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With a rueful shrug, Parker said, “No, but that’s the best I can do.”
They lapsed into a weighty silence. Eventually Mike picked up his reading glasses, unknowingly reminding Parker of Maris and the eyeglasses she had been wearing the last time he saw her. Which might have been the last time he would ever see her, he reminded himself.
“These young men seem to have reconciled completely,” Mike remarked as he thumbed through the pages again. “I don’t sense any residual hostility between them.”
“Following the incident with Hadley, Roark carried on as though it had never happened,” Parker explained. “He made a conscious decision not to let it affect their friendship.”
“Noble of him. Nevertheless, it’s still—”
“There,” Parker interrupted, completing the other man’s thought. “Like an unsightly birthmark that mars an otherwise beautiful baby’s face. Neither wants to acknowledge the blemish on their friendship. Both look past it, hoping that it will gradually fade and ultimately disappear completely, as some birthmarks do, so that, eventually, no one can remember the baby having had it.”
“Good analogy.”
“It is, isn’t it? I may use it.” He jotted himself a note.
“You didn’t specify or explain the family obligation that prevented Todd from leaving with Roark.”
“It’s discussed in the next scene. Roark extends condolences to Todd for his mother’s death. She didn’t want to worry him during those last few crucial months leading up to his college graduation, so she didn’t tell him that she’d been diagnosed with a rampant cancer. She attended the commencement exercise, but it was an effort for her. The therapy she’d been receiving had weakened her, but unfortunately had had no effect on the malignancy. So rather than leaving for Florida, Todd accompanied her home. He stayed with her until she died.”
“Quite a sacrifice, especially when you consider what moving to Key West represented to him.”
Parker smiled sardonically. “Save the kudos. I have him saying… Wait, let me read it to you.” He shuffled through the sheets of handwritten notes scattered across his worktable until he found the one he was looking for.
“Todd thanks Roark for his expression of sympathy, so on and so forth, then he says, ‘ “Actually, her death was very convenient.” ’ Roark reacts with appropriate shock. Then Todd adds, ‘ “I’m only being honest.”
“ ‘ “Cruelly honest,” says Roark.
“ ‘Todd shrugs indifferently. “Maybe, but at least I’m not
a hypocrite. Am I sorry she’s dead? No. Her dying left me completely untethered and unencumbered. Free. I’ve got no one to think about except myself now. No one to account to. Nothing to cater to except my writing.” ’ ”
Mike assimilated that. “So the white gloves are coming off in the next segment.”
“If by that you mean that Todd’s true character will be revealed, no. Not entirely. We do, however, begin to detect chinks in the facade.”
“The same way Noah Reed’s true character was revealed to you once you moved to Key West. Bit by bit.”
Parker felt his facial muscles stiffen as they did whenever Noah was called to the forefront of his mind. “It takes Roark only a few chapters to see his so-called friend for what he really is. It took me a couple of years. And by then it was too late.”
He stared hard at his legs for several moments, then, forcing those ugly memories aside, he referred once again to his handwritten notes. “Professor Hadley is also resurrected in the next scene.”
Mike poured himself another glass of lemonade, then sat back in his chair and assumed a listening aspect.
“Actually, it’s Todd who introduces the subject,” Parker explained. “He comments on how wonderful it is that they managed to turn that situation around. He says if he hadn’t pulled that trick on Roark, their present relationship with the professor might not be as solid as it is. He says Roark should be thanking him for what he did.
“Roark isn’t ready to go so far as to thank him, but he concedes that it worked to their advantage in the long run.” Parker took a breath. “This conversation is to inform the reader that Professor Hadley had seen such promise in these talented young men, he’s offered to continue critiquing their work even though they’re no longer his students.”
“Very generous of him.”
Parker frowned. “He’s not completely selfless. I have a chapter planned, written from his point of view, where the reader learns that he would coach these two young writers simply because he recognizes their talent and wants to see it honed and refined, and then, hopefully, published and shared with an appreciative audience.”
“I sense a ‘however’ coming.”
“However, wouldn’t it be a star in his crown if he discovered the next generation’s defining novelists?”
“In other words, he’s an opportunistic old bastard.”
Parker laughed. “Everyone is opportunistic, Mike. Everyone. Without exception. Only the degree of one’s opportunism separates him from others. How far is one willing to go to get what he wants?
