“A little light reading, hey?” Brianna said.
“Something like that.” I looked at the article I had read. “What does it mean to buy a hedge fund?”
She laughed. “Leave it to a gardener to come up with that question. What do you think it means?”
“People who invest in hedges?”
“Sounds good to me.”
I set aside the paper. “I’m serious.”
“About what a hedge fund is?”
“No. I want you to teach me everything you know, so when you come home you can tell me what happened at work and I’ll be able to understand.”
She nodded. “All right. We can do that. It might take a little while though.”
“Let’s get started.”
“Really, right now? I’ve had a killer of a day, Adam. Can’t we just talk? How did your day go?”
I told her about the party my grandparents and I had the night before, after I told them she’d broken up with Thomas.
There was a loud knock at the door.
She got up from the table. “That’s my boss,” she said. “He told me he might bring over some papers for me to look at before work on Monday.”
She opened the door and gasped. I looked up and saw Thomas, but he hadn’t yet seen me.
“Thomas, what are you doing here?” she asked.
“I need to talk to you. Can I come in?” He didn’t wait for an answer. Once inside, he saw me at the kitchen table. “Have you moved in here already?” he asked me.
“No, just visiting.”
He turned to Brianna. “We need to talk. Alone.”
Brianna looked shocked but said, “Let’s go outside. Adam, will you excuse us?”
They ended up just outside the front door. Because Thomas had trial lawyer’s voice, I could hear what they were saying.
“Don’t tell me you’re actually considering marrying that . . . that custodian, or handyman, or whatever he is.”
“It’s definitely a possibility.”
“What is wrong with you anyway? Why would you do such a stupid thing?”
“He makes me happy.”
“Tell me the truth, Brianna. Are you pregnant? Is that why you’re thinking of marrying him?”
“I can’t believe you said that.”
“What is it, then? I mean, good grief, use your head. He has no education. You’ll end up supporting him. And how much do you two have in common? And what do you two talk about? Why throw away your education for someone like him? Okay, he has a good tan, I’ll give him that, and a fair build, but, come on, are you really that shallow?”
“It’s true he doesn’t have an education, but he’s not stupid. He can learn. I mean, just tonight, he asked me to help him understand the Wall Street Journal.”
“What word did he have the most trouble with? Wall or Street?”
At that point, I’d had it. I opened the screen door and stepped outside. “I think you’d better go now.”
“If you really care about Brianna, don’t marry her.”
“Why?”
“Because you’ll never be able to appreciate her like I do.”
“You mean because of my lack of education?”
“It’s not your lack of education. You could always get an education. No, the thing you don’t know is that she’s brilliant. I’m afraid you’ll turn her into some overweight, frumpy, soccer mom with twenty kids, too tired all the time to make any kind of contribution to society.” He turned to me. “What year in college are you?”
“I’ll be starting this fall.”
“As a freshman?”
“Yes.”
“Have you picked a major?”
I paused.
“Oh, sorry, am I going too fast for you? If I am, you just let me know and I’ll slow down. Do you even know what it means to choose a major in college? Or does the word college have you stumped?”
“Thomas,” Brianna cautioned.
“You haven’t picked a major yet, have you?” he asked me.
“I was going to major in information systems, but—”
“Let me guess. You changed your mind. Look, no hurry. Take all the time you want to get through college. Five, ten years, it’s all good.”
“Thomas, you’d better go,” Brianna said.
“Does Lawnmower Man here know how much your student loans are?”
“No, we haven’t discussed that yet.”
“I think you’d better. He might have second thoughts about getting into a marriage with someone who has student loans well over one hundred thousand dollars!”
My mouth dropped open.
“Surprised? Shocked?” Thomas asked. “It’s typical for students who go to Columbia Law School. The reason people are willing to get into that kind of debt is they generally start at high enough salaries they can pay off their loans in a few years.” He turned to Brianna. “Does he know how much you’re earning now?”
“No.”
“Maybe you should tell him,” Thomas said.
“Why should I do that?”
“It will give him something to shoot for.”
“He doesn’t have to make that kind of money.”
“No, but who is going to make payments on your student loans while he’s going to college? The Tooth Fairy? Santa Claus? Or maybe he can get a few more lawn mowing jobs? I hardly think that will cover it, Brianna.”
He poked his finger at me. “I don’t have anything against you personally, but I do strongly object to the mess you’re both going to get into if you get married. You have no goals, she’s goal driven. You like mowing lawns. She likes pitting her intellect against the best legal minds in the country. If you’re happy, she’ll be miserable. If she’s happy, you’ll feel like a failure.”
He turned to Brianna. “That’s why I got in my car and drove all the way here. It’s not just because I don’t want to lose you, Brianna. It’s not just because I thought you and I would make a good team. No, it was much more than that. As your friend and as your colleague, I beg you both to reconsider a marriage that will bring you nothing but grief. Okay, I know money and debt and earning power aren’t that romantic, but they are facts of life, and they do break up marriages.
