The Castro Gene by Todd Buchholz

Author:Todd Buchholz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oceanview Publishing
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 43

Luke couldn’t believe that his father and Tremont could be in the same place at the same time. Call the Hayden Planetarium! Matter and antimatter were about to share the same space. Luke wasn’t sure whether to spring up from his seat to greet his boss or to duck down and hide. He looked at his father, who would not have looked more uncomfortable had Jake Barnes shown up in the flesh.

The professor cocked his head as if his son had orchestrated this meeting with his new boss. And Luke didn’t have a chance to hide, for Tremont was walking straight toward them.

“I heard you were here, Luke.” He cheerfully looked over at Luke’s father. “Is this your tutor?”

Luke stood up to grab Tremont’s hand. “Mr. Tremont, meet my father, Professor Francis Braden.”

Luke was relieved that his father was sufficiently well mannered to hide his grimace. Nonetheless, Francis Braden shook Tremont’s hand as if he was half expecting a concealed buzzer in it.

“Would you like to join us for lunch?” Luke asked, quickly slurring the words together. Please don’t! Go back to the Roosevelt Room or to your oval office!

“No, thank you—” said Tremont.

Tremont looked down at the table, at the Professor’s spinach frittata and Luke’s hamburger. “But I’ll have a glass of wine with you.”

Silence. Luke wasn’t sure how to begin. Did Mao ever play chess with Chiang-kai-shek? How could he relate his father’s ivory tower to Tremont’s business world? Capitalism didn’t often cross paths with English Lit, except when Saul Bellow cashed his advances. Then Luke had an idea, an entrée to a conversation.

“Mr. Tremont, you know my father has an endowed chair here in the English department, endowed by the Mars candy company.”

Professor Braden added, “The students like to joke about taking courses from the Mars Professor of English. Term papers show up with Milky Ways taped to them.

It was a lighthearted topic. Father and son waited for a response from Tremont.

“I’m long cocoa futures. And short the Sri Lankan market,” Tremont replied with not a tinge of humor.

A dead end.

“Actually,” Tremont added, “I don’t eat much chocolate, too many near misses with diabetes in my family.”

“Me too,” Luke’s father said. “A supreme irony for me. Like a breadmaker who’s allergic to yeast.”

Luke exhaled. At last some connection, even if they had to dive to the cellular level to find common ground. They were not from the same generation. Luke’s father was near fifty, while Tremont was around seventy. Nonetheless, Luke always considered his father excessively mature. He could have qualified for an AARP card at thirty. And Tremont seemed younger than his true age.

Tremont slid his chair closer to the professor. “The dean told me that you teach Hemingway.”

“You know the dean?” Francis asked.

“Sure, Columbia hits me up for fund-raising, and we recruit from the B School. When I heard about your teaching, I wondered, have you ever been to Cuba?”

“No.” Francis sounded dismissive or defensive. “Would I have to live in Elizabethan London to

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.