The Family Legacy Contract

Chapter Five

By the time I arrived home, Mum had already made dinner, Dad was attempting to repair the loose hinge on one of the kitchen cupboards, and Ben had spread what appeared to be every piece of paper he owned across the dining table.

I stopped in the doorway.

"Goodness."

Ben looked up.

"What?"

"Are you preparing for an interview or planning a military operation?"

He glanced at the papers.

"Interview."

"Are you certain?"

"Very funny."

I hung my jacket beside the door and went to wash my hands.

The kitchen smelled of roast chicken and potatoes, with the faint sweetness of the apple crumble Mum had made earlier in the afternoon. There was something comforting about coming home to a house that smelled of dinner, particularly after spending several hours surrounded by coffee, fried food and industrial cleaning products.

"How was work?" Mum asked.

"All right. A little busier towards the end."

"That's good."

"How was your day?"

"Fine, sweetheart. Mrs Henderson came through the supermarket and spent twenty minutes telling me about her daughter's divorce."

"Again?"

"Apparently they've decided to reconcile."

"Oh, that's nice."

"Not according to Mrs Henderson."

I laughed and reached for a potato from the roasting tray.

Mum slapped my hand lightly with the tea towel.

"Plates first."

"Sorry."

I fetched four plates from the cupboard while Dad continued wrestling with the hinge.

"Have you tried tightening the other screw?" I asked.

He looked at me over his shoulder.

"Natalie, I've been repairing things since before you were born."

"Of course."

"Yes, I've tried the other screw."

"Just checking."

He gave the cupboard door a final adjustment and stepped back.

It hung at a slight angle.

We both examined it.

"Much better," I said.

"Thank you."

I didn't mention that it looked almost exactly as it had before.

Ben had moved his papers aside just far enough for us to eat, although several sheets still protruded beneath the placemats. One contained a list of possible interview questions, another a handwritten description of his irrigation project, and a third had been covered in little diagrams that meant absolutely nothing to me.

"How's the preparation going?" I asked as I sat down.

"Good, I think."

"Have you practised answering the questions out loud?"

"A bit."

"With someone?"

He hesitated.

"Not really."

"Then we should do that after dinner."

He nodded.

"I was hoping you would."

"Of course."

Dad reached for the potatoes.

"What sort of questions are they likely to ask?"

"Why I want to study engineering, what I've done outside school, what I'd like to do afterwards. Things like that."

"Well, that's easy enough," Dad said. "You know why you want to study engineering."

"Knowing it and explaining it are different things."

I smiled.

"That's what practising is for."

Ben looked down at his plate.

"I just don't want to mess it up."

Mum reached over and squeezed his arm.

"You won't."

"You don't know that."

"No," she admitted. "But you've worked hard, and you've got as much right to be there as anyone else."

I looked at him.

"Besides, they already liked your application enough to shortlist you. They're not expecting you to invent a new form of electricity in the interview."

"That would be impressive, though," Dad observed.

"It would," I agreed. "Perhaps we should add it to his preparation schedule."

Ben shook his head, but he was smiling.

We spent most of dinner discussing the interview, and by the time the plates were cleared, he'd relaxed enough to start explaining the irrigation system he'd built for the school competition.

I understood considerably more of it than I had when he'd first shown me the project, although I suspected that was because he'd learned to explain it without assuming everyone else had spent the previous six months reading engineering textbooks.

He was so enthusiastic when he talked about it that he forgot to be nervous.

I liked seeing him that way.

There was something wonderful about watching someone discuss a thing they genuinely loved, particularly when they were young enough to believe that enthusiasm might be enough to carry them towards it.

After dinner, Mum and Dad settled in the living room while Ben and I took over the kitchen table.

I sat opposite him with his list of questions and a notebook.

"All right. Tell me about yourself."

He stared at me.

"What?"

"That's the first question."

"That's a terrible question."

"It's a very common question."

"What am I supposed to say?"

"Well, presumably something about yourself."

He gave me an exasperated look.

I smiled.

