Page 5 of Our Sweet Revenge
“Well, I’ve gotten worse packages from Amazon.”
I chuckled. “Good one. How are you?”
“Oh, you know.”
I remembered Jay’s words yesterday, how Anthony wasn’t doing as well as he pretended to. “Not really,” I said. “Why don’t you tell me?”
It had always been a challenge to make Anthony open up. He was six feet tall, and that big body was holding a lot of things tightly inside. He got pushed down hard after shit hit the fan with his wife, and that raised even more walls around him.
It was insane how in a span of one damn year, I had lost my career, Anthony his wife, and Jay his freedom. It was like we had been cursed, and I couldn’t think of a reason why any of us deserved that.
“I’m doing okay,” Anthony said. “Job’s been crazy for the past couple of weeks. Seems like everyone is in the mood to renovate now that Covid’s behind us.” He ran his own small construction business and could stop and stare at old homes for hours, pondering on how he could make them better.
“You’re not working too hard, right?” I asked.
“I’m working… hard enough. But that’s good—I need the distraction.”
I could relate. “I saw Jay yesterday.”
“Yeah, he told me you two met. You made his day.”
“I doubt that.”
“It sounded like you did. He missed you.”
That one stung, but I deserved that. “Yeah, I’m working on being more present.”
“I like present Ethan. You’re heading back home?”
“I’m heading to White Plains. It’s Chris’s birthday.”
There was a short pause before Anthony said, “Oh, right. Is he throwing a party?”
“Nah, you know him. I’m just going over to drop off a present and wish him a happy birthday. I’m not sure he’s even home, to be honest.”
“You didn’t call to check?”
“He didn’t answer.”
“I see.”
“It’ll be fine. It’s not that far.” And FedEx was paying for the gas.
“Well, tell Chris I said… never mind.”
“Ant.”
“Forget it. Let’s meet up with Jay this weekend. How about Saturday?”
He was also only pushing for the three of us to meet, which only added to my suspicion that something had happened between Anthony and Chris during the last few months. I said, “If I had any events on my calendar I’d check, but I don’t, so Saturday’s good.”
“Cool. I’ll let Jay know. Let’s play Halo tonight, okay?”
I smiled to myself. We were still stuck on playing Halo on our Xboxes after all these years. Problems tended to lose their edge while you were busy shooting a laser gun in space. “You’re on.”
We hung up, and I kept driving, realizing I could no longer see tall buildings around me. They had been replaced with private houses in peaceful neighborhoods I could only afford in my dreams.
I tried calling Chris again, but he didn’t pick up. I was clearly wasting my time, but I had already driven too far to give up without checking. Not having much to look at allowed old memories to rise, like the first time I shared my startup idea with Chris. It was for a new type of project management platform, one that could analyze the content of a company’s emails, then create new projects automatically and include the relevant people.