Glamorous Disasters

by Eliot Schrefer

  Rafferty is sitting on his bed, watching a football game on the television mounted on his wall. His gaze flicks to Noah when he enters, and then back to the screen. “Hi, Noah,” he says. He points to a bowl of chips. “You want some?”

  “No thanks,” Noah says as he arranges himself in his seat. Rafferty turns off the game and sits at the desk. “How did you feel about the test this weekend?” Noah asks. This is what he always asks when the score is bad—the students invariably say, “Awful,” because it always feels awful, it’s the SAT, and then it seems like the score just confirms that it was an especially hard test. Noah is surprised his students haven’t caught on yet.

  Rafferty grunts, then says, “I don’t want to talk about it,” as he clicks the television off.

  “I’m not going to lie, it wasn’t fantastic,” Noah says. “But you’ll see that there were problems in only a couple of sections. Section Three was really good.”

  “What do you mean, there were problems? What was the score?”

  “Umm,” Noah says as he pulls out the score report. “It was 1690.”

  “I went down ?”

  “I told your mom, it could be fluky. A lot of students go down at first, it’s not—”

  Rafferty covers his eyes. “Oh my God. Oh my God.”

  “It’s okay, Rafferty, it’s just one score. There are plenty of other practice tests. Let’s look at the broad picture.”

  “You don’t tell the other Fieldston kids my scores, do you?”

  “Of course not.”

  Rafferty pulls his hand down so it covers his mouth instead. It might have just been from the pressure of his hand, but Rafferty’s eyes are red; he could be about to cry. With his hand over his mouth he looks a lot like his mother, stricken in the hallway. “I hate this! I hate it!” He pushes his chair away from the desk, spins angrily. “Why do I have to even take this stupid fucking test? I don’t even want to go to college. Which is good, since I won’t get in anyway! Fuck!”

  “Seriously, man,” Noah says, “don’t start worrying about scores yet. Seriously. We’ve got time. Let it run off your back.”

  Rafferty clenches his hands into fists, strikes his thighs. “Crap! Everyone else is getting like 2100s. And I won’t even be able to get into like SUNY Buffalo.” He stares at his red fists, and then something catches in his head. He turns to Noah. “Let it run off my back? Who the hell are you to tell me that? You’re the one who’s screwed up here.”

  “Look,” Noah says. “There’s no need to place blame, because there’s nothing wrong yet. We’ve got a while before the test.”

  “Yeah, save your ass, Noah. Six weeks. That’s not ‘a while.’ ”

  “And the May test isn’t your last chance. There’s always October, or November.”

  Rafferty stares at the blank television screen. “What is Cameron getting? Eliza and Garret tell me their scores, but she never tells me.”

  “You know I can’t tell you that.”

  “Is she bombing too? Are you like doing something wrong?”

  This is a delicate turn: Noah’s impulse is to tell Rafferty the truth—that Cameron’s doing well—to get him off his back. But then it will seem that Rafferty is the only one doing poorly. And so Noah makes a choice that he instantly regrets: he keeps silent.

  “Ah!” Rafferty cries. “She is! Cameron’s totally not going up either!”

  “Jesus,” Noah says sharply. “Stop it.”

  Rafferty’s door opens. His mother is in the portal, clutching another bowl of chips. “I thought you might want some more,” she says, her voice quavering. She doesn’t enter the room, holds the chips close to her. “What are you two talking about? Why are you so excited, Rafferty?”

  “Why are you so excited, Rafferty? Why are you so exciiited? Because I’m not fucking going to college, Mom.”

  “Of course you’re going to college,” Mrs. Zeigler says, her hand to her throat. Then she looks unsure. She looks to Noah for confirmation.

  “Of course,” Noah says. “As I said, this—”

  But Rafferty has spotted his mother’s uncertainty. “See, even you don’t think I’m going to go to college!”

  “Well, honey,” Mrs. Zeigler says, clutching her throat, “I don’t know much about these things. We have to trust Noah on this.”

