You could get fired for insubordination.”
“Oh, hush,” said Nick.
“Franconi and Franconi? Really?”
Nick smiled. “In the Yellow Pages. In Springfield, I believe. Same spelling. Who knows? Maybe our great-grandfathers came from the same village.”
I waited a while, started on a note that wrote itself due to what the school was genuinely grateful for, a used van that could hold eight kids on a field trip. Then I announced, “Stuart? My fiancé? He got your message.”
“He called you?”
“Sort of. I texted about where we stood, and he called right back.”
Nick swiveled away from his computer so that he was facing me. “And where do you stand?”
I summarized my text. “It’s over. PS: cut up my credit card.”
Nick said, “Wow. You did it. Via text . . . very bad social etiquette.” He paused. “I might be tempted to say congratulations, but then you might say, ‘Actually, he called right back and was all I’m sorry/I love you/I wanted to call but I’ve been lying in a ditch.’?”
“I think I did do it. He tried to put me on hold—”
“You’re kidding!”
“Twice.”
“What an asshole! I never met the guy, but Jesus! And you were paying for this midlife crisis of his. Is that what the PS meant?”
“The card was supposed to be only for emergencies.”
“Good luck with that. I’d call the bank and cut him off right now.”
“I already did.”
We both returned to work. Nick set up two appointments with alums, and I put stamps on my morning’s output.
I heard, “I’m getting myself a cup of coffee, the good stuff from the faculty lounge. Want one?”
“Sure,” I said. “Thanks.”
He opened the door, took a step, came back. “I’m in no position to say good riddance; I mean, no one knows what goes on in a relationship. But, God, what a douche he’s been—at least from where I sit. My unsolicited personal opinion is that you’re well rid of him.”
Did that sound . . . No, never mind.
16
Visitors
STUART WAS STILL TEXTING me nightly, using endearments, deaf to our dissolution. I answered approximately one out of three overtures but bordering on the frigid. I hadn’t told him about moving into my own home, let alone buying it, but the legal notice in the Echo announcing the transaction was spotted by one of his many parents.
Congratts!!! Stuart wrote the day after it appeared.
4 what?
The house? Turpentine LN? LOL.
I didn’t want to dignify his LOL with a return text, but I couldn’t resist. FYI, this area was once a pine forest, from which turpentine is made. PS: there is no longer such a thing as domestic turpentine.
He answered with his favorite hip, juvenile response: K.
A day later, Sunday, the doorbell emitted its century-old unmusical squawk. I pulled aside two inches of curtain and saw my parents on the porch, along with two women in sweatpants, outsize sweaters, and men’s high-top sneakers, one pair black, the other red. The taller woman had a waist-length gray braid; the other, yellow hair, an inch long, straight up and stiff.
“We phoned, but you didn’t answer,” my mother said.
“I’ve been screening calls,” I told them, adding a one-word explanation: “Stuart.”
The punk-haired woman put her hand out. “I’m Rebecca,” she said. “And this is Iona.”
“Stuart’s mother and stepmother,” my mother explained.
I didn’t panic, exactly. But what would bring so many next of kin to an ex-fiancée’s door in the manner of military chaplains? “Is he okay?” I asked.
“He’s great!” said Rebecca.
My mother motioned You first to the callers, so she could mouth Sorry . . . behind their ample backs.
With only a couch in the parlor, I made myself busy borrowing kitchen chairs. Stuart’s mothers took seats on the sofa. Rebecca was patting the middle cushion with increased energy until I had no choice but to settle between them. “Iona and I are here to say we’re inconsolable that you broke the engagement,” she began.
“Anyone want tea?” asked my mother.
“What kind do you have?” asked Rebecca.
“Nothing special,” I said.
“Decaffeinated?”
“Are you here to talk Faith into taking Stuart back?” my father asked.
I said, “You’re welcome to stay for tea, but I am not going to marry Stuart.”
“Do you actually approve of this walk across the country, as if he has something to say?” my father asked. “Like it means something; like it counts for something?”
“He’s forty-one years old,” said Rebecca. “He doesn’t need our approval. We don’t even have to get it in order to accept it.”