Must Like Spinach

by Con Riley

  Jon’s turned similar numbers over in his head more than a few times lately.

  The rent from the apartment will stop the moment he leaves town. If Tyler takes over paying it, that will swallow his earnings. Jon’s already figured out he’s been drip-feeding cash back into all those stupid envelopes of Peggy’s, trying to replenish her savings. He won’t get a chance to do that, not to mention that if he lives over the garage, he’ll miss hearing if Peggy had a problem in the night. So that leaves advertising for another stranger.

  What are the chances they’ll find someone who isn’t a whack job who’ll respond to her next must like spinach listing? He focuses on how much he hates that idea rather than on how leaving seems impossible right now.

  Right now?

  How about ever?

  It’s a truth that he can’t handle.

  “Jonathan?” Lorna prompts. Perhaps she sees what he’s being staving off for weeks in his bleak expression. She’s gentler when she says, “Long story short, Peggy’s as stubborn as Mom. She wants to stay, so I have to find a way to make that happen without letting her know that I’ll use Mom’s money to help her. I’ll figure something out.” Her tone softens even further. “How about you show me what the heck’s going on out there?”

  They walk across newly cut grass to find Peggy sitting outside the greenhouse talking with Carl. She’s pale, but two hectic spots of color dot her cheeks that exactly match her headscarf. “Jonathan!” she exclaims before wincing like that sound just made her head ache.

  “Hey.” It’s easy to take a knee and press a quick kiss to her cheek in front of Carl. There’s no weakness in showing exactly who the boss is in this situation, he decides, as Lorna crouches, too, and holds Peggy’s hand. So what if it looks like she’s a queen on her throne surrounded by loyal subjects. Her wellbeing is all that matters. “You doing okay, Peggy?” he murmurs, while Tyler explains who Carl is to Lorna. “I can carry you inside if you’re tired.”

  “Oh, hush. This is the most excitement I’ve had since you came to view the apartment.” She about wriggles in her seat before pointing at Carl, “And this nice young man hasn’t finished telling me how wonderful you are to work with.”

  It’s almost worth every awful moment of the last few days to see Carl unable to refute that while Peggy smiles so happily at him. He mutters something Jon’s way that sounds a lot like “Bullshit.”

  Peggy simply says, “Gesundheit,” like he sneezed instead of cursed under his breath. “And he’s right, isn’t he, Lorna? Look at what my Jonathan made happen.”

  My is such a small word.

  How can it catch at his chest like it’s covered in huge hooks?

  Carl rescues him when he can’t speak. He explains how fixing up the place is good experience for his team, then he takes them on a tour that Jon silently follows. Carl kicks at the side of a raised bed that still has a loose board. “You often trip over something like this?” When Peggy nods, he leans down and fixes it with a nudge of his foot and a firm knock of his hammer. “How about this?” After she nods, he snips a vine that reaches between beds at the height of her ankles. “There’s nothing too problematic left now,” he says before pointing back at the house. “I can fix up the rest in my spare time. Then he points to the roof over the garage. “But that’s one repair that shouldn’t wait. That patch isn’t going to hold for much longer. Before you know it, your whole roof will rot through, and that’s a major expense.” He surprises Jon when he says, “I could come back Saturday morning. Show you how to fix it, if you want.”

  He nods dumbly and then follows them back to where the last uneven slab is being laid flat. Peggy claps her hands, but she looks wiped out and gets emotional as she thanks each person. Even the most cynical of Carl’s team melt when her eyes swim.

  Carl’s gruff himself when he tells them, “Go across the street and order some pizza. I’ll be over in a minute.”

  Jon and Lorna say,” Let me get that,” in unison, but it’s Tyler who steps forward. “I already said I got this.”

  It’s a simple statement that causes Lorna’s shoulders to lower even further. She walks Peggy across the lawn, and Jon doesn’t hear her argue when Peggy picks right up where she left off extolling both of her boys’ virtues.

