Enthusiasm

by Polly Shulman

  Samantha came by the next day with an armful of flowers. I recognized them from her parents’ greenhouse. She made Zach drive her in the famous Saab, but she wouldn’t let him get out of the car. “Happy birthday,” she said. “These are from my idiot brother. I’m delivering them personally to make sure the message comes through loud and clear. They’re not romantic flowers. They’re happy-birthday, I’m-sorry-I-molested-you, will-you-ever-forgive-me-or-does-my-sister-have-to-kill-me flowers.”

  “I wanted to get you roses, but Sam wouldn’t let me,” called Zach from the car.

  “Shut up!” said Sam, and hit him through the window.

  For Christmas, Ashleigh’s parents gave her a pair of tickets to see Fascination! on Broadway, and she invited me. We rode down on the Metro-North train and stayed overnight with my aunt Ruth and uncle John. We spent the afternoon before the show eating dumplings in Chinatown, browsing through the giant used bookstore in the Village, and trying on false moustaches at a theatrical supply shop.

  The best part of the show was the songs. Ashleigh couldn’t get over the voices and the orchestration, and I thought the lyrics were almost as clever as Parr’s. When the curtain fell, we clapped until our hands went numb.

  We slept in Aunt Ruth and Uncle John’s living room, Ashleigh on the couch and me on an inflatable mattress. I sank slowly through my dreams and woke up in the morning flat on the floor, with a crick in my back. “Oh, dear,” said Aunt Ruth. “Looks like the bed needs a patch. Sorry about that.”

  We spent the morning at the Frick Museum, the former Fifth Avenue mansion of a nineteenth-century steel magnate that houses his art collection. We enjoyed ourselves arguing about which of the portraits matched which of the people we knew. Ashleigh was easy: she could have been the model for George Romney’s portrait of Lady Hamilton, a pretty young woman in a red dress with abundant dark hair and a lively little dog under her arm. It was harder to find a picture of me, though. Ashleigh pointed to a graceful Gainsborough lady in an elaborate blue dress, but I felt more like a severe Whistler girl in black.

  After lunch Ashleigh said, “Hey, doesn’t Grandison Parr live in this neighborhood? Let’s go check out his house. Maybe Ned will be there too.”

  “I don’t know, Ash,” I said. I felt the familiar dread of public embarrassment. “What will we say if they see us? And why would Ned be there, anyway?”

  “We’ll say we were in the neighborhood, which is true. And Ned told me he’d be spending some of the vacation with the Parrs. Come on.” She pulled my arm over her shoulder with both her hands and used it to tug me down the street.

  “Okay, okay, let go,” I said. Recovering my arm, I followed her with a sigh.

  Parr turned out to live in a tall, narrow town house that looked as if it had been built around the same time as the Frick Museum, a century or so ago. It had a limestone stoop leading up to a shiny red door. My heart fluttered to think that I was looking at his home, where he read, showered, slept, dreamed.

  My heart fluttered even more—in a very bad way—when Ashleigh started up the stairs to ring the doorbell. I hauled her back. “No. Absolutely not. People don’t just ring each other’s doorbells around here.” She protested, but I refused to let go. “If you do, I’m leaving without you. I’ll catch the early train back. I’m serious, Ashleigh.”

  “Oh, all right,” she said. She leaned against a tree on the sidewalk in front and looked up. “Which window do you think is his? Do you think Ned is staying in the guest room? Which window do you think is the guest room?”

  The thought that Parr might be standing behind one of those windows—might look out and see us—sent scared thrills buzzing in my wrists. “I don’t know,” I said. “You’ve seen where he lives, okay? Can we go now?”

  “Just hang on a minute—maybe they’ll come out.”

  “If they do, I’ll die of embarrassment. Come on, let’s go. It’s cold out here. I feel like an idiot.”

  “Well, if you let me ring the doorbell, we could go in and get warm,” said Ashleigh.

  “Good-bye, I’m leaving now, see you back in Byzantium,” I said.

  “Okay, okay, okay! Just wait a little. Maybe they’ll come out.”

  Fortunately, they didn’t.

