Noah shakes his head. Dr. Thayer looks disappointed at his having given way. “I could see the disdain on the administrators’ faces—here’s another parent of another screwed-up Manhattan kid, her daughter all twisted and warped, leading all the fresh-faced country bumpkin Choate kids astray. As if I have any control, any control, over what my daughter does. None of these clubs around here ID, there’s no taking away car privileges when the city is full of taxis. Other parents have to worry about their kid going to the wrong kind of tailgate party. Here, there’s an endless supply of thirty-year-olds eager to corrupt them much more efficiently than any fellow teenager could. Not for one second, for one second, did any of those administrators put themselves in my shoes. Of course, they’re not going to report anything to the authorities, but if they did, well, I have a high-profile practice, and I’d be sunk, just sunk.”
Dr. Thayer pauses. Noah is dumbfounded; his mind wrestles with the slipperiness of her tone—he can’t tell if she agrees with the administrators’ disdain of her.
“I just hope I can get Tuscany through the next two years, get her to college without imploding first,” Dr. Thayer finishes.
“She’s grown up early,” Noah agrees. Dr. Thayer looks at him. “But she’s faced the full adult world for a few years now. There’s nothing new that’s going to be thrown at her. She’s kept levelheaded”— considering her mother, Noah mentally adds—“so far. She’s made herself a magazine, and sometimes she’s excited about learning. I have high hopes for Tuscany.”
“I suppose Dylan’s made it to the end of high school, so Tuscany is bound to as well,” Dr. Thayer sighs.
“That’s true,” Noah says. But comparing Dylan and Tuscany troubles Noah, for there is a major difference, he thinks—Dylan is hopeless. Tuscany stands a chance.
“But Dylan is a boy,” she adds.
“I think social pressure here can be just as strong for boys,” Noah says, thinking of Dylan’s partying, his drug use and disaffection.
“But boys do not date older women. Dylan does not date forty-year-olds,” Dr. Thayer says.
Noah’s stomach sinks. He remembers Cameron’s rumor about Tuscany and her friend’s doorman. “Is Tuscany really dating forty-year-olds?”
Dr. Thayer sighs wearily. “She has in the past. I don’t think she is now. But I was so happy to see her go to Choate, to get away from this. And now she’s back. And it’s going to be a mess. Whoever gave her those drugs is still here.”
“Whoever gave her those drugs,” whether you know it or not, is probably you. “Couldn’t you just keep her at home?” Noah asks.
Dr. Thayer snorts. “You mean ground her?” She packs the word with condescension, as if Noah has suggested going to Dairy Queen and then to the town pasture to tip cows.
“Yeah, ground her.” Noah hesitates—doesn’t that just mean keeping Tuscany tied to this dark apartment, her only company her occasionally present mother, ruined brother, and multiple stashes of narcotics?
“It doesn’t work. Whenever I try to enforce a rule I push her in the opposite direction.” Dr. Thayer pushes her fists against her brittle thighs and makes to get up, but lowers herself back down. “No, it’s just a mess, that’s all there is to it.”
“I’ll do everything I can to help,” Noah says softly.
Dr. Thayer snaps her head toward him. Her eyes blaze for a second. “Just teach her, Noah. Leave the parenting to me.”
“Let me know if there’s anything I can do,” Noah persists.
“Oh, I will be sure to,” Dr. Thayer says, her tone hollow. “But for now, just concentrate on making sure that she learns this material. You’re all she’s got. You’re it.”
Dr. Thayer moves around to Noah’s back, places her chilly fingers over his shoulders. She kneads her fingertips deep into the muscle, once.
“I’m counting on you. You can do it!” Her words have a false effusiveness to them, like they are spoken by a predatory sci-fi alien only pretending to be the supportive gym coach. She glides from the room, leaving Noah to find his way out.
Chapter
6
Between his morning sessions with Tuscany and his afternoon sessions with the rest of his students, Noah finds himself working full-time. Earlier that year his sessions with Tuscany would be followed by a bar with Tab or other friends. But today he follows Tuscany with Cameron and then three more students.
