Wednesdays and Fridays stood out as Brian’s favorite days. On those mornings, he drove through rolling hills to meet with Professor Kaya at UNC in Asheville. She heaped praise upon Brian’s endeavors, pleased with his dissertation, and even more pleased with his creative blending of everyone’s talent, teachers, students, and workers. “Keep going and you’ll have your PhD in January.” Finished in minutes, Kaya said good-bye and left Brian to his footnotes.
In an office overlooking a sunny, well-tended campus lawn, he wrote until noon. And then—twice a week, a sweet indulgence. Now that Carla had moved in with Marc Swift, the video artist, Brian stopped by the Eden Café where Hailey oversaw the midday shift.
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In a back booth, Brian and Hailey ate lunch together, just the two of them.
Hailey worked as hard as Carla, who in return for feeding the Arts Consortium would soon own one-fourth of her beloved Eden Café. As things stood, Hailey was employed as Carla’s second in charge. While at the Arts Consortium, she and Carla worked in easy tandem.
Yet Brian doubted that anyone but him really appreciated Hailey. He suggested as much to Angelina, who smiled as if Brian should know better. “Hailey’s efforts do not go unnoticed. In fact, if she works at the café and the Arts Consortium for another year, I’ll buy out the third partner so that she, too, can acquire a quarter-share.”
The next Wednesday, facing each other in their booth, Brian hesitated saying congratulations—the word sounded off. He managed, “Congratu—” but stopped, baffled and embarrassed by her teasing glance. She caught his eyes, looked up and away, and returned to his warm face so he could catch her direct, amused expression.
“Where’d you get the idea that I want to own a stake in the Eden Café?”
They were eating cold cucumber soup and drinking iced tea. He focused on that. Hailey dazzled Brian so much that he often grew confused in front of her, and sometimes disturbed. Still curious about an eventual stake in the café, Hailey flashed her dark, sparkly, almond-shaped eyes at him, full of mischief.
“Why would you work so hard,” he asked, “if you don’t want a share? Because, now that Trevor’s, um, what? Moved on? You could stay in Asheville, waitress as needed, and sing backup for “Awake” on Tuesday nights with your friends.”
A thin, pale young man, bald by design or nature, Brian couldn’t tell, brought them salads with local garden greens and shaved cheese. “If I’m gonna work,” Hailey said, “I’d rather work hard, you know?”
Brian watched her hands to make sure he didn’t forget to shift his focus away from her luminous, coppery face and neck and shoulders. But her nimble, graceful hands fascinated him too. So he studied his thick calloused hands, ever the wood chopper.
“I love the Arts Consortium,” Hailey said. “I like the Jamaicans and I love Hollis Clarke’s sculpture class. We paint acrylics on Plexiglas boxes after discussing a chapter in Barbara Ehrenreich’s book, ‘Nickel and Dimed.’ ”
“What do you paint?”
“Come and check it, Brian. Isn’t that part of your job?”
“Yeah, but I can’t hover too much.”
“I paint milky waitress scenes. And other, darker pictures of restaurant workers, sweating in the kitchen.”
He gulped his tea and stared at his salad plate. “Hailey, are we ‘nickel and diming’ you?”
“Hardly. Didn’t you just explain how I could become a partner within a year?”
“Just tell me,” he dared leaning forward but kept his eyes lowered, “if anyone fails to do right by you. Including Trevor.”
She smiled and shook her head. “You’re going to change Trevor for me, Brian? Relax about that. Trevor and I get along fine, and always have. He thinks you’re the best brother ever born.”
Suddenly, reckless—Trevor meant the world to him—Brian grinned. “Of course, Trevor’s always right.”
“No, he’s got insight and magic, but he’s not always right. As he’d be the first to admit.”
Brian nodded. “But he’s especially good at getting people to agree with him.”
“It’s not that. I mean, yes, of course, he’s great at that. And great, too, at solving unnamed mysteries. But you’re the decent one. Brian the lion.”
“No, Hailey, I’m not a lion. But decent? Yeah.”
She rattled the ice in her glass. “You know what else you should check deep? Alec the literature professor threw out his course plan for ‘Alice in Wonderland.’ Instead, he’s teaching the old Black Mountain poets—one breath utterances, along with Earle who guides everyone to write poems sprung from their internal rhythms.”
“That’s so?” Brian agreed to attend more classes.
He’d see Hailey at dinner and the bonfire. But lunch was different. After lunch with Hailey, Brian walked lighter and higher inside himself. Week after week, gravity didn’t weigh on him so hard; it pulled on him less.
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