When Brian turned the corner to pick up Trevor, the afternoon sun hurt his eyes. He hunched over the steering wheel, lowering his gaze. But an arc of searing white shone from the ground to the sky. Too frightened to wonder what was happening, Brian steered toward the curb and slowly pressed the brake. He turned off the ignition and the astonishing light disappeared.
In its place was Trevor, one hand cupping a sputtering flame. Joint lit, he slid inside the car. “Brian de lion.” Trevor tried to pass the sweet-smelling torch.
“Not now. I’m seeing things as it is.”
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Trevor tossed his head. “Not so. Trust my first crop, since Jacob’s been teaching me. Bound to keep you awake.”
“Please put it out.” Brian started the car again. “Even second-hand it’s enough to kill me. The sun blinded me back there.”
“Sun’s behind us now.” Trevor kept smoking. Not up to arguing, Brian tried to relax. One of his everyday paradoxes: if Brian was trying, he was not relaxing.
“Hear me out.” Trevor radiated intense energy. An hour ago he had Brian sympathizing with Trevor’s feelings of loss and vulnerability. Now Trevor projected unstoppable certainty.
He had talked Carla back into supervising the art college’s meal system. She’d resume attending food deliveries, providing menus, and assigning students to work-shifts.
“Hailey doesn’t want the responsibility,” Trevor said. “She isn’t interested in the café or a Black Mountain college cafeteria.”
“How do you know? Hailey hasn’t mentioned it one way or the other to me.”
“Me either,” Trevor paused for a long puff. “But I know it’s true.”
Brian’s blood rushed deep inside his ears. Trevor’s relationship with Hailey, which went back farther than Brian’s newly declared love for her, bothered him. Terrible to think that Trevor had chosen Hailey for Brian after giving her a trial run. But Brian couldn’t see his way past that. And it only made him feel worse that he had admitted his feelings to his brother once, under duress.
Trevor easily denied it at the time. Claimed Brian was suffering a big deal over nothing. Word of honor, Trevor would never go for control like that, even if it were possible.
Now he said, “Stop thinking what you’re thinking, Bri. I never talk to Hailey ’bout a ting. I can just tell what people like and such. Anyone can, using eyes.”
“If Carla comes back to do the meals, she has to promise to stay away from Hailey. And from me.”
“I promise, Brian. Carla’s embarrassed ’bout the cuss-cuss. But Kaya and Angelina will pay her massive amounts, which she can use to buy Da Big Chief’s shares of the café.”
“Let me talk to Hailey first.”
“Say what you’ve gotta say. ’Cause Carla’s arranging a delivery tomorrow. By the bly, I see sumpthin’ for you, too. A big Consortium bashment at the end of the semester. Right before Christmas. The UNC dons come to look at paintings and dances. Alec Olsen does a lecture. Kaya and Angelina run a discussion, big ribbon cutting for Royce’s geodesic dome.”
Brian laughed. “That’s pretty much my project, Trevor. I’m gonna talk to Angelina and Kaya later this week.”
He parked the car and they got out. Walking through the yard, Brian asked, “So you could see me working on it?”
“Not really.” Set in a semi-circle, the glass-walled cabins nevertheless seemed to float along the horizon. Accumulating dusk carried flecks of pink and gold. “It just came to me while I was waiting for you. The car turned onto Main Street and I knew it was going to happen. The whole audience will be easy with words and receptive to light. So I can get my message out.”
“Your message? What message, Trev?”
“You don’t know? Maybe I’ll say: ‘Begin at the end and end at the beginning.’ Or else, ‘Look inside and outside yourself. The Lord’s in plain sight.’”
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