The Expectations

by Alexander Tilney

  Ahmed had told him that because Tommy and Graham knew they were going to be kicked out, they had decided to say that Ahmed hadn’t known what he was getting into, that he was trying to fit in, that he had come under their sway without realizing what the consequences could be. They were saying that they had never known Ahmed to use drugs or import them.

  For their DC the previous evening, Ben and Ahmed both got dressed in jacket and tie. Ahmed’s clothes looked just right for this.

  And later, after the DC, Ben had sat on one of the couches at the far end of the Den and described what had happened. The whole Den was arrayed around him. Hutch was there too, now looking at Ben as though having represented Ahmed was the most distinguished possible deed. Ben said that, according to plan, he had argued to the DC that Ahmed hadn’t known what he was getting into, that he was trying to fit in, that he had fallen under the sway of his charismatic new friends. Ben stated that he had never seen Ahmed use or import. The faculty were buying it.

  “And then Ahmed started shaking his head. He said that he was just as responsible as the other two, that he had been to Boston a bunch of times already and had helped plan how to get there and where to go, that no one had pressured him to put in more than his share of money, that Tommy and Graham said he could stay behind if he wanted to, but that he had volunteered to go.

  “And no one knew what to say. They just thanked us and let us go.”

  Ben didn’t tell them about the walk back to the dorm.

  “So then why did I lie for you?”

  “It was absurd to keep doing what we were doing. Everyone knew it was a lie.”

  “Will you just thank me for doing it, though?”

  “After I leave, we can keep paying.” Ahmed regretted saying this.

  “That’s not why I represented you. You wanted to stay.” They were quiet for several steps. “And I don’t think St. James is going to seem worth paying for. For your dad.”

  Ahmed didn’t answer right away, but then he nodded.

  And so now, from up in the chapel ceiling, with Ahmed back in the dorm excused for the day while his punishment was read, Ben was going to witness the end for both of them, even if the end would come for him a little later. And once Aston read out Ahmed’s expulsion, Ben would climb back down to the carillon room and bring his hands down onto the giant keyboard. He wouldn’t stop the noise until they found another key, came up there, and kicked him out too. In his mind he could already feel the long vibrations hanging over the campus.

  Another two turns of the tower clock bells and then the soft churning sound of voices roused Ben. He lifted his head and looked around at the attic-like place he was in and had a vivid image of living up here—disappearing from campus, withdrawing without any responsibility for anyone or anything, hoping that Alice would wonder where he had gone. He seemed to be in the supporting cast of Ahmed’s life now.

  Ben went to lean out over the opening in the ceiling, but now along with his fear of falling came a fear that someone would look up and see him there. He tried to find where Alice was sitting but it was too far down the length of the building. He wondered what his face might look like; a little white polyp in space. For the first time in months, he heard the faint, familiar sound of a bulldozer beeping in reverse. Construction had resumed on Ahmed’s father’s pool.

  The organ began heaving through some hymn that Ben didn’t recognize, but he couldn’t tell whether it was something he had never heard before or some familiar melody that was being muddled in the massive space. All the heads that had been moving around each other came to rest and formed into rows. The first organ piece closed and a new one began, and the sound of bodies standing up from wooden pews reached Ben. They began to sing, but Ben still couldn’t hear what the song was.

  After the hymn closed, there was a long pause. Usually this was when some student would give a speech about study abroad or an a cappella group would perform, but now it was just empty. Ben got impatient and felt foolish for being up here. Would it be so hard to hear this news next to other people? Was his tiny act of rebellion so urgent? The long building stayed quiet.

  He saw the top of Aston’s blond head shift and move the two paces to his podium. His voice came from so far away that it sounded delayed, as if it had spoken some time ago.

  “ do not take discipline lightly. student admitted to St. James deserves to be here and each offers unique and valuable. Never ess a student proves him or self adhering to the school’s contract. student tears the fabric that binds school must consequences. term health of the whole must prevail the short-term of any individual student. not easy decisions necessary.”

