He Took Jude's Money, Ken Won His Heart novel · Chapter 23 of 40
Chapter 23: Fuck Me
The scholarship panel sat at a long table in a room with no windows.
There were four of them, and a fifth empty chair.
Ken had worn the suit July pressed, and the shoes he had polished at six.
He had a folder with his grades, his hours notebook, and a letter from the dean.
The man on the far end of the table was gray-haired and tired-looking.
His name card said he sat on the board of Parker Group.
Ken saw it, and his stomach turned over.
"Mr. Bronze," said the woman in the middle.
"The graduate fellowship covers two years of business school and a stipend. Tell us why it should be you."
He had practiced an answer for three weeks.
He opened his mouth and the answer did not come.
"Before I say anything, ma'am," he said, "I have to tell you something."
"I'd like you to hear it from me."
The gray-haired man raised his eyebrows.
"I live in the Parker family's house."
"I'm paid four thousand dollars a month to tutor their son. I'm also in a relationship with him."
Nobody moved.
"I'm saying it now so nobody thinks I hid it."
"If it matters, I'd rather you decide on the rest, and not on that."
The woman in the middle set down her pen.
"Mr. Bronze, we know."
"You know?"
"The dean mentioned it. And your professor. And, as of last night, about four hundred people with phones."
She almost smiled.
"What we'd like to know is whether you've taken their money."
"Yes, ma'am. For work."
"All of it?"
"I haven't spent it." Ken kept his hands flat on the folder.
"I keep it in a shortbread tin, ma'am. My grandmother's. Every payment since the first week."
"Why?"
"Because I wasn't sure which one I was, the tutor or the boyfriend."
"I thought if I kept them separate, I'd always know."
The gray-haired man leaned forward.
"And now?"
"Now I know," Ken said. "I'm both. They're two lines in the ledger, and I wrote them both down."
The room was very quiet.
Then the gray-haired man put his hand on the table and stood.
"I'm going to recuse myself," he said. "I sit on the Parker board. I won't vote."
He looked at Ken.
"For what it's worth, young man, I've been in sales for forty years. I have never heard an applicant say that."
He went out, and the door shut.
The interview ran another twenty minutes.
They asked about his grandmother, and about the farm, and about a case study on retail distribution.
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