  A tall blonde girl walked by slowly, looking at the windows. “Do you think that’s that girlfriend of Parr’s?” I whispered.

  “What girlfriend?”

  “That Sam’s friend was talking about—remember, in the e-mail?”

  “Could be. I’ll go ask her—maybe she knows where they are,” said Ashleigh.

  “Ashleigh, you’re nuts! Don’t you dare,” I hissed, holding her arm as tightly as I could. The girl walked away down the block.

  After half an hour of stamping in the cold, even Ashleigh admitted her feet were getting numb. We caught the 2:25 north from Grand Central.

  The weather turned bitter after New Year’s. Drafts slashed through my attic. They were more painful than usual because my mother and I had decided to keep the thermostat low, to save on heating oil. I piled every available blanket on the bed and took to sleeping in my warmest, ugliest pajamas, the ones with fried eggs on them. I even wore a cap to bed.

  Snow fell: not enough to shut the schools, alas, but enough to add half an hour of shoveling to our mornings. Our tree grew damp and awkward, liable to dump snow down our necks. Ashleigh and I suspended our arboreal crossings until kinder weather.

  School started again. In history, the French revolutionaries stormed the Bastille. In English, we began reading Pride and Prejudice, to my dismay—I worried the Nettle would ruin my favorite book. Ashleigh and Yolanda did their best by raising their hands nonstop and talking as long as possible whenever she called on them. For once, though, Seth’s class participation fell. He’s one of those boys who consider Jane Austen silly and trivial. He did have a few nice things to say about Elizabeth’s father, Mr. Bennet, whom he found witty, in contrast to the “repellent” Mr. Darcy.

  The Forefielders returned to their palace on the hill. Ashleigh got e-mail from Ned saying they were back. He had indeed spent his vacation with the Parrs, but on Bermuda, not in Manhattan, so I had wasted all my anxiety on East 74th Street. Insomnia rehearsals didn’t start up yet, however—the boys had their finals after their vacation, poor things, and extracurriculars were suspended so they could study.

  “Did you hear anything last night, Julie?” asked Ashleigh one morning as we waited for the school bus.

  “What kind of anything?”

  “Sort of thrashing. I thought it was a bear, or a deer eating the tree, but when I looked in the morning, I saw footprints in the snow. People feet, not deer hoofs. Unless the deer was wearing boots.”

  “Do you think it was a person eating the tree?”

  “People don’t usually like bark, do they?”

  “Not unless it’s almond bark.”

  We paused for a moment of nostalgia, remembering the many delicious pounds of almond bark we had made during Ashleigh’s candy-making period.

  “Funny, I wonder who it was,” said Ashleigh.

  There were no more footprints when we checked for the next couple of days, but three days later—a Saturday—we found the snowdrift beneath our tree kicked and dented. Not only that, but pinned to the tree with a red thumbtack was a sonnet, its edges curling from the damp. Fortunately, it had been written in ballpoint, so the ink hadn’t run.

  This is what it said:

  Just let me wait a little while longer

  Under your window in the quiet snow.

  Let me stand here and shiver. I’ll be stronger

  If I can see your light before I go.

  All through the weeks I’ve tried to keep my balance.

  Leaves fell, then rain, then shadows. I fell, too.

  Easy restraint is not among my talents;

  Fall turned to winter and I came to you.

  Kissed by the snow, I contemplate your face.

  O do not hide it in your p
illow yet!

  Warm rooms would never lure me from this place

  If only I could see your silhouette.

  Turn on your light, my sun, my summer love.

  Zero degrees down here: July above.

  “Wow!” said Ashleigh. “Somebody likes you!”

  “Why me? It could just as easily be you.”

  “He tacked it to your side of the tree.”

  “That’s the easiest side to reach.”

  “But it’s obviously about you, Julie! He even uses your name. Look, ‘July above.’ Not quite Julie, but close enough. And he says, ‘Easy restraint is not among my talents.’ If that’s not Ned describing himself, I don’t know what it is. He’s so sincere—so spontaneous—so unrestrained!”