“You two may be attracted to each other, but that’s not going to pay the bills. I admit I tend to look at cold, hard facts, but in a case like this, that’s not such a bad idea.”
I wanted to rip this guy’s head off, but I knew I couldn’t do that.
The one thing I didn’t want to do was argue with him. And so the only thing I could think of was to poke fun at him. I started clapping. “Great job! I’d give you a solid A. Look, if you ever need a letter of recommendation about courtroom technique, you just let me know.”
“Have you got anything to say for yourself?” he demanded.
“Yeah, I do. I’m in love with this girl. And she loves me. That’s all that matters.”
“If you think that, you’re living in a world that doesn’t exist,” Thomas said. “I’m going now, Brianna, but this isn’t over. I love you too much to give up without a fight.”
After he left, we went back into the apartment and sat down at the kitchen table for a long time without saying anything.
“How much are your student loans?” I asked.
“One hundred and twenty thousand dollars.”
“How much do you make?”
“Seventy thousand a year, but it should go up in a few months.”
“Oh. What will it be then?”
“I don’t know. Maybe ninety thousand a year.”
I felt awful. “That’s real good.”
She nodded.
We were just a few feet apart from each other, but it seemed like a mile.
“If we got married and moved to Utah to go to BYU, could you get a job there as a lawyer?”
“Eventually. I’m not licensed to practice law in Utah. But I could get some kind of a job there.”
“It wouldn’t pay as much money, t
hough, would it?”
“No, probably not.”
“Well, then, I’ll just change my plans. I won’t go to BYU.”
“But that’s what you’ve always wanted to do, isn’t it?”
“I don’t care about it now. You’re more important to me than anything else.”
“But you need an education.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want to work when we have a family.”
I stood up. “I need to go home and try to figure out what we’re going to do.”
She came to me and we held each other in our arms.
But somehow, it wasn’t the same.
12
For the next couple of weeks, Brianna and I didn’t see much of each other. She worked late every night. We saw each other for maybe an hour after she got off work.
“Why are you working so hard?” I asked one Sunday after church.
“They’re trusting me with something that is very important. I just don’t want to let them down.”
“When will you be done?”
“In another week or two.”
“We need to talk about our plans.”
“I know. We will, just let me get through this first.”
Another week dragged by with very little contact between us.
On the first Sunday in August, I went with her to church. After church she spent the afternoon with my grandparents and me.
We didn’t talk about what our plans were. I think we were both afraid to bring up the subject, worried it would somehow cause us to break up. Instead, after we ate and helped clean up, we sat at the piano and sang hymns together.
While we were still sitting next to each other at the piano, she told me she’d be in Washington, D.C., most of the week. “I’ll be giving a presentation at a Senate sub-committee hearing. It’s a big step for me.”
“Good for you.”
“Sorry. I wish I could get out of it. I’d rather spend my time with you. But maybe it won’t be too bad. We can e-mail each other all week.”
“I don’t do e-mail.”
“What are you talking about? Everybody does e-mails.”
“I don’t.”
“Why not?”
“I’d rather not say. We can talk on the phone.”
She shook her head. “I’ll be very difficult to get hold of.”
“Just call me when you get back to your room.”
“It might be late.”
“It doesn’t matter. Call me anytime.”
She had a puzzled expression on her face. “Okay, but . . .”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
She didn’t phone until Thursday night and that was at two in the morning to give me details of her return flight and ask me to pick her up at the airport.
She’d awakened me out of a sound sleep, but I managed to write down the time, 6:35, that her flight would get in the next day. And then, almost immediately, I fell asleep again.
At four-thirty Friday afternoon, I had just finished mowing the lawn and was playing Clumsy Monster with some children from one of the apartments.
My cell phone rang and I answered it, still chasing the kids.
It was Brianna. “How’s the traffic?” she asked. “I know it’s a Friday and things are probably backed up.”
“What?”
“You are coming to get me, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, sure. It’s too early to leave now. You don’t get in until 6:35.”
“I get in at 5:36 p.m.”
“I must have written it down wrong.”
“What are you doing now?”
“I just finished mowing the lawn.”
The kids started squealing as I chased after them.
“You’re playing with children again, aren’t you?”
“Well, just for a minute. Like I said, I just got done mowing the lawn.”
“Adam, we’re about to board my flight,” she said, biting off each word. “I am totally exhausted. I don’t want to wait around for you at the airport. Look, just forget it, okay? I’ll take a cab to my place.”
“I’ll come right away.”
“I told you when my flight was coming in. I thought I could depend on you to come get me.”
“Maybe you told me the wrong time.”
