The Other Americans by Navidad Thelamour

Author:Navidad Thelamour [Thélamour, Navidad]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-01-22T00:00:00+00:00

moving on up to the eastside

NIGEL

T here was something about it all that felt different to Nigel. Felt different. Smelled different. Like the very charge in the air had altered somehow. He laughed to himself, there in the middle of the Greenwoods’ den while Nate drummed away at the ivories.“Would you look at this guy?” Vince was elbowing him out of his reveries, sipping his vodka tonic. “What a showoff, huh?”

They both laughed in agreement together. That’s when it really hit him, because, Nigel realized, he couldn’t recall the last time he and Vince had ever laughed in agreement over anything.

Here he was, having rabbit at Nathan Greenwood’s dinner table, sitting in his opulent home next to his exquisite wife, who Nigel thought he recognized from somewhere long ago, before Renée’s soirée, but he couldn’t be sure of from where. She was now brushing Nigel’s shoulder with her own and asking if the rabbit ate too tough. This was somehow different than the social he’d met them all at weeks before and the previous events that had passed by him in a whirl of brandy and business cards. No, this time it was that he belonged.

That’s what it was.

They’d cleared way and made space for him. A space that he’d never asked for or championed. A space he’d never cared to occupy before. And it felt strange. But why, he couldn’t put his finger on until he could.

Because he hadn’t asked for it. But also because, simultaneously, it felt so right. Too right.

Vince was surprised when he offered Nigel the position over hibachi and neat gin, just days before, and Nigel hadn’t immediately taken it, leapt at it, been honored. Oh, he’d covered it well, wiping his mouth with his napkin and placing it next to his finished plate.

“You mean, you need to think about it?”

“Yeah.” Nigel took the offer in his hands and glanced it over. “Let me sit with it for a second and let you know.”

“Well, what’s the matter? Is it the salary?”

The salary? No, Nigel couldn’t help but think to himself, though he’d never utter it out loud. The salary was more than generous, almost as if Vince was showing off, peacocking to ensure he caught the hen he was after. No, it wasn’t the money that made Nigel pause. It was that feeling of his toes at a line that he hadn’t felt before. Some imaginary line that’d sprung up palpably during Vince’s pompously sure speech about what The Group meant and where it was surely headed with him at the helm. Vince had rattled off sales figures, ratings and occupancy rates as he watched the hibachi knives dance in the air. He’d given this speech before, Nigel could tell, and knew it like the back of his hand. When their food was served, Vince raked up a forkful and, bringing it to his mouth, laid out the offer to Nigel. That’s when he felt it, when he just as suddenly as surprisingly felt acutely aware of that line between him and them.

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