  In a couple of minutes, the backyard’s empty and he and Tyler are alone where all this started. Tyler touches the corner of the paving stone Peggy stumbled over, level now, and firmly bedded. “You going back to the office? You should probably get changed if you are.”

  He should. He really should leave right away instead of lingering like this. “I don’t want to go back,” slips out despite his best intentions.

  “No?” Tyler’s sideways glance is soft. “Thought people playing hooky in the middle of the day was one of your bugbears.”

  “Bugbears?” He blusters, which is easier than admitting he’s having a mental breakdown brought on by falling head over heels for a senior citizen he’s only known for a couple of months and her housemate, who’s a complete asshole. “No one under sixty uses that word.”

  “Hey!” Tyler nudges at Jon’s hand with his own until their fingers curl together. “It was an answer to one of Peggy’s crossword puzzles.” He tugs until Jon comes much closer, and he holds his hand tighter, hesitating before asking, “Do you get the feeling Lorna’s eased up?” The frown line between his eyes looks all wrong. “She hasn’t mentioned taking Peggy back with her once since they got back.”

  “I think she’s working through a few options.”

  “It has to be hard. I get it,” Tyler easily acknowledges. “When you’re an aide, you get to hear about distant relatives who are all, ‘What the fuck? I didn’t sign up for this,’ when they’re contacted by social services. Others do their best to step up and make decisions they never expected would be theirs to make. It’s better that Lorna’s part of that second group than the first, I guess. Even better that Peggy’s doing so much better than I expected.” He huffs out a huge breath of relief.

  Jon checks his watch. “I do have to go,” but he pulls him into the greenhouse first. It’s hot inside despite the air vents being wide open, especially when he kisses Tyler for so long, but at least Tyler’s smiling again when he finally gets done.

  “You marking your place for later too, Jon?” Tyler’s voice comes out low-pitched. “Or is this just a ruse to get me to admire your one and only tomato. Still looking green there, buddy. You know you can’t seriously call yourself a gardener if it doesn’t ripen fully, don’t you?”

  “Fuck you, I’m an amazing gardener. It’ll be perfect in a couple of days.” Still Jon kisses him again and gives his ass a good squeeze when Tyler bends to take a closer look at the plant that Peggy labeled as his. “And ‘ruse’? Really? You’re going all out today to wow me with your word power.”

  “Maybe I am,” Tyler says as he straightens. “Can’t have you leaving Seattle thinking it only has barely literate dog walkers and construction workers going for it.” He pauses, and his expression’s pensive. “It’s a shame you can’t stay longer. It would take a year to show you all the places I think you’d like here.”

  Jon nods instead of speaking. The garden isn’t the only thing that’s been transformed today. He has as well, because he’s done, he realizes.

  He’s done.

  He stands next to a tomato plant that bears a pitiful sole fruit that he’s so stinking proud of, holding a man who teases him like it’s the job he’s paid for, and he gives up fighting feelings that won’t ever let up. He’s done with pretending that it’s normal to feel this way every time he drives home lately. There’s no way that feeling so much warmth every single time he sets eyes on this man can be temporary. It’s more than that, he admits, as Tyler walks back to the house ahead of him.

  Fuck his stay being finite.

  The way he feels right now is so much more than short term.

  Chapter 25

  STARTING WORK at the end of the day instead of at the begi
nning isn’t exactly optimal, Jon supposes as he strides down the corridor to his office. Nor is wearing shorts and a dirt-stained T-shirt when he finds his boss sitting across from his desk like he’s been waiting all day for him. Jon’s determination to change his life might have blossomed between Peggy’s place and here, but Stan Hallquist’s expression is arid enough that it almost withers.

  “Jonathan,” is all he says.

  “Stan.” Jon slides behind his desk, brushing at the seat of his pants before sitting, like they might still be speckled with dirt.

  “Thought you’d be just the man to clear up a few things for me,” Stan says, steepling his fingers while closing his eyes. When he opens them again, he stares slightly to Jon’s left as if the sight of him looking rumpled and slightly sun burned at the end of a workday offends his sense of vision. “I had a meeting with Anthony Nelson today.” Now his gaze flicks back, and he doesn’t let it waver. “He let slip that you took off first thing this morning with Carl Snyder and his crew. Is that right?”

