Business as Usual (Off The Subject) (3 page)

“For the record,” Caroline says, “I’d like to think Reed and I would have found our way together eventually anyway, but Lexi’s intervention definitely played a key role.”

“That’s not the only reason I set it up,” I add. “I did it to help a worthy cause.”

Sylvia’s eyes bug slightly as she gives me a skeptical look.

I laugh. “Okay, so I helped
two
worthy causes at the same time. But how could I not? I knew they were meant to be together.” I turn my gaze on Caroline. “But we’re talking about two very stubborn people here, and sometimes drastic times call for drastic measures.”

Caroline’s grin grows wider as she starts sketching again.

Sylvia slides off the table. “I’ll be honest, when you first told me about your plan last fall, I thought you were crazy. But when it actually worked, I decided you were a mad genius.”

I roll my eyes with a snort. “No need to kiss my ass. I already told you that I’d give you my notes from the ethics class you missed yesterday.”

She grins and gives me a half-shrug. “I mean it. You’re a natural, Lexi. You’re a born problem solver. No hemming and hawing for you.” She crosses her legs and leans forward. “Take the Middle Tennessee Children’s Charity. Sure, maybe you didn’t get involved for purely altruistic reasons—”

“Hey!”

“—but you saw a great organization that could use some fresh blood and ideas. And now look at everything you’re doing with them. And you’re only a sophomore in college. Imagine what you’ll accomplish when you graduate. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if Monroe Industries gave you a job as soon as you get your degree.”

Little does she know my family owns Monroe Industries, the international multi-million dollar corporation that funds the foundation and that my parents expect me to fulfill some role in the corporation one day.

“I’m just glad I sat next to you in statistics last August. Otherwise I probably wouldn’t have gotten involved with the charity, which will look
great
on my resume.”

“I didn’t ask you because we’re friends, Sylvia. I asked you because you’re a great asset. The fact that we’re friends is bonus.”

She waves her hands up and down the length of her body. “No, I’ll tell you what the real bonus is having a reason to look hot.” She’s wearing a short, tight grey dress that shows cleavage. Her brown hair is curly and teased and her makeup is just as dramatic as mine. She looks amazing. “I can’t even remember the last time I got dressed up.”

I sigh. “Neither can I.”

She gives me a sad smile. “I still can’t believe you and Brandon broke up. Why would he go back to his ex? You two were perfect for each other.”

A heavy weight crushes my chest, just another reminder of my emotional scars. “Some things just aren’t meant to be.”

Caroline’s attention is back on me. Both of them are clearly hoping for more details. But they’re about to be disappointed.

“You already know what happened. He went home for Christmas break and got back together with his high-school girlfriend. There’s not much else to tell.”

“But things had been going so well with you two,” Sylvia says, kicking one foot into the air.

“I was a rebound.” I like to tell myself this late at night as I try to fall asleep. I tell myself it doesn’t matter that I gave him up without a fight because I would have lost him anyway. Too bad I don’t believe it.

“Ouch.”

I shrug.

“You know what they say about getting thrown off a horse. You need to get back up there on it.” She winks. “And by
get back up on
, I mean—”

“Yeah, I get it.” I laugh, but it’s forced—her joke comes a little too close to home. “I’m too busy. School and work take all my time and energy.”

“You know that’s just an excuse, don’t you?” Caroline asks. “I was busy with the fashion show and I still found time for Reed.”

“Excuse or not, this is my choice.” I put enough force into my words to get them to drop the subject. “Working on the summer program for the kids is my focus right now. I’m still trying to find the right location.”

“I thought you had a place.”

“We do, and it’ll work, but it’s the local park. I’d like to have a variety of activities for the kids every day. I’m putting together a proposal to take to my advisor, and it’s taking up all my spare time. The partnership between the university and the charity has gone well so far, but this will really take things up a notch.”

Sylvia narrows her eyes suspiciously. “So, I know the basics, of course, but what’s your plan for the expansion of the program?”