"Start with your name, what you're studying, what interests you. Don't try to tell them your entire life story."

He took a breath.

"My name is Benjamin Walsh, and I'm seventeen years old. I'm currently completing my final year at Willow Creek High School, where I've been focusing on mathematics, physics and—"

He stopped.

"That sounds awful."

"It sounds a little rehearsed."

"Because I rehearsed it."

"Yes, but you're supposed to make it sound as though you haven't."

"That's ridiculous."

"Welcome to interviews."

He laughed, then tried again.

We worked through the questions for almost an hour.

Sometimes he answered beautifully, speaking with such clarity and confidence that I could imagine the interviewers being thoroughly impressed. Other times he became tangled in his own explanations, especially when he tried to describe something technical and forgot that the person listening might not understand the terminology.

I made notes, asked follow-up questions and occasionally interrupted to remind him to slow down.

By half past nine, he'd filled three pages with corrections and was beginning to look rather pleased with himself.

"That's enough for tonight," I said.

"Really?"

"Really. You're getting tired."

"I'm fine."

"You've just explained the same thing three times and called your teacher Mr Henderson twice."

"His name is Mr Hendricks."

"Exactly."

He laughed and closed his notebook.

"Thanks, Nat."

"You're welcome."

He began gathering the papers into a neat pile.

I watched him for a moment.

"Are you excited?"

He looked up.

"About the interview?"

"About everything. University. Moving away. All of it."

He thought for a moment.

"Yeah. I am."

"Good."

"I'm nervous too."

"That's understandable."

He looked down at the papers.

"I've been looking at pictures of Northwestern."

"Have you?"

"Yeah. The engineering buildings are incredible. And there's this laboratory where students can work on their own projects, and they've got equipment I've only ever seen online."

He began telling me about the laboratory, describing the machines and facilities with the sort of enthusiasm that made his hands move almost as quickly as his words.

I listened, smiling.

"And Chicago's right there," he continued. "I mean, the campus is in Evanston, but you can get into the city on the train. Imagine being able to do that whenever you wanted."

He smiled sheepishly.

I glanced towards the window, where the darkness reflected the kitchen lights back at us.

Jess, my best friend since preschool, had been talking about New York for months. She'd moved there after high school, and although she'd initially complained about the size of her apartment and the cost of practically everything, she now spoke about the city with such affection that I'd begun to feel as though I knew it myself.

She sent me photographs of the streets in autumn, little cafés tucked between enormous buildings, bookshops with narrow staircases and windows full of old books. Sometimes she'd call while walking home from work, and I'd listen to the noise of traffic and people talking around her, imagining what it would be like to be there beside her.

I'd always loved the idea of New York.

The museums, the theatres, the old buildings, the beautiful shop windows, the possibility of spending an entire afternoon wandering through streets I'd never seen before.

Jess had promised that if I visited, we'd go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, walk through Central Park and find somewhere lovely to have dinner. She'd even offered to let me stay on her sofa, which would save me the cost of a hotel.

All I needed was the money for a plane ticket and enough time away from work to justify buying one.

"You know you could actually do it."

I smiled.

"Perhaps."

He considered me for a moment.

"You're allowed to do things for yourself, you know."

The words caught me slightly off guard.

I looked at him.

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing. Just..." He shrugged. "You work all the time. And whenever you get any money, you spend it on something for the house or put it away."

"That's called being responsible."

"I know."

He looked faintly uncomfortable.

"I just think you should go somewhere. There's nothing in Willow Creek for anyone."

I was quiet for a moment.

Then I reached across the table and squeezed his hand.

"Maybe I can stay in your dorm."

He made a face.

"And crash my style?"

"I wouldn't dream of it."

He stood and gathered his papers.

"Night, Nat."

"Goodnight."

I watched him leave the kitchen, his notebooks tucked beneath one arm and his shoulders a little straighter than they'd been at the beginning of the evening.

It was almost eleven when I found the business card.

I'd changed into my pyjamas and was sorting through the pockets of my jeans before putting them in the laundry basket, checking for loose change and the occasional receipt that had survived an entire shift folded into a damp little square.

