As in:
The kindest way to describe the rap on Lucas is that he was brilliant at the little decisions, at least in contrast to the big ones.
Who to bet on in the Sweet 16, the best way to treat wood for a deck, the right tires for winter driving, the shrewdest thing to say to a cop who pulls you over for speeding. It was genuinely impressive as to how accomplished he was at these lines of questions and decisions. And, to boot, he was an expert at coffee, souffles, curing meat, pruning trees, and even getting nasty grease stains out of blue jeans.
Where to go to school. What to study. Whom to go into business with. How to invest money. Well, for these big ticket items it was just one epic screw-up after another.
Though he would never admit it, it all looped back to losing Brenna Collins.
His early inability to see the big picture with Brenna–that she was everything that he could ever desire in a woman–is what led her to Roger. By comparison to Lucas, Roger seemed to have emerged from his mother’s womb with a strategic plan and talking points. A man known for the notes in his pockets, Roger seized the opportunity and within a month, he’d proposed to the woman that Lucas should have been courting, if not with urgency then at least with a sense of purpose.
Brenna demurred. She was fond of Roger. But for reasons not even she understood, she had to hear from Lucas. So she intercepted him and his lunch tray at a cafeteria they frequented and led him outside into a courtyard.
They sat alone, at a table beneath a Japanese maple where, away from the din inside, they could hear a man practicing an elegy on a double bass. It was just him, and her, and the lunch tray and the sweetly mournful chords of this elegant instrument.
She gave it to him straight. About Roger’s proposal. About her needing to know his feelings before giving her answer to Roger.
He tried looking her in the eyes. But that was terrifying. So his eyes drifted to what was left of his lunch, and settled on his unfinished aspic, with its glistening pieces of chicken, raisins and chunks of boiled egg. He looked deeply and thought he saw little globules in the texture of what was left. And because he couldn’t address Brenna’s question without experiencing paralysis, he focused even more deeply on the aspic, as if there, in the food, was the world of creatures from Horton Hears a Who. And maybe they would be able to feed him a line.
Not soon enough though. After a half minute of silence, Brenna had collected her answer from his evasion. She gently pulled back in her chair, rose to her feet, and walked away.
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