Angelina told Hailey that Carla was returning to run the meal service. Hailey would act polite, since Carla had apologized several times for pounding her in the kitchen. But polite or not, she would stay alert. Not like the first time, which was a surprise attack.
Angelina said, “Relax, honey. The food isn’t your job anymore, unless you want it to be.”
Hailey needed the money, though. “Kaya and I have talked about that. You’ve paid your tuition. In fact, you worked so hard, we thought you might like a share in the restaurant, but Brian says he doesn’t think you do.”
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“I don’t. But I will have expenses.”
“So,” Angelina said, “we’ll find something else for you to do.”
That evening Brian asked if said she wanted to work in Kaya’s office.
“For sure to that.” Hailey jumped around the cabin and decided no more singing back-up in the band, either. She had only agreed to help her friend Jazmine, whose main ambition was singing.
But Trevor championed Jazmine now. The next morning in the dance room, empty except for mirrors along one wall, the teacher chose Hailey for the winter festival ensemble. She smiled and quietly said, “Thank you.”
For an hour she practiced the zigzag steps that would bring her into a circle with three other dancers. But all the while, Hailey hummed inside. After the class, she hurried to Brian’s, where she lay on the blue square rug, laughing, and her hands outstretched.
Brian returned from his budgets and rosters and phone conferences and she said, “Tomorrow let’s take off. I mean, let’s go somewhere else this weekend.”
“Good idea,” Brian said. “We’ve never even visited Hot Springs.” He phoned the Spa Hotel, which was booked except for the honeymoon suite.
“Definitely, yes,” Hailey said. “We’re celebrating.”
The next morning Royce, Kaya and Angelina, and Trevor waited by the car, seeing them off. Brian started the engine, which coughed a few times, and Trevor motioned for him to roll down the window. He handed Brian two spliffs from one hand. “My first crop. Which you still haven’t tried.” And three from his other hand. “Jacob’s best seller.”
Brian was considering the best way to tell his brother no thank you when Hailey reached across and grabbed the cones.
When Brian turned onto the highway, he hit a bump, pressed the accelerator and kept going.
“Do you think it’s hard being Trevor?” Hailey asked.
“I never thought of that. Because being me was always so hard. But now? Maybe it is hard being Trevor.”
“People always want his blessings. More and more the whole college sees him as enlightened. Haven’t you noticed the overall state of exhilaration surrounding Trevor? Last night before dinner, people were asking him to make them holy. He nodded and said one of his sayings. But it’s getting outta control. Next thing you know people will expect miracles. I guess he thinks having all the women is a plus. He loves all of them. But he goes all out, you know, giving all he’s got all the time.”
Brian looked at Hailey’s face. “Not me,” she said. “But you know what I mean.”
Eyes back on the road, Brian cupped the back of Hailey’s head. “You’re right. It must be hard. Yesterday when we were running, he streaked around a bend. When I caught up with him, he was covered with tiny green frogs. Shiny and strange, the size of your thumbnail.”
“What did he say?”
“ ‘Look at dese bad boys.’ I brushed one off his face and they jumped away, one after another, off Trevor and into the underbrush.”
“How long,” Hailey asked, “has he attracted weird stuff like that?”
“More every year. And it seems like it keeps getting weirder.”
“And what, he’s twenty-three?”
“Next week’s his birthday, twenty-four.” Saying it out loud, Brian saw why Trevor wouldn’t grow up like most people. He’d always seem young. Otherwise he’d end up either being a spiritual leader or a fraud. But if Trevor stuck with jokes and loving fun before facts, then seeing the eternal life in everything was just part of his personality. He could talk about the beginning and the end occurring together. And suppose that all existence flows from the here and now. No prophecy—just Trevor.
“No wonder you worry about him so much,” Hailey said.
No wonder.
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