“Thank you for the ficus,” Tommy said solemnly, the corner of his mouth barely twitching up in a smile. “But what did I do to deserve the honor? Slobber all over your sweater?”
“It was supposed to be a housewarming present,” Everett said, his face heating. He couldn’t think about Tommy crying—actually in tears! Tommy Cabot!—without blushing. He had never seen Tommy cry. Everett didn’t really care for displays of emotion, either in himself or in other people, but there was something terribly touching about the fact that Tommy could do that now. It made Everett feel protective, which was not something he had ever expected to feel about Tommy.
“Ah. I wasn’t sure if it had something to do with the language of flowers or whatever it was my grandmother used to talk about. But that was all about bouquets, and I don’t think potted ficuses entered into it. I’m afraid I let my imagination run wild about what a ficus might mean.” He cocked an eyebrow.
“Thomas,” he scolded, cheered by the familiarity of half-heartedly clinging to stodginess while Tommy wheedled and teased.
“I thought it might mean ‘congratulations on your new home, hope you remembered to wrap the pipes before they freeze.’ I did wrap the pipes, and I’m prouder than you can imagine for having remembered that was something that needed to be done.”
Everett shook his head. “You are ridiculous.” They smiled stupidly at one another for a moment before Everett cleared his throat and looked away. “Thank you for bringing my groceries. I hate to think what would happen if Sunday arrived and I didn’t have food during the football game.”
“Ev, are you letting students listen to the football game in your rooms? Everett Sloane,” he said, a wicked smile spreading across his face, “are you the fun teacher?”
Everett felt his face heat. “I am nothing of the sort.” He adjusted the lapels of his coat. “I couldn’t keep cramming them into this office. You see the size of it.”
“You are the fun teacher. You bought them candy and root beer. I bet you’re going to make popcorn.”
He was not going to make popcorn, mainly because he had forgotten it existed during his time in England, damn it. “You see, the housemaster roots for the Colts,” he started, trying to keep his face straight, and then failing miserably when Tommy laughed, a delighted cackle Everett thought he’d never hear again. “And if I don’t invite them, they huddle around a contraband radio.”
“Because schoolboys hate breaking rules.”
“I did!” Everett protested. “Well, until I was swayed by your bad influence,” he added, attempting to sound severe. Tommy, confident that any scrapes that he got into could be smoothed over with a smile and the mere fact of his last name, flouted the rules with a carelessness that drove Everett half crazy. Everett’s parents had lost most of their money in the stock market crash; he had gone to Greenfield on a scholarship, always afraid that one false step would get him kicked out. Tommy had the cheerful certainty that everything would be fine, because for him it almost always was: whatever happened, his family would be there for him.
And now he had lost that. Everett felt a pang of grief for the boy Tommy had been and the loss he had suffered. But at the same time, he could meet the man before him with something like equality.
“God, I was an asshole to you,” Tommy said, his thoughts evidently proceeding along the same lines as Everett’s. “When I think of the number of times I coaxed you out onto the roof to smoke.”
“That was nothing. I thought I’d have to murder you after the bonfire incident.”
“Or the time I convinced you to skip class and go out in the rowboat.”
Everett was smiling broadly now. “I went willingly, every time. Those are some of my happiest memories.”
Tommy looked alarmed. “Please never tell Daniel half the things we got up to.”
“Never,” Everett promised. He tried to imagine Tommy’s son sneaking out of class to steal a rowboat and failed utterly. “It seems impossible that we were ever so young.”
The smile dropped from Tommy’s face and Everett wanted to kick himself. “Whenever I look at Daniel, I think the same thing. When you’re that young you don’t realize you’re young. You think you’re a man of the world. You don’t realize what’s in store for you.”
That turn of phrase brought Everett up short. He knew what Tommy meant when he thought about what had been in store for a younger version of himself. But what had been in store for a younger Everett? He glanced around his office, at the neatly arrayed books on his shelves, his cardigan draped over the back of his chair, and four blank walls. It was peaceful. Orderly. Those were good things. He tried not to think about what his fifteen-year-old self would have made of it; that person wasn’t here anymore.
“You have plenty of good things in store for you yet,” Everett said, because he couldn’t believe anything else. “We both do.” At the sight of Tommy’s smile, Everett’s heart gave an agonized little thud.
From downstairs came the sound of doors opening and adolescents tramping through the halls. “That’s the end of the day, then,” Tommy said, not moving. “I’d better go get Daniel.”
“Thank you again for the, er, root beer delivery.”
“Thanks for the ficus. And thank you for—for everything last night.”
“No,” Everett said, his cheeks heating. “That’s not something you need to thank me for.”
Tommy regarded at him for a moment. “See you around, Ev.”
When he was once again alone in his office, Everett put a hand over his heart as if that would settle it down. It didn’t. He hung up his coat, straightened his tie, and sat down to grade some exams.
* * *
While waiting downstairs for Daniel to get his overnight bag from his dormitory, Tommy let himself take a good look at the place. The oak floors were maybe a little more scuffed than they had been twenty years ago, and the furniture in the lounge had long since been replaced by sofas and chairs that already looked well-used, but he would have known the place anywhere. He walked over to a window seat, got down on his knees, and squinted.
When he and Ev were seventh years, Greenfield was hit by a snowstorm bad enough to keep everybody indoors for a couple of days. Restless, and more than a little fortified by contraband gin, Tommy had taken his pocketknife and gouged his name into the wood paneling beneath one of the windows. “What are you doing?” Everett had hissed when he realized what Tommy was up to. “Might as well put a signed confession on the headmaster’s desk.”
“Too late, it’s already done,” Tommy had said.
“Well, it’s stupid. Now your name is on the wall. What good does that do you? It doesn’t even make any sense.”
Tommy had been about to protest that vandalism didn’t need to make sense, but Everett took the knife from his hands and crouched down beside him. Everett, Tommy realized, was well on his way to being quite drunk.
“There,” Everett announced a moment later. “Now it’s a complete sentence. Subject and predicate,” he said grandly.
“Your objection was on grammatical grounds?” Tommy marveled, peering at Everett’s contribution. Beneath Tommy’s name, Ev had neatly added the words “was here.” “You should have added your own name.”