Fall from Grace (5 page)

SUNDAYS WERE THE
busiest days at Mike's Ice Cream. In the summer the line would stretch across the room, sometimes out the door. There'd be three people behind the counter and one working the register, everybody busting their ass to keep ahead of the rush. It was crazy but it was better that way. The time flew by and the tip jar would be heavy with change, maybe some bills, the tips split evenly, everybody getting a few bucks extra for doing the work they had to do anyway.

That all changed when the weather turned cold. The lines were gone and the hours dragged by and there wasn't enough to do to keep one person busy, let alone the two that Mike left on the Sunday schedule. The college students that had been home for the summer were long gone by
then, so were most of the owner's relatives who helped out on the weekends. All that was left were high school kids and a few retirees who were just tickled to death to have something productive to do to with their time. And as he watched them mop the mud off the floor or refill the rainbow sprinkles bin, Sawyer had to wonder what they considered an unproductive use of their time.

Francis McGillicutty used to be the regional sales manager for a company that did something with hydraulic systems for tractors and forklifts. Now he made the best darn banana splits this side of the Mississippi, and he'd tell you that every time he made one.

“The secret is in how you chop up the nuts,” he said as he squirted chocolate sauce over the fat scoops of chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry ice cream.

Sawyer, so mindlessly bored that he watched Francis work, said, “We're not supposed to use a knife.”

“I chopped these up last night. Got to thinking about our shift and the customers that would be coming in, and what they'd want. Something told me I'd be making a few of these today, so I picked up a can of Spanish peanuts and got them ready. Good thing I did, too.”

Sawyer hadn't thought about his shift until he pulled up in the parking lot, and he couldn't remember ever
thinking about what the customers might want before they asked for it. All the old employees were like that, always
going that extra mile
and
giving 110 percent
, making everyone else look like a slacker. It was easy for them—they didn't have lives.

Francis handed his masterpiece to the only customer they had seen since noon, a guy who definitely didn't need another ice cream, then he took forever to work the touch-screen cash register and give the guy his change.

The customer left, wolfing it down, and Francis watched him go, smiling the whole time.

“I think that's just about my favorite part of the job.”

“Yeah, not getting a tip is my favorite, too.”

“You've got to take pride in your work. I made that fella the best banana split he's ever going to eat. That's a good feeling. See, I look at it like this. You've got to find out what it is you like to do, then—”

“I know, I know. You'll never work a day in your life. I've heard it a few times before.”

Francis nodded. “Good for you, but that's not what I was going to say. What I was going to say—before you interrupted—is that you've got to find out what it is you like to do, then go and do it.”

“Sounds like the same thing to me.”

“Not if you think about it. According to you, if I find something I like to do and I do it, it won't be work.”

“It's just this thing my father says, I really don't—”

“No offense, but just because your pop says it, that doesn't make it accurate. See, I like making sundaes and I make a mean banana split, but at the end of the day it's still a job. And the day they stop paying me is the day I stop coming in. What
I
said was that once you find out what it is you like to do, you have to go do it.”

“Oh, I get it now, thanks,” Sawyer said, checking the time on the digital clock behind the counter. Three hours, forty-seven minutes to go.

“No, you don't. You're just saying that to shut me up. But that's okay, you're young, you'll see for yourself soon enough.” He laughed as he said it, so Sawyer laughed too, embarrassed that he was that easy to see through.

“You think I wanted to be a regional salesman my whole life?
Hell
no. Who wants to do that? I wanted to be a crop-dusting pilot. Up there in the clouds, buzzing low over the fields, doing loop-dee-loops, taking the girls for a ride. But did I go do it? No, I did not. I knew what I wanted to do and instead did what everybody else wanted me to do. Now don't get me wrong, I've had a good life—married fifty-six years, four lovely daughters,
a bunch of grandkids, a nice home, all paid for, promotions at my job, won a few sales awards, new car every five years—”

“Making banana splits,” Sawyer said, joking around, but Francis didn't seem to hear him.

“Yup, it's been a good life. Just not the one I wanted. And now it's all but done.”

Sawyer swept some crumbs off the counter with his hand, then wiped his hand on his apron. What are you supposed to say to that?
Sorry your life sucked? Sorry you never lived your dream? Sorry you're going to be dead soon?
Great, now only three hours, forty-
six
minutes to go.

“So, Sawyer, what is it
you
want to do?”

A long pause, then a quick “I don't know,” his hand sweeping across the empty counter, insurance actuary not even in the back of his mind.

“Better think of something, and soon,” Francis said as they both watched a young couple negotiate a stroller through the front door, a cold breeze slipping in with them. “If you don't know what you want, you can't complain about what you get.”

“ON MY EIGHTEENTH
birthday, my dad bought me my first legal beer,” Sawyer's father said as he handed his son the frosty mug. “Too bad you gotta be twenty-one now.”

Sawyer turned the mug so that the straw slid around, then sipped his Olde Tyme Root Beer, his back teeth tingling, either from the cold or the sugar.

His mother said, “Cheers,” and they all clinked glasses over the basket of complimentary nachos. It was a Wednesday, a lousy day for a birthday, but it wasn't like he could do anything different on this one that he couldn't have on the last one or on the next. His birthday wouldn't matter again for three more years, and his birthday wish
for this year was that he wouldn't be spending that one with his parents in a booth at Applebee's.

“I can't believe my little boy is eighteen,” his mother said for the fifth time since they had left the house, Sawyer driving the five miles in his father's Explorer, his dad telling him the whole way to watch the road and leave the radio alone. “It seems like just yesterday that I rocked him to sleep.”