“Well, the charity’s after-school program has done a great job with helping kids who are struggling in their academic work. Caroline found that out firsthand last fall when she met Desiree.” My brother’s girlfriend gives me a soft smile. Desiree was a girl Caroline discovered on her first visit to the tutoring center. The little girl reminded Caroline so much of herself at that age that she came up with her own line of children’s clothing for the fashion show. “But we all know that kids lose a lot of information over the summer and lower-income kids are at a greater disadvantage than upper-socioeconomic income children.” I pause, certain they’ll think I’m crazy. I’ve never told them this much about my plan before. “So I’m proposing that we have a summer university for middle-schoolers.”

Sylvia raises her eyebrows. “I thought the idea was to get them to do fun things. No one wants to go to summer school.”

“They will if the right classes are offered.” I give Caroline a pleading look. “Like how to design your own clothes from thrift store finds or a
fun
interactive chemistry class. Classes where they’ll actually learn something and keep their minds active, but they’ll have fun too. Plus, a lot of these kids don’t plan to go to college. If they spend some time on the campus and in the classrooms, they might realize it’s not such a scary place. Of course, this all depends on if the chancellor agrees.”

Sylvia looks skeptical.

“I think it’s a wonderful idea,” Caroline says. “Why are you worried about that?”

“I’m asking for classroom space to augment the outdoor space we already have. And even if the university helps with that, there will be a million other things to do. We’ll have to find the instructors, coordinate with them to come up with classes…”

“Okay, Lexi.” Caroline holds up her hands. “Slow down. You’re right. This is a huge undertaking. Why didn’t you tell me more about it before now?”

“I wanted to sort out the details in my head first.”

“I see what you mean about there not being much time. It’s already the end of February. If you’re going to implement the program this summer, you needed to have it in place, like yesterday.”

“I know.”

“So why not hold off a year?”

“Because what if there’s one kid we can help
this year
, and he slips through the cracks just because I didn’t want to work too hard?”

“Oh, Lexi.” Caroline sets down her notebook and pulls me into a big hug. “You have such a big heart, but you need to remember that you can’t save them all.”

“
You
try to,” I say.

She grins. “Fair enough. But this is a huge task that will take months to organize. There probably isn’t enough time.”

I stiffen.

She squeezes me again. “But you know that I of all people understand. Let me help.”

“And me too,” Sylvia says.

Tears sting my eyes. I’m blessed to have such amazing friends.

Ben

My eyes sink closed and my cheek falls out of my open palm, jerking me awake. I look around to see if anyone notices, but I’m in the back row and the professor is looking at her notes. I sit up straighter, trying to shake off my drowsiness, but it hangs on like a whore to a rich john.

I glance down at my notes and up at the graph projected on the wall, wondering how much of the lecture I’ve missed. This might just be an intro course, but I hate history, which is part of the reason I put it off until the final semester of my senior year. The combination of the class’s nine a.m. start time, my shift ending at two a.m. at the bar, and my strong dislike of the subject matter means I tend to nap in here a lot. But whether or not I like Intro to American History, at fourteen hundred dollars per fucking credit hour, I hate to miss a single minute. I estimate I just pissed away fifty bucks with that nap and I didn’t even get a wet dream out of it.

Funny how I never gave much thought to how much classes cost when I was on a full-ride scholarship. Funny how I never thought about a lot of things.

But there was nothing funny about losing my scholarship right before the second semester of my senior year. Especially since I go to Southern University, “an Ivy-League-inspired school nestled in a Tennessee small town.” Who falls for that bullshit? But every year, one thousand or so new students find their way to our “picturesque campus, to embark on their exciting new lives.”

Embark on their exciting new lives, my ass.

The majority of students who attend Southern University are dripping in money. Their daddies have their future all figured out for them. I’m part of the one percent, the unlucky few who didn’t come to school with trust funds and beemers and daddy’s gold card. Those of us who were raised on PB&J and got old clunkers when we turned sixteen. We’re here on a combination of scholarships and student loans. Although, at this moment, I can’t figure out why we bother.

