The Tutor

by Peter Abrahams

  “She likes it?”

  “Tennis? Sure.” Didn’t she? She’d been taking lessons for years. Ruby was pretty quick but kind of small, hard to tell whether she’d develop into a real player. But it was important to demonstrate a long-term commitment to a sport, preferably two sports, even if you weren’t athletic scholarship material—parents around the court were talking about that just the other day. Maybe Brandon would move up the ladder this year, not necessarily to Sam’s level—Sam was already playing number three at Andover—but at least getting to where some Division III coach might put in a word for him at the admissions department. Ninety-ninth fucking percentile.

  “A cute kid,” Tom said.

  “Who?”

  “Ruby.”

  “Yeah. The thing is, this Symptomatica deal is the reverse of the last one. Their hot product isn’t going to work. So the play’s to go short.”

  “Selling short? You’re getting involved in shit like that?”

  “Never,” Scott said, and it was almost true. “But in this case there’s no risk. It’s like seeing into the future.”

  Tom glanced at the portrait on the wall, the old man, a year or two after he got sick. To everyone else on the planet, that glance could have meant anything or nothing, but Scott got the message. Seeing the future: was that any way for an insurance man to talk? The foundation of their business was the uncertainty of the future.

  “How do you know this product or whatever it is will fail?” Tom said.

  “Gudukas met one of their scientists on a cruise. Guy’s teaching at MIT now. He cashed out when he realized the thing was doomed. They’re still scrambling around to save it but there’s no way. They made some huge mistake right off the bat.”

  “What mistake?”

  “Something about junk DNA. Gudukas drew the whole thing out on a napkin for me and I understood it at the time, but it’s all very technical and doesn’t matter in the end. What matters is the day those test results come in, the stock will tank.”

  “What’s it trading at?”

  “Closed at twelve and change yesterday. It’s going down to zero, Tom. I was thinking of twenty thousand shares, ten each. We’d clear almost a quarter million.”

  “What’s Gudukas’s angle?”

  “Full-rate commission, if that’s an angle.”

  Tom rocked back and forth in the chair, just like the old man used to do. Scott grew aware of a strange triangle in the room—portrait, Tom, himself. The truth was neither of them looked much like the old man. They resembled their mother, resembled each other even more, Scott being a little bigger, Tom a little darker, his features a little more prominent. Their voices were almost identical—everyone mentioned that.

  “Count me out,” Tom said.

  “You’re walking away from a quarter million, just like that?”

  “I’m not stopping you.”

  Scott took a deep breath. “His brokerage wants some collateral on a deal like this.”

  “Move your account over there.”

  “Not enough.”

  “But what about all that Stentech stock?”

  “Paid for the renovations.”

  “You spent eighty grand on those renovations?”

  “We got our money’s worth,” Scott said. He didn’t mention that some of the eighty grand had gone into another stock that hadn’t worked out as well. He also said nothing about his house being just as nice as Tom’s, maybe nicer. Put it on the same street up in Old Mill, it would be worth . . . a lot more than Tom’s, leave it at that.

  “You’ve got a great house,” Tom said. “I wasn’t saying that.” Like he’d been listening inside.

  Scott shrugged. “I can’t use the retirement account—there’s some SEC thing. And putting up the house would require Linda’s signature.”

  “She doesn’t know about this?”

  “You know how she is.”

  Tom didn’t answer that, just stopped rocking.

  “That leaves the business,” Scott said.

  “The business?”

  “My share. As collateral.”

  Tom was rocking again. H. W. Gardner Insurance: 35 percent Tom, 25 percent him, 40 percent the estate, meaning their mom, now in Arizona.

  “I don’t even know if it’s possible,” Tom said. “At a minimum, it would require my signature and Mom’s on some sort of document, I don’t even know what.”

  Scott said: “I’ll cover any legal fees, goes without saying.”

  Tom said: “Can’t you just walk away from this one?”

  They gazed at each other. This had always been hard for Scott—so much like gazing at himself in the mirror, but a strange self, pained and not fully cooperative. It had nothing to do with the thirty-five/twenty-five split. That was fair: Tom had started with the old man right out of college, while Scott had kicked around for ten or twelve years, first in Boston, then in Hartford, climbing the corporate ladder at Prudential, then Travelers, finally Allstate.

