Tuscany emerges from the bathroom. She sings tunelessly along with the music on her headphones, turns once in the hallway and raises her arms sexily, as if dancing at a club. Then she sees Noah. “Oh!” she says. She slides the headphones down around her neck. “You’re sitting on the stairs!”
Noah looks dully from Tuscany’s bedroom to Dylan’s. These kids are his employers now, his only work; this is it. Better make it count. He lurches to his feet. “Yeah,” he says. “I heard you go into the bathroom, and thought I’d wait here for you to come out.”
“Oh,” Tuscany says. She looks confused. She raises a hand limply and points to the bathroom. “Well, I’m out.”
“Great!” Noah manages to say. He clambers up the stairs. “So, how did the translation go?” he asks chirpily.
“Uh, fine.” They take their seats in Tuscany’s room. “Is everything cool, Noah?”
“Yeah, why?”
“I dunno. You just seem a little jumpy.”
For Tuscany to lose confidence in him would be the final blow. He can’t let it happen. “No, I’m okay. Too little coffee today. Or maybe too much.” He laughs.
“Okay,” Tuscany says. She draws out the word.
She hasn’t finished her French translation. Noah gives her an hour to complete it. He sits on the bed, staring at an open novel and serving as dictionary whenever Tuscany doesn’t know a word, which is roughly every ten seconds. The hour of passive activity gives Noah a chance to collect himself. A solution forms itself in his head.
“Hey, when’s your dad’s big IPO party?” Noah asks.
“Next Tuesday. Mom was going to have it on a Saturday but then I was like, ‘Mom, everyone’s going to be in the Hamptons .’ So we’re having it on Tuesday, ’cuz Dad’s going to be out of town the rest of the week. You’re totally invited, by the way. You should wear that shirt I got you.”
Mr. Thayer. A hundred and fifty K a year. Noah can think of nothing but Mr. Thayer. He chatters aimlessly about the man: what does he like, what does he wear, where does he travel, what are his interests? Tuscany doesn’t seem to know much about him. She has a vague idea of his having gone to Princeton but, she confesses, she might be confusing him with Noah. He worked in entertainment for a while, she knows, and has a law degree. He might or might not have green eyes. And that’s about it; Tuscany can think of nothing more.
Noah has an hour off between Tuscany and Dylan, and spends fifty-five minutes of it walking up and down Madison Avenue plucking up his poise and courage, and the last five leaving a long message on Mr. Thayer’s machine ending in, “So that’s about it. Hope you’re still interested!”
Dylan is in better spirits during today’s sessions: he is just impassive rather than actively disagreeable. He focuses on an instant-messaging conversation while Noah recites the most important math formulas. When Noah suggests turning off the computer Dylan glances up passionlessly and then returns his focus to the screen. Noah’s options, he knows, are either to be satisfied with half of Dylan’s attention or get none of it at all. So he continues to recite formulas. When he quizzes Dylan on what he’s learned, the afternoon’s achievements are revealed to include r2,a2 +b2=c2, and nothing else.
When Noah turns on his cell phone in the elevator there is a message from Mr. Thayer’s secretary. Will Noah be available to meet Thursday at six? Since Thursday at six was Cameron’s time slot, Noah leaves a message to affirm that he will certainly be available.
Noah pauses beneath the building’s canopy: it is four in the afternoon, he has prospective employment, and there is nowhere he needs to be! He is struck by the odd fact that, although he is losing his tutoring job, he is thrilled by the consolation of free evenings. He knows exactly whom he wants to see. He eagerly calls the house and gets Hera:
“Hello, Noah! I was just telling Olena that it seems we never cross paths no more! I am sad to not be seeing you, except for making morning teaching coffee!”
“You’ll be seeing me around more, don’t worry. Is Olena there?”
Noah hears static as Olena comes to the phone. She barks at her mother in quick, harsh Albanian. Olena breathes into the phone a moment, collecting herself, then says: “Hello. We are talking on the phone. This is irregular for us, is it not?”