“It
was
yesterday,” his father said, laughing at his attempt at a joke, Sawyer and his mother acting like they didn't hear it.

There were a lot of restaurants in town, but his parents stuck to the chains. Applebee's, Chili's, Olive Garden, T.G.I. Friday's, Outback, Red Lobster—those down-home, family-friendly, corporate kinds of places. They each had their own unique look, but inside their two-foot-tall menus it was all the same stuff. One place's Chicken Tenders was another's Chicken Crisps, the Quesadilla Burger here was the Big Mex there, and no matter what they called it, the special sauce wasn't all that special. Sawyer had grown up eating in one chain or another, the big night out, complete with dessert. He used to love it. The kid's menu, the balloons, the free
refills, the place mats you could draw on. But then it was easy to impress an eight-year-old. Now? They were okay, he guessed. He had the menus memorized and there were never any surprises. And his parents were paying. If it were up to him, they'd be at the New Fong Chinese Quick Takeout, waiting on a double order of kung pao chicken and fried rice.

But it was never up to him, so they went to the chains.

Sawyer was trying to remember if he liked the Applebee's version of the Mushroom-Swiss Burger he had at Friday's when he felt the hostess's upper thigh humping against his arm.

“You ready to order?” Zoë said, somehow making the red polo and black pants uniform look sexy. She worked part time as a hostess, claiming she had to save for college but knowing that her parents would pay for everything. Her parents joked that the only reason she got the job was so that she could tell customers where to sit and busboys what to clean. Sawyer didn't like it when she played waitress, partly because she was too busy to talk, partly because she always got his order wrong. But it was his birthday and his parents wanted to take him out and he wanted to see Zoë, so he guessed it was all right.

His father said, “Are there any specials on the menu today?” and the way he said it, his voice all game-show host, Sawyer knew something was up. It was too early for the stupid birthday song, the one where the whole waitstaff comes marching over, clapping and singing, making everybody in the place look at the birthday boy. That would come later, he could bet on it.

“Wellll…,”
Zoë said. That proved it, something was up. She opened the menu she was carrying and took out a white envelope. “Today we have something
really
special.”

She handed the envelope to Sawyer. It was addressed to him, with the blue and yellow Wembly College logo on the front. And it was already ripped open.

“Go ahead, read it,” his mom said, as if he didn't know what to do.

Zoë slid in next to him as he took out the letter and started reading.

“Congratulations, your application for early admission has been accepted. On behalf of the entire Wembly College community—”

“I'm
so
proud of you, son.”

“I knew he could do it,” his father said, slipping the letter from Sawyer's fingers, folding it back into the envelope. “He's always been smart.”

Zoë put her arms around his neck and pulled him in for a fast in-front-of-the-parents kiss, then gave him a hug and whispered things in his ear his parents would never believe.

His mother reached across the table and patted the back of his hand. “How's
that
for a birthday surprise?”

Well, it pretty much sucked.

He had heard about Wembly since he was a kid, how his parents went there, how it was once ranked one of the top 500 small-to-medium-size private liberal-arts colleges, how the men's swim team placed third in its division sometime last century, how it had a really good reference library. But what he remembered most was that it was eighteen miles from his house—less than a half-hour commute, even in bad weather—and that if he went there, he could stay in town and live at home. And with Zoë going there, it'd be just like high school all over again. He had assumed that his low grade in precalc, while good enough to get him into other schools, would be too far below Wembly's legendary high standards. Apparently those standards weren't that high after all.

So, yeah, it sucked.

But Sawyer knew this wasn't the time to bring it up.
He wasn't sure when that time would come, but as he looked at the envelope in his father's hands, he knew he'd have to start figuring that out soon.

“Aw, look. He's so surprised he's speechless,” Zoë said, pinching his cheek.

“Gosh,” he said, “I don't even remember finishing the application.”

His parents smiled at each other and Sawyer knew right then what had happened.

“It was on your list of schools,” his father said, “and we understand you have a lot on your plate right now.”

“Turns out your father golfs with somebody in the admissions department—”

“Not
somebody
. The dean of admissions.”

“—and he said that he can authorize early admissions, especially for legacy applicants.”

“Liz and I both went to Wembly,” his father explained to Zoë, who had heard it a hundred times before.

Sawyer kept smiling as he took a breath. “This is great, really.” Pause. Keep smiling. Give them the moment but plant the seed. “There's a few schools I still want to send applications to, but this is great.”

“You're not going to find a better school. You know
how much your father and I loved going there.”

“It's a
great
school. That's why I picked it,” Zoë said, forgetting to mention that whole Kappa Kappa Gamma thing.

“Yeah, it is a good school, but there's a couple others I like, and I think maybe I can get a scholarship.”

“It's a nice idea, son,” his father said. “But for the money you'd get,
if
you got anything…”

“We've been saving for you to go to college since before you were born, so it's not really the money.”

His father nodded, picking up the menu. “Plus you'd be commuting anyway. That's a big savings right there. Better than a scholarship. And you don't have to leave home to get it.”

“I'll be living on campus, but we'll probably see each other even more. I mean, it's not like you can
stay
there overnight or anything, but they have an
amazing
common area where we can hang out,” Zoë said, and she kept a straight face as she said it, the others going along with the ridiculous story.

“And as far as that precalc class goes, I told Gary all about it. You've already earned enough math credits to graduate, that's just something extra. He says you should
drop it, focus on your other classes. Bet you're glad to hear that.”

“Sure. But like I was saying, if I get a good grade in precalc, I can still get—”

“Your future's all set, son. Only one decision you have to worry about,” his father said from behind his menu. “What to order for dinner.”