Instead, he kept his word to both Sophia and his mom. The mechanical bull in the barn stayed covered, and another rider went on to the big tour in his place, no doubt dreaming of winning it all.
“Any regrets?” Sophia asked him. “About not riding this weekend?”
On a whim, they’d driven to Atlantic Beach beneath a blue and cloudless sky. At the shore, the breeze was cool but not biting, and the beach was peppered with people walking or flying kites; a few intrepid surfers were riding the long, rolling waves to shore.
“None,” he said without hesitation.
They walked a few steps, Luke’s feet slipping in the sand.
“I’ll bet you would have done okay.”
“Probably.”
“Do you think you could have won?”
Luke thought for a moment before answering, his eyes fixed on a pair of porpoises gliding through the water.
“Maybe,” he said. “But probably not. There are some pretty talented riders on the circuit.”
Sophia came to a stop and looked up at Luke. “I just realized something.”
“What’s that?”
“When you were riding in South Carolina? You said you’d drawn Big Ugly Critter in the finals.”
He nodded.
“You never told me what happened.”
“No,” he said, still watching the porpoises. “I guess I didn’t, did I?”
A week later, the three men who’d toured the ranch returned, then spent half an hour in his mom’s kitchen. Luke suspected they were presenting an offer of some sort, but he didn’t have the heart to go over and find out. Instead, he waited until they were gone. He found his mom still sitting at the kitchen table when he entered.
She looked up at him without saying anything.
Then she simply shook her head.
“What are you doing next Friday?” Sophia asked. “Not tomorrow, but the one after that?” It was a Thursday night, just a month shy of graduation, the first – and probably last – time Luke would find himself at a club surrounded by a gaggle of sorority girls. Marcia was there, too, and though she’d greeted Luke, she was far more interested in the dark-haired boy who’d met them there. He and Sophia practically had to shout to be heard over the relentless bass of the music.
“I don’t know. Working, I guess,” he said. “Why?”
“Because the department chair, who also happens to be my adviser, snagged me invitations to an art auction and I want you to come.”
He leaned over the table. “Did you say art auction?”
“It’s supposed to be incredible, a once-in-a-lifetime thing. It’ll be held at the Greensboro Convention Center and it’s being run by one of the big auction houses from New York. Supposedly, some obscure guy from North Carolina accumulated a world-class collection of modern art. People are flying in from all over the world to bid. Some of the artwork is supposed to be worth a fortune.”
“And you want to go?”
“Hello? It’s art? Do you know the last time an auction of this caliber occurred around here? Never.”
“How long’s it going to last?”
“I have no idea. I’ve never been to an auction before, but just so you know, I’m going. And it would be nice if you came along. Otherwise, I’m going to have to sit with my adviser, and I know for a fact that he’s bringing along another professor from the department, which means they’ll spend the whole time talking to each other. And let’s just say if that happens, I’ll probably be in a bad mood and might have to stay at the sorority house all weekend just to recover.”
“If I didn’t know you better, I’d say you were threatening me.”
“It’s not a threat. It’s just… something to keep in mind.”
“And if I keep it in mind and still say no?”
“Then you’re going to be in trouble, too.”
He smiled. “If it’s important to you, I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
Luke wasn’t sure why he hadn’t noticed before, but it struck him at some point that getting started on the day’s work had become more and more difficult as time passed. The maintenance work on the ranch had begun to suffer, not because it wasn’t important, he realized, but because he had little motivation. Why replace the sagging porch railings at his mom’s place? Why fill in the sinkhole that had formed near the irrigation pump? Why fill in the potholes in the long gravel drive that had grown deeper over the winter? Why do anything when they weren’t going to be living here much longer?