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“Aw, come on, Todd, lineage? You’re pulling tradition out as a reason to do anything? Evolved people don’t do things because their parents did, Todd. Seems like your daughter’s too smart to be a doctor if she knows that already, even before her old man figured it out.” He laughed a little, and she noticed the smile lines pouring out of his eyes like tributaries. They were the only way she could really tell he was her father’s age. That, and the specks of gray that were smattered throughout his hair. She assumed his facial hair was salted as well, but he only had stubble. She was regarding him quietly, not saying anything, just letting the men do what men will do: tire themselves out arguing then pretend they never really had a stake in the argument.
“But my daughter doesn’t know how rewarding being a doctor can be,” her father responded smugly. “You spend your life helping others. What else could be more rewarding?”
“Geez, Todd, why don’t you just volunteer at the food bank then if you do it because it’s rewarding? Here’s my guess: You like the money and the honorific too,” Mr. Arnault responded slyly.
“I know how lonely it can be for your family,” Lainey muttered, feeling emboldened by Mr. Arnault’s words. “You have such long hours, and you’re always on call.”
“That may be true, but I’ve also been able to take vacations, to spend weeks at a time with you when other parents couldn’t.” Her dad’s tone wasn’t so genial anymore, and he had set down his utensils, the pretense of eating gone.
“Let the billionaire speak, Dr. Crane.” Bradley was laughing. He was enjoying this, Lainey could tell. He hadn’t seemed to pick up on the shift in tone. If he had, it didn’t matter to him.
“Sure, Mr. Arnault,” her father replied, delivering “mister” like a dagger, though a dagger that Bradley hadn’t seemed to have noticed.
“Lainey, it’s true that being a doctor is an honorable profession and one you won’t likely regret.”
“Thank you, old friend. I knew you’d come to your—”
Bradley held up his hand to her father, his eyes still trained on hers. She was lost on vacation in his eyes. A sneaky thought surfaced that as long as he would look at her, that’s how long she would be swimming in Switzerland.
“However, you could start biomedical engineering right now. You were on the premed path, so you know as much as I knew when I started. You could even go to medical school and waste an extra four years if you’re absolutely determined to and be one of the best in your field. Learn about what vacuums there are in the industry, spend a few years making something revolutionary, and watch the oyster of the world spit out pearl after pearl for you. You’re richer, you have more time, you’ve spent less on education, you’re still helping others, and you’re richer.”
“You said you’re richer twice,” her father pointed out.
Brad broke eye contact with her and looked over at her father, who was squinting at him. “It bears repeating,” he said calmly and went back to cutting his own steak, evidently finished with his argument.
“Spectacular, Brad. Seriously, thank you, old friend,” her dad repeated sarcastically.
“Lainey, you do what you want to do. Men who talk are men who can err,” her mom said, finally speaking up and laying a hand on hers. She was like that, quiet past her turn, always delivering the last line. If she were a line in a play, she was undoubtedly, “And they lived happily ever after.” Lainey smiled warmly at her, the woman who had stayed up with her helping her with homework, who had taken photos when she went to prom, who had filled the stockings at Christmas every year, who never minded a forgotten bake sale or project. When her mom looked away, Lainey glanced at Mr. Arnault to find him, too, looking at her. A smile slithered across his face contagiously, causing her to bite her lip to prevent herself from laughing. He put a finger to his lips as though to shush her, and then the moment was over, and he was back to talking to her parents, and she was back to eating quietly, a background fixture at her own parents’ dinner table, like an extra chair they’d forgotten to put away before company came.
Chapter four
Aweeklater,inJill’s room, Lainey sat on the floor in a butterfly stretch, holding one of Jill’s brownies in one hand and scrolling through potential jobs on her laptop with the other. Her chewing served as a contemplative meditation, a mechanical practice that allowed her to focus. Jill sat on the floor next to her, towels sitting under a canvas that she was painting a bright yellow. Lainey was finding the job market to be thin and somewhat uninspiring. Some of the positions sounded made up, and she found herself thinking about how these people were offering employment so that she could make them money so they could buy things from other employed people. It was a sick cycle. She wished for a moment that she lived on the top of a mountain, away from it all, that she was an old woman with a curled back that people visited every ten years to ask for help with their crops. She could feel the crisp air against her skin and the soft hands of the beggars when they took her wrinkled one, leathered from all the sun. On the other hand, she wanted to be rich.
“There’s nothing,” Lainey sighed, looking over at Jill who did not look up from what she was doing.
“There’s not nothing.”
“There’s nothing I’d want to do forever.”
“You’re putting too much pressure on it. You don’t need to find something to do forever. You just need to find your first job with your fancy new degree, and then you’ll find a different, better job and then another, better job, and so on.” A curly, red tendril of Jill’s hair trailed through the wet paint. She stopped for a moment to observe it, shrugged, squeezed it out with two fingers, then tucked her hair into her shirt.
Lainey allowed the words to pass right through both of her ears. She didn’t want a life like Jill’s. She loved Jill, but Jill would need a roommate forever with the way she approached employment. Lainey wanted a career, a sustainable one that would support a family and vacations and dreams. She opened her legs into a V around her laptop, stretching her hamstrings out. Her cell phone rang, and she answered without looking.
“Hello?”
“Lainey?” came the voice on the other end, smooth with an edge, like scotch on the rocks.
“Yes, who’s this?”
“Bradley Arnault. I’m a friend of your father’s?”
Lainey didn’t know why adults did this. Well, older adults. She was an adult too, she reminded herself. Still, she was not at the age where she reminded people who she was after just seeing them the week before. She was also not at the age where his voice should make her blood rush to her face. For some reason, she stood up and began to pace her yoga mat.
“Who is it?” Jill mouthed.
Lainey shook her head, then mouthed back, “My dad’s friend,” although she apparently did not mouth it well enough as Jill gave her a quizzical look in return.
“Hi, Mr. Arnault. What can I do for you? Is my dad okay?” she asked, swaying from side to side. Jill’s head snapped up to look at her with wide eyes.