  Aston didn’t speak for several seconds.

  “ using drugs bringing campus, Graham Lasseter asked leave the school.”

  “For drugs and bringing drugs campus, Thomas Landon has asked the school.”

  “For in presence of drug use, Ahmed Al-Khaled probation one year and will days work duty.”

  Aston paused. Ben rolled over and lay back on the gangway again. It seemed that whatever had laid itself over him would press his body down through the gridding. He wanted the roar of the carillon. He wanted the school to apply its rigor, to enact some bracing justice. But, too, he was relieved for his friend. He saw Ahmed savoring the forest walk to Seated Meal. And maybe the sheik still had some patience left for him.

  But the school. The school’s ethics were a scrim over its animal need to survive. Just manners over its unforgiving appetite.

  “ us pray.”

  * * *

  Ben waited for everyone to leave before he came down. He locked the door behind him, walked out across the chapel lawn in the first-period quiet under a flat overcast sky. He couldn’t bring himself to go to class, to go to lunch, to practice, to do homework, to sleep, any of it. He regretted locking the door to the chapel tower, so dutifully following the little rules of schoolboy mischief.

  Across the chapel lawn Ben saw the small brick PO, so appealing still, and from force of habit he went in to check his little window there. An L.L.Bean catalogue with a thoughtful couple in shorts walking across a sand dune.

  Ahmed was on the couch with his eyes closed when Ben came back to the room.

  “Are you all right?”

  “All right,” said Ahmed. Mr. Dennett had relayed the news to him.

  His father had still sent him a box of dates—lemon, almond, plain—to mark the end of Ramadan. He was going to ask the school to set aside a place for him to pray. He couldn’t imagine praying in their room if he knew Ben could come in and discover him, or wake up and look down at him in prostration.

  “What did your parents say?” Ben asked.

  “My father is quite heartbroken. After all that preparation, for me to take those decisions, and be known publicly for doing that. What my father said was, ‘Would he have done this?’ He puts so much power into this stranger, this person he knows nothing about. Maybe Underhill drank with his friends here, maybe he cheated on tests. Maybe he went on and lied to his business partners, to his wife.”

  Ben didn’t answer.

  “It will be hard for me again after this, like after Ennis,” said Ahmed.

  “Maybe,” Ben said.

  “I will miss Tommy and Graham, also.” He paused. “It was nice to have friends.”

  Ben couldn’t hold his gaze. Eventually he asked, “Do you not want to stay?”

  “I don’t know.” Ahmed laughed briefly. “I never thought I would say that.” He looked at Ben. “Do you?”

  “Well…Has Alice Morehead taken your picture?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yeah. I want to be here at least to see her show.”

  * * *

  Green peeked out from the blazing snow. Ben walked out along the Two-Laner in the direction of the crew boathouse, and every few steps he closed his eyes to briefly bask in the sun without stopping.

  He came up to Number 40—a white two-story colonial with a garage to one side. He had run t
hrough countless scenarios of discovering what the inside of the house looked like, but as he passed a large bush that was budding in the same blush-gray as a female cardinal, he saw Manley Price there in his driveway, kneeling at a jack next to the front driver’s side of his car, a dark green Volkswagen Jetta. Ben didn’t want to wait for Price to find him this time.

  Price squinted up at Ben, and Ben saw rare surprise across his face—like smelling something acrid. But then Price smiled and came stiffly to stand. The front of his blue oxford was marked with new grime and many colors of old dried paint. Ben approached and Price nodded but didn’t extend his hand to shake.

  “What a surprise about your roommate,” Price said, and laughed. “But you knew all along he was safe.”

  “I actually thought the school wouldn’t make an exception.” Ben expected Price to laugh again, but he seemed suddenly chastened, as though tasting the bitterness of what he had said.

  “You wish they had lived up to their own standard,” Price said.