“It is,” Noah says, stopping in the sidewalk and staring coyly into the pavement of Fifth Avenue. He can’t stop smiling. Olena has called their speaking on the phone “irregular”—she is impossibly charming. “How goes the day’s homework?” he asks.
“I have considered selling my SAT materials on the corner. You will find me next to the pleasant Dominican woman who sells mangoes.”
“Not good?”
“I am not being as brilliant as I should be.”
“Want to get some coffee? And we can put a moratorium on conversations about the SAT.”
“I do not know what you have said. But coffee is nice. Et en plus, comme ça je peux échapper à ma mère. Tell me where to go.”
They meet in a busy East Village coffee shop. This is Olena’s first American coffee that hasn’t been from a Starbucks. “In fact,” she says as they sit down, “I did not know there existed others.”
Noah rips open a sugar packet and smiles.
“I like it here,” Olena announces. “Even if they serve cappuccino in cardboard silos.”
“How is coffee served in Albania?”
“How is coffee served in Albania? Did you truly just ask me that? There is nothing of note to be found in my answer. Try again.”
Noah laughs. Olena looks at him and takes a sip of her coffee. She tentatively raises it to her lips, holding the cup lightly in her fingers as if she were a princess sipping her first glass of champagne. Her fine dark hair falls around the mug. She touches the liquid to her lips and it scalds them. She cries out and presses a napkin to her mouth. She pulls the napkin away and laughs at herself, once. There is no mark on the napkin—she is not wearing lipstick—but the hot coffee has brought a splash of pink color to her lips. She explores them tentatively with her tongue. She clearly enjoys the new sensation.
Noah leans forward and kisses her. She returns it.
“Perhaps we have fallen into a type,” she says after they pull apart, a mock-worried expression on her face. “Student and teacher fall in love. It happens all the time, no?”
Noah shakes his head.
Olena runs her tongue over her lips again. Her expression is quizzical, self-aware, curious. Noah kisses her again.
“If we are to kiss again,” Olena says, “I assume we will do it regularly. And if we do it regularly, we will not have created our destinies.”
Olena is often difficult to understand—Noah loves the challenge of speaking to her. But this last part was incomprehensible. “Created our destinies?” he asks.
“Uh,” Olena says. “How can this be said? The future we may be entering, provided that we do, both of us, decide to kiss again, and frequently, is not our own. This is what my mother has wanted from the start. Long before you moved in, even.”
“She told you that?”
“Told me that? No. But every word she says tells me that, no? Does that make sense?”
Noah nods. He is holding Olena’s coffee cup tenderly. He wants to be holding her. He smiles at himself. He takes her hand under the table.
“Good.” She grins slyly. “Now, there is something on your mind, not having to do with me. Tell me what it is, so that your thoughts can then again be wholly on me.”
Noah explains the day’s events. He is so thrilled to be holding Olena’s hand, excited by the play of her slender muscles beneath his fingers, and so dismayed to have basically lost his job, that the words come out in a sort of terrorized euphoria. He is both elated and nervous, bombastic.
“Noah,” Olena says, massaging his fingertips. “You are not in a good place right now. I want you to not be so worried. Your job has been either lost or retained. There is nothing you can do. So you must stop wondering what to do. Just ma
ximize what you still have available.”
Noah nods.
“There!” Olena laughs and puts down her coffee, as if the matter were settled. “We should go back to me now. I am, after all, available.”
Hera is home when they arrive. She immediately refers to them as “you two,” and takes an uncanny interest in their evening, as though she had been along the whole time, hiding in the shadows as they kissed. Or perhaps, Noah realizes, this is how Hera has always maneuvered, treating them as a couple until they capitulated and finally became one. The three of them eat a late dinner together. Hera expresses an earnest concern for Roberto:
“He is never home, always out—he is flying!” she says.
But Olena will have none of it. “You know, Mother, whom he is spending time with. This is what you always wanted for him, no? This advancement. ”
“Titania, darling,” Hera says, an exaggerated pain on her features, “that you should suspect me of having such ulterior motives for my children. It is your happiness that I concern. Perhaps,” she says, fixing wide eyes on Noah, “he is happy now. Perhaps I am wrong to worry. Is Roberto happy?”
