Nicholas Sparks - The Best of Me

Buster turned toward the passenger window, speaking under his breath. “Then maybe we shouldn’t take such long lunches.”

The kid was seriously irritating. And that’s what he was — a kid, even if, technically, Buster was older than him. Still, the last thing he wanted was for Buster to report back to Ron that he was slacking off.

“It’s not about the lunches,” Alan said, trying to sound serious. “It’s about customer service. You can’t just run in and run out. You have to talk to people. Our job is about making sure our customers are happy. That’s why I always make sure that I do things by the book.”

“Like smoking? You know you’re not supposed to smoke in the van.”

“Every man’s got a vice.”

“And blasting the radio?”

Uh-oh. The kid had obviously been compiling a list, and Alan had to think fast.

“I just did that for you. Kind of a celebration, you know? It’s the end of your first week and you’ve done a great job. And when we finish up today, I’ll make sure Ron knows that.”

Mentioning Ron like that was enough to make Buster quiet down for a few minutes, which didn’t seem like much, but after a week in the car with the guy, any silence was a good thing. The day couldn’t end soon enough, and next week he’d have the van to himself again. Thank God.

And tonight? That was all about getting the weekend started right, which meant doing his best to forget all about Buster. Tonight he’d end up at the Tidewater, a hole-in-the-wall just outside town that was almost the only place nearby that offered any kind of nightlife. He’d drink some beer, play some pool, and if he was lucky, that cute bartender might even be there. She wore tight jeans that hugged her in all the right places, and she leaned forward in her skimpy top whenever she handed him a beer, which made it taste that much better. Same thing Saturday night and Sunday night, too, for that matter, assuming his mom had plans with her longtime boyfriend, Leo, and didn’t drop by his double-wide like she had last night.

Why she didn’t just marry Leo was beyond him; maybe then she’d have better things to do than check on her grown son. What he didn’t want this weekend was for his mom to expect him to keep her company, because that just wasn’t going to happen. Who cared if he was a little worse for the wear on Monday? By then, Buster would be in his own delivery truck, and if that didn’t call for a little celebrating, nothing did.

Marilyn Bonner worried about Alan.

Not all the time, of course, and she did her best to keep her worries in check. He was an adult, after all, and she knew he was old enough to make his own decisions. But she was his mother, and Alan’s primary problem as she saw it was that he always opted for the easy path, which led to nowhere, instead of the more challenging path that had a chance of turning out better. It bothered her that he lived his life more like a teenager than someone who was twenty-seven years old. Last night, when she’d dropped by his double-wide, he’d been playing a video game, and his first reaction had been to ask whether she wanted to give it a try. As she stood there in the doorway, she’d found herself wondering how she could have raised a son who didn’t seem to know her in the slightest.

Still, she knew it could be worse. A lot worse. The bottom line was that Alan had turned out okay. He was kind and had a job and never got into trouble, and that was pretty good, in this day and age. Say what you want, but she read the papers and heard the scuttlebutt around town. She knew that a lot of his friends, young men she’d known since they were boys, even some from the better families, had descended into drug use or drank too much or even ended up in prison. It made sense, considering where they lived. Too many people glorified small-town America, making it seem like a Norman Rockwell painting, but the reality was something else entirely. With the exception of doctors and lawyers or people who owned their own businesses, there were no high-paying jobs in Oriental, or in any other small town for that matter. And while it was in many ways an ideal place to raise young children, there was little for young adults to aspire to. There weren’t, nor would there ever be, middle management positions in small towns, nor was there much to do on the weekends, or even new people to meet. Why Alan still wanted to live here was beyond her, but as long as he was happy and paid his own way in the world, she was willing to make things a bit easier for him, even if that meant she’d had to buy a double-wide a stone’s throw from the farmhouse to get him started off in life.

No, she didn’t have any illusions about the kind of town Oriental was. In that way, she wasn’t like the other blue bloods in town, but then losing a husband as a young mother of two tended to adjust your perspective. Being a Bennett and having attended UNC didn’t stop the bankers from trying to foreclose on the orchard. Nor did her family name or connections help her support her struggling family. Even her fancy economics degree from UNC didn’t buy her a pass.

In the end, everything came down to money. It came down to what a person actually did , as opposed to who they thought they were , which was why she couldn’t stomach the Oriental status quo anymore. These days, she’d hire a hardworking immigrant over a UNC or Duke society belle who believed that the world owed her a good living. The very notion probably struck people like Evelyn Collier or Eugenia Wilcox as blasphemous, but she’d long since come to view Evelyn and Eugenia and their ilk as dinosaurs, clinging to a world that no longer existed. At a recent town meeting, she’d even said as much. In the past it would have caused a commotion, but Marilyn’s was one of the few businesses in town that was actually expanding, and there was nothing much anyone could say — including Evelyn Collier and Eugenia Wilcox.

In the years since David had died, she’d come to treasure her hard-won independence. She’d learned to trust her instincts, and she had to admit that she liked being in control of her own life, without anyone’s expectations getting in the way. She supposed that was why she’d rejected Leo’s repeated marriage proposals. An accountant in Morehead City, he was smart, well-to-do, and she enjoyed spending time with him. Most important, he respected her, and the kids had always adored him. Emily and Alan couldn’t understand why she kept saying no.

But Leo knew she’d always say no, and that was okay with him, because the truth was they were both comfortable with the way things were. They’d probably see a movie tomorrow night, and on Sunday she’d attend church and then visit the cemetery to pay her respects to David, as she’d done every weekend for nearly a quarter century. She’d meet Leo later for dinner. In her own way, she loved him. It might not be the kind of love that others understood, but that didn’t matter. What she and Leo had was good enough for both of them.

Halfway across town, Amanda was drinking coffee at the kitchen table and doing her best to ignore her mother’s pointed silence. The night before, after Amanda had come in, her mom had been waiting in the parlor, and even before Amanda had the chance to sit down, the questions had begun.

Where have you been? Why are you so late? Why didn’t you call?

I did call, Amanda reminded her, but instead of being drawn into the incriminating conversation her mom obviously wanted, Amanda mumbled that she had a headache and that what she really needed to do was lie down in her room. If her mother’s demeanor this morning was any indication, she was obviously displeased by that. Aside from a quick good morning as she’d entered the kitchen, her mom had said nothing. Instead, she went straight to the toaster, and after punctuating her silence with a sigh, she popped some bread in. As it was browning, her mom sighed again, a little louder this time.