  “I disagree—it doesn’t sound like Ned to me,” I said. “That’s not how he writes. He misspells like crazy, and he doesn’t use punctuation—at least, in e-mail he doesn’t. If I were going to guess, I’d say it’s Parr. We know he likes to rhyme. Doesn’t pillow yet/silhouette sound like some of the Insomnia lyrics? And balance/talents?”

  “Parr? I guess that’s possible. Does Parr like you too? Ned and Parr? Well, I don’t blame them a bit!”

  Parr! Writing love poems to me? Could it be possible? And was there pain in Ashleigh’s voice as she suggested it? I hastened to reassure her. “No, no, Ash, he’s clearly talking about you,” I said. “Listen: ‘My sun, my summer love.’ That’s got to be you, you’re much sunnier than me.”

  “No, silly, that’s you, you’re the sunny one—I’m dark and curly. Could it be Seth? He writes for that literary magazine of yours, and we know for a fact that he likes you.”

  “Oh, I hope not! I don’t think so, though. He thinks he’s Emerson, not Shakespeare.”

  We debated for a while longer without resolving the question. Ashleigh, generous girl—stubborn girl—insisted that I take the sonnet home with me. I pinned it on my bulletin board beside the other mysterious note, the one from the chocolate turkey. I studied them, trying to decide whether the same person had written them both. The turkey note was cramped and messier, possibly because the writer had to fit his message on the side of a small box, but the letters seemed not dissimilar. I decided I needed a larger handwriting sample from the turkey giver before I could say for sure.

  Chapter 17

  A Limited Junior License ~ A disastrous Mocharetto ~ Mint Sauce ~ My father and stepmother Approve.

  Seth Young stopped me as I was leaving school with Ashleigh and the Gerards that Tuesday. “Oh, Julie, Ms. Nettleton says the printer called,” he said. “The bound copies of Sailing are ready. Eleanor asked me to pick them up. Can you come help? It’s over in North Byz.”

  It seemed impossible to refuse without being rude. “All right—how are we getting there? Is Ms. Nettleton driving us?”

  “No,” he said proudly, “I am. I got my license last week.”

  “Don’t you need an adult in the car till you’re eighteen?”

  “Nope—Limited Junior License: may drive alone for school course or activity. This is a school activity.”

  I gave Ashleigh a help-me look. “Great!” she said. “North Byz—that’s where Yv and Yo live. You can take the three of us with you and drop us off.”

  Seth gave her a look of fake concern. “Sorry, Ashleigh, I wish I could, but it’s a Limited Junior License. No more than two underage passengers.”

  I tried a last-ditch effort to discourage him. “I better call my dad and see if it’s okay. I’m not sure he’ll want me driving with someone who just got his license last week.”

  “Let me talk to him, then,” said Seth.

  Worse and worse.

  Terri, Dad’s receptionist, put me through. “Dad, is it okay if I come home a little late? I need to go with my friend Seth to pick up the bound copies of Sailing to Byzantium. The literary magazine, remember? He’ll be driving—he got his driver’s license last week.”

  Dad expressed concern, as I’d hoped he would.

  “Yes, just last week. I don’t know, I’ve never seen him drive, but I’m sure it’ll be fine, he’s very energetic,” I said in an attempt to alarm my father further while making Seth think I was calming him down.

  Seth tugged on my arm to ask for the phone. “Hang on,” I told Dad, “he wants to talk to you.”

  “Hello, Dr. Lefkowitz?” said Seth. “Seth Young. I just wanted to assure you that I’m a very safe driver and I’ll take good care of your daughter. I had sixty hours of practice before I took my road test—twice the recommended state guidelines. I got perfect scores on all the exams, including the road test. I’m certified in first aid and CPR. Not that I expect them to be necessary this afternoon, of course, but I think it speaks to my character. What? Yes, my parents’ Volvo. . . . No, never. . . . Of course. . . . Oh, that sounds wonderful, thank you very much, I’ll just have to ask my parents.” He handed me the phone back. “He wants to talk to you again.”

  “Your friend sounds like a very responsible young man,” said my father. “I invited him to dinner. Amy’s roasting a leg of lamb.”

  Seth drove exactly at the speed limit the whole way to the printer, coming to a complete stop at every stop sign. He held the steering wheel with both hands and checked his mirrors five times a minute.