As happens to most tutors, Noah has become something of a one-school specialist. Cameron Leinzler’s recommendation led to Rafferty Zeigler, and Rafferty Zeigler’s recommendation led to Eliza Lipton, and so on, until Noah is tutoring a good chunk of Fieldston’s junior class. He has even picked up a sophomore, Sonoma Levin, who wants to start early because “everyone else had a tutor, so I wanted one too.” Tutor as puppy, or charm bracelet.
Noah’s Fieldston students are all jocks or drama types, so they don’t have time to meet on afternoons, and cram instead into Noah’s evenings. He relishes his non-Thayer nighttimes, his only chance to occupy himself with students who aren’t Tuscany or Dylan. It is midnight before Noah returns home. Although the sun has gone down, the streets of his neighborhood are full of light. The McDonald’s at the corner of 145th and Broadway emits a fluorescent radiance, and the street lamps shine their yellow glow upon the men playing dominoes at card tables propped up on the pavement. They greet one another with effusive yells and hand-slaps, but Noah passes through them as invisible as always. His earlier fears about being a conspicuous outsider in Harlem have proven to be unfounded: he is neither liked nor disliked here. He is merely disregarded.
He thinks of Olena. Two aspects of her collude to make her seem magically unique—her dry narration of the world around her, and the gentle slope of her narrow back into her hips. The day before she was standing at the window, waiting patiently for the Internet connection to dial up, and her shirt rode up to reveal the elegant curve where the muscle dimpled in two pale hollows. He wanted to touch her, to embrace her from behind, but when she heard him approach she turned, made a joke, and the moment was lost.
Roberto is standing at the front stoop, surrounded by a group of local Dominican boys whom Noah doesn’t recognize. “What’s up, Noah?”
The boys stop speaking and stare at Noah. He stops short, and when he does his messenger bag swings off his hip and lands in front, so it looks like a handbag. He pushes it back, squares his shoulders. “Hello.”
He realizes he is only looking at Roberto, so he makes a conscious effort to include the other boys in his gaze. They stare back. Noah swallows.
“Boys, this is Noah,” Roberto says. He has affected a twinge of a Hispanic accent. One of the guys nods noncommittally. “Noah and I are going out tomorrow night, huh, Noah?”
Noah nods cautiously. He has forgotten to ask Dylan about the guest list.
“We’re going to this really fly club,” Roberto continues. “Like where there are celebrities. It’s like made of gold.”
Roberto’s friends look categorically unimpressed. They resume their conversation in Spanish.
“Good night, nice to meet you,” Noah says. He swaps a convoluted handshake with Roberto, just managing to remember the correct moves this time, and goes upstairs.
Roberto comes in a few moments later. “So, are we all hooked up for tomorrow?” Roberto asks.
“I’m sorry, man, I forgot to ask. I’ll check it out tomorrow.”
Roberto looks crestfallen. “You’ve got to work this shit for me!”
Noah nods. The best way to get Roberto back in high spirits, he intuits, is to feign profound nonchalance. Of course, man, it’s all going to work out—chill! “Don’t worry, Rob, I’ve got it under control,” he says.
“Cool,” Roberto says, smiling. Once someone has told you to calm down, there’s no staying worked up, not in the realm of cool guys.
Noah arrives at the Thayer household early the next day, in hopes of catching Dylan before he lurches out the door to school. He finds Dylan staggerin
g around the apartment, pulling on a shirt as he slurps a protein shake, in the peculiar state of groggy panic that only he has mastered. Dylan notices Noah in the front entrance and stares at him blearily. “Hey,” Dylan says. Then he pauses, as if trying to remember Noah’s name. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m teaching your sister.”
“Oh, right, tutor to the porno druggie queen. This is so hilarious. My own kid sister, kicked out of school. It’s kinda awesome, actually. Have you seen like a hat? It’s beat up, has the Knicks logo on the front.”
Noah shakes his head. Dylan blusters around the art pieces in the foyer. His backpack comes close to swiping a frosted glass fish off its pedestal, and then knocks a bronze geisha to the ground. Noah picks it up and replaces it. Dylan’s hunt for his hat turns him in the direction of the fallen statue and he stares questioningly at Noah. “Whatya doing?”
“You knocked this down,” Noah says.
Dylan nods. “Oh.”