  “It seems like the whole point of St. James.”

  Price nodded. “Even at the school’s beginning, not many were leaving here and giving their lives over to orphans. ‘To serve man and to glorify God.’ The beds are a lot softer when you drill oil.”

  Ben thought about when he would see Markson again, undertaking the rewrite of “Decision-Making.” Above all else, a St. James education teaches a boy to look out for himself. Markson would say there was more humanity to it than that.

  “What keeps you here?” Ben asked.

  Price didn’t respond for a long time. “It’s a time of no escape. That’s what I like. Seeing what happens when you’re trapped with your experience.”

  Ben looked up into the safe sky.

  “So play Gray, Ben. I can’t make you, and I know I can’t really even move you in that direction. But don’t miss the chance to find out what’s on your inside. And you can give that to him, too. You can let Gray find out what’s on his inside.”

  Ben laughed. He looked in Price’s eyes.

  “Make him bleed for it. Let yourself bleed.”

  * * *

  An hour later, after telling Rory to set up the match for that night, Ben dialed the calling card number from memory and held the receiver to his ear with his eyes closed. He imagined her wiping wet hands on the towel hung over the bar of the oven door as she moved for the phone.

  She answered with the same voice as always, but her breath had a ragged edge. They asked each other if they were okay, and Ben told her about the DC and Ahmed’s decision. He told her he was fine.

  “What’s happening there?” he asked.

  Now the raggedness gave way to a short sob.

  “I don’t even know why I’m upset!” she said with a laugh through her crying throat. “It’s good, not having to keep waiting. So. Dad’s property deal—the local board—they voted to keep the land zoned as is.”

  “So they can’t turn it into retail.”

  “Right.”

  “Did he not plan for that?”

  “He says his partners told him it was a fait accompli.”

  “I mean…did someone take advantage of him? Did they sell it to him knowing it wouldn’t be changed over?”

  She didn’t answer right away. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  Harry was out in the trees splitting wood. He lifted the maul and let it fall through each standing piece. Inside the house Helen was telling Ben, and he needed to go inside and take responsibility, to look in her face again.

  But instead Harry stood there in the last snow, trying to accept that this was his real course, that all the branching decisions had shunted him here. He had expected himself to do so much more than make money; just making money and nothing else was a failure. But before you can lead or give back or spread excellence or let culture thrive, you have to earn. He stayed there and waited to lift the maul again and to feel the pleasure of it falling.

  Helen and Ben let the phone be quiet between them.

  “Okay,” Ben said.

  “I’m just glad it’s done with. So let’s talk about what’s best: staying up there on aid, or…”

  Ben told her about the arrangement he had made. She couldn’t say anything for several seconds.

  “Mom?”

  “We should never have waited so long! Oh god! I’ll never forgive myself, forcing you to this. We just, we’ve never met them, we know nothing about them, and they’re extending this much? I knew we left you exposed but, augh, it kills me to think—”

  “It seemed like the best way.”

  “We can’t keep doing this, though. I mean, your father will never agree to it.”

  “When is it not his decision anymore?”

  “It’s just so embarrassing, Ben. I’d never be able to look Ahmed’s father in the face, ever.”

  “What if we don’t have the luxury of looking everyone in the face?” He paused. “We don’t have to decide now.”

  “No. We do have to decide. You’ll just go on financial aid.”

  “What if I came home and went to Leaford High?”

  She paused. “We’re not asking you to do that.”

  Ben went back up to his room. He ate half a PowerBar. The light was fading across the walls, and as he looked out the window at everyone under their backpacks coming back from dinner, he had to remind himself that he had come down from the chapel tower earlier that same day.

  He left the dorm with his long bag, and as he came up to the courts he saw heads through the lit windows and heard the tremor of a crowd. He opened the vestibule door into the sound, and walked down the stadium steps through all the people, through Hutch’s gaze and Price’s gaze, and Ahmed’s gaze and Alice’s and Teddy’s and Russell’s and Thomas Weeks’s, through all of them, through his own, and on the court he saw Gray’s tall form turn. He went through the glass door into that incinerating brightness.

