Nicholas Sparks - Two by Two

“Nope. I’m still not even sure what it is that you do.”

“We’ve talked about this a hundred times. I come up with advertising campaigns, script commercials, and design print and digital ads.”

He finally rolled out from beneath the car, his hands and fingernails grease-stained.

“Are you the one who does those car commercials? The ones where the guy is always yelling and screaming about the latest great deal?”

“No.” I’d answered this question before, too.

“I hate those commercials. They’re too loud. I use the mute button.”

It was one of the reasons I tried to talk dealership owners out of raising their voices-most viewers hit the mute button.

“I know. You’ve told me.”

He slowly began to rise. Watching my dad get up was like watching a mountain forced upward by the collision of tectonic plates.

“You said London was here?”

“She’s inside.”

“Vivian, too, I guess.”

“No. She had some things to do today.”

He continued to wipe his hands. “She doing women stuff?”

I smiled. For my dad-an old-fashioned sexist at heart- women stuff described pretty much everything my mom did these days, from cooking and cleaning to clipping coupons and grocery shopping.

“Yes. Women stuff.”

He nodded, thinking that made perfect sense, and I cleared my throat. “Did I tell you that Vivian’s thinking of going back to work?”

“Hmm.”

“It’s not because we need the money. She’s been talking about this for a while, you know. With London starting school, I mean.”

“Hmm.”

“I think it will be good for her. Something easy, something part-time. She’d be bored otherwise.”

“Hmm.”

I hesitated. “What do you think?”

“About what?”

“Vivian thinking of going back to work. My new agency.”

He scratched at his ear, buying time. “Did you ever think that maybe you shouldn’t have quit your job in the first place?”

My dad, as much of a man’s man that he was, wasn’t a risk taker. For him, having a steady job and receiving a regular paycheck more than outweighed any potential reward of running his own business. Seven years ago, the former owner of the plumbing business had offered to let my dad buy it; my dad had passed on the offer, and the business was purchased by another, younger employee with entrepreneurial dreams.

To be frank, I hadn’t expected him to offer me much in the way of career advice. That, too, was outside my dad’s comfort zone, but I didn’t hold it against him. He and I had led different lives; where I’d gone to college, he’d graduated from high school and spent time on a destroyer in Vietnam. He’d married at nineteen and was a father by twenty-two; his parents had died in a car accident a year after that. He worked with his hands while I worked with my mind, and while his view of the world-black and white, good and bad-may have seemed simplistic to some, it also provided a road map for how a real man was supposed to lead his life. Get married. Love your wife and treat her with respect. Have children, and teach them the value of hard work. Do your job. Don’t complain. Remember that family-unlike most of those people you might meet in life-will always be around. Fix what can be fixed or get rid of it. Be a good neighbor. Love your grandchildren. Do the right thing.

Good rules. Actually, they were great rules and for the most part, they’d stayed intact throughout his life. One, however, had fallen by the wayside, and was no longer on his list. My dad had been raised Southern Baptist, and Marge and I had gone to services on both Wednesday evenings and Sundays throughout our youth. We’d gone to vacation Bible school every summer, and my parents never questioned whether or not to go to church. Like the other rules, it wasn’t abandoned until soon after Marge told my parents that she was gay.

I can only imagine how nervous Marge must have been. We’d been raised in a church that believed homosexuality was a sin, and my parents marched to the beat of that very same drummer; maybe even more so, because they were from a different generation. My dad ended up meeting with the pastor, a real fire-and-brimstone kind of guy. The pastor told my dad that Marge was choosing a life of sin if she surrendered to her nature, and that they should bring her in to pray, in the hope of finding God’s grace.

My dad was a lot of things-hard at times, gruff, profane-but he also loved his kids. He believed in his kids, and when Marge told him that she hadn’t chosen a lifestyle-that she’d been born that way-he nodded once, told her that he loved her, and from that day onward, our family stopped attending services.

There are a lot of people in the world, I think, who could learn a lot from my dad.

“You look like crap,” Marge said to me. We’d retreated to the back porch with a couple of cupcakes while Mom, Liz, and London continued to bake another batch. My dad was in the family room, enjoying the cupcakes while watching the Atlanta Braves, no doubt waiting for London to join him. She always called him Papa, which I thought was sort of cute.

“You always know just what to say to make a guy feel great.”

“I’m being honest. You’re pasty.”

“I’m tired.”

“Oh,” she said. “My mistake. It’s not like I know you, and can tell when you’re lying. You’re stressed.”

“A little.”

“New business not going well?”

I shifted in my seat. “I guess I thought it would be a little easier to get clients. Or at least one client.”

“They’ll come. You just need to give it time.” When I didn’t respond, she went on. “How’s Vivian handling it?”

“We don’t really talk about it much.”

“Why not? She’s your wife.”

“I don’t want her to worry. I figure I’ll talk to her when there’s something good to tell her.”

“See? That’s where you’re wrong. Vivian should be the one person you can talk to about anything.”

“I guess.”

“You guess? You two really need to work on your communication skills. See a counselor or whatever.”

“Maybe we should schedule an appointment with Liz. Being that she’s a therapist, I mean.”

“You couldn’t afford her. You’re not making any money.”

“That makes me feel a lot better.”

“Would you rather I blow smoke up the old back door?”

“As delightful as that sounds, I’ll pass.”

She laughed. “The point is, I’ve seen it happen over and over.”

“Seen what happen?”

“The same mistakes people make when starting a business,” she said, taking another bite. “Too much optimism on the revenue front and not enough pessimism when it comes to either business or household expenses. In your case, credit cards.”

“How would you know that?”

“Hello? Vivian and her errands ? The bill arriving in the middle of the month? This isn’t the first time we’ve had this conversation.”

“The balance was a little high,” I finally admitted.

“Then take some advice from your sister with the CPA. Cancel it. Or at least put a limit on it.”

“I can’t.

“Why not?”

“Because I told her that her life wasn’t going to change.”

“Why on earth would you say something like that?”

“Because there’s no reason she should have to suffer.”

“You know how crazy that sounds, right? Shopping less is not equivalent to suffering. And besides, you’re supposed to be partners, both of you on the same team, especially when things get tough.”