Then, with a last glance about the front hall, he says, “Fuck it,” runs a hand through his hair and then holds it to his nose to smell for grease, and heads toward the door.
Noah steps in front of him. Dylan flashes Noah a look of pure irritation, which immediately relaxes into a casual smile. “What’s up?”
“Hey, I was wondering something,” Noah says. “Do you know anything about getting on the list at Pangaea?”
Dylan scratches his armpit. “Pangaea? Why?”
“I was thinking of going with a friend, and we weren’t sure of the best way.”
Dylan laughs, and then shifts his scratching hand to his abdomen. “You?”
“Yes.” Noah looks winningly at Dylan, as if to say, I know, how crazy, I’m so above that.
“Yeah, I can get you on the list.” Dylan claps. His tone turns from cloudy to elated. “This is so awesome! My tutor is going to Pangaea !”
“So you’ll get me on?”
“Yeah, totally, it’s the only scene that’s worth anything on Wednesday nights, anyway. So what’s your friend’s name?”
“Roberto.”
“Is that a girl?”
“No, why?”
“It’s so easier to get in with a hottie. I can work it out, though. Now”—he pulls out his phone and stares blankly into the screen—“who’s on door tonight? Oh right, Malcolm.”
Dylan begins to write a text message, his thumb flurrying over the lighted keypad. “That’s cool, you’re bringing like some Italian or something,” he says distractedly. Dylan’s phone pings. “Done, you’re in,” he says. “Make sure you wear something cool. See you later, or maybe,” he adds, grinning as he closes the front door, “see you tonight!”
Noah hasn’t even considered this possibility. Dr. Thayer wouldn’t allow Dylan to go downtown on a school night, would she? But as soon as he poses the question to himself, Noah knows she would. He heads down the hall to the dining room.
Tuscany is fifteen minutes late. She has decided to dress casually today: she wears drawstring sweats and a tangerine polo shirt that would have been snug on a five-year-old.
“Good morning,” Noah says.
Tuscany woefully shakes her head in response. “You’re going to Pangaea tonight.” She looks at Noah wide-eyed, overwhelmed, as if thrown into an existential crisis by her teacher’s impending presence at a nightclub.
“How’d you find out?”
“Message from Dylan. He’s excited. What are you doing, going there?”
Noah laughs. But then he sees real concern on Tuscany’s face; she is genuinely upset. “I just want to check it out,” he says.
Tuscany puts a hand to her temple and gives her head a little shake. “No, you can’t go, you’re different. You’re like not a normal person.”
“Tutors have social lives too.”
“That’s not what I mean. It’s not ’cuz you’re a tutor. You like don’t own a TV, you don’t say normal things, you’re like unexpected, like someone rare, a philosopher or something. You’re going to be miserable there.”
Tuscany’s eyes droop. She is truly saddened, as if she is protective of Noah, doesn’t want his life to become like hers. He feels a tremendous urge to take her hand and pat it, to enfold her in his arms, but stops himself. “It’s okay, Tuscany, it’s only one night.”
“I just don’t get why you’d go.”
“I’m curious.”
“I figured that by the time people get to be your age they know what they like or not. But you’re always taking everything that comes, like you haven’t decided what you don’t like.” She flounces into an ebony-inlaid chair, grinds her head dramatically against the cushions.
“Wow,” Noah says. He is astounded—not because Tuscany’s words have hurt him, but because she thought them at all, because they come from the girl who didn’t know the definition of domicile. He has been condescending to her, he realizes. “That’s really insightful. What you’re talking about is discrimination. It’s the last thing to come when you’re growing up. Some people never really attain it. You have to be really secure in yourself to know for sure that something isn’t for you, instead of just fearing that you’re not for it. ”
“You mean, discrimination like racial discrimination?”
“No. Well, yes, it shares a root meaning—but I mean judgment, making distinctions between things.”
“So you’re saying that you’re indiscriminate?”
Noah coughs. “I don’t really think of it that way, but in a way, yeah. It’s something I’m working on.”
Tuscany smiles. “I don’t think you should change it. It sounds good to me. It sounds like being nice.”
The heat of Tuscany’s smile makes Noah recall an admonition he received during training: Never talk about yourself. Stay focused on the student.