  Acknowledgments

  This book has many authors.

  Before anyone, my parents and sisters, who saved my life and whose love was never contingent on results.

  The brilliant and determined Asya Muchnick, who drew the best out of this book. The rest of the Little, Brown staff: Cynthia Saad, Michael Noon, Allison Warner, Ashley Marudas, and Alyssa Persons, who prove that people still do things better than they need to.

  The subtle and terrifyingly effective Kathy Robbins, who signed on before the main character really existed and gave me the time and structure to find the book’s voice. No one could ask for better representation. Janet Oshiro, Jane Arbogast, and Liza Darnton at the Robbins Office are expert and extremely kind.

  Susan Rieger, who led this book over the narrow path to an audience.

  Many teachers: George Carlisle, David Newman, Katharine Weber, Kate Walbert, John Crowley. Ellen Bryant Voight, Pete Turchi, and Debra Allbery, who created and sustain the outstanding Warren Wilson writing program. Diana Wagman, Victor LaValle, Maud Casey, T. M. McNally, and Rob Cohen, who transformed my writing. Amy Grimm, who kept it all together.

  At the D. E. Shaw group: Erin Granfield, Kari Elassal, Eugenie Kim, Drew Ashwood, Isaac Bauer, Claire Muldoon, Trey Beck, Alexis Halaby, and David Shaw, who let me survive in a kind of slow-motion writing retreat for eleven years.

  The MacDowell Colony: David Macy, Karen Keenan, Kyle Oliver, Cindy Fallows, Courtney Bethel, and Blake Tewksbury.

  Laura O’Loughlin, Greg Snyder, and the community of the Brooklyn Zen Center, who reminded me that it takes as long as it takes.

  For help, love, reading drafts, and food: Josh Barenbaum, Nazli Parvizi, Sam Breslin Wright, Amdé Mengistu, Katy Dion, Amanda Filoso Schreyer, Nick Yap, Sarah Stehli Howell, Pete Light, Carl Bialik, Dave Goldenberg, Shamus Khan, Terry Bowman, Thackston Lundy, Marco DeSena, Jennifer Barros, Ben Kulo, Hannah Toporovsky, Lauren Dewey, Sarah Von Essen, Josh Billings, Victoria Blake, Mónica Palma, Calvin Burton, Ashley Powers, Erik Simpson, Christoph Janke, Megan Hustad, Ben Loehnen, Aria Sloss, Brigid Hughes, Ben Ryder
Howe, Scott Adkins, Erin Courtney, Nathan Pinsley, Khaled Al Hammadi, Patrick Granfield, Kelly Granfield, Rachel Beach, Richard Sennett, Cullen Stanley, Julie MacKay, Leila Kazemi, Alan Donovan, Rachel Karpf, Sammy Tunis, Moe Yousuf, Nancy Hughes, Owen Hughes, Doug Kaden, Meg Weeks, Chris Weeks, Tyler Sage, Rachel Crawford, Jonathan Lee, Kate Scelsa, Deji Olukotun, Lindsay Edgecombe, Allison Lorentzen, David Herskovits, Jennifer Egan, and GPH.

  And most of all, Sarah. My oasis, my love, and my full-on collaborator, who never wavered through all the bad versions. I wouldn’t have come close without you.

  Discover Your Next Great Read

  Get sneak peeks, book recommendations, and news about your favorite authors.

  Tap here to learn more.

  About the Author

  Alexander Tilney received a BA from Yale University and an MFA from the Warren Wilson College Program for Writers, and has been a fellow at the MacDowell Colony. His writing has appeared in the Southwest Review, the Journal of the Office for Creative Research, and Gelf Magazine. He lives in Brooklyn, New York. The Expectations is his first novel.