Chapter 4: Seeking a Direction

Liam

I STOOD QUIETLY outside Meredith’s door at five minutes until nine in the morning. Whatever else she might think, I didn’t want her believing she had to wait for me.

“Oh!” she said, startled to see me standing there when she opened her door. “Mr. Cyning. You are prompt.”

“I find it best not to keep others waiting for me,” I laughed. “Are you ready for breakfast?”

“Yes. Coffee at least. A little something to eat would be good,” she said.

“Are your quarters satisfactory? I could inquire about something more suitable if you find this ... possibly ... I mean ... I hope you are not upset that our rooms are so close on the same hall. I’ve been living alone up here for so long that it startled me to see you in the hall yesterday and I could see you were startled by my presence this morning,” I said. For the past eight years, I’d attended an all-boys school. Seeing a woman on a residence floor was somehow scandalous.

“The room is lovely. I’ve not even explored it all yet. I agree that it was disconcerting to find a man in the hall. I’ve been at Green Hill Women’s College for eight years. The only men we see are those coming to pick up their dates.”

“Do you... ?”

“Please don’t make any other arrangements for me, Mr. Cyning. It is simply something we must get used to. The proximity will serve us well if we are to work together.” She was being particularly charming this morning and I was having difficulty maintaining an employer/employee detachment. Even though I’d had no use for girls at the time, our clutch of friends seemed always to be together. We would probably have become friends if we’d stayed at the same school. I wasn’t even certain what else I would say to her this morning. If there were five girls there, it wouldn’t be a problem. I wouldn’t need to relate to any one of them. But with just one, I was having trouble getting my thoughts together.

We reached the kitchen and I pulled a chair out for her. I’d called down to Cook to let him know there would be two for breakfast. My parents took nearly all their meals in their private dining room and Grandmother even had a small kitchen in her suite. Only occasionally had I eaten a meal she cooked, though. Usually when I dined with her, Cook sent Ricardo with our meals.

I grabbed two cups from the counter and filled them with strong black coffee.

“Do you take anything in your coffee?” I asked as I set Meredith’s coffee in front of her.

“I believe everything is on the table,” she said pointing to a creamer and a sugar bowl. I didn’t take anything in my coffee and couldn’t remember seeing those on the table before.

“Here we are, Mr. Liam. Miss Meredith. Enjoy your breakfast and let me know if you need anything. I’m just getting ready to prepare the evening meal. Will you both be here or with either of the elder families?” Cook asked.

“I believe we’ll take the meal here,” I said. “No one has invited us anywhere else.”

“Very well. As usual, there will be luncheon items in the refrigerator for your convenience.”

“Thank you, Cook.” The meal looked incredible. Bacon, ham, sausage, a mound of hash browns, pancakes, and eggs. I dug in and really had no time for a pleasant conversation while we were eating. Perhaps, in fact, I was focusing on my food in order to avoid talking. I was sure Meredith noticed.

By the end of breakfast, my plate was clean while Meredith’s still had half the food left on it. “Did the breakfast not suit your taste?” I asked.

“I shall—just this once—cross into a subject that would not normally be discussed in polite conversation. Liam, how much do you weigh?”

“Me? Weigh? I suppose around one-forty or one-forty-five. And you?”

“I repeat, that is normally not considered a polite question. However, I started this to give you precisely that information. I weigh about one-oh-five. Now, considering a forty-pound difference in our weights, the fact that you have burned over twelve hundred calories in a morning run, and your athletic metabolism, how could I possibly eat as much as you?”

“Oh. Oh! I see. I’ll discuss the matter with Cook.”

“No, please don’t. This is for me to discuss with Cook. We are both on staff. Getting you involved would make him nervous.” I could see Meredith’s point. I’d never be able to address the issue without stumbling all over myself anyway. “Now that breakfast is out of the way, why don’t we have another cup of coffee and chat for a bit?”

I couldn’t avoid it any longer. Meredith and I needed to talk and I had no idea what to say. Erich had talked me through a list of conversation starters before my first date. I figured that was as good a place to start as any. As far as I knew, we had no work to do, so we might as well get to know each other better.

“Meredith, where do you go to school?”