  He has to know that it is, just like he has to know that Jon has to agree or go ahead and call Anthony a liar. He mentally curses the man for opening his mouth and blabbing, then shakes his head without thinking. If he’s learned one thing since getting here, it’s that the real truth isn’t likely to be exactly as Stan Hallquist paints it.

  Stan picks up on that headshake. “What’s that, Jonathan? No? You didn’t take off for the whole day? ’Cause you can sit there and deny it all you like, but I’m not inclined to believe you. What were you planning on doing now, son?”

  There’s something very wrong about getting called son by this man. Nothing about hearing it from Carl’s mouth had riled him, but here it drips condescension. Stan casting him as an inexperienced rookie is yet another micro-aggression designed to manipulate him. There’s also something very wrong with the way Stan pits people against each other, like suggesting Anthony had come running the first opportunity he was able to drop Carl in the shit. Anthony’s good enough at his job not to need to resort to tattling. There’s no way he would’ve mentioned him and Carl leaving early if he’d guessed Stan might use that knowledge like this.

  Dislike, plain and simple, leaves a familiar bad taste in his mouth.

  “So,” Stan says while crossing his arms. “Did you come back to cover up for playing hooky all day? Were you about to fire off a few emails to your head office? Tell ’em how hard we’re working you here? Make it look like you’d been staying late instead of only just showing your face to do the job I’m paying both you and them for?”

  It takes a moment or two to unclench his jaw.

  Stan runs his mouth regardless.

  “The last time we met, you promised to focus on Carl’s figures. His team doing any better this week, Jonathan? You have a report for me or what?”

  Ms. Weiss would tell him to take whatever crap Stan gives him and then thank him for it. Carl would turn the other cheek for as long as he could, for frankly baffling lifelong-friendship reasons. But Peggy would wonder at length about what made Stan so unhappy.

  And it’s that last thought that has him steepling his own fingers and waiting until Stan’s fake smile fades. It finally flickers at Jon’s relaxed expression, but he doesn’t quit without some more bluster. “I told you, I hired you for facts and figures. Sure, your little project was fun for the interns, and Anthony’s crew got something out of it too, but we both know it’s nonsense. I’m paying you for facts and figures that lead to real cost savings. If someone in my management team isn’t pulling their weight, you have to recommend that they get let go. It’s down to you, Jonathan. All you have to do is write it up and have it on my desk by morning.”

  He truly believes it’s that simple to write off a man who’s worked for him for longer than Jon’s been alive.

  Well that’s not going to happen.

  Jon mentally kisses the graduate fast track goodbye, along with any future corner office. He sends up silent apologies to his mom while holding tight to Peggy’s hints that his happiness must have been her ultimate aim, even dressed up as it was in securing him a big-city career so her money worries would never be his. And then he reflects on Tyler, who’s already more successful at life than this man could ever hope for.

  Tyler has a huge heart.

  What does Stan have?

  A high-rise building he built to look down on other people, a son he apparently never sees, and a one-time mentor he’s trying to eliminate from his life like their friendship never mattered.

  All of that takes less than a minute to process—sixty seconds between having an up-and-coming career to it all being over.

  It’s easy to throw his future away.

  All it takes is one sentence.

  “Who exactly do you think you’re kidding?”

  HE’S CONSIDERING hunting down a box for his things when Anthony knocks at his door frame. The door itself is still wide open from when Stan left in a hurry. Anthony looks over his shoulder, as if he witnessed the man barrel angrily down the hallway, and then faces Jon, one eyebrow raised in question. “Is it safe to come in?”

  “It is now.”

  “You got a moment?”

  “Sure.” It’s not as if Jon has anything pressing to do with his time now.

