“Do you know anyone at the school named Shultz?”
“As in Peanuts Schulz?”
“No,” I say. “What about Blount? Or Dent?”
“Who are they?”
“Historical footnotes.”
“Not ringing any bells,” Nate says.
“No worries. I’ll see you on Saturday,” I say, signing off.
The school’s Web site has a list of local accommodations; I start calling, but all the hotels and B& Bs are booked. By the time I speak to the woman at the Wind Song, I’m imagining sleeping in the car. It’s fine, I’ll bring some pillows, the arctic sleeping bag, extra blankets, some Ambien, and find a safe place right on campus.
“Is there anything you can do to help me?” I beg. “I can’t let this kid down, I’m all he’s got, his mother died, his father is under lock and key — do you have any ideas?”
“My daughter’s room,” the woman says. “We don’t usually rent it, but there’s a twin bed, I can let you have it — a hundred and fifty a night, breakfast included, shared bathroom.”
“Perfect,” I say.
“Actually,” she says, pausing — and in the background I hear voices—“I was wrong, it’s a hundred and eighty a night. Like I said, we don’t usually rent it, but my husband is reminding me that last time we did, it was one eighty. There’s a new mattress.”
“Can I give you my credit card?” I say, fearing another uptick in the price if I don’t act fast.
Determined to do a good job playing the parental substitute, I borrow a tie, shoes, and a sport coat from George’s closet and depart promptly at 6 a.m. on Saturday. It takes two hours and twenty minutes to crawl to the edge of Massachusetts. At the gates of the academy, parents in their Mercedes wagons and weekend toy sports cars are directed to the main building, where coffee and Danish are being served. Young men with names like Scooter and Biff greet their parents, gruffly hugging their corduroy fathers and politely pecking the boiled-wool mothers. They all have the same heart-shaped faces, deeply American, impenetrable. There are four Asians, three blacks, and that’s it for diversity.
The school is laid out like an olde English village and makes the college where I teach look like an urban vocational school buried in one of the five boroughs that at best would teach men and women how to change oil and fix TV sets. The main building is a mansion, grand, imposing, with enormous oil portraits of the school’s founding fathers hung high, large flower arrangements on ancient wooden cabinets. Everything is dark — there’s a lot of deep, dark wood paneling, secret passageways, old leather sofas and chairs. On long tables dressed in starched white tablecloths they’ve laid out quite a spread. Nate finds me in the coffee line; I’m grateful to spot a familiar face.
“The Danish are really good, you should have one,” I say, unsure of the protocol regarding my hugging him or not — I assume not.
“I already did,” he says. “They bake them every weekend. There’s a pastry chef on staff.”
“How did you end up at this school?” I whisper.
“You mean, what’s a loser like me doing in a place like this?” He pauses. “I test really well, and Dad used to be ‘someone.’ The Chairman of the Board of the network is a very active alum.”
“You have friends here?”
“Yes,” he says. “I’m happy here, happier here than at home.”
“And Ash is at a place like this too?” I ask, chewing through a cinnamon bun.
“Hers is different. The girls live in small houses, not dorms. It’s a bit less competitive, more homey.”
“Your mom did a great job finding the right places for you guys.” I slip a bagel with cream cheese, wrapped in a cloth napkin, into the pocket of my sport coat. My hand bumps into something. “Tessie sent this,” I say, pulling a well-chewed rawhide from my pocket and handing it to Nate. He smiles. As we walk out of the building, Nate points out the library: “We have approximately one-point-five million volumes and an active interlibrary loan system.”
“Better than most small colleges and where I teach,” I say.
“Wait until you see the pool,” Nate says.
Outside the field house, a man dressed like a court jester hands out parchment scrolls tied with a ribbon, like something they would have passed out in Rome long ago.
“It’s the program for today’s events,” Nate says. “It begins with the dedication — used to be the firing of the first arrow, now it’s the Headmaster’s cannon. He’s from Scotland.”
Moments later, there’s a droning of bagpipes, and a pair of pipers slowly crosses the hill opposite us, followed by the Headmaster, marching in his plaid kilt, pumping his scepter up and down, keeping time. “He’s naked under there,” Nate whispers, “that’s the tradition. And he’s hung like a horse and makes sure everyone knows it.” From the grassy knoll, the cannon is fired, and reflexively I duck. “Let the games begin,” the Headmaster declares.
“Do you have a sport?” it suddenly occurs to me to ask.
“Sure,” Nate says, “ice hockey, lacrosse, tennis, I’m on the inter-school fencing team, and swimming — we’ll do both of those today. I also do hurdles and the pommel horse. And I signed us up for father/ son rock climbing.”
“I didn’t even know you liked sports,” I say. I really only ever saw the kid playing video games.
In the field house, the coaches remind us that “these games are intended as demonstrations of our programs rather than competitive events. Within the school we work to build teams so our boys can bond.” The coaches spew catchphrases such as “environment of success” and “a prize for every player, medals for all who participate.” But, despite the coaches’ talk, everyone is clearly keeping track of who wins and loses.
“Which one is yours?” one of the parents asks me, nodding towards the cluster of boys.
“I’m with Nate,” I say.
And I feel the theoretically imperceptible recoil. “Of course,” he says, and nothing more; they all know what happened.
I look at Nate — tall, tousled. The other boys are a range of shapes and sizes and pimple patterns. Nate is among the better-looking, attractive in a way that the others are not. In sport he is neither the best nor the worst; what is clear is that he is the one they all want on their team. He’s a reliable performer, steady, true, with no need to sacrifice the team for personal gratification. I feel an unfamiliar sensation of pride, a rising in the chest, a pleasant reflux as I watch Nate butterfly-stroke across the pool. I cringe, during the fencing exhibition, when the other boy lunges forward, “stabbing” Nate, and the “assault” is called to an end.
At lunch, various boys and their mothers stop by our table. “If you ever need a place to go during the holidays, you can always come ski with us,” one mom says. Another squeezes his shoulder and asks, “Are you holding up?”
“I’m doing well,” Nate says.
“Of course you are,” she says.
I’m eating my second piece of cake, simply because it is there, because there were four kinds of cake to choose from and two seemed reasonable. I am eating cake when Nate fills me in about the father/ son rock climbing.
“It’s right after lunch,” he says, clearly looking forward to it.
“It’s a tradition,” I say sarcastically as I’m pushing my plate away. Too late, one whole piece of cheesecake is gone and half of the chocolate layer.
“Yes,” Nate says. “It’s on a man-made indoor wall three stories tall. The fathers aren’t expected to go all the way up, but some will — even if it kills them, some will always exceed expectations.”
“I’m not that man,” I say bluntly. “How about I stand at the bottom and watch you.”