  “Don’t you ever dream of independence, Tom?”

  Tom blinked. “Independence?”

  “Financial independence. Just being free to . . . I don’t know.”

  “We’re doing pretty good here, Scott, both of us. The wives, the kids, everybody.”

  You are, Scott thought. You’re doing good. But he didn’t say it.

  “What about Mom?” Tom said.

  “She’ll do whatever you say, you know that.”

  Tom looked away.

  “I’ll think about it,” he said. “That’s the best I can do.”

  Think fast, for once, Scott thought. The clock is ticking. He meant that just in the narrow sense of the Symptomatica deal, but right away he knew it was bigger than that: why couldn’t Tom hear that goddamn ticking?

  3

  Kyla Gudukas started the deciding point by serving to Ruby’s backhand. Every lesson ended with a round robin, the finalists playing a four no-ad game set, the winner, almost always Kyla, getting a prize like grip tape, Gatorade, or a can of balls from Erich, the pro at the indoor club.

  Ruby got her racket back, stepped into the ball, low to high, low to high as Erich repeated over and over until she wanted to scream, and hit a nice backhand crosscourt. Kyla hit it back, one of those deep shots of hers that was mostly a lob, not hit hard, just getting it back. Ruby hit another backhand crosscourt, maybe even better than the one before. Kyla lobbed it back. Ruby tried hitting the next one to Kyla’s forehand. Kyla lobbed it back. Ruby went to Kyla’s forehand a couple more times. Lob, lob. Then the backhand again. Lob. Three more times. Lob, lob, lob. Thrice—was that a word? A nice one, maybe even a great one. Ruby had a word list where she ranked all—

  She hit the next shot into the net. She must have because there it was, bouncy bouncy, on her side. Game, set, match. They went to the net, shook hands.

  “Nice game.”

  “Nice game.”

  Erich came over with a bottle of Gatorade, the blue kind that Ruby liked best. “Here you go, champ,” he said, handing it to Kyla, but with his Swiss accent or whatever it sounded just like chump, so Ruby started feeling better almost right away. “See everyone here next Monday,” Erich said.

  “Effryone will be here,” said Ruby, very quietly.

  “What was that, Ruby?”

  Maybe not quietly enough. She gave him a winning smile. “Thanks for the lesson.”

  “Oh. You are most welcome.”

  Velcome, velcome, effreyone’s velcome. Ruby zipped her racket into its cover. Four men with knee braces, arm braces, hairy arms, loud voices, came onto the court.

  “Get the court good and warm for us, kids?” said one of them.

  “Don’t burn your feet,” Ruby said.

  Kyla laughed; she had a funny little laugh that Ruby liked.

  They went into the lobby. Ruby drank from the fountain, hardly getting up on her tiptoes at all. Someone had left gum in there.

  “Your mom called, Ruby,” said the lady at the desk. “Sh
e’s going to be a little late.”

  Ruby sat on a bench by the vending machine, checked in her backpack. Had she remembered The Complete Sherlock Holmes? No. Did she have any money left over from lunch, just sixty-five cents for M&M’s? No. She gazed at the M&M’s row through the glass of the vending machine, noticed that the lead pack was half hanging over the edge. Then, without quite being aware of it, she was on her feet, facing the machine. Maybe just a little nudge, completely accidental, like so—

  “Ruby?”

  She whipped around. Kyla, by the front door.

  “My dad says we can give you a ride home.”

  Ruby heard a thud behind her, but soft.

  Mr. Gudukas had a nice car, all soft leather in the back where Ruby and Kyla sat. Alone in front, he glanced at Ruby in the mirror.

  “Where do you live, exactly?” he said.

  Ruby told him.

  “You’re Scott Gardner’s kid, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He and I go way back.”

  Ruby picked out a red one and a green one, passed the M&M’s to Kyla.

  “He hit a pretty good ball back when. Played for UConn, wasn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” said Ruby. She had the green one on the right side of her mouth, red on the left, like a ship. They tasted very, very good. Just shippin’ M&M’s, baby.

