Page 114 of The New Place

“Okay,” Ned says and then again. “Okay.”

“Well done on your job talk, apparently.”

“No kidding. This is happening? Newbury? And they’re actually paying me a reasonable amount?”

“Congratulations.”

Ned lets out a laugh. “Oh shit, we gotta get this signed before they can think about this any harder.”

“It seems rather too official for them to back out now.”

“Yeah, but…” Ned says and waves to himself.

“But what?”

“Beverly must really like you.”

Can they not have this conversation? Or any of the ones Ned has tried to start tonight? Wasn’t dinner enough to bear? And now when Abbot just wants some peace, Ned keeps going.

“An entire job for me?” Ned asks. “This is wild. Newbury University. Completely out of my league.”

“It clearly isn’t.”

“Oh, trust me, it is. You’ll have to help me with all the faculty. Hell, the students too.”

“They’re just people.”

“They’re not, because they’re Newbury people.”

“Versus what? Adams? Callahan? I’m not sure there’s as much difference as you’re expecting.”

“Well, you’re you.”

“Ned, if you’re so impressed by Newbury, be impressed that they’re hiring you, and what that says about your work.”

“Yeah, that I’ve got you,” Ned says. “And no offense to either of us, but you’ve got Beverly.”

“Please,” Abbot says. He’s so very tired. And wound far, far too tight. “Don’t.”

“This is what I’m talking about. You live in an entirely different world than the one I grew up in. You know people like her, who can get you a job like this. I’m just me.”

“It’s not like that,” Abbot says.

“Isn’t it?”

“You’re not ‘just’ anything. Do you really think that?”

“I think the gulf between us feels really, really big sometimes.”

“What gulf?”

Ned picks up the watch like an example.

Can’t he put that down? No, apparently, because he just holds it, looking at Abbot like he’s supposed to understand.

Abbot can’t bear the sight of it. The delicate shape of the band, the shine of the face and the hands.

But Ned keeps talking, waving the watch in emphasis. “I keep thinking, one of these days you’ll wake up and realize how different I am from you.”