He almost called Renee. He put it down. Not yet. He was not ready to be someone she should answer yet.
He needed to be further along the road before he knocked on that door. He was not going to show up asking for forgiveness until he had something real to show for the asking.
That was not pride. That was respect. The kind of respect you show someone by not asking them to trust you before you have earned it.
He put the phone down and he went to sleep and he got up in the morning.
That was the week that mattered most. Not the weeks that were easy. That one.
He came out on a Thursday morning in November. Diane was in the parking lot.
She had told him she would be there. She was there. He got in the car.
She said, “Wayne State University, evening program, business administration. 2 years. You can use most of your existing credits.
Three nights a week.” He said, “Diane, I want to pay you back properly. Every dollar,” she said.
Then earn it. When you are ready, come to me with work I cannot say no to.
Do not ask me for a favor. Show me what you can do. He said that is what I am going to do.
She said there is an apartment on the east side. Clean and safe. 6 months while you find your footing.
After that you stand alone. He said after that I stand alone. Wayne State University evening program, business administration.
Midway through the second year, there was an assignment, a full financial analysis of a fictional midsize company, the kind of assignment that separated the students who understood numbers from the students who had lived inside them for decades.
Eugene had lived inside them for 22 years. He spent 3 days on it, not because it was hard, because he wanted to be certain, because he had learned in the past two years that the difference between doing something and doing something right was the only difference that mattered.
His professor, Dr. Ozari, called him in the following week. She said, “How long have you been out of the industry?”
He said, “8 years.” She said, “It does not read like 8 years. It reads like 8 weeks.”
He said, “I spent 8 years trying to forget a lot of things. The numbers were not one of them.”
She looked at him for a moment. She said, “When you graduate, what are you going to do?”
He said, “Open something small, something I can build honestly.” She said, “This city needs that more than it needs another consultant.”
He walked out of her office and stood in the hallway and thought about a marble counter and $2 and a revolving door in the rain.
