His eyes sparkled. “Oh yeah?”
“I even had a dream the other night where I was walking across a college campus with a bunch of heavy books in my bag,” she confided. “Well, at first they were books but then they turned into spray paint canisters, and this guy wearing a leather jacket—who I think was supposed to be John Travolta—started serenading me.” She took a sip of her Coke. “I had fallen asleep watching Grease,” she explained.
Vince nodded with an “Oh, that makes more sense” kind of look.
“But when I woke up, that feeling of being on campus as a student lingered. It was nice to be there as something more than a visitor. It just felt—I don’t know—right,” she confessed.
“Maybe your dream was trying to tell you something,” he said, resting his elbows on the table and leaning closer.
“I don’t know. You think?” Laura looked up at him.
He nodded enthusiastically. “You’re one of the smartest people I know.” His voice softened. “You should go to college, kid.” He playfully nudged her foot under the table.
“Thanks, man,” she said, nudging him back. “I’m gonna look into it, I think.” She knew that many of the deadlines had passed, but now that Brian’s insurance appeal was finally done and submitted, she actually had time to do some research. Maybe she could even go to LSU with Brian when he returned for the next football season.
She tucked her hair behind her ear, suddenly a little embarrassed. “I just wanted to say thank you for encouraging me to do this. I know I was kind of a brat when you first brought it up, but the idea has grown on me.”
Vince’s eyes lit up. “Well, I’m happy I could help.”
“Can I ask you something?” she said. “How long have you had your life planned out?”
He gave her a surprised look. “You think I have my life planned out?”
“Well, yeah . . . you’ve got a spot at one of the best universities in the country and they’re actually paying you to go there. You seem like the type to have it all figured out.” She paused and smiled. “You already know what you’re gonna be when you grow up, don’t you?”
Vince laughed and glanced out the window, where a woman wearing an LSU sweatshirt was pushing a stroller. “I’d love to be a surgeon, so I’m going to study premed in college. That doesn’t mean my life is planned out, though. No one’s life is. There are always gonna be things you didn’t see coming, some good, some bad. Like, did my parents plan to live here? Nope. Did your husband plan on hurting his knee? No way. Did I think I was ever gonna eat Tabasco ice cream and like it?” He pointed his spoon into his empty cup. “Hell no.”
Laura chuckled. “I get all that, of course.” She lowered her head, and suddenly the uneasy feeling she’d been trying to keep at bay washed over her in full force. “But you gotta have some goals. The only thing is, I’m looking at my life and realizing—my goals are all for someone else. I’ve planned my husband’s fantasy life and decided it was my own: Brian would go to college. Brian would get into the NFL. Brian would make us a lot of money. And I’d be along for the ride. Now, I’m not sure what to think.” She squirmed a little in her seat. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all of this.”
“No, I totally understand.” He nodded. “And I can relate, kind of. I was dating a girl pretty seriously back in Atlanta. We always talked about the future, and I’d even given her a promise ring,” he said. “When my family left to come here, we tried to make it work—FaceTime, texting, the works. Then one night, she asked me point-blank what was gonna happen to us. And I just sat there, completely silent, unable to come up with an answer. In my heart, something had changed, and I no longer saw her in my future. So we broke up.”
“Aw, I’m sorry to hear that,” Laura said, wondering if that’s what would have happened if she’d stayed in Toulouse to graduate when Brian went off to LSU. It had been her worst fear, and the main reason why she’d quit school in the first place.
“But that’s the thing, Laura.” He sat up in his chair. “Things change. And you can’t regret anything that you’ve done. You make decisions based on what you can see in that moment. Sometimes the view shifts.”
Laura raised her eyebrows. “That’s deep.”
“Yeah, I got that in a fortune cookie at the China Café on Main Street.” He grinned.
She laughed. “Well, that’s really deep for them. I got one last month that said, ‘You have rice in your teeth.’?”
As he chuckled, she started crumpling up bits of her napkin. “This whole thing with Brian’s injury shook me up a little. Don’t get me wrong—we’re happily married, and I love him so much.” She blinked, the backs of her eyes suddenly burning. “But it made the future seem less certain and made me wonder what I was doing for my own life. Like, career-wise. Even if I do become an NFL wife someday, shouldn’t I figure out some of my own interests? I think I want to do something, though I don’t have it planned out quite yet—at least not like you do, Dr. Williams.”
He smirked. “Well, I have a feeling everything will come together for you. Even without a plan, you seem to be doing just fine. As I said, you’re one of the smartest girls I know.”
His voice turned serious and he held her gaze. She had never stared so openly at him before, and she noticed that his hazel eyes had little flecks of gold at the center. His full lips were curved up in a slight smile, and for a moment, she wondered what it would be like to kiss him. And from the way he’d begun to lean in to her, ever so slightly, she could have sworn he was thinking the same thing.
A customer came in, jingling the bell over the door. Just like that, the moment broke. Laura cleared her throat guiltily, sitting up straighter in her chair. Vince blinked and shook his head a little, as if coming back to himself.
“Thank you for the pep talk,” Laura said, feeling a little unbalanced.
“Anytime,” he said too loudly, before changing the topic to some prank a wide receiver had pulled on the football water boy.
Laura smiled along and soon the tension dissipated, as did the knot of guilt in her chest. It had just been one errant thought and Vince had caught her at a vulnerable moment during the rockiest time in her relationship. With Vince she had the luxury to be her freest self, away from the tension of filing appeals, saving money, and navigating nosey in-laws.
What she had with Brian was hard but real. And, she reminded herself, with the insurance paperwork in the mail and nearly ten thousand dollars in the bank, they were the closest they’d been to their dream life since he’d collapsed on the field all those months ago.
24
gabrielle