This is my entry in the Pastiches de Oggbashan event, and it's based on his story,
Lavender
. Thanks for all the great stories, Ogg, and I hope we do them justice!
*
I never used to believe in clichés. I especially never really believed the A students end up working for the C students -- not until the day I invited Renee to head up our North American office, anyway. Probably the only thing more surprising than that was that Renee -- my Phi Beta Kappa friend, who'd finished off her PhD in comparative literature in just four years and married an investment banker -- accepted the job.
I couldn't quite hide my surprise when she did. "You're sure?" I'd asked. "I just thought, if you're between adjunct teaching jobs, you know..."
"I'm sick and tired of adjunct teaching jobs, Tom," she'd told me. "I love this app of yours, and I really need a change of pace anyway. Besides, how much did you say that investment you got was?"
"Who ever thought you'd take a job from the black sheep of the class, huh?"
"Oh, come on, Tom, we all knew you were going places!" she'd replied. "Honestly, you were smart not to bother with grad school."
That was Renee, always knowing just the right thing to say. The fact that I couldn't have gotten into a decent grad school to save my life was allowed to lay between the lines, and I was happy to leave it there. Back when Renee and her future husband Steve were working their tails off and living up to the arrogant promise of our snooty alma mater, Claxton College, I was discovering beer and hanging around my room writing bad poetry and trying to forget how much I really hadn't wanted to be there. Renee, the girl down the hall in our freshman dorm whom I'd bonded with on our floor's studybreaks because we were the two token quiet kids on a floor of extroverts, had always been there to encourage me to try harder and not give up like I nearly did a dozen times or more.
Steve, whom Renee started dating our sophomore year -- his junior year -- had not. Rather, he'd drawn endless amusement from my unvarnished caustic attitudes about the place. "My God, you're bitter, Tom," he'd commented on too many occasions to count. "But it's awesome. Better than the best teenage poetry."
Renee had always done her best to reassure me that he didn't really mean anything by it. "He's your average boarding school kid, always surrounded by privilege," she'd told me once. "He just doesn't know what to make of someone like you who hasn't had an easy ride like he has."
"If you get that he's that kind of snob, what do you love about him?" I'd asked.
Renee had sighed and laughed. "Can't explain, Tom. Love is blind. But I do love him, like it or not."
I'd finally gotten my act together senior year and even made the dean's list in my final semester, but by then the damage was done. With no prospects beyond a job at the bookstore, I'd spent a miserable summer after graduation living with my family and fighting constantly with them. One night my bratty teenage sister had short-sheeted my bed, but when I told on her, Dad had laughed and Mom had said, "Come on, Tom, she doesn't know how to do that!" Naturally, the little bitch had laughed her ass off at the whole thing.
The next time I was home alone after that, I'd gone through Mom's filing cabinet and dug out my birth certificate, and it was off to the post office to apply for a passport. The day it came in, I had my rucksack packed and ready, and bought a one-way ticket to Bangkok. That night I'd snuck out after midnight and walked to the airport -- the buses weren't running and I wasn't about to hitchhike -- and I was off to the Orient to find work teaching English.
Five years of teaching in Thailand had matured me a bit, anyway, and had also given me a lot of big ideas about helping kids learn a new language. One of those ideas turned into an app I developed with a fellow teacher I'd met who was a software engineer taking a break from her career. I'll not bore you with the details of how it caught on and attracted interest from dozens of our fellow teachers and caught the attention of an angel investor in Singapore -- suffice to say my ship came in, and I moved to the Lion City and set up shop selling the LanguagExchange app all over the place.
By the time I'd tapped Renee a couple of years later, sales were brisk throughout Asia and we were getting inquiries from schools all over the world. Renee had, with her knack for connecting with other snooty intellectuals like herself, had no trouble tapping into that interest and -- very much to my bittersweet delight -- she was soon faring better than Steve, whose career on Wall Street had never quite taken off.
Now, three years and one very successful IPO later, I reflected on what LanguagExchange had done for both of us over my last glass of champagne before turning in high over the Pacific. If I wanted to go to grad school now, I mused, I could most certainly buy my way in. Now Renee could go back to teaching if she wanted, too. But I'd picked up enough hints along the way to know I'd best not make that suggestion when I got there.
There were a lot of things I figured I'd best not say to Renee while I was her guest, actually. For starters, nearly anything about Steve. I hadn't liked him much in college, and Renee's success on my coattails hadn't gone over very well with him besides, though he couldn't very well complain about the seaside mansion it had enabled them to buy and convert into a B&B. I had no desire whatsoever to see Steve again, but when my presence was required in New York for some meetings, there was no avoiding a stay at the newly-restored mansion. "It's all because of you, after all," Renee had told me. "It's only fair that you come and share what you've done for us."
"Well, if you're going to twist my arm," I'd teased. The truth, of course, was that I was thrilled to have a friend's home to stay in for the summer instead of a hotel. But I couldn't help wishing Steve had a business trip of his own.
For all that, I was in great spirits a few days later when, with the first round of meetings behind me, I got in the waiting limousine and made my escape out to Connecticut. My first time back in New England since Renee and I had graduated a decade or so before, it would also be my first time seeing her in person since her wedding to Steve just a couple of summers after that, though we'd had more face time than we really wanted with our online conference calls. Bitter or not, there was no question I was making a victorious return.
My spirits soared still more (and in spite of myself, my mild angst about Steve bubbled up again as well) as the limo pulled up to a palatial Victorian mansion, newly painted lavender with white trim, perched on a gorgeous bluff looking over the sea. At the peak of the ovular driveway that cut through the neatly manicured grass was a newly painted sign in the same color scheme as the house: "Welcome to Dr. Poirier's Bed and Breakfast". Tenured prof or not, my dear old friend had done well for herself!
As the limo drew to a stop, a bellhop appeared out of nowhere to open the door before I could do it myself -- one of a hundred little differences brought on by success that I still hadn't gotten used to -- and I scarcely had time to step out of the car and thank him before I found myself buried in Renee's arms. "Tom! So good to see you!"
"Same here!" I said, though in the heat of the moment I hadn't really seen her so much as I'd felt her and smelled her perfume -- a feminine touch I never would have expected of my tomboyish old friend. When she finally released me, I saw that wasn't the only such touch: she was dressed in an elegant peach-colored top and a gray skirt, and patent black leather pumps. Besides her wedding dress, I wasn't sure if I'd ever seen Renee in anything but jeans before.
"Well, you've certainly changed, Doctor Poirier," I said.
"All part of the right look for the B&B," she said. "And it's nice to have a reason to dress up anyway. Years of adjunct teaching jobs weren't offering that, you know."
I laughed. "You sure have a knack for making me glad I barely made it through Claxton," I said. For all my success, it still stung a bit how mediocre my track record was in that place.
"Oh, don't be so hard on yourself, Tom!" Renee took me by the hand and led me to the front door, the bellhop having already taken care of my suitcases. "You just had some growing up left to do, and obviously you did do that in Asia." Ushering me into the beautiful lobby made possible by the job I'd given her, she added, "And thank heavens you did!"
"You guys did a great job of cleaning this place up," I said, recalling the photos of a dusty old abandoned parlor that I could only just recognize in the opulent setting before me.
"Thank you," Renee said. "I've asked my assistant to get your room arranged. Care for a glass of wine while she does that?"
"Sounds great," I said.
Renee led me through the lobby to the dining room, which was empty but for a couple of staff setting the dishes out for dinner. "I bid you fair warning, Tom, Julia -- that's my assistant -- she's utterly starstruck with you. Took me ages just to convince her that I really did know the man who invented LanguagExchange."
