Primal Threat - Earl Emerson [30]
“This is my fault,” she said.
“What’s your fault?”
“Them following you up here. You told me last night about this bike trip, and I guess I mentioned it to a couple of people. Anyway, Scooter found out. If I’d had any idea they were going to dog you, I would have kept my big mouth shut. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I’m just sorry they found you. Do you hate me?”
“Of course I don’t hate you.”
“Well, I don’t see any major rioting. Maybe it will be okay. As soon as Mom told me Kasey and his friends were headed up into the hills near North Bend, I knew what was going on. I just had to come up and find you and make sure everything was all right. I know what Scooter is capable of, and I know how intolerant you are of anybody with money…I just thought it would be a lethal combination. What have they done so far?”
“Is that how you look at me? As somebody who gets angry at anybody who has more money than I do?”
“I would say that’s one of your defining traits.”
“And not a pretty one, either.”
“Most times, no. It isn’t.”
Zak knew his sour attitude toward wealth had contributed to their breakup. If she hadn’t belonged to the moneyed class, her reaction to his biases might have been different, but she did and it wasn’t. Not that it was her fault he was a prejudiced jerk. “I was thinking about you,” he said. “I’m glad you came. How long are you going to be around?”
“Not long. Our parents are expecting us home tonight.”
“What are you two doing?” Accompanied by Fred and Chuck, Kasey walked over and wrapped his arm around his sister’s shoulders, something Zak knew he only did when he wanted something from her.
“The bigger question is, what are you guys doing hounding my friend,” said Nadine.
“We’re not hounding anybody, are we, Zak?”
“I don’t know what you’re doing.”
Kasey held his sister close and said, “Just think. If I’d kept dating Zak’s sister and you’d kept dating Zak, one day you and I might be brother and sister and brother-in-law and sister-in-law all at the same time. Wouldn’t that be the ticket?”
“Why don’t you leave my sister out of it?”
“Oooh. I suppose I’d be touchy, too, if my sister was thirty-one and working part time for the post office.”
“Leave her alone,” said Nadine, shaking off Kasey’s arm and holding Zak’s look. “And don’t you two dare get into this old argument again. Just stop this!”
“No. Don’t stop,” said Zak. “I want to know what’s wrong with honest work.”
“All I’m saying is we all have the same opportunities in life, and people who end up in menial jobs like hers are doing them because they’re not smart enough or industrious enough to set high goals for themselves.”
“You think you’ve achieved what you have in life through your own hard work? That you can avoid bad luck because you’re smart? Jesus, you’re twenty years old. You don’t know shit about life.”
“Anyone can educate themselves to make good choices, and if they don’t bother to do that, I don’t call that bad luck. I call it willful stupidity and laziness,” Kasey said. “I’ve gone to good schools and I make educated choices, so things are always going to be fine with me.”
“There are plenty of smart people who, given their circumstances, have made the best choices they could and will never be able to dig themselves out of the hole they’re in. And there are brainless idiots in your spot who, through no accomplishment of their own, will be rich the rest of their lives. It’s good to be smart, but it’s better to be lucky. All you are is one of those assholes who was born on third base and woke up thinking he’d hit a triple.”
“Zak,” Nadine said. “Don’t do this.”
“You mean, don’t voice my opinion?”
“No. I mean, don’t be so disagreeable.