Page 10 of Stay Buried

“Your zone of greatness?”

“Yeah, remember, I told you about what I learned from that seminar I went to last month, how twenty percent of your actions account for eighty percent of your results. And that twenty percent, that’s you working at your best, at the thing you do that no one else does like you do. That’s your zone of greatness.”

She gave a vague nod, not remembering, but also not wanting the self-improvement lecture to go on and on. Malcolm was always reading books, watching videos, and attending seminars that were supposed to help him be his best version of himself and make him attract wealth and success beyond his wildest dreams.

“So most of my businesses, they’ve been focused on me selling a product, right? But I’ve realized that’s not where my talents lie.” He was sitting on the edge of his chair, bouncing his knees.

“Okay,” Ashley said. “So tell me, what do you see your zone of greatness as being?”

“I’m good with people, right?”

She nodded. Her brother was nothing if not a charmer. It was the reason friends and family and even random strangers kept loaning him money for his endeavors and agreeing to go into business with him.

“Hospitality.”

She blinked at him. “Hospitality?” she repeated.

“I want to open an inn or a bed-and-breakfast. Something small and niche. Do a farm-to-table thing. People love that. Maybe we could even grow food and have chickens and stuff on-site.”

Ashley kept nodding, taking a big hit of weed, holding it, letting it seep in, loosen her up, as she studied her younger brother through the haze of smoke. He needed a haircut, and she still hadn’t gotten used to the dark, bushy beard he’d been growing out. His dark brown eyes were bloodshot, but had that contagious little-boy excitement Ashley had always loved. When you were with him, you started jiggling your knees too, and you believed every word he said, wanting to give him whatever he needed to help bring his latest scheme to life.

“I think this is what the visions I had back in Peru were telling me. Remember, I kept seeing a white house with big, beautiful gardens?”

She nodded.

Malcolm had gone in on a cryptocurrency trading business with his best friend, Dan, two years ago and actually made a little money before getting out of it. But after their mom died, he promptly spent everything he had on a monthlong “transformative journey” to Peru, where he did ayahuasca with a shaman who turned out not to be a shaman at all, but a dentist from New Jersey. Malcolm returned from Peru out of money and with the beard, which he’d grown because he’d seen a vision of himself—a more powerful version of himself—with it.

Gram had gone up to bed an hour ago, but they could hear her walking around upstairs, slippered feet dragging across the hardwood floors. The sound of doors opening and closing reverberated through the house.

“So what do you think?” Malcolm asked, both of them eyeing the ceiling.

Ashley took in a deep breath, wondering if now was the time to point out that he had no money, zero experience in hospitality, and no chance of getting a loan.

She smiled and looked back down at him. “I think it sounds great,” she said.

“It is great. Itis! But the thing is, I can’t do it on my own. I think that’s why you kept showing up in my visions too. You were there with me at the white house with the gardens. It all makes sense now.”

Ash held her breath and thought,Here we go.

“I was wondering if you might want to invest. Help me buy a place. It doesn’t need to be anything fancy. I can fix it up, put in the sweat equity. You don’t have to do any work at all, really. Just provide a little capital so we can put money down on a place. Once it’s up and running, the mortgage will be taken care of.”

She shook her head, which felt heavy on her neck. “Seriously, Mal? I work in a bakery. I’m not sitting on a big pile of cash.”

Ashley worked part-time as a baker at the Tin Whistle, a little café in town. She’d taken the job when she moved in with Gram. She was just out of the hospital and had decided to take time off from med school. Time to focus on getting well. She got to work at four thirty in the morning and baked bread, muffins, cookies, and pies until ten. There was something soothing about following recipes, mixing dough, the ovens heating up the kitchen, filling the whole place with warm, comforting smells. Baking made sense to her in a time when few things made sense: not her mother’s death or her own breakdown and hospitalization, not the fact that she’d left medical school, giving up on the dream that had been the sole focus of her lifefor as long as she could remember. She felt delicate and fragile then, like a woman made of paper who might blow away or disintegrate in a stiff breeze. Baking gave her a sense of purpose, made her feel solid and real and like she was accomplishing something useful: making food to nourish people.

She didn’t make much money, and most of what she earned went to pay Gram room and board—something Gram said was unnecessary considering all the work Ashley did around the house, but Ash insisted. She wasn’t going to be anyone’s freeloader. And it was just temporary, she told herself and Gram. She’d go back to med school eventually.

But it had been nearly two years. Two years of living with Gram and being a baker at a little café. Not the future everyone (herself included) had envisioned for her.

“I get it, Ash. I do,” Malcolm said now. “It’s just that I really believe this might be it. The thing I’m meant to do. It just feels right, you know? And it’s okay if you can’t help. I know that if it’s truly meant to be, I can manifest it. The things I need will come to me.”

Ashley let out a frustrated chuff of air. The room felt too small, too smoky. She looked down at the joint in her hand, fingertips still stained red.

Sometimes Malcolm’s magical thinking amused her, but sometimes it seemed downright pathetic. For a smart guy, he believed a lot of flaky shit.

The dragging sound intensified above them.

“What, is she moving her furniture around now?” Malcolm asked, brow furrowed.