  “Yeah,” Rafferty says, hurling himself deep in his chair. “I have to trust Noah. ”

  Noah glances from Rafferty to his mother, and back again. How could she insinuate that her son might not get into college? “Come on, Rafferty,” he says. “Of course you’re going to college. You’re a smart kid. Stop worrying about the big picture. Today we’re going to think about ratios. I need you to concentrate on just that.”

  “Yes, think about ratios, honey,” Mrs. Zeigler says, then mercifully departs, carrying the chips with her.

  Rafferty does manage to come around and concentrate on the proportion of pigs to cows on Mr. Cowell’s farm, but he spits his answers at Noah hatefully, like sling stones. The hundred minutes are some of the longest Noah can remember.

  When Noah’s alarm goes off at five forty-five on Monday morning he can barely drag himself out of bed. He was up until eleven P.M . tutoring, in bed at one, and tossed and turned most of the night, all the time remembering Mrs. Zeigler’s fluttery, worried goodbye in the grotto hallway. When he wakes he lingers in his bed, staring at his sheet, counting the frayed threads in his pillowcase. It takes Olena’s soft, concerned voice at his bedside to rouse him. He takes a quick shower and drinks three cups of coffee while guiding Olena through arithmetic sequences. He is gladdened by her resolve and enthusiasm, gives her only a peck goodbye (she is his student, after all), and arrives at the Thayer household somewhat heartened. He has not turned on his cell phone, however, dreading the panicky phone call that Mrs. Zeigler is sure to have made.

  As he enters the foyer Noah hears Dr. Thayer’s voice call from somewhere within the cavernous apartment. He finds her in the portion of her office that has been converted into a mini-gym. She pounds away at a treadmill, her sharp legs jabbing at the running belt as if trying to pierce it. She is wearing an ill-fitting sports bra, and every other step causes a hint of her aureole to become exposed. Noah concentrates on the bookshelf behind her. “Good morning, Dr. Thayer,” Noah says.

  “Good morning, Noah,” she says, breathing heavily. “Maim any teenage girls yet today?”

  Noah wonders how long she spent crafting that line. “No, no.” He feigns a chuckle.

  “Well done,” she laughs. The machine kicks into a higher speed. She grips the sides and gasps, her legs scurrying beneath her.

  “So…” Noah says. Why has she called him in here? “How are you doing?”

  “Oh,” Dr. Thayer says, breathless. “Fine, thanks. Ready…to finish this!” She repeatedly punches a button on the machine, and slows to a power walk. “That’s better. Ah. So, Noah, I understand my husband has called you.” She gives a wink, as if to say, That scamp!

  “Yeah,” Noah says. “I think he wants some advice on starting his own tutoring firm.”

  “Yes,” Dr. Thayer says. “That. Use your judgment, there. Don’t feel obligated to help him.”

  “Okay,” Noah says. He stands still, staring at the bookcase. She is hinting that he should rebuff her husband—what is there to say?

  “And how is Tuscany?” Dr. Thayer asks.

  “She’s doing well. Very good.”

  “We think we’ve found a school for her in the fall. Mount Oak, probably.”

  “Sounds good. She’ll be happy there.”

  Dr. Thayer slows the machine even further, so that she is barely moving. She turns around and starts walking backward. “But there’s something more important that I need to talk to you about. Dylan. I’ve made a mistake. He got into George Washington yesterday.”

  “Okay…” Noah says, bewildered. Sounds okay to him…

  “He got in for athletics. But in order to play, NCAA guidelines say that each reci
pient needs a certain combination of GPA and SAT score. Dylan’s GPA, as you could imagine, isn’t very good. So he needs at least a 1580 to play. But his SAT score is a 1540.”

  “That’s from last spring?”

  “Well,” Dr. Thayer says, smiling as sweetly at Noah as if he were the co-op president, “actually, that’s from last month.”

  Noah suspects where this is going, but plays ignorant to see Dr. Thayer squirm. “Dylan took the test again without tutoring?”

  “Yes…well, that is to say, he might as well have.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you’re saying.” He stares at Dr. Thayer straight on, exposed aureole or no.

  Dr. Thayer’s smile drops, and she looks at Noah shrewdly as she marches backward. “I think you do, Noah.”

  Noah shakes his head resolutely. “No, I really don’t.”