Noah thinks to Roberto’s drugged episode of crawling down a fire escape and racing to the hospital. “He seems to be enjoying himself.”
Hera sits back. “Okay, I am content. See, Olena? If you two are happy, that is best.”
Olena rolls her eyes. When dinner is over she and Noah step around each other as they brush their teeth in the tiny bathroom, and then shyly duck into Olena’s bedroom. She is already on the bed, pulling her T-shirt off as Noah closes the door.
In the morning Olena is back at the table. Four SAT booklets sit in front of her, each papered with Post-it notes. Her pens are arranged in neat rows. It is six-thirty A.M . Noah groggily pours himself coffee. He is wearing Olena’s T-shirt beneath his own, and the constant scent of her pleases him. But romance is far from his mind.
Noah looks over Olena’s recent tests. Olena is unable to contain herself, stands behind him and massages his shoulder as he grades them. “Is Section Two okay? I was not sure how I felt taking it. There was a lot of coordinate plane material, and you know how I feel about that. If Section Two is not okay, I am still okay. But Section Three, I really think I aced the passage about Amelia Earhart. Perhaps, when you grade Section Five, you can keep in mind that I had not yet finished the vocabulary list on which refractory is found. But I know it now.”
Noah finishes grading. He looks up at Olena.
“Well?” she asks. She sits and tries to keep her hands calmly on either side of her face, but a pulse of nervous energy flings one of them to the table and scatters her pens. She begins to tidy them up. “How was it? Swarthmore-good? Cornell-good? Perhaps just Boston College–good?”
Noah shakes his head. “I can’t let you take the real test on Saturday.”
“Oh no. How bad?”
“Not bad. You’ve gone up a hundred points. But you’re not testing anywhere near your ability level. You need more time.”
Olena shakes her head once, and then becomes impassive. “I have no more time. Saturday comes in just a few days.”
“You’re going to have to forget about the May test.”
Tears wet the corners of Olena’s eyes. “I am not used to disappointment like this. I am always working very hard. I have spent so much—” She coughs. “So much time preparing for this. I am thinking it was better that I not do this at all.”
Olena’s English gets a little weaker when she gets emotional. Noah is unable to tell if she wishes she hadn’t come to America, or wishes she hadn’t chosen to work with him. He doesn’t want to ask. He just wants her to be happy. He stands behind her and wraps his arms around her. She sobs once into his elbow, then pushes it away. She sits rigidly in her chair, staring blankly into the blue newsprint of the test booklets. She wipes her nose, then says, “I am sorry. I believe I have drained my nose on your shirt.”
“It’s okay,” Noah says.
“Oh. Oh!” Olena says. “I am getting emotional. There is not time for that. Let us have our session. I will be fine.”
Noah pulls his chair next to her and sits down. “No, let me know what you’re thinking.”
Olena looks at him flatly, and then fakes spitting on the table. “Pah, that’s enough, gushy American.”
So, Noah teaches her how to factor special quadratic equations instead.
Noah arrives at the Thayer household ten minutes early, hoping to catch Dr. Thayer. She is right in the hallway where Noah emerges from the elevator, perched high on a ladder, frantically waving a lightbulb over her head.
“Dr. Thayer?” Noah asks. “Can I help you?”
She looks down from the ladder and nearly loses her balance. She grips the metal rungs. “Oh,” she says on seeing Noah. She shakes the lightbulb accusingly. “Just imagine, the day Fuen has to take her kid to the doctor is the day the hallway light goes. I have a book club coming in an hour.”
“I’m sure one of the doormen could help you,” Noah says.
“Sometimes,” Dr. Thayer snaps, “one likes to do things oneself.”
“Or,” Noah says, “I could help you.”
“Would you?” Dr. Thayer says, instantly sweet. “That would be kind.”
She climbs down with overly elaborate grace, as if she were actually a mime performing the descent of a ladder. The gesticulations have caused her bathrobe to loosen. The center of her emaciated torso is exposed down to the navel, like she is wearing a dress for the Oscars. “Um, Dr. Thayer,” Noah says.