My fingers brushed against something stiff.

I pulled it out.

The card was slightly bent at one corner, but otherwise undamaged.

For a moment, I couldn't remember where it had come from.

Then I remembered, the man from the motel.

I sat on the edge of my bed and turned the card over.

The front was simple and rather elegant, with a dark blue logo and the words Meridian Placement Group printed beneath it. There was a website address, a telephone number and an email contact, along with the man's name and the title Senior Recruitment Consultant.

I read it twice.

I'd never heard of the company.

That wasn't particularly surprising. Until recently, most of my job searching had involved asking people I already knew whether they needed an extra pair of hands, and the few formal applications I'd submitted had been for ordinary positions in shops, hotels or local offices.

Private recruitment was something I associated with people who wore suits and had university degrees.

I wasn't sure what someone like me would have to offer.

Still, he'd given me the card, and he'd seemed quite sincere.

I reached for my phone.

The website loaded almost immediately.

It was professionally designed, with a white background, dark blue headings and photographs of attractive offices, well-dressed people shaking hands and smiling employees gathered around conference tables.

At the top of the page was a statement about connecting exceptional candidates with exceptional opportunities.

I scrolled down.

There were sections for employers, applicants and international placements, along with a description of the company's work across a number of specialist industries.

It was all rather polished.

I clicked on the page for applicants.

There was information about confidential consultations, personalised career guidance and matching candidates with opportunities based on their experience, circumstances and professional goals.

A little farther down was a section explaining that some placements included accommodation, travel arrangements and relocation assistance.

That caught my attention.

I read it again.

Travel arrangements.

Relocation assistance.

It sounded rather wonderful, although I reminded myself that there was probably a significant difference between a company arranging travel for an experienced professional and offering to send a twenty-three-year-old waitress somewhere exciting.

I continued scrolling.

There were testimonials from people who'd found positions through the company, photographs of modern offices and a list of locations where they operated.

I opened another tab and searched the company name.

There were several results, including a business directory listing, a professional networking page and an article about the company's expansion into specialist recruitment.

Everything seemed perfectly ordinary.

I found Aiden's name listed on the company website, alongside a photograph that matched.

That was reassuring.

Not that I'd seriously thought he was pretending to be a recruiter, but it was nice to know the company existed.

I thought about Ruth cutting my shifts, the list of odd jobs in my notebook and the savings account that seemed to empty itself almost as quickly as I managed to put money into it.

Then I thought about Ben, sitting at the kitchen table with his scholarship application, talking about laboratories and university buildings and everything he hoped to do.

He was seventeen, and he already knew what he wanted.

I was twenty-three, and I still wasn't quite sure how to begin.

That wasn't entirely fair. I knew plenty of things I wanted. I wanted to go to college. I wanted to travel. I wanted to have a job that paid enough for me to buy something without calculating how many hours of work it represented.

I wanted to visit Jess in New York and spend a week doing all the things we'd talked about since we were teenagers.

I wanted to see Italy, and Ireland, and Japan.

I wanted to live somewhere with beautiful buildings and interesting shops, where I could walk into a bookshop on a Saturday afternoon and spend an hour browsing without worrying that I ought to be somewhere else.

None of those things was especially extravagant.

Not compared with what some people had.NBut from where I was sitting, they might as well have belonged to another world.

I looked at the website again. There was a button marked Request a Consultation. I considered pressing it, then I put my phone down.

It was late, and I was tired. There was no reason to make decisions about my future at eleven o'clock at night, particularly when I had to be up early the following morning.

I placed the card on my desk beside my notebook and switched off the lamp.

For a while, I lay in the dark listening to the occasional car pass outside my window.

I thought about New York.

About Jess waiting for me at the airport, the two of us laughing as we tried to find our way through the city with our suitcases.

I imagined sitting in a beautiful little restaurant somewhere, wearing a dress I'd bought because I liked it rather than because it was practical, ordering something without looking at the price first.