Page 145 of Share with Me

They had been struggling, but had managed to make ends meet and pay the mortgages. He loved his music studio and SISO experiences. What changed all that? Wh—

Brinley Brooks.

Everything had turned upside down since Brinley showed up. Sure, she had done some good things for the McMillans. Grandma owned a new motorized wheelchair now to get around at home and at church. The commode had been fixed. The termite problem under the porch had been exterminated.

Then Brinley had gone and done the unthinkable. She had bought the 1721 Schoenberg Stradivarius violin in a fundraising auction, and loaned it to SISO, who then let Ivan use it.

And here we are.

One missing violin, several broken bones, and two lost jobs later, Ivan could see clearly whose fault it was.

He had been blind; he didn’t see it coming. Rich people were nothing but trouble for poor people. It would’ve been better had the two worlds kept to themselves.

Ivan groaned.

How had it happened? How had he fallen in love with someone like her standing there at the pier watching right whale migration? What in the world made him kiss her a second time at the top of the lighthouse? And to reveal to her his dream of opening a music studio in that warehouse building in the Pier Village district?

Could it be possible that God had brought Brinley into his life and that they hadn’t bumped into each other? Why would God do that?

Ivan tightened the ratty blanket around his shoulders, and rolled onto his old creaking bed. Would God have brought Brinley into his life to bless him and Grandma?

Nah. We’ve never been that blessed.

* * *

Ivan wokeup with a kink in his neck and his cell phone chirping in his ears. He hadn’t planned on answering it, but his finger didn’t get the memo. By the time Ivan realized it, he was turning over on his bed and saying hello in a raspy, just-woke-up voice.

“Hey, man. You rang?”

Sebastian Langston.I should thank him.

Ivan cleared his throat. “Hey, Seb.”

“Sorry I missed your call. I’m in Miami at the food festival here. I ran out of juice on the phone.”

“Not a problem. I appreciate your taking care of the situation last night.”

“What situation?”

“At your restaurant.” Ivan wondered how to say it without showing shame. Shame that he had no handle on his finances. Shame that he had taken Brinley out without enough money on his credit card. Shame that he had no money in the bank to even withdraw enough cash at a teller to cover the dinner.

“What about it? You said something about IOU?”

Ivan detected some tentativeness in Sebastian’s voice.

“Yeah. I’m sorry, Sebastian. I had no idea the dinner was going to cost that much, and I had no idea my collectors cashed my payments, so I am eternally grateful, friend, that you gave me that grace and mercy about my insufficient funds. I’ll pay you back whatever I owe you, all right?”

There. I said it.

It was true that the collectors had cashed the checks he had written against the credit cards, those checks that had come in the mail together with the temporary credit cards that he had activated to pay the bills. Unfortunately, they had all arrived in the same week, depleting his credit card. His new credit card. He had lost count how many new credit cards he’d had in the last twelve months juggling payments.

“Seb, you there?”

“I’m here. Let me check on something and call you back, Ivan.”

“Okay.” Ivan put his cell phone on the stack of bills on the table and traipsed to the bathroom to brush his teeth as quickly as he could in case Sebastian called back.

He wanted to make good on this IOU. He was probably about a hundred dollars short, so if he sold something, he might be able to get the money to pay Sebastian back. He looked around his bedroom for something he could sell. Grandpa Otto’s World War II medals were probably not worth much. The old nineteenth-century McMillan family Bible was too precious to sell. He wandered into his closet, pushed here and there.

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