Page 12 of Against the Current

Scott let out a harrowing gasp. Softly, he said, “I knew this was coming. But I didn’t think they’d make you do it.”

Ryan forced himself to make eye contact with Scott. He spread his hands out on the table. “I’m on my way out, too.”

Scott rubbed his ever-widening bald spot and turned to look out on the nearly empty floor. Ryan willed himself back to five years ago, when he and Scott hadn’t known about their daughters’ diagnoses and they’d occasionally played tennis at a local sports club and talked about leaving their childhoods out East.

It occurred to Ryan that Scott was the closest thing he had to family in Chicago.

Why was he firing his family? Was he really willing to lose more people he loved? After everything else?

Suddenly, he blurted, “Do you want to get out of here?”

Scott’s eyes were rimmed with red. Beside Ryan, Evie hesitated and gave Ryan a look that meantDon’t we have a few more people to fire?

But Ryan had had enough. He was on his feet, removing his suit jacket and sweeping across the room to grab his coat. “I quit. Let’s go to Steiner’s.”

Scott gaped at him. “You don’t have to be rash. Not on my account.”

Ryan was on the verge of tears. “You don’t have to come. But I’d like you to.”

Evie pushed the folder across the desk and stuttered, “Ryan, if you’re really quitting, I need to talk to Mike about the process here.”

But Ryan already had his coat on. “Have him call me. I don’t care.”

Five minutes later, Scott and Ryan were out in the swirling snow of downtown Chicago. Ryan’s face felt chapped, but his smile was bigger and more natural than it had been in months. He felt as though he was taking charge of his life.

He didn’t want to think about the fact that he wouldn’t receive a severance package since he quit. What was he going to tell Trisha? How was he going to pay the mortgage next month?How were they going to afford Willa’s medication and Gavin’s sports memberships and Rudy’s whatever?

He didn’t want to think about any of that yet.

At the bar, Ryan and Scott ordered beers and sat hunched over. Scott drank faster than Ryan and seemed unwilling to come up with a conversation topic. Ryan empathized. Today had been a whirlwind.

“Do you remember when you first moved to Chicago?” Ryan asked.

“Like it was yesterday,” Scott affirmed. “I thought I was king of the Midwest.”

Ryan chortled. “I was sure that I’d left all that pain and suffering and misunderstanding back East.”

Scott raised his glass. “Here’s to bringing the pain and suffering across the continent with us.”

Ryan sighed and rubbed his temple. “You know, Trisha and I asked for a loan from the bank the other day? Trisha wants me to start my own company, and we need cash—more of it for Willa than we ever thought, plus enough for Rudy and Gavin. I want to make sure Rudy and Gavin don’t get left behind in the chaos. I’ve never been more embarrassed in my life. Trisha was buttering the banker up, trying to get him to like us. I wanted to storm out of there and scream I don’t care if you like us! We don’t need you! But the horrible thing is, we do need him, or we need somebody like him. We need to lick somebody’s bootstraps to survive this.”

Scott groaned and closed his eyes. “Alicia is going to kill me.”

They were quiet for a full minute. A few times, the bartender glanced their way with interest. It was only one in the afternoon. It was rare to have men coming in here, wearing suits and bemoaning their entire lives.

“Do you know what you’re going to do?” Scott asked finally.

“I’m taking ideas.”

Scott snorted. “Maybe we should start our own business? Together?”

“Sure. But where are the clients? Where will we get the money? And I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel creative in the slightest. I can’t imagine finding joy in writing another commercial .”

Another few minutes of silence passed. Ryan resented himself. He resented the fact that all he could think about was doom and gloom. He checked his phone, half imagining that Willa needed to be picked up from school again. He needed to stop drinking this beer. He needed to get home and vacuum the living room and figure out the next steps of his life.

Scott seemed to sense this, too. His beer remained half empty.

“Should we get the girls together tonight?” he suggested.