“Regardless, Tuscany doesn’t really need you anymore. I just hate to see you without any source of income.”
“Really,” Noah says firmly, “don’t worry about me.” But the thought of having no money at all is horrifying. Dr. Thayer reads the anguish in his face, takes a step closer. She is almost pressing into him.
“What I do expect,” she says, “is for you to be present in my children’s lives. Dylan needs you badly, but if you’re not willing to give him the kind of help he really needs, then at least you can tutor him as much as possible until the test on Saturday. And Tuscany doesn’t need a teacher now that it’s practically summer, but what she does need is an Agnès. I’m lost without a personal assistant. I can’t keep track of appointments myself—I’m concerned that her extracurriculars might be slipping through the cracks.”
Noah can feel the heat of Dr. Thayer’s body radiating through the thin silk of her robe. “So what are you proposing?” Noah asks.
“I need a personal assistant for a few weeks. All the time you can give. We have a spare bedroom; you could even stay here if you’re scared to travel back to Harlem late at night.”
“I’m not scared,” Noah says.
Dr. Thayer stares at him. The larger question has been left unanswered.
“So it’s all or nothing?” Noah asks.
Dr. Thayer shrugs. “We need a personal assistant now. Not a tutor. Take it or leave it, Noah. I have to get ready for my book club.”
“Just for a couple of weeks?”
“A couple of weeks. Yes.”
“Fine,” Noah says.
“Oh, good,” Dr. Thayer says. “We’ll figure out exact hours later. Just make sure you keep your cell phone on. Fuen will bring you sheets on nights when you need to stay.”
Dr. Thayer slowly pulls the silken folds of her bathrobe over her ribs and torso, staring into Noah’s eyes the whole time. “And I hope, after this family has invested so much in you, that you will still consider being of more help to Dylan.”
Noah stares at Dr. Thayer, unable to formulate an answer. She turns and stalks up the stairs. Noah picks up the used lightbulb and goes to find a trash can, and then to begin Tuscany’s lesson.
It is obvious that there is little to no communication between Mr. and Dr. Thayer, for when Noah arrives for their appointment Mr. Thayer’s first question is a sanguine and direct “How is Dylan doing?”
“Fine, Mr. Thayer. He finds the test difficult, but he’s doing okay.”
“And Tuscany?”
“Fine as well. She’s very bright.”
They segue, with swift and brutal civility, into the topic of starting an SAT company. Noah details the hiring processes, the training of employees, the materials created and used, practice test schedules, various rates charged, the means of managing parents’ expectations. Mr. Thayer records it all, nods and motions for Noah to continue when he reaches the end of a point. After about an hour he reaches forward and snaps off the digital recorder.
“That’s very good, Noah, very good. Because what I’m interested in is not creating another Princeton Review or Kaplan. I want to go to the top, run a boutique agency like yours. My question for you now is this: since we’re in this together, partners, can you release your materials to me? Give me a copy of your training manuals, SATs, memos, et cetera?”
“Um, sure, I suppose so,” Noah says. They’re sitting in the bag at his side; he certainly doesn’t have need of them at the moment. And surely he should accede to a billionaire’s judgment. He’s the one with the enormous desk, right?
“Great, great. I’ll need to look those over to come up with a business strategy. We can meet again in a few weeks and determine where to go from here. And then there’s the matter of your compensation. I assume the hundred fifty K rough figure I quoted earlier sounds acceptable?”
Noah nods. A hundred and fifty thousand would be just fine.
Mr. Thayer stands and holds out his hand. “Okay, then! We’ll be in touch.”
“You didn’t get a contract?” Olena asks.
Noah shakes his head. It suddenly seems like the most foolish thing in the world.
“Oh, Noah,” Olena says. “I do not know how businesses run in the United States, but it seems like you should have gotten one. Can you call him and ask him for one?”
Noah does call that evening. Mr. Thayer is “in a meeting.” Noah leaves a message. It isn’t returned.
Chapter
11
Noah wakes early the next morning, wanders into the living room in his boxers, and blinks at the light. Olena has already been up for hours: she is showered and neatly dressed. Crusts of bread litter the table, and the caps are off all her highlighters. Her freshly scrubbed face peers up at him from her array of workbooks. “Wow,” he says.
Olena laughs. “Sleepy and boxer shorts. You have a very American cuteness today.”
Noah nods numbly, stumbles into the shower. Olena parts the curtain and watches him frankly. “I was looking at the SAT website,” she says, “and there is a June test. Do you think I could take the June test?”
Noah has just lathered his face. He takes a few moments to wash the soap off before speaking. “I think you have much more of a chance for June than May.”
“You are not being a very good cheerleader for me, even if you are cute.”
