The Good Son by Carolyn Mills (best novels for teenagers .txt) 📕

Jason at The Crow’s Nest turns out to be a subdued affair. He’s polite enough, but distracted. I feel bad for bringing up the whole moving-in-together thing. For constructing a wall like that. Now I’m worried that I’ve discouraged him completely. The strained silence between us makes me uneasy.

“How’s the fish?” I ask lightly.

“Fine.”

“Maybe I’ll try it next time. Is the batter thick?”

Jason sets down his fork. He studies me for a minute. “You’re worried about your interview, aren’t you?”

“No,” I say, but even as I say it, I know I’m lying. I’ve worked at the Dunford Water Treatment Plant for almost twenty years, and in January the township sold the plant to a private company. Now the entire staff has to sit through an interview with the new owners, Crystal Clear Solutions, or CCS for short, and while we’ve been assured that the whole process is merely a formality, there’s also been talk about CCS wanting to make changes. Downsizing. Cuts. So as much as the process is being touted as a formality, people are understandably nervous. My interview is on Friday and it’s been weighing on my mind like a stone.

“You’ll be fine,” Jason says, “you’re the only female Operator in Charge. They’re not going to fire you. The optics would be bad.”

“They’re not going to fire anyone. At least that’s not what they’ll call it when they give your job to someone else. They have their own people they want to bring in and I highly doubt they’ll give two craps about the fact that I’m female.”

Jason takes a sip of his wine. “Okay,” he says slowly, drawing out the syllables. “You’re in a fine mood tonight, aren’t you?”

I wish we could go back to how things were this afternoon, before I talked to Ricky, before everything became awkward. A few hours ago, I was stretched out on my couch with my feet in Jason’s lap, laughing while he attempted to massage my toes. As the tension at our table lingers, I become hungry for signs of reassurance. Maybe we should’ve stayed in tonight. I could have made Jason dinner and then he would have spent the night with me before slipping away in the early morning to get ready for work at the body shop. I have a feeling that tonight, after dinner, he’ll head back to his place, alone. I can’t say I blame him.

When we first started dating, we used to spend almost every night together, either at his place or mine, except for the weekends that he had Parker. But even then, when Tammy came by to collect Parker on the Sunday night, I would sometimes already be there, in Jason’s condo, anxious to have him to myself again.

“Can I get you some dessert?” our waitress asks, and I look at Jason, in case he’s planning to change things up and order something random instead of the cheesecake we usually get.

“I think we’ll share a chocolate cheesecake,” Jason replies. He raises an eyebrow at me and I nod in agreement. Good. No more surprises.

The plate sits in the middle of the table and we take turns cutting off bite-sized pieces of the rich, creamy cake. I drag each chunk through the raspberry sauce that’s been drizzled on the edges of the plate, and when the slice is gone, I sit back to enjoy my decaffeinated tea while Jason has a coffee. I watch him closely in case it suddenly looks like he’s about to drop to one knee.

He pulls out his phone and scans it, even though he was the one who came up with the rule that we shouldn’t have our phones out at meals.

“Just checking the time,” he tells me. He signals for our bill and we are quiet again.

On the short walk back to my house, I am relieved when Jason reaches for my hand. Feeling his fingers wrapped loosely around mine eases some of the anxiety that has been steadily building in my gut over the past hour. The sun is sinking slowly, and as it rests momentarily against the roofline of the Royal Bank, it spills golden light down the once-impressive building’s chipped bricks. I wish I had my camera.

Dunford wasn’t always so run-down and depressing. In the halls of the Municipal Office, I’ve seen black and white photographs from when the town was thriving. In those pictures, the Royal Bank rises majestically from the corner of Main Street, and the thick pillars that flank the steps to the front doors give the whole building an air of grandeur. The King’s Tavern, across the street, looks like it used to be a decent hotel, instead of a seedy bar attached to a bunch of low-rent apartments. It’s as if, over time, the whole town has sunk into a kind of slovenly disgrace; a slow decay. I’ve occasionally thought about doing a photo montage depicting Dunford’s past and present, juxtaposing current images of the buildings against their black and white counterparts, matching, as best I can, the distance and the angles from which the originals were taken.

I do wonder sometimes why I stayed here. I mean besides the obvious reasons like my job, and being close to Mom. Maybe Ricky had the right idea. He hightailed it out of Dunford the minute he finished high school.

Jason squeezes my hand. “You’re awful quiet,” he says.

We’re passing the library now, an Edwardian mansion converted years ago after the original library went up in flames. Mom used to work at the old library and when it burned down, she was upset for days. I squeeze Jason’s hand back. “Just tired.” I want to explain what happened to me at dinner, but I can’t very well admit that I panicked at the thought of him proposing. It’s easier to let him believe I’m just worried about my job, which is partially true. Besides, just because Jason wore a new shirt doesn’t mean he was about to pop the question. I need to