  “This your street?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Nice.”

  So if he wasn’t sure Dad went to UConn, they only went so far back, Dr. Watson.

  “Don’t let me go past it.”

  “Next one,” Ruby said.

  Mr. Gudukas parked on the street. An empty Budweiser can rolled out from under the seat in front of Ruby.

  “Very nice,” said Mr. Gudukas, looking at the house. He twisted around and smiled at her, but all she really saw was his mustache, so weird. Mustaches were saying something. Whatever it was, Ruby didn’t want to hear.

  “How long you been living here?” he said.

  “Since before I was born,” Ruby said, opening the door.

  “That conservation land out back?”

  “Yeah,” said Ruby, getting out. It was cold.

  “How many bedrooms?”

  “Four,” Ruby said. Mom and Dad’s, Brandon’s, hers, the empty one at the end of the hall and up those little stairs. She didn’t like being reminded of that empty one. “Thanks for the drive.”

  “Anytime, honey,” said Mr. Gudukas.

  The sky was already that dark blue and purple color that Ruby didn’t like, the color of the bottom of the deep cold sea. The house was dark too. She wished she’d turned some lights on in the morning, and had a funny thought as she unlocked the door: Mrs. Lot comes home. Could make a good caption for one of those Far Side cartoons that were so funny, although what sort of picture would—

  Zippy bolted out the moment she opened the door, streaked right by her, made a beeline for the Strombolis’ house across the street. His feet on their driveway, or his motion or something, triggered all their outdoor lights, which flashed on like Christmas. Zippy couldn’t have been more visible, darting up to their front door—a huge gleaming thing, big enough for a castle, the gleams clear from all the way across the street—darting up to that front door, lifting his leg and peeing all over it. Ruby could see the yellow stain flowing slowly down, the lights were that good. Zippy couldn’t have done a worse thing. The Strombolis hated him, hated the whole family because of him. Lights were going on all over their goddamn house.

  Ruby had read about people freezing in a crisis, completely paralyzed. She hadn’t believed it till now, now that she appeared to be one of them, even incapable of that one simple step into the house, banging the door closed, safety. And now came Zippy, pelting back across the street, all four paws in the air at once, his ears going every which way. As he hit the front lawn, the Strombolis’ huge gleaming door started to open. Ruby couldn’t budge. Zippy, eyes wide, bowled smack into her, knocking her clear into the front hall. Ruby kicked the door closed as she fell, backpack and tennis racket flying, M&M’s clicking across the tile floor.

  Ruby lay in darkness, Zippy panting beside her. She was panting too. She thought of telling him what a bad dog he was, but why? He was hopeless and at the same time he could be worse.

  “Like the hound of the Baskervilles,” she told him. “That would be worse.”

  But he wasn’t listening, was already going after the M&M’s; she could hear them skittering away from him. Ruby got up, started switching on lights. Like idea bulbs in a cartoon; and the moment she had that thought it hit her that tennis and math were a lot alike, the Mad Minute and those stupid four no-ad game sets being almost identical. The backpack thought to that was—

  The phone rang. It made her jump, even cry out a little, although she might have imagined that part. Were the Strombolis nuts? Did they really believe she’d answer?

  The machine picked up. Ruby heard angry Stromboli breathing, then a hang-up. It rang again two seconds later.

  “Knock it off, Strombolis,” Ruby said.

  The machine took the call again. No angry breathing this time. “Anybody home?” said Brandon. Ruby picked up.

  “Hey,” she said. Or maybe, Hey! She was glad to hear his voice.

  “Who’s home?”

  “Me.”

  “Who else?”

  “And Zippy. You know what he—”

  “Forget about fuckin’ Zippy.”

  That little explosion took Ruby by surprise. She was silent.

  “Ruby?” he said, his voice not so harsh. “You still there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Tell Mom and Dad I’ll be a little late.”

  “How late?”

  “Jesus—”

  “They’re gonna ask.”

  “Okay, okay, not too late. I’m over at Dewey’s.” Ruby heard rap in the background. It sounded like Unka Death, maybe that one about “fuck you all we do.” “Working on an essay,” Brandon added.

