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Jonathan looked up. “I gathered. Everything okay?”
She flopped onto the couch next to him. “No worse than usual.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“Nope.”
His eyes traveled over her face, like he was evaluating her for signs of damage. “Okay,” he said after a moment, and turned back to his computer.
“It’s my mom,” Esther said. Maybe she wanted to talk after all. “She’s not very good at being a grown-up sometimes.”
Jonathan set his laptop aside and turned toward her, resting his elbow on the back of the couch. “You and your brother look out for her?”
“Mostly Eric does. He lives near her in Seattle. I just send money. I’ve got the easy job.”
“Doesn’t sound easy to me.”
Esther looked down at her lap and shrugged. “Mom’s okay. She’s just not very responsible with her money.”
“What about your dad?”
“Divorced. Remarried.” Disinterested. Emotionally unavailable. He’d paid for Eric and Esther to go to college, but after that he’d considered his obligation to them discharged. They only saw him once a year now, on the day after Christmas. They didn’t even rate time on the actual holiday.
Jonathan’s forehead had furrowed in concern. She wanted to reach up and smooth away the crease between his eyes. “Are your parents still together?” she asked him.
He snorted. “Sure, if by together you mean sleeping in separate bedrooms and barely speaking. They both work crazy hours—Mom’s a surgeon and Dad’s a partner in a law firm—so they hardly ever see each other. It’s more like a business arrangement than a marriage.”
“Are you an only child?”
“No, I’m the baby.” He shifted on the couch, propping his feet up on the coffee table, and slouched down next to her. “I’ve got two older sisters, both of them type A’s like my parents. One’s an investment banker and the other’s in med school at Stanford.” His mouth twisted. “I come from a whole family of overachievers.”
“And you’re the sensitive artist?”
He rubbed his thumb over his palm, staring down at his hands. They were sitting close enough that their shoulders were touching. “Or the prodigal disappointment, if you’re my parents.”
“They don’t think that,” Esther said, enjoying the warmth seeping into her arm from his.
“Yeah, they do. They tell me all the time. My dad literally used those words once.”
She’d never seen Jonathan’s face look so hard before. Esther’s parents might have their issues, but they’d never said anything actively hurtful to her like that. “I’m sorry,” she said. “That sucks. At least they’re supporting you through school though.”
“Only grudgingly. They’ll probably be relieved if I get kicked out of the program. Once they get over the embarrassment of having a failure for a son.”
“Hey.” She bumped his leg with her knee. “You’re not a failure, and you’re not going to get kicked out.”
He nodded without meeting her eye.
“If your professor doesn’t give you an A after all this work you’ve put into these scripts, I’ll go down there and kick her ass myself.”
He bumped her leg back and smiled. “Thanks.”
“What are you going to do after you finish your degree though? I mean, screenwriting’s not exactly the kind of job you can just walk right into.”
His shoulders dipped. “I’ll get a job and write in my spare time until I sell a script.”
“Have you ever had a job?”
He shot a defensive sideways look her way. “I have a job now. I’m a TA for one of the professors in the department.”
