Ellie felt heat come to her face again as she watched Cris’s mother turn on her perfect black stilettos and saunter out to the terrace, her green skirt swaying like a wave farewell.
Gio stopped rubbing his chin and gestured toward Cris. “As long as you can handle it, you should go for it. It’s not for everyone, that’s for sure. After reading through some of the stories in the book, I don’tthink I could do it.”
“You don’t think I should be worried about that otherSports Illustratedstuff?” Cris asked.
“That’s the last thing to worry about. It shouldn’t matter to you what people think. What matters is if you are proud of what you do.Hai capito?”
“Yeah. I think you’re right. I can’t live with myself if I don’t believe in what I’m doing.”
“Bravo.That’s what made you a great athlete and what will make you great at anything else you choose to do. Integrity is not a uniform you put on sometimes. It’s in you or it’s not. And since I know who raised you, I know you’ve got it,” Gio said, resting his hand on Cris’s shoulder.
“Kind of wish he were here to ask him what he thinks sometimes, you know?”
“I know. I miss him, too. But I think we know what he would say,” Gio said with a smile.
“‘Do it, but make it count.’”
“Exactly.” Gio turned to watch Peggy as she drifted toward the terrace but quickly refocused.
“Thank you. It means a lot,” Cris said, looking behind Gio. “I guess you probably need to get out there.”
“Ah. Yes, I probably do,” Gio said. “I’ll see you tomorrow. If I make it.”
Cris watched him walk toward Peggy on the terrace. In the dim light he could see Gio stand next to her at the railing, but she didn’t turn to look at him. He wondered if it was worse to watch your parents slowly fall apart into anger or to never see them together again when one was taken from the other. It was a tough call. He turned to look atEllie sitting at the table. She was reading something on her phone, her face tight in concentration. Did she ever take a night off?
“Is this seat taken?” Cris pulled out a chair next to her and waited.
“No. Go ahead,” she said, not lifting her eyes from her phone.
“If you’re busy I can—”
“No, sorry. I can read this later,” she said, placing it on the table face down. She blinked up at him as though she just realized he was sitting there. “I wanted to ask you something.”
“Are we on the record?” He laughed. She didn’t.
“I don’t know because I don’t know how you’ll answer.”
“Fair. Shoot.”
“Why are you reading the book about the paramedic?” she asked.
Cris swallowed. He was suddenly thirsty as hell. He looked around on the table to see if there was any water left, but he realized that he would have no idea which glass was his anyway. It probably wouldn’t go over very well if he took a swig straight out of the carafe.
“How did you know about the book?”
“I guess you lent it to my dad.”
“Oh, right.” He cleared his throat. The last time he’d tried to talk about this, it was a complete disaster. One night in Bali he’d used a postmeditation buzz to tell Violet that he had a dream that he became an EMT. He’d had no such dream of course, but didn’t know how else to tell her that he was pretty sure this was what he wanted to do and was currently holding at number eight on a waitlist to get into a certification course back home. He figured he could safely broach the subject if he blamed it on a glitch in his sleepy subconscious. She laughed so hard that she’d almost choked on a piece of durian. Instead he had to convince her that it must have been because he’d recently watched that Nicolas Cage movie where he worked on an ambulance,and then he had to apologize when she complained that he’d made her mascara run.
And it wasn’t only Violet. Even the smallest mention of his plan seemed to inspire skepticism, doubt, and straight-up concern from anyone he dared to tell.You don’t know what you’re signing on for. You won’t even make it through a week as an EMT. Why would you want to turn your back on a reality show to go pick up body parts? Do you know that EMTs make no money? It will take you years if you want to become a physician’s assistant. You’ll be almost forty by the time you’re done. Stanford graduates don’t become meat-wagon drivers.And on and on and on.
But hedidknow what he was signing on for. He didn’t care how much money he would make and he really didn’t give a shit what Stanford graduates were supposed to do. As far as his age was concerned, he was going to turn forty anyway, so why not turn forty as a person who worked hard to do something real? Sure, he could become a medical assistant or even shadow a bunch of doctors to put on his résumé before applying for school, but he wanted something more. He wanted to dig into life in a different way, to face things head-on and help people—all kinds of people. He knew it wouldn’t be easy. People would be skeptical. Life would change. But that’s exactly why he wanted this.
He knew he had to tell Ellie at some point. He thought about his conversation with Gio.Make it count.It was now or never. “I was curious to read about someone who changed careers from something he’d been known for to something… well, something unexpected.”
“And?” She was clearly not going to accept just that as an explanation.
“And, of course, it’s the job that I was interested in because—”He paused and took a breath. “Because, like I told you, I want to get into some kind of career in healthcare. That might be becoming a physician’s assistant or a nurse. I don’t know yet, but I do know that I am going to need at least a couple of years of experience before even attempting to get into a program—any program. I also don’t have all of the prerequisites to get into PA school, so I am going to have to take those, too. In the meantime, I want to get out there in the field and really experience something.”
