“Yeah?” Wyatt’s tormenter is still in school with Jesse—she sees him in the halls all the time, surrounded by a herd of his buddies or shooting the breeze in the cafeteria with Mr. Angel, the auto-shop teacher.
“Not my finest moment.” Wyatt examines the back of his hand intently.
“Wait, what? No, excuse me, what?” Jesse is stunned. The whole history of the past two years is reorienting itself in front of her eyes.
“It was just a couple times, nothing serious, but he made me promise that I—” At this moment, the door to the café opens, and Howard Willette walks in. Wyatt’s airy look evaporates off his face. He tightens and straightens. “Howard’s here.”
“To be continued?” Jesse hisses.
Wyatt nods, but he’s looking up at his father.
“Hi, Howard.”
Howard Willette is a shorter, stockier, straighter version of Wyatt. They have the same dark handsomeness, the same angular features, and the same attentive dress—Howard is clean-cut casual, but very carefully attired in a black jacket, lavender Oxford shirt, and black sweater vest atop his black corduroys. He crosses to them and extends his hand to his son.
“Wyatt.”
They shake, and Wyatt tucks his book into his bag on the floor by his feet.
“And Jesse. Always nice to see you.”
“Hi,” Jesse says. Immediately, she slips into Howard Mode, plastering a cheerful smile across her face and nodding pleasantly.
“Tea? Hot cocoa?”
“I’m good,” says Wyatt.
“None for me, thank you,” coos Jesse.
Howard pulls a third rickety chair over to sit between them, and as soon as he’s seated, Jesse fires up the conversation, as per the plan.
“So how’s everything over at your place, Mr. Willette? How’s Louise?”
“Great, great.” Howard nods. “We’re both great. And you, Jesse? What have you been up to lately?”
Wyatt looks at Jesse with mock sincerity. “Yes, what have you been up to lately, Jesse?”
“Oh, the usual,” Jesse practically sings. “Homework, homework, and more homework!”
“The life of a hardworking sophomore,” Howard says. “That’s how it goes at Vander. Not like where you go, right, son? The Academy of Smelling Salts and Astrology? No homework there.”
“We don’t have to talk about school,” Jesse offers.
But Wyatt says acidly, “I’m working my way through the complete published papers of Alan Greenspan right now. I’m learning about supply-side economics and de-regulation and how they affect entrepreneurship in the tech sector.”
“Wyatt’s the most hardworking student I know,” Jesse hurries to point out. “He’s very self-directed, and he’s always giving himself huge, hard assignments, way huger and harder than anything they give us at Vander. He’s kicking ass.”
For a second she’s afraid the word will offend Howard, but he sails right by it.
“Well, you may be right. It does seem like that school is going soft. We’ve gotten mired in a little battle for hearts and minds over there recently, but it’s—wait, never mind. Boring PR story.” Howard holds up his hand to check himself with a charming, self-deprecating smile.
“What do you mean, battle for hearts and minds?” Jesse asks.
“Never mind. Wyatt hates stories about work.”
“But a story about Vander?” Jesse asks Wyatt, hyper-politely. Wyatt gives her a look: Whatever keeps the conversation running.
“Well, it’s nothing, really,” Howard explains casually. “Nothing we haven’t seen before. We reached out to them with some support for their athletics programs and extracurricular activities and we’re getting some minor push-back from the community, a couple of letters from parents, a few disgruntled hippie students who’ve gotten bored with throwing red paint on ladies in fur coats and have decided to move on to us as their new randomly chosen target. The school is happy to have us, though, that’s the main thing. We’ve got plenty of support in the administration. It’s going to be a long, fruitful partnership for us over there, I’m sure.”
On her side of the table, Jesse is turning this story over like a multisided die in her mind. “So, um, are you talking about StarMart?” she asks as calmly as she can manage.
“Well, NorthStar, we’re the parent company of StarMart, yes. I’m the director of corporate communications over there. But I can see my son’s eyes glazing over here, am I right, Wyatt? You know what’s a great story is the latest update on the rabbit wars. Jesse, you know that Louise has been in the middle of a battle for the sanctity of our garden, and she’s come up with the cleverest way to—”