  “What’s it about?”

  “What’s that to you?” He hung up without saying good-bye.

  She was just interested, that was all. Big-brother shit: nothing to think twice about, but Ruby looked immediately in the obvious place anyway, at the framed color photograph hanging over the hall table. There was the family at the beach in Jamaica a few years before, Brandon not much older than Ruby now. Everyone was smiling except Ruby, who was laughing her head off. Brandon stood behind her, his hand on her shoulder.

  Ruby went into the kitchen. Through the sticking-out window she could see a crescent moon just above the dark mass of the forest. The air was clear or her eyesight especially keen tonight, because the two points of the crescent looked sharp. She switched on the lights and the outside went away.

  Points—that was what those arms on a star were called! Sometimes she was so slow. Zippy’s water bowl was empty again. She filled it.

  “How about hot dogs?” she said. Hot dogs sounded good. She took a package from the freezer. Hot dogs tasted better on the grill and Ruby knew how to work it, turning on the gas, then pressing the button that made the spark, but she didn’t feel like going out on the deck. Not because of the darkness, nothing like that, don’t think that for a moment. Too cold for grilling, nothing more.

  Ruby boiled two hot dogs, found they were out of buns, stuck them inside folded slices of bread, sat down at the table with everything she needed: mustard, relish, Sprite, The Complete Sherlock Holmes. The sitting room at 221-B Baker Street in early April 1883 materialized, grew more and more solid.

  “I am a dangerous man to fall foul of!” said Dr. Roylott, the terrified woman’s stepfather. Then he seized Holmes’s poker and bent it into a curve with his huge brown hands.

  The brown was because of all those years in India, the same reason the cheetah and the baboon were running around his crumbling manor—whoa! No cheetahs and baboons in India: Africa, my dear Watson, as Ruby knew from the Discovery Channel. So was this a c
lue? She’d come back to that later. What was bothering her—What? What? she thought as she took a big relishy bite of hot dog—had more to do with . . . the poker. Dr. Roylott bent that poker to show how dangerous he was. But—Ruby ran her eye back up the page—there, only a few paragraphs above, Dr. Roylott stepped forward, shaking his hunting crop. No mention in between of him putting the hunting crop down, or sticking it in his teeth, or asking Watson to hold it for a sec. So was she supposed to think that he’d twisted the poker with his huge brown hands while holding the hunting crop at the same time? Or—could it be that this was some kind of mistake, a mistake by the guy clever enough to think up Sherlock Holmes, the cleverest detective in the world? Or—

  “Ruby?”

  Ruby looked up. There was Mom, in the kitchen.

  “Didn’t you hear me come in?” Mom was still in her coat, that beautiful gray one with the black fur collar, but the side door to the garage was already closed.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  “What have you done to your hair?”

  “Thumbelina,” Ruby said. “You like it?”

  “It’s different,” Mom said. Mom’s own hair was as black as that collar and glossy too; Mom had gorgeous hair, no doubt about that. “Kyla’s father drove you home?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You remembered to thank him?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How was your day?”

  “Good.”

  “Got much homework?”

  “A little,” Ruby said, although that was more an impression than hard fact.

  “I’ve brought some dinner,” Mom said, lifting a bag from the Blue Dragon with a grunt, as though she found it heavy, and setting it on the butcher block. Ruby smelled oyster sauce, which meant that duck thing that no one ever ate. Mom’s eyes had crescents under them that reminded Ruby of the moon, except they were dark.

  “Or have you eaten already?”

  “Just a snack,” Ruby said, although she was about full.

  Mom glanced up at the clock—7:55—got busy with the cartons, plates, forks, spoons.

  “Why don’t you take your coat off, Mom?”

  Her mother looked at her in a funny way. For a second Ruby thought she was going to come over and give her a hug, which would have been nice, not that Ruby didn’t get hugs, just that now would have been nice. Instead Mom took a step toward the mud room, where the coat pegs were. Then she turned, came right over to Ruby—almost shy, Ruby thought, which was crazy—and kissed her on the top of her head.