Page 18 of The Backup Plan
Five days. She probably thought he was an absolute Neanderthal. But he startled each time he saw that halo of pale hair peeking over the couch when he got to the lounge, and he had to fight to breathe without his chest heaving. She always said hello and goodbye even though he never replied, and he turned off his music sometimes just to hear those few words when her deep blue eyes met his.
“Cory?”
“Yeah?”
“Is Jordan still a member?”
“We last heard from him less than ninety days ago, so technically, he’s still an active member. I’ll remove him or dark-list him if he asks me to, but so far, he hasn’t.”
“So I could page him in a private chat if I want to, as long as he’s an active member?”
“Yes. The settings allow you to do that. But if he deleted the app, he won’t get a notification.”
“When are his ninety days up?”
Cory muttered under his breath, counting. “Sometime around October first. I can get you the date, if it matters.”
The last time Cameron spoke to him was June thirteenth. “Around October first” meant he was active around July first, which tracked with the timeline he was piecing together.
“Thanks, man. Yeah. It matters.”
SIX
At the Farm
AVERY
Avery rapped her knuckles on the open door of her advisor’s office and stepped inside. “I have an update,” she announced. “There’s a display of student drawings upstairs, and I made myself fall in love with one showing a waterfront.”
When classes started two weeks before, Melinda Scheer found it difficult to disguise her shock when the tall, bright-eyed girl from Connecticut spilled half her life story and asked her opinion on how to handle classes where she might be asked to study or create artwork that reminded her of her brother’s death. She admired Avery’s stated goal to improve her own coping skills and not ask for accommodations, and encouraged her to celebrate the incremental steps.
“How did you do that?”
Avery thumped her chest. “Sheer force of will. And I’m going to keep doing it. My brother loved the water. I refuse to let this hold me back.”
“I’m really proud of you. You should be proud of yourself.”
“I’m all in for a fresh start. Something about being in the place where everything was sad was keeping me down, I think.”
“I’m excited to see what you do with a fresh canvas.” Melinda squeezed her shoulder. “Where’s your picture? I don’t think anyone’s put up new work since my spring classes.”
Avery checked her watch. The boy in the orange hat would be in the lounge if they were sticking to the awkward schedule they’d developed. She led her professor down the hall, and her shoulders drooped when she saw the lounge was empty.
She pointed to the drawing over her couch. “It reminds me of the waterfront in Charleston, South Carolina,” she said. “At the risk of over-simplifying, I see it like a coloring exercise. Every time I come here, I paint the houses with different colors in my mind. I paint the water, too.”
“What colors are they today?”
“Peach and blush and lemon.” She pointed house by house. “The skinny one with the bay windows is baby blue. This one with the porches is almost always mint.”
“Mint?”
“If I had gold paint, I’d dab it in the corners and make it like the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. The Winter Palace is Charleston times a million, and both of them stealing from the same French styles, including the color schemes.”
Melinda laughed. “I hear wheels turning.” She unclipped the paper from its display wire and held it out. “Take it with you. Call it a trophy and pick a new one to conquer.”
“Are you serious?”
“These have been up all summer, so I’m sure the artist won’t mind. When I bring the first round from fall classes, these will probably end up in slurry in the print shop. It’s yours.”