  We handed over our paperwork in the storefront office and sat down to wait on the mahogany-red vinyl sofa. Seth draped his arm along the back, a little too close to me, but not quite close enough that I could shrug it off. I stood up and wandered around the room to look at the framed handbills hanging on the walls, samples of the printer’s work. After a few minutes, we heard the thumping trundle of our order approaching on a dolly.

  “Here you go, kids,” said the printer. “There’s your disk back, and your receipt.”

  Seth insisted on opening a box and inspecting a copy of the magazine. He flipped through it, snapping the pages to feel the weight of the paper, and studied the cover picture through a magnifying frame he found on the counter. I couldn’t help rolling my eyes.

  The printer winked at me. “Everything look okay?” he asked Seth.

  Seth completed his inspection. “It’s all good,” he pronounced.

  We rolled the boxes out to the car, Seth pulling, me steadying, the dolly doing its best to make a break for it, and loaded them into the trunk. They were heavier than they looked. “Bend from the knees,” instructed Seth. “Use your legs, not your back.”

  On the way back to school, I made up my mind to find out whether Seth was responsible for the sonnet on the tree. I hoped not, but if so, perhaps there was more to him than I thought.

  “Seth, have you ever written a sonnet?” I asked.

  “Oh, yes, several. I had one in the issue before last of Sailing—don’t you remember? My most recent was for Ms. Nettleton’s class, for the creative writing assignment in October. It was about moral responsibility. Why do you ask? Are you writing one? Would you like me to read it and give you advice? It’s a tricky form, but I’m sure you can learn.”

  Seth, I concluded with a silent sigh of relief, could not be our secret arboreal author. Last weekend’s sonnet, with its references to snow, must have been written more recently than October, and if Seth had written it, he would have made sure I knew.

  After we unloaded the boxes in the English Department office—Seth had Ms. Nettleton’s elevator key, a sign of supreme favor—he asked, “Want to stop at the Java Jail? It’s only four-thirty, so we have plenty of time before your dad expects us. Come on, let’s get a mocharetto. This is cause for celebration!”

  “All right,” I said reluctantly. “Just one.”

  The Java Jail was crowded when we got there. I grabbed the only table left, a tippy, drafty one near the door, while Seth went to order.

  Looking around, I saw with alarm that most of the customers were boys in Forefield uniforms. What if someone I knew saw me with Seth?

  He came back with our steaming drinks. “Here you go.” He moved his c
hair closer to mine and lifted his paper cup in its dimpled cardboard sleeve. “A toast: to Sailing, the magazine that brought us together!”

  As I lifted my cup in return, I felt a cold blast run down my neck. Foreboding? Air from outside? It seemed rude not to return the toast. But I couldn’t quite bear to meet Seth’s eyes, so I turned mine away—and met, instead, the eyes of Grandison Parr, standing at the door.

  “Hello, Julia,” said Parr, with a formal smile.

  “Parr! What are—I thought you guys had finals.”

  “They ended today. We get the afternoon out to blow off steam.”

  Seth cleared his throat.

  “Oh! I’m sorry,” I said. “Seth Young—Grandison Parr. Seth—Seth and I—we work on the literary magazine—he’s in my English class—we just . . .” I trailed off.

  “How do you do?” said Seth stiffly, offering his hand, as if he expected a Forefield boy to have fancy manners and wanted to prove that his were just as good.

  Parr took his hand and shook it. “A pleasure. Well, don’t let me interrupt.” He gave me another formal smile and moved on into the café.

  Should I have asked him to join us? But I wouldn’t have been able to bear it, having Parr see Seth at his most pompous, having Parr think that this was the sort of person I would choose to associate with. My mocharetto scorched my mouth. I edged my chair around so that I had my back to Parr. For the duration of our drinks, I felt my back burning like a sacked and fallen city.

  Naturally, my father was pulling into the garage just as Seth and I drove up. He stood at the door and watched Seth perform a perfect, though unnecessary, parallel parking maneuver.

  “Come on in,” he said. “Seth, I presume? You’re staying to dinner, right?”

  “Oh, yes, thanks,” said Seth, stepping out of the car and following Dad into the house.