  Dr. Thayer sighs, as if totally discouraged at finding Noah’s head so muddled. “I engaged another tutor. Dylan had someone else help prepare him for the SAT, some guru from the Princeton Review. He was written up in the Times Magazine. ”

  “You’re perfectly free to do that,” Noah says, in what he hopes is his most magnanimous tone.

  Dr. Thayer smiles slightly, impressed: she must think Noah is playing this ignorance game well. “Well, the truth is that he was awful. I didn’t realize it at the time, of course. I mean, I obviously got someone brilliant—Ph.D. in applied math from CalTech, Rhodes Scholar, all that. But he was an actual teacher. He didn’t bother being friendly with Dylan, he just pushed him. And I don’t know if you’ve ever seen Dylan pushed, but it’s not pretty.”

  “So Dylan didn’t do any work?” Noah asks.

  “Yes. And from what I can tell he would have bombed the SAT just to spite his teacher.”

  “Would have? Why do you say ‘would have’?” Noah takes on a casual and distant tone, as if they were discussing an abstract point.

  Dr. Thayer gives another impressed smile. “I suspect that, again, you know where this is going. I imagine you are even already familiar with the exact mechanics of how this works.”

  Noah has a suspicion, but this time his ignorance is mostly genuine. “No, you’re going to have to tell me.”

  Dr. Thayer gauges her pulse for a few moments and then speaks. “Not all tutors have become as morally…upstanding as you. This Princeton Review guru fellow, when he saw how much he was being paid and that Dylan was going to do horribly, came up with an alternative. He became a sort of broker, if you will. He found us another student willing—are you going to make me spell this out, Noah?—to take the test in Dylan’s place. A simple matter of the purchase of a fake driver’s license.”

  “And you were in support of this?”

  Dr. Thayer begins jogging backward. “Perhaps you’d like to fill me in on my other options. Dylan wasn’t going to do well enough on the test on his own. There was a spot at George Washington open to him, and all he needed was a better score. And some struggling recent graduate, a boy much like you, would make some money to further his art, or buy a car, or what have you. I’m Dylan’s mother. I have the chance to see my son go to college, or take some obscure moral route and kill his future. It didn’t harm anyone, Noah.”

  “And so what happened?”

  “The idea was this: Dylan obviously couldn’t get a 2400. That would be absurd. So the young man who wound up taking the test knew he needed to have Dylan just scrape by. As you know, the curve on each test is different, so it’s never a sure shot. He intentionally missed many problems, but…” The treadmill speeds up, and Dr. Thayer starts sprinting backward. She is a jumble of limbs moving at awkward angles. “Maybe he missed even more problems because of his own errors, or maybe he didn’t know the test well enough. Not as well as you. Whatever it was, Dylan got a 1560, not a 1580. And he can’t enroll at George Washington this fall without that 1580.”

  “And there’s only the May test left.”

  “Exactly.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  Dr. Thayer steps off the treadmill, wipes her brow with a plush white towel, although she doesn’t seem to have perspired. “I think what you need to figure out is what you are going to do.”

  “Sorry?”

  Dr. Thayer moves slowly toward Noah. The skin of her fatless abdomen pouches slightly over the band of her spandex shorts. She stops inches in front of Noah. He can smell her breath—like Tuscany’s, it has the flavor of melon on it, but beneath it lurks the long-standing yellow stench of tobacco. “Tuscany told me you live in Harlem, Noah. And Dylan, I believe, has met your roommate. Some foreign man. And he told Dylan about your professor ambitions. Good for you, you’d be great! And it is clear, Noah, despite your clothes, that you are not originally from around here. So you deserve another pat on the back, making it this far! But that also means that you have some debt, no? Princeton is not inexpensive. What if you didn’t have those loans anymore? If you had your own apartment in Union Square, or Greenwich Village? All for doing what you were trained to do.”

  “You want me to take the SAT for Dylan?” Noah didn’t need to ask, but he can think of nothing else to fill the stunned silence.