“I attend the Green Hill Women’s College where I have studied for eight years,” she said. “The women’s college starts as a middle school and goes through a baccalaureate degree if one stays there long enough. I fancy it is not much different than Elenchus for boys. And by the way, that was a great question. Would you like to know what I study?” When I’d asked that question of my date last spring, she’d looked at me blankly and said, “High school stuff, of course. This is my school.”

“Yes, please. I have no experience with schools other than Elenchus and the public school where we first met.”

“My major focus is now Social Studies.”

I was puzzled. “Is that like Sociology?”

Meredith laughed at my comparison. “Not quite. Sociology is a science, sometimes considered a part of Social Studies, that deals with the development, structure, and functioning of human society. Social Studies is a broader and less scientific study of social interaction and the various roles people play in society. It includes history, government, economics, civics, sociology, geography, class structure, and anthropology. Green Hill is the only school in the state that has a program defined as Social Studies. Years ago, it was called women’s studies but it was expanded to the broader topic since everything at Green Hill is a woman’s study of some sort.”

“I like your laugh.” That was totally inappropriate. I needed to find more questions. What was next on the list?

“Thank you. I find many things amusing that others don’t. I was afraid I might laugh and offend you and you’d ask me to leave.”

“Why ever would you think that, Miss Sauvage? Am I such an ass?”

“Oh, no. I just didn’t want you to think I was laughing at you. We’re very different people. And I’m sorry to say that before we were split up and sent to different schools, we never really had a chance to become friends, though it seemed we were always in the same group of friends,” she said.

“I have to take the blame for that. I was decidedly antisocial when it came to girls. I can’t believe how stupid I was. It took me about six months at Elenchus to realize that I really missed having girls around. And now that I’ve been there eight years, I find that I have no idea how to interact.” That was probably more than I’d said to her at one time since we met the day before. It seemed so strange to have been apart so many years and now be next-door neighbors.

“It is typical of that age group. You were right on the cusp of learning to appreciate girls and I’d already started wanting to be closer to boys. It was probably for the best that we were sent to boarding schools. In many ways, we’ve lived in different worlds.”

“How so?” I was learning a lot about Meredith in this conversation.

“You’re an only child raised by Promoters in a Leader’s household. I am the youngest of five—all brothers—raised by Creators.”

“Was that difficult?” I tried to imagine what it would have been like to have siblings. I rather thought it would be fun.

“I wouldn’t call it difficult, exactly. It was certainly interesting. I think having brothers helped shape my determination to stand up for myself. And contributed to the power of my right hook.” We both laughed at that. It was still embarrassing but I held no ill will toward her for disciplining me. “Much to my parents’ disappointment, none of us turned out Creators. I like things more dependable and smooth running. Not to the extent a Defender would require. But I never knew when ‘the mood’ would strike my parents. They called it inspiration. I thought of it as mood swings.”

“They became depressed?”

“No. Not usually. For example, I might be all dressed and ready to go to an event with them, or even out shopping, and suddenly they’d disappear. It might be two hours later that we left or we might not leave at all.”

“Where did they go?” I didn’t even know what her parents did. Creators were often artists, musicians, or performers. Vocation was not the same as class, though.

“Oh, to the studio, the garden, the kitchen, the bedroom. Their passion leaks all over everything.” She laughed again. I found I wanted to hear that sound often.

“Miss Sauvage, I have no idea what I am supposed to be doing in life. I have an interest in many things but nothing grabs and holds me with the passion you describe.” I took a deep breath and plunged on. “Do you suppose it will be possible to recapture that lost moment from our childhood when we could have become friends?” Her green eyes bored into my own and for a moment, I was afraid I’d offended her. Then her expression softened some.

“I should like that, Mr. Cyning. I should like that very much.”

We relaxed as we chatted over coffee. It wasn’t the first time I’d talked to a woman one-on-one but it was the first time I could remember not being completely tongue-tied. Except Grandmother. I never had difficulty talking to her.

“So, since we don’t have a packed agenda this week and are still working on figuring out what we’re doing, I won’t be spending every night and every day here, if that is all right. I made a commitment to help with the Children’s Hospital Auxiliary this weekend. They are having a fund-raising and awareness festival at Patriot Park,” Meredith said. That sparked something in me. I was on my vacation and seriously doing nothing. I’d just been thinking this weekend about volunteer activities.