“How’d the homework go?” he asks chirpily.
“I made the maps, and it was totally true, the plague spread along the trade routes. Because that’s where people were like traveling from one area to another? Kind of cool. If I was living then I would have just hung out in like a little town or something.”
“If I were living then. Subjunctive clause.”
“Sub-what who?”
Noah shakes his head: it was Dylan with whom he covered the subjunctive. Where is his head? He can’t keep himself from smiling goofily, from losing track of his thoughts; it is as though he were on a first date. “We’ll cover it later, don’t worry. Just remember to use were after if.”
“Sure, whatever.”
Noah assigns Tuscany a set of problems from her Algebra II workbook, and hurriedly tries to teach himself the material as she works through them. Matrices? What the hell are matrices? He got a scholarship to take college algebra at the local junior college one summer during high school. But that was his summer of girlfriends, when he baked on the rocks of the reservoir and shared a six-pack with buddies each day after leaving class. Maybe he was hung over the day they did matrices…
Soon it is lunchtime. They put their orders in with Agnès (a BLT on seven-grain bread with homemade potato chips for Noah, half a grilled chicken breast for Tuscany), and share an amiable meal before passing the afternoon discussing a Somerset Maugham story.
Noah doesn’t have any students after Tuscany, so he naps in Central Park before going home. He knows he will be role-playing at Pangaea that night, and it will take some effort to prepare his costume.
Roberto enters the bedroom with a grim, determined expression, and solemnly plunges into the task of making Noah look cool. Noah cedes control, just sits passively on the bed as Roberto pulls all of Noah’s clothing out of the closet, gradually immersing him in a dune of cotton and polyester. Noah dutifully holds shirt after shirt against his torso, and Roberto dismisses them one by one, until finally the last option has been vetoed. Roberto makes a grunt that sounds almost affirmative, as if conceding that perhaps a shirt isn’t necessary after all.
They move on to pants. Shoes. Socks. And accessori
es (that goes quickly, as Noah only has one, a leather cuff his brother braided for him at some after-school program). After he upends Noah’s wardrobe, the only clothes that pass Roberto’s evaluation are a pair of black polyester slacks that flare slightly at the bottom, acceptably inconspicuous black socks, and a pair of Doc Martens. They still have no shirt. Noah proposes that maybe he can just wear a bow tie and go as a Chippendales dancer. Roberto, unfazed, asks Noah if he has a dress shirt he doesn’t use much. Noah points to a charcoal shirt sent by his mother after she got her tax refund years before. Its sleeves are far too long. With Noah’s permission Roberto hacks away at them with a Swiss army knife. The resulting tangle of threads reaches halfway down Noah’s forearm. Noah is dubious, but Roberto works in a business of appearances, and when they look in the mirror Noah has to admit that the shirt looks great. The sleeves are like a jagged threaded jungle from which Noah’s arms emerge like obelisks.
Roberto pomades Noah’s hair into a mass of tight spikes, has Noah rub shea butter into the dry skin at the edges of his nose. They stand back to survey the results. Noah’s hair, made shiny and dark by the pomade, contrasts dramatically with his white skin, and the black clothes give him a sleek, artful look. He looks like an aggressive and narcissistic poet. Success.
Roberto goes for a different look, donning an outfit that seems to be made mostly of blue plastic. He wedges his feet into a pair of white leather shoes and then completes the look with a pair of aviator sunglasses. He too looks aggressive and narcissistic, though nothing like a poet. Noah has always been contemptuous of poseurs who wear sunglasses during the night or in the subway, that they wear their vanity so openly. But for an evening at Pangaea, sunglasses make Roberto into the perfect sidekick.
They emerge into the living room. When Olena sees them she bursts into a laugh, and rummages out a disposable camera to snap an impromptu photo. She poses them in front of the window in awkward gentlemanly positions, as if they were about to pick up their dates for the senior prom. Roberto rolls his eyes and curses, makes as if to slap her, which only makes Olena laugh harder. Roberto bounds out the front door. Noah hugs Olena goodbye, his lips grazing her cheek, and soon he and Roberto are racing down the West Side Highway in the rusty Datsun.
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