On Monday, Labor Day, Marge and Liz had a barbecue at their place. Vivian, London, and I spent most of the afternoon there. I didn’t want to go home because I knew what would happen once we did.

I ended up being right. After I read to London and shut off the lights, Vivian was sitting at the dining room table. “We should talk,” she began. Her words are mostly a jumble to me even now but I caught the major points. It just happened, she said; she hadn’t mean for it to happen. She’d fallen in love with Walter. She was moving to Atlanta. We could talk next week, but she was traveling to Florida and Washington, D.C., and besides, I probably needed time to sort through what she’d told me. She didn’t see the point in arguing about it; it had nothing to do with me; things just happen. She was leaving tonight, too. She’d told London that she would be working out of town again, but hadn’t told London yet that she was leaving me. It was easier that way, for now, but we’d talk about London when emotions weren’t so fraught. And, she added, she wouldn’t be staying the night.

The private jet, she said, was waiting.

CHAPTER 14

Shock

When I was in college, my friends and I used to go out on the weekends, which typically began Thursday around three and concluded upon waking late on Sunday morning. One of the guys I hung out with most – a guy named Danny Jackson – shared the same major and we ended up in many of the same classes. Given NC State’s sizable student population, it seemed to me that the class-scheduling gods must have decided that we needed to see more of each other.

Danny was as easygoing a guy as I ever met. Born and raised in Mobile, Alabama, he had a very pretty older sister who was dating the punter for the Auburn Tigers, and he never said a bad word about his parents. He seemed to imply they were pretty cool as far as parents went and they must have passed that on to him, because I felt the same way about him. Whatever I wanted to do – grab a burger at two in the morning, or swing by a frat party or watch a ball game at the local sports bar – Danny was always up for it. Whenever we met up, we’d find ourselves picking up our conversation in the same spot we’d left it, even if it had been weeks since we’d seen each other. He drank PBR – he swore it was the best beer in the world, as evidenced by the blue ribbon – and while he would often drink enough to acquire a buzz, he had an automatic slow-down switch in his head that pretty much prevented him from ever becoming drunk. Which was quite a contrast with the rest of the college population – for them, getting smashed seemed the entire point of drinking.

One Saturday night, Danny and I were out with a few other guys at one of the more crowded college bars. With finals looming, most of us were a bit anxious, which of course we tried to downplay. Instead, we drank as we usually did – a bit past buzzed – all except Danny, whose slow-down switch had flipped to the “on” position.

He got the call a little past eleven; I have no idea how he even heard the ring over the noise in the bar. But he did, and after glancing at the screen, he got up from the table and went outside. We thought nothing about it. Why would we? Nor did we consider it amiss when he walked past our table after coming back inside and made a beeline for the bar.

I watched him wedge himself between some people, vying for the bartender’s attention. It took a few minutes before he received his drink, but when he turned, I saw that he’d ordered a cocktail – a very tall glass of something golden brown. He wandered off toward another area of the bar, as if he’d forgotten us entirely.

Of everyone there, I was probably his closest friend, so I followed him. By then, he was leaning against the wall near the restroom. As I approached, he took a huge swallow from his glass, finishing nearly a third of its contents.

“What do you have there?” I asked.

“Bourbon.”

“Wow. That’s a pretty big glass.”

“I told them to fill it,” he said.

“Did I miss the contest where Pabst got second place, not first?”

It wasn’t particularly funny and I don’t know why I said it, other than that the way he was acting was making me nervous.

“It’s what my dad drinks,” he said.

For the first time, I noticed his shell-shocked expression. Not the effect of alcohol. Something else.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

He took another long drink. By then, the glass was half empty. It had to be at least four, maybe five shots. Danny was going to be drunk, maybe very drunk, in a very short while.

“No,” he said. “I’m not okay.”

“What happened? Who called?”

“My mom,” he said. “It was my mom who called.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “She just told me my dad died.”

“Your dad?”

“He was in a car accident. She found out just a few minutes ago. Someone from Highway Patrol came by the house.”

“That’s… awful,” I said, truly at a loss for words. “Is – is there anything I can do? Can I bring you to your place?”

“She’s getting me a ticket to fly home tomorrow. I don’t know what I’m going to do about finals, though. Will they let me retake them next week?”

“I don’t know, but that’s the last thing you should be thinking about right now. Is your mom okay?”

It took him a long time to answer. Instead, he seemed to be staring into the distance.

“No,” he said. He gulped at his drink, finishing it. “She’s not. I need to sit down.”