At twenty-seven, YouTube sensation Ben Leonards is married to his work. If he's not whipping up lasagna with a side of science experiments, he's running statistical analysis of bitcoin during explosive behavior periods.
When a friend asks him to org...
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Four chapters of 'Les Miserables' takes considerably longer to get through than I anticipated, and the story fails to capture my attention. Reading out loud is a lot more work than I remember it to be.
Maybe it's because they were not the same as chapter books. My the now-not-so-little but still the baby of the family half-brother Chris was the last person to ask me to read to him. Chris treated my moving to France as a personal gift to him. I was the only adult who not only told him what to do but who helped mix up the slime, listened to his retellings of the cartoons he'd watched, and let him be the taster of any food I whipped up. His favorite part was when I read to him every night before he went to bed—chapter books at first, and then my favorite YA.
Thinking about Chris as a little boy cycles my thoughts back to Benny and then to my Ben, and then I lose track of where I am in the book and take a break to blow my nose, which is indeed still runny. To give myself a break, I grab the glass of water and drain half of it in long slow gulps.
"Spill it already." Tall's comment puzzles me for a second. I look at the glass of water safely ensconced in my hand, in no danger of letting even a drop of water leaving it.
"Spill what's on your mind," he says.
My confusion must be evident because Tall tilts his head and gives me a minute to process his words. I put the bookmark into the book, close it, and put it back onto his bedside table.
"What d'you think I need to spill?" I'm not admitting to anything. There's no way he can read my mind.
"You've been unfocused, and it's not like you. Is it about Ben? Angie? The move? Your work?"
Why did he start with Ben? He should've started in the reverse order of subjects, then his questions would've been more appropriate. I wipe my nose again. I can't keep blaming it on the dust in Tall's apartment anymore.
"Not really." I don't even have to lie in this case.
"You know I know you're hiding something. And I promise I won't judge. I've learned the error of my ways when I've made assumptions about you when you first met Ben. I'll always have his interests at heart, he is like a son to me, but I'd like to help you too if I can. And I'm a decent listener."
"Like a son?" It's an interesting turn of phrase he keeps using when he talks about Ben.
"So it is about Ben then." Tall's sly smile is a carbon copy of the one he had on the photo with his dead son. With Benny.
"Benny." It slips out. I roll my lips between my teeth as soon as I hear what I said, but it's too late.
Tall's face is serious, and his eyes narrow and inspect the flush I can feel creeping up from my chest to my cheeks.
"Have you been snooping, or did Ben tell you?" I know the answer to one of my questions. Ben does know about his namesake. But how much and what exactly is there to know? The obituary didn't state the cause of death, nor were there clear indicators of what happened to his wife. My curiosity is stronger than the shame over my having rifled through his stuff. I had an almost legitimate reason for doing that anyway. How was I to know he doesn't have wifi at his place?