But that’s a lie. I came here because I was given a full-ride scholarship based on academic merit and financial need. I was a local boy, so it made sense to live at home and let my scholarship money do the heavy lifting for my college education. The reputation of the mechanical engineering department helped. It was a no-brainer that ended up biting me in the ass.

No, Sabrina Richmond bit me in the ass.

The prof starts to change the graph and I’ve only written down half the information on the screen. Son of a bitch. I don’t know a single person in this class other than a passing acquaintance with a cute red-headed freshman who has let me borrow her notes before, but she’s not here today. I’m fucked. Again.

When class is almost over, Dr. Kensington reminds us that there will be an exam in our next class. I consider asking my boss for Sunday night off. But Uncle Tony’s short-staffed after one of our bartenders quit, which means I work enough for two people some nights. It’s exhausting, especially on a busy night, but the girls like me and they leave me good tips when I flirt. Christ knows I need all the cash I can get. But I’ll be the first to admit that I can’t wing this exam. I’m going to have to put in some solid hours of studying.

I can’t afford to take off work and I can’t afford not to.

I pack up my bag and head for the Higher Ground coffee shop. I can load up on caffeine and study before my next class, Topics in Stress Analysis. It’s a tough course, but it’s math intensive, which has always been easy for me. Using equations to evaluate thermal stress is something that’s squarely in my comfort zone, much more so than Dr. Kensington’s interminable lecture about the industrial revolution. I would so much rather study the geniuses who created the technology that simplified our lives than I would the slum lords who profited off lower income workers, but that’s exactly why I’m behind in history.

The cold February wind blows across the
picturesque
campus. Girls clutch their coats and run toward the scattered buildings. I’m not surprised to see a line at the coffee shop, but I
am
surprised that the line isn’t out the door. The Higher Ground is the only place on campus that serves decent coffee, and it’s a cold Friday morning.

I order a cup of black coffee, exactly what I always order. A couple gets up from a two-person table and I snag a chair and plop my bag on the table. I can get in an hour of study time if I get right to work.

I’ve been at it for at least half an hour when someone sits in the chair across from me. Irritated by the interruption, I glance up at Tucker Price, campus ex-soccer star. We’re no more than passing acquaintances, so I’m surprised he’s decided to sit with me.

“How’s it going, Masterson?” Tucker asks.

I wave my hand over my open book and notes. “History’s kicking my ass. What about you?”

“Never better.” His grin lights up his face. Everyone at Southern knows he quit the Chicago Fire to come back to Southern and his girlfriend. Most people think he’s an idiot, but I’ve got to respect a guy who puts his relationship before money and a pro-soccer career. I doubt you’ll find anyone else on this fucking campus who would do that. Still, he and his girlfriend are such opposites that you’d never imagine them together. Who knows, though, maybe that’s what makes it work.

“That’s awesome, dude. I couldn’t be happier for you,” I say. And I mean it.

“I’m surprised I haven’t seen you on Saturday mornings.”

My confusion must be obvious, because he jumps in with an explanation. “You always came to Kyle’s soccer games last fall. I thought you’d come to his basketball games too. He’s a hell of a player, and he’s a great leader for the team too.”

“Oh,” I say as I make the connection. I can’t help but smile. I love my kid brother, maybe because I spent so much time taking care of him growing up. Not many preteen boys learn about child care, but I was forced to when our mom split, leaving baby Kyle behind. “You’re Kyle’s basketball coach.”

His brow lowers. “He didn’t tell you he was on my team?”

“I haven’t talked to him in a few weeks. I’ve been busy.” Which is true. I knew he was playing basketball, but I’ve been working as a janitor at a local office building on Saturday mornings. The main reason I haven’t been at his games, though, is that my father has decided I’m a bad influence on my eleven-year-old brother. How ironic that I was exactly the opposite just a few months ago. But Kyle has been caught in the middle of my fallout with my dad, and I miss the little guy more than I care to admit. I can thank fucking Sabrina for that one. “I’ve got a job on Saturdays. I can’t make his games.”