  “I wanted to warn you that I mentioned your field trip today, but from what I just saw, I guess Stan already let you know he wasn’t happy about it.” He shakes his head. “Shit, Jon. You know I only said that you’d gone out with the big guy and his team when he asked me directly, don’t you? I didn’t think for a second that Stan would see it as some kind of deal breaker.”

  “I get it. It’s cool.” It really is. None of it matters right now. “I took what he said with a big pinch of salt.” He zips his laptop into his bag. “I figured you would’ve only told him the facts.”

  Anthony’s shoulders drop. “Well good. I didn’t want you thinking—”

  “I didn’t. Not for long, anyhow.” Jon checks that his desk drawers are empty. They are, apart from an errant slip of paper. He reaches for it as he adds, “There’s no accounting for why he went ahead and twisted what you told him into something different.”

  “Oh, that’s quite a new thing for him.”

  “Really?” Jon finds that hard to believe. He finally snags the one last trace that he’d ever been here at all, which turns out to be a creased Post-it note. He starts to unfold it.

  “Really, Jonathan,” Anthony insists. “That accounting department meeting you zoned out on?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I ate lunch with two of the managers later.” That’s such an Anthony thing to do—the man never quit networking, even with people on the way out. The thought that he’s doing the exact same thing right now has Jon smiling.

  “And they told you something different about Stan? Other than him being an asshole?” He drops his smile when Anthony nods.

  “They told me all about the time right before the offices relocated. Everything was delayed when Carl had a heart attack all alone out on some construction site. Turns out it was Stan who found him. He about lost his mind while Carl was critical, halting everything about the office merger until Carl made it through surgery. Sat by his bed for days and wouldn’t take a single work call. He wanted Carl to retire—came up with an amazing package—but Carl wasn’t ready to quit. That’s when Stan insisted Carl wasn’t allowed to work on his own and made him work out of this office instead. Not too many people relocated from the office Carl worked out of, and none of them know how to communicate like normal people, so I guess not much of that is common knowledge.”

  Jon’s been surprised a few times in his life, and he is again when he looks down at the Post-it note in his palm. It’s covered in Peggy’s spidery writing.

  He’s closed off so he doesn’t have to miss more people than he does already.

  She’d written that to Tyler to explain Jon’s short temper around him, but maybe it fits just as well for Stan Hallquist
. He drops the note back into the drawer and slams it, then he closes his eyes and replays all the times Stan’s tried to get Carl to quit for frankly flimsy reasons. “Fuck it all to hell.”

  “Jonathan?” Anthony looks concerned when Jon opens his eyes again.

  “Stan doesn’t want Carl out because he hates him.”

  “No?”

  Jon shakes his head, more at himself for not seeing it much sooner. “He’s trying to keep him alive.”

  JON’S IN the meeting room later, about to rub away the images he drew with a whiteboard eraser, when Stan enters the room.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Cleaning up before I go.” He presses the eraser to the glass over the dollar sign he drew here on his very first day. Was that only a couple of months ago? It feels like he’s been here forever. “I’ll make sure it’s all gone before I leave.”

  The door closes with a sharp click.

  Stan closes the gap between them fast and covers the dollar sign with his hand. “Stop.” Jon backs off and watches as Stan smudges ink with his shirtsleeve. “Dammit.”

  “Here. You want me to…?” Jon picks up a pen, then steps forward when Stan abruptly nods. He redraws the dollar sign and redefines the straight edges of the first house that Stan flipped. “There,” he says, meaning that he’s done.

  “Yes, there,” Stan says, meaning something very different. His swallow is loud. “There’s where Carl came through for me the first time.” He stares as if the opaque glass inches away from his face is transparent, and he sees something beyond it that Jon can only guess at. “You described it differently in that first meeting, like I knew what I was doing back then. What you didn’t mention was how I was up to my eyeballs in debt after I was let go from my job. Carl gave me a spot on his team when I didn’t know my ass from my elbow. But that casual work wasn’t anywhere near enough to cover my bills. I stopped answering the phone when it was only collection agents calling, and the day I had to sell my truck—”