  “Don’t get a righteous tone here. Whether or not you want to confess about Monroe Eichler, you’ve been on this…slippery slope for some time. I’m offering you money for a service. And that service is raising Dylan’s SAT score. That is how we’ve always operated, no? Money pays for higher scores. You’re helping those who can pay to get ahead. What I’m proposing may sound immoral, and to some maybe it is. But that’s not the point—you’ve been tutoring for years. Obviously you’ve been fine with this equation. All I’m asking is that we take it to its natural limits.”

  “I can’t do that. I’ll be happy to teach Dylan, but I can’t do that. Couldn’t you find someone else?”

  “Princeton graduates with astronomical SAT scores and willing natures are hard to come by. This first one messed up. And I trust you. You’re good at this. You know exactly how many questions to miss.”

  Noah quickly loses his feeling of moral righteousness. He has a ‘willing nature’? What does that mean ? Whatever it is, he doesn’t want it to be true. “No,” he says firmly.

  “Is it a question of how much money?”

  “No.”

  “Don’t forget, Noah, that you’ve also worked with Tuscany under the table. Your company wouldn’t want to hear about that, or anything else that you’ve done. I had a few therapy sessions with Mrs. Eichler’s little boy last year—he was so distraught over his father’s death. And so, apparently, was Monroe.”

  They are veering into nastier territory. Even though he never took the test for Monroe, there’s sure to be a damning paper trail behind that cashier’s check he deposited. She has far too much she can use against him.

  She shrugs and puts on her hostess smile. “It’s something to think about.”

  He hates her. He wants to claw into her exposed abdomen. “I’m sorry, Dr. Thayer, but I’m not thinking about it. The answer is no.” And, he almost continues, what would your children’s schools do if they heard about your plotting? Your clients? But Dr. Thayer would see through the threat—she knows he wouldn’t ruin Dylan’s and Tuscany’s futures just to get back at her.

  Dr. Thayer grips Noah’s arm and smiles affirmatively, as if in complete compassionate support of Noah’s rectitude. But Noah doesn’t miss the anger flashing at the backs of her eyes. “I assumed as much, Noah. I don’t think your answer would have been no a few months ago. But you have become so…kind.” She gives the compliment the sharp edge of an insult, like calling an unattractive girl sweet. “Maybe you’re just worried that your graduate schools would find out. But they wouldn’t, really they wouldn’t.” She sighs. “Perhaps you would still consider tutoring Dylan to see if you can get him where he needs to be by teaching him.”

  Riding on the exhilaration of having said no, Noah feels a swell of euphoria at the challenge of guiding Dylan down t
he right path, of showing the Thayers that the good thing can be done. “I’d be happy to work with Dylan.”

  “He’s going to need as much time as you can offer,” Dr. Thayer says. Her voice is sugary, repentant. “Perhaps you can teach Tuscany in the morning, and Dylan in the early afternoon?”

  “We can work something out like that,” Noah says.

  “And we can continue to do payment for this just between us?”

  It is time to do this aboveboard, particularly after Dr. Thayer’s vague threat of blackmail. “No, I think it’s best that we go through the office if I’m working toward a standardized test.”

  Dr. Thayer shrugs. “Okay. It’s your money you’re losing.” She stares at Noah, her hard brown eyes vital within the tired rumple of her face.

  “I assume Tuscany is waiting for me?” Noah asks.

  A smile ripples across Dr. Thayer’s lips. “Tuscany and Dylan both.”

  Tuscany is late for her morning session. Noah uses the time to respond to Mr. Thayer, who left him a message saying that his agency contract was worth “less than the paper it was printed on.”

  Mr. Thayer is in Chicago. Would Noah like to leave a voicemail? He would:

  Hi, Mr. Thayer, this is Noah. I was glad to receive your message this morning—however, I have thought it over and unfortunately don’t think I’m going to be able to go ahead with this. My agency has treated me pretty well, and I’d rather not leave at this point. Thanks, and if I can be of any other help, let me know. So long.

  It’s time to regain the high ground.

  Tuscany finally comes in, fifteen minutes late. Her mascara seems to be double thickness today; Noah can barely see her eyes. He wonders if she has worn it for him, and realizes she must have—she is grounded, and the only other people here are her mother and Fuen. She is chipper and eager to work, and happily lets Noah guide her in the construction of a cardboard molecule of caffeine.