“I didn’t know until you’d gone,” John tried to explain to her. “I thought about trying to find the restaurant you’d gone to, but I wasn’t sure whether you’d welcome the interruption.”
“I think you should go,” Amy told him weakly. “I want to be on my own.”
“Amy.” John walked over to her and rested his hands on her shoulders. “You don’t need to feel bad about this. None of this is your fault.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter whose fault it is,” she told him sternly. “Where the fault can be found doesn’t change the fact that I only got the job of my dreams because the guy hiring fancied a bit of me.”
“There are worse reasons to get a job,” John tried to lighten her mood.
“There are?” She looked up at him in surprise.
“Sure.” He nodded, although he couldn’t think of any.
“What am I going to do?” Amy asked after another few minutes had passed. “What am I going to do now? I had everything sorted. I was going to take the job. I was going to get my own place. I was going to live my own life. What happens now, though? Do I try again? Do I just accept that I’m never going to get anywhere without your dad?”
*******
Chapter 17
Amy
She was humiliated. What made it worse was that John knew everything. It wasn’t even like she could pretend that she’d turned the job down. She had no real options left. The job she’d been offered wasn’t real. Sure, she’d threatened to go in, but she hadn’t really meant it. She had no interest in forcing herself into a position that she hadn’t earned.
The situation was dire. She knew what she had to do. She knew that she had to go talk to her stepfather. She couldn’t bring herself to do it, though. She couldn’t bring herself to stand up from her bed. She didn’t have the energy. She didn’t have the motivation. What was the point in trying to sort anything out? Her life was ruined.
Amy didn’t leave her room until the next day. Her stomach was growling loudly and her head felt light with starvation. She hoped to make it to the kitchen and back to her room without seeing anybody, but her hopes were dashed when she saw John standing close to the stove. “Hey.” He turned and smiled at her. “You hungry?” he asked as he flipped an omelet in a pan he was tending.
“Starving,” she corrected him.
“Here.” He lifted a plate over to the pan and slid the omelet down onto it. “You have that and I’ll make another.”
“Are you sure?” She watched him pushing the plate on the breakfast bar. “I don’t mind making some cereal. You should have the eggs.”
John laughed. “Don’t worry about it, it’s not like it’s going to take me long to make another.”
“Well,” she took a seat at the breakfast bar, “thanks, I guess.”
He nodded without turning away from the stove. “So, have you decided what you’re going to do about your problem?” he asked her.
Amy took a bite of the eggs he’d made. They were light, fluffy, and seasoned to utter perfection. “Wow,” she said when her mouth was free. “You’re not a bad cook, are you?”
“Thanks.” John cracked an egg into the pan. “I cooked most of my own food when I was at school. The stuff that they serve at boarding school is total crud.”
“Crud?”
“Yeah.” He laughed. “It’s awful. It’s like the pizza and the broccoli tasted the same. How does someone even do that, to pizza? How does someone take a food that is so delicious and turn it into every kid’s worst nightmare?”
“You really did have it tough, huh?” She took another forkful of the eggs and enjoyed the slow releasing flavor on her tongue.
“You can say that again.” John nodded. “Nice change of subject, by the way.” He turned to her with a smirk across his lips. “Well, I should say, nice attempt.”
Amy sighed. What did John want her to say? He knew as well as she did that she didn’t have any real options left. “You know what I’m going to do about the job,” she told him, pushing her fork across the plate. “You know I don’t have any choice.”
“We always have a choice,” John disagreed with her. “It’s just that it’s not always easy to see that.”
“John, if I don’t take the job with your dad, he’s going to kick me out. Without the job at Green’s, I have no chance of paying rent on an apartment. I’d be on the streets. I’ve got nothing of my own. I’ve got no way to provide for myself. I don’t like to admit it, but your father has won.”
“So, that’s it?” John asked.
Amy could hear the disappointment ringing in his tone. “So, what’s it?”
“So, you’re just going to give up?”
“There’s nothing I can do,” she told him firmly. “I need to make sure that I don’t end up on the street. What are you expecting me to do? How am I supposed to fight this?”
“I don’t know,” John admitted. “I just don’t think that you should give up.”
Amy shook her head and put the fork back down on her plate. John didn’t understand. He could never understand. He hadn’t had his whole life planned out for him. He didn’t have his father’s expectations looming over his head. “Well, maybe if it was you then you’d be able to say that,” she told him without trying to hide her irritation.
John didn’t say anything. He just focused on his eggs and let an awkward silence settle between them. Amy watched him quietly. She was done talking about work. She was done listening to what other people thought. They didn’t understand. They couldn’t understand. They weren’t in the position that she was in. They weren’t being faced with the choices that she was going to have to make.
“I know this is hard for you,” John tried to say, but Amy cut him off.
“You don’t know anything,” she told him straight. “You have been gone for eight years. You don’t know anything about me or my life. Maybe you should stop acting like you. Maybe it’s time you stop pretending like you understand anything that’s going on, because you don’t.” Her words were harsh and she found herself forcing the last of what she had to say out.
She stood up. She couldn’t sit in the room with him. She could feel him silently judging her. She had enough to deal with without adding his judgement to the mix. “I guess I’ll see you later,” she said when she’d reached the door.
“Yeah.” John nodded without looking up. “You know,” he stopped stirring the eggs and looked over to her, “I’m not trying to make this any harder for you. I just want to see you happy.”
Amy shrugged. “Well, maybe being happy isn’t something that’s on the horizon for me. Maybe I’m just one of those people who don’t get to experience their dreams. I guess I’m fine with that. I’d rather know now. I’d rather know it now, so that I don’t spend the rest of my life trying for something that will never happen.”
********
Chapter 18
John
The door to his father’s study was closed, but he knew that his dad was inside. He could hear the sound of music drifting through the hardwood door that stood between them. He reached out and bounced his fist off of the door three times and then waited for his dad to answer his knock.
“I wasn’t expecting to see you today,” his dad said as he opened the door. “Have you made progress with Amy?”
John walked into the room without waiting for an invitation. He didn’t bother replying to his dad until he’d taken a seat at the desk. “Actually, no,” John told him hesitantly. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“I don’t understand?”
“Amy has decided to come and work for you. She hasn’t said that directly, but I can tell from the way that she’s been.”
“Well, that’s great news.” His dad looked triumphant. “Why are you sounding so down in the dumps about it?”
“She doesn’t want the job,” John tried to explain to his dad for the thousandth time. “She doesn’t want to work with you, but she feels like she doesn’t
have any other choice.”
“Well, that’s good.” His dad still looked happy. “She doesn’t have any other choices, so I’m glad she’s worked that one out.”
“I want to give you a proposition,” John cut his dad off. “I want you to take me on as your lawyer. You can trust me. I’m your son and you know my education is good. It might not be as great as Amy’s, but it isn’t far behind.”
“You want me to hire you instead?” his dad asked in disbelief. “Why would I do a thing like that?”
“Like I said, you can trust me,” John picked up from his trail. “I’m the next best thing to Amy. If you let me come and work for you, then Amy can go off and do whatever she wants.”
His dad looked thoughtful. “You’ve never shown any interest in working with me. Why should I believe that you’ll do your best by my company?”
“Because you know how much I care for Amy. You know that I wouldn’t let her down, even if I were inclined to let you down.”
His dad nodded. “I guess you have a point.”
“I do.”