“What? Oh!” she exclaims when she notices the open robe. She tightens it. “Sorry. And really, Noah, who’d have thought you were so prudish?” She laughs at him and proffers the lightbulb. He takes it. By raising her arm she has caused the slippery silk of the sash to loosen again, exposing the jutting lines of the ribs between her breasts. She makes no effort to tighten it.
Noah mounts the ladder. Dr. Thayer stands below and stares up. Noah wills himself to concentrate on the light fixture, despite his terrified curiosity over how much of Dr. Thayer is exposed. He removes the spent bulb.
“Just toss it down,” Dr. Thayer says.
Noah pauses. He can’t just drop the bulb without looking. He looks down, and basically sees all of Dr. Thayer’s front, from collarbone down to the knees, within the loose sheaf of her bathrobe. He drops the bulb. She catches it.
Noah concentrates on the fixture. It is almost out of reach, and the screwing of the bulb will take some time.
“So, Dr. Thayer,” Noah says. “I wanted to ask you something.”
“Really?” Dr. Thayer purrs. “Do tell.”
“I was thinking about your offer to do Dylan’s tutoring just between us, without the agency. And I think I was stupid to have said no. Do you think we could work something out?”
“You just simply…changed your mind?” Dr. Thayer asks.
Noah can’t determine her tone. Seeing her expression would help, but he daren’t look down. Her bathrobe probably opened even more when she caught the bulb. “Yes,” Noah says. “Is it still possible?”
“Well, accounts are more difficult now, without Agnès. I still haven’t found a replacement. But we could work something out. You’ll still want, I assume, two hundred twenty-five dollars?”
“That sounds fine to me.”
Dr. Thayer gives a raspy laugh. “I’m sure it does.”
Noah continues tightening the bulb. The glass turning in the socket gives little metallic screeches.
“But really, Noah, there must be a reason for this change of heart.”
Noah looks down and instantly wishes he hadn’t. Dr. Thayer registers the shock on Noah’s face, misattributes the cause to something other than her exposed form: “Ah,” she says, “you see that I know why you’re asking.”
“What?” Noah says, confused, his attention back to the bulb.
“I got a call from your agency. Apparently they just wanted to make sure that I was hap
py with your services. That is not normal behavior…why shouldn’t I be satisfied? It’s not hard to realize that something’s gone wrong.”
“No,” Noah says slowly. “Things with the agency are not perfect at the moment.”
“I’m sorry to hear it. Perhaps they heard about Monroe Eichler. If there’s anything I can do, let me know.”
“No, I think it’s going to be fine. They’re just doing a check on me. Totally normal.”
“You must be low on money, then.”
The bulb is almost finished. “It’s okay, don’t worry.”
“I know you wouldn’t have asked to do this under the table if not.”
Noah is tired of Dr. Thayer’s insinuations, her detached analysis of him. He glares down. “What are you after?” he snaps.
Dr. Thayer’s eyes widen, and she smiles. “I was just wondering if you were reconsidering my request that you, you know, be of more direct assistance to Dylan’s SAT.”
Noah leans heavily against the ladder. “No, I’m not reconsidering.”
“Oh,” Dr. Thayer says. She sighs as Noah begins his descent. “I’m not sure if we’ll need your services otherwise.”
Noah steps off the ladder. She hasn’t moved to make room—he is forced to stand inches in front of her. “What are you saying?” he asks.
Dr. Thayer laughs. “I’m just ‘saying’ that surely we both realize Dylan’s not going to get his score through tutoring. He needs you to take this test for him. His future is resting on it.”
“Dr. Thayer,” Noah says. Extortion on top of everything else—his voice comes out weary and on edge. “I can’t. I won’t.”
“I’m sorry to have upset you, Noah,” Dr. Thayer tuts condescendingly. “Pretend I didn’t ask. But it does seem, don’t you think, that all of this is coming to an end? It’s almost summer, so Tuscany doesn’t need teaching, and Dylan’s just hopeless, or so you make it seem.”
“I would never act as if Dylan were hopeless.”
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