Quinn lowered her tone. “You do not need to tell Porter.”
“But Porter and I tell each other everything.”
“Oh, please, you do not. Porter doesn’t tell you much about home, and you don’t tell him about that pack of Marlboro Lights you keep in your scrunchies bin. There is zero reason to ruin both your lives.” She’s right. Keeping this secret for the sake of our futures is worth my silence.
“Listen.” Quinn’s tone softens. “Let’s just have a great week together, the four of us, and if we need to deal with the situation when we get back to campus, we will. And bywe, I mean you and me.”
“You and me.” My voice cracked to articulate over the lump caught in my throat, the fear I had been keeping at bay rising from my stomach into my heart.
“You and me, Callie. Always.”
We polished off our appetizers and waited for our third round of evening cocktails to come with our entrées, when my parents seized the opportunity to grill Charles and Porter on their future plans. According to Rhodes Steele, spring of junior year was the perfect time to start mapping out post-college life. If it was to be law or medicalschool, one could never study too early for the requisite exams. If it was to be a training program in finance or banking, it was imperative to visit the career counseling center and research alumni working in that area quickly, followed by making connections now for internships this summer that would hopefully turn into permanent employment come fall after graduation. For anything else, well, to Rhodes Steele, there was nothing else.
I didn’t know if it was because I had expressed my interest in journalism that was not exactly embraced by my parents over Christmas that left them focusing the conversation on Charles and Porter, but Quinn picked up on my annoyance by how forcefully I was sucking up rum and Coke through my straw. My best friend jumped in to share with the table that she was planning on attending law school. She claimed that an art degree wouldn’t lead to much of a financially secure career path, and since I hoped to go to Columbia School of Journalism, she was crossing her fingers that if she got into Columbia Law, we might be able to continue rooming together. Quinn indeed had my back.
“Porter, are you planning on returning to the South?” my mom asked before delicately sipping her gimlet.
I gestured to the waiter to hurry and bring my next drink. Leisurely service was not going to work for me in this instance. My mom often spoke reverently of Porter, asking after him, wondering if he wanted to join us for long weekends in New York when we had a break from school. But the way she semi-sneered “back to the South” left me wondering if she was only tolerating him as what she considered a passing college fancy of mine. Was her hope that Porter would head back home after graduation, as I planned to do, and therefore our relationship would have no chance of surviving the distance?
“Or maybe you would like to try out New York for a while? We’ve wanted you to visit us in the city. Living there would be even better, right, Rhodes?” My dad gave an enthusiastic nod while shaking the ice in his tumbler. An alcohol-induced sense of relief washed over me that Helen and Rhodes’s crushes on Porter were still intact. “Maybeyou and Rhodes can sit down together this week and talk about job opportunities.”
“Mom!” I barked louder than I meant to. Perhaps the rum heightened my boldness as well as my volume. “Porter can figure out his own life. And he’s here to hang out with me, Charles, and Quinn this week, not you and Dad,” I reprimanded my mother as a loud hiccup escaped, with my emphasis onDad.
“There’s no reason he can’t do both,” my mom responded, raising her eyebrows at me, a not-so-subtle reminder who was paying for this trip. Her receipts meant that if my dad wanted to hang out with Porter, he most certainly could.
“I’d like that, Mr. Steele,” Porter spoke up and gave both my parents a warm smile. “I’ve thought of moving to New York.”
My head snapped right to look at Porter, bouncing my alcohol-soaked brain around in my head. Last summer, Porter chose, once again, to go home and work on his family’s farm rather than capitalizing on applying for a prestigious internship in New York and being with me, so this post-college consideration was news.
“If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to join too, Mr. Steele,” Charles interrupted. “My dad would like me to go into the commercial real estate business with him, but I want to explore my options before I settle on a decision. I feel like there’s a lot out there for me once I graduate with a mechanical engineering degree.”
“You boys can call me Rhodes.” As my dad puffed out his chest with delight, I glimpsed Porter and Charles knowingly catch one another’s eyes.
“How about a round of golf early tomorrow morning before it gets too hot?” my dad suggested.
Porter whipped his head my way. There’s no such thing as four-hour golf games when working on a farm from morning to night. He hadn’t experienced the country club scene like Charles had.
I jumped in to save Porter. “Dad, I’m not sure Porter—”
“Nonsense. The way you two boys play football, you’ll be naturals at golf.” My dad slammed his palm on the table to punctuate his prediction. My fresh drink showed up, and I took a long sip and slushed the rum and Coke around in my mouth before swallowing to avoid uttering something that might get me in trouble with my parents. This was Rhodes Steele’s vacation; we were all just along for the ride.
“We could probably manage that, sir. But golf is a bit more delicate than outrunning two hundred-and-fifty-pound opponents. You’ll have to forgive my handicap before we hit the course,” Porter said with a sheepish look. I knew that look. And I knew Porter’s physical talents. Familiar with golf or not, Porter would wipe the links with anyone who stepped up to the tee. “By the way, Mrs. Steele,” Porter began.
“If you are going to call him Rhodes, then you must call me Helen. I am most definitely not his mother,” Mom declared, jutting her chin at my father.
“Helen.” Porter paused to make sure a first-name basis was truly acceptable. My mom nodded for him to continue. “Are you still working to expand the after-school art program you are overseeing?” My mom blushed that Porter remembered the board work she mentioned last year at Parents’ Weekend. I took another long, slow sip through my tiny red straw. My dad could have learned a lesson or two from Porter asking women about their intellectual and professional interests.
“Oh, I want to hear,” Quinn chimed in, leaning forward at the table. “Maybe I could volunteer there this summer while I study for the LSAT and start working on my law school applications.” My mom was holding court, and it was a nice change in our usual family conversational patterns.
I opened my mouth to speak in support of my mother’s interest, but a gurgling gripped my stomach and pushed into my chest, causing me to release a big belch. Before I knew it, I jumped up from the table with my hand over my mouth, toppling my chair backward.
As I lunged toward the hotel restaurant exit, all I heard was Porter, ever the gentleman, saying “Excuse me” to our table and then running out after me.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry,” I wept to Porter as I lost my dinner cocktails hunched over the ornamental blue hydrangea bushes in the hotel’s decorative landscape.
“I got you, Callie. I got you.” Porter rubbed my back while I wiped my mouth.
“Porter, I . . . I . . .”