“No, Adam, I did not tell you the wrong time.”
“I’m in my pickup right now. Here I come, ready or not.”
“I’ll wait ten minutes for you. If you’re not there, I’ll take a cab.”
The traffic was heavy. I was still miles away from the airport when she called me from a cab and told me to forget about coming to get her.
“I’ll meet you at your place,” I said.
“That’s not going to work. I’m exhausted. All I want is to take a shower and go to bed. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
“I’ve had such a rotten week. And to think I have to go back there on Monday.”
“You were gone all week. I thought you’d be done.”
“I did too, but these things are complicated and take time.”
“Did you talk to Thomas this week?” I asked.
There was a long pause. “We traded e-mails a few times during the week. But it was mostly professional. I needed to run something by him. He’s really quite competent, you know.” She paused. “Oh, and he called me this morning.”
“Of course. After all, you are colleagues. Look, if you’re ever in one of these hearings and you need some information about the best way to mow a lawn, feel free to call me.”
“I’m too tired for this, Adam.”
“Sorry. I’m giving a talk in my grandparents’ ward tomorrow. Do you want to come and hear me?”
“I’ve been asked to fill in and play the piano in Primary for someone. But I could come over afterward.”
“Come hungry then.”
“All right.”
When we said good-bye, I felt depressed and helpless. Thomas is poisoning her mind against me, and there’s nothing I can do about it.
On Sunday afternoon, when she showed up at my grandparents’ place after church, we couldn’t connect with each other. She was still in her lawyer mode and seemed distant.
My grandparents carried the conversation by asking many questions about what she’d done at the Senate sub-committee hearings.
“Sounds like you did a great job!” my grandfather said. “I’m surprised they didn’t offer you a job on the Supreme Court.”
“Oh, believe me, I have no ambitions to do that.”
“Well, you’re smart enough, that’s for sure. We’re so proud of you!” my grandfather said.
After we ate, Brianna and I sat in the living room, facing each other, grim-faced and silent.
“We’re not very talkative today, are we?” I said.
“Sorry, it’s just that I’m so tired. I can’t believe I have to do this all over again tomorrow .”
“Everybody has things they have to do over and over again. Take me, for instance. I have to mow the lawn each week, but do you hear me complaining?”
She raised her eyebrows and shook her head.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“No, go ahead, tell me what you’re thinking.”
“Must you compare every situation in life to mowing lawns? Are you trying to be some backwoods dispenser of folk wisdom, or do you do it just to make me mad?”
“It just comes naturally. You see, compared to you, I am dumb.”
She stood up. “I can’t talk to you when you’re like this.”
She was on her way out when I called out her name.
She stopped and turned to face me.
I walked over and put my arms around her. She sighed, drew closer to me, and rested her head on my shoulder.
“I love you,” I whispered.
She let out a huge sigh. “I know. Me too. I’m sorry for being such a witch today. I got so hammered this past wee
k. And then I kept thinking about what Thomas said. About us. He has a point, you know. When we’re married, how are we going to get you through college, pay off my stupid student loans, and have children all at the same time?”
“I’ll figure it out by the time you come back next week. I’ll have a plan, and everything will work out. You’ll see.”
She nodded. “I hope so.”
She kissed me on the cheek then told me she had to go home and get ready for Monday and then get some sleep.
She was gone until Wednesday, just one week before I’d told my folks I would be leaving for Utah. But none of that mattered because I had a plan.
I picked Brianna up at the airport. It had been raining all day, and her flight was forty-five minutes late.
I drove her to my grandparents’ place. We ate a late dinner. For the first time in many days, I was upbeat and positive. I asked my grandparents to be with us while I unveiled my carefully thought-out plan.
“Okay, I’ve got everything figured out,” I said enthusiastically. “And I’ve got a little something here for you, Brianna!” I waved a small box containing an engagement ring. “So, ladies and gentlemen, sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight!”
I wanted my grandparents in on the plan too.
“Okay, here we go. Here’s my plan! I’ll stay and work here. Brianna, you keep working where you’re at so you can make good progress in paying off your school loans. We’ll get married in a few months. It’s perfect, right?”
“Well, it’s an interesting plan,” she said diplomatically. “So, will you go to school somewhere around here?”
“No, I’ll just keep working. We’ll pay off your school loans faster that way.”
“So, you’re not going to go to college?”
“I might sometime, just not right away.”
She chose her words carefully. “So, in your plan, do I keep working my whole life? Because, once I have kids, I’m not going to want to work.”
“You can quit once we pay off your student loans.”
“And what will you be doing, if you don’t have a college education?”
“Lots of people don’t have college educations.”
“Yes, but most of them have a skill or a trade.”
“I’ll figure something out.” I looked at my grandfather. “I haven’t talked to you yet, but maybe when you retire I could take over managing the apartments.”