Chapter Nine
Marshall
“Still no luck?” asked Sean.
It was Wednesday afternoon, and we were sitting in a booth at the Celtic Knot Pub waiting for our orders. I had gone by the bakery the day before and this morning on my way to the lumberyard, but Lori was still adamant.
I shook my head. “No, but she had a drink ready for me this morning when I came in, a chai latte. She seems to have accepted the fact that I’ll be stepping in every day from now on, so that’s progress of a sort. I wasn’t expecting her to break down and give me her number on the first day, or even the second. I’m playing the long game.”
“Ah.” Sean took a sip of his iced water. Although he did not lack for money either, he hated paying for drinks when we went out. “Well, you’re fortunate that she hasn’t yet decided to call the police. If I were her, I would think you were stalking me. I’d think twice before walking alone to my car.”
“I’m not stalking her,” I said in frustration. I was already tired of having to answer this accusation—Sean’s grandfather had brought it up that morning when I drove out to the lumberyard. “No matter what you or your gramps thinks, I am not a stalker.”
“Sure, sure, said every stalker ever.” He waited a beat before adding, “I think Gramps is more concerned that you haven’t found yourself a job yet. It puzzles him that you’re still able to afford food when you haven’t worked in…how long?”
“I’m not even worried about it,” I said with a roll of my eyes. “If I really wanted a job, I wouldn’t have any trouble finding one. Besides, if I win the invitational, I may never have to work again.”
Sean sat back in his seat looking agitated. “Yeah, but you can’t count on that,” he said sternly. In Vegas, you’re going to be up against the best poker players in the country. I don’t care how good you are; there’s always going to be somebody there who’s better than you. It won’t be like the festival where your only real competition is an old man in a shabby sweater. They are going to bring the knives out.”
I sat sipping my soda in silence for a moment. For as long as I had known Sean, he had been encouraging me to follow my dreams and never doubt that with enough practice I could be the best in my field. Only recently had it become clear to me that he was trying to encourage himself as much as he was me. “I think this may be the first time you’ve ever advised me to be practical.”
“Well, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately,” said Sean. “Growing up, I think we were spoon-fed a lot of rubbish about how you can be anything you want to be. And I used to really believe that. Only as I’ve gotten older have I come face to face with my own limitations. You may be able to achieve a certain degree of excellence in your field, but that’s really the best you can hope for. Ninety-nine percent of the human race won’t even achieve that—and they’ll try, believe me. Everybody’s got a dream in their heart; everybody wants to be a rock star. But most of those dreams end in disappointment. I mean, look at Annie.”
So this was what had been bothering him all weekend. “I wouldn’t let Annie discourage me if I were you,” I said. “Nobody in their right mind ever thought she had a real chance at stardom. I’m not even sure Annie thought that. She just likes the sound of her own voice.”
“Maybe,” said Sean, though he didn’t sound reassured. “I just—I just hope that’s not how I sound when I talk to you about my dreams for myself.”
“Not remotely. I’ve never heard you brag that you were going to be ‘bigger than John Lennon.’ All you wanted was to achieve some level of success as a musician, and regardless of whether that pans out or not, it’s not an unrealistic dream. I don’t feel the urge to have you committed when you talk about it. Besides which,” I added, “you’re a pretty damned decent guitar player.”
“Thanks,” said Sean quietly. “Hopefully someday I’ll be better than decent.”
At that point, the conversation was interrupted by the arrival of our lunch. Sean had ordered a Scottish salmon and served with a side of broccoli while I ordered a Killians burger topped with Irish whiskey cheese and a side of onion rings. Sean made the mistake of stealing an onion ring off my plate and biting into it without checking to see if it was cool, nearly destroying his taste buds in the process.
“Oww!” he yelled, raising a hand to his mouth and spitting it out onto his plate. “You should’ve warned me first.”
“That’ll teach you to steal from my plate,” I replied as I bit into my burger. “Mmmm. I can’t believe how good this is.”
Sean eyed his plate in anticipation. “Let’s promise ourselves that no matter where we end up, we’ll always have enough money to enjoy meals like this. That’s all I really want out of life.”
“You don’t want to get married, be a rock star?” I asked in a quizzical tone.
“Hopefully one day all of that will happen, but even if it doesn’t, we’re here at this table, and we’re happy, and we’re eating salmon smothered in creamy avocado and yogurt sauce. A million dollars couldn’t make me this happy. Now if we can just keep this up for a few decades…”
“Shouldn’t be too hard,” I said. “As long as you hold a steady job—and I don’t get murdered by a hit squad after winning a hundred thousand in a poker tournament…”
Sean laughed. “Do you remember at Clemson, the fight we got into because the guys in the Pike house thought you had cheated them out of five hundred dollars? They ended up getting suspended from school for a whole semester.”
“They should’ve been suspended forever,” I said in a tone of annoyance. Somehow being accused of cheating had angered me more than being beat up.
Sean cut into his salmon. “They probably shouldn’t have been so quick to jump to conclusions. I think what triggered it was that you had been practicing card tricks and they saw you doing sleight-of-hand before the game. When you cleaned up during the tournament, the logical assumption was that you had cheated them.”
By now, the onion rings were cool enough to eat. Grabbing a handful, I sat thinking for a moment in silence. Sean didn’t realize it, but he may have just given me the key to getting Lori’s number.