Noah chuckles. “No, I am not. But you can trust me to be honest.”
“I will be ready for June. Mark that.”
“Aye-aye, Captain. Could you pass my towel?” Noah’s towel appears over the top of the railing. He rubs his wet fingers up Olena’s arm as he accepts it.
If it were any time later than seven A.M . he would try to pull her in. He dries off in the bathtub, wraps the towel around his waist, and then presses Olena against him. She laughs gaily at the wetness of his skin. “Hi,” she says.
“Hi.”
They stare at each other for a moment, and then Noah’s phone rings. Olena toyed with it in bed the night before, and jokingly set it to squeal loudly for Dr. Thayer’s calls. The pitch itself sets Noah’s heart constricting.
“What the fuck?” Roberto grumbles from the bedroom. “Turn that shit off.”
Roberto arrived home late, and sounds none too happy. Noah grabs the cell phone and silences it. The display reads Thayer, Home. Noah stands for a moment, dripping onto the linoleum before the streaming morning sunlight, and debates whether to answer. But Dr. Thayer is his one and only employer: he has to answer. He flips the phone open.
“Hello?” Noah says.
“Rrr,” Roberto roars, drowning out Dr. Thayer’s reply. Noah closes the bathroom door.
“—you on your way?”
“Um, no, am I supposed to be?” Olena leans her head against his bare chest. He feels her breath against his skin. He strokes her long neck once and then, distracted, lets his hand lie there.
“I thought I told you. I’m sure I told you. I have to leave here at seven-thirty and there is a medications delivery scheduled for eight. I need you here for it, and then you’ll have to get Tuscany up in time to be ready for your lesson.”
“Oh. You never told me.”
“Well, who’s going to pick it up, Dylan ? Whether I told you or not, I need you. So take a cab. I hope you’re already showered.”
“Yes,” Noah says, feeling oddly proud to announce this small victory. Dr. Thayer hangs up.
So this was Agnès’s life. No wonder she ran off. Noah sits on the sill of the bathtub for a few moments, until the towel is soaked through. Olena sits beside him, wraps an arm around his arm, and sighs. “What did she want?”
Noah feels awful. Olena needs him, has been up and ready for him, and instead he has to race to Fifth Avenue to wait around for a medications delivery. “She wants me to go there now,” Noah says.
“Oh,” Olena says. She tries to hide her disappointment, but her thin dark eyebrows sag. “For the whole day?”
“I assume so.”
“A
nd it will always be like this?”
“I don’t know. I’m sorry.”
Olena stands and opens the bathroom door. “Don’t be sorry, it’s your job, you have to go. I know I am unable to pay you.”
“Stop, it’s not about money, you know that. I would love to be here with you instead.”
“I will take another test today, then. Is that what I should do?”
“Take SAJ 2001.”
Olena nods, and sits in the center of her array of test materials. She doesn’t look up when Noah leaves.
Noah runs into Dr. Thayer beneath the lush canopy of her building. It startles him to see her outside, to see her slight frame outlined in sunlight. She looks younger, almost bonny. “Hello, Dr. Thayer,” Noah says to her. The doormen look on. She gives a slight, formal nod in return and slides into her car service.
Noah ascends to the Thayer apartment. The door is, as usual, unlocked. This early in the morning the air inside is dead, motionless, black. Noah walks up and down the foyer for a few moments, idly examining the miniature statues arranged along the wall. It feels uncanny to be alone inside the apartment, like seeing the interior of a closed music box. There is no sound from Dylan’s and Tuscany’s rooms; they must be sound asleep. Dylan probably arrived home when Roberto did, just a few hours earlier.
Noah sits on the firm leather bench by the front door, takes out his phone, and calls Olena. He has time to guide her through two problems before the doormen buzz. “The doctor’s got a delivery.”
Noah hangs up with Olena, accepts the drug shipment, and carries the black zip-bag into the kitchen. And then, curious, he opens it and peeks inside. Dozens of prescription bottles are lined up within the insulated plastic: Xanax, Dexedrine, Valium, Ritalin. Noah zips it back up and inserts the container into the refrigerator between a bag of imported mozzarella and a half gallon of orange juice.
The monolithic fridge makes a solid suction sound when he closes it, like the door of an SUV. He returns to the foyer and calls Olena back. They try to work through another problem, but it frustrates them both that Noah is unable to see where Olena has made her mistakes. It is Olena who somewhat sulkily decides to end the call. Noah is left by himself in the impeccable luxury of the Thayer apartment. He runs a hand down the smoothness of the steel kitchen cabinets, wanders through the hall and touches the statues. He examines the bindings of the books arrayed on the sole bookshelf: a leather-bound Great Books series, in perfect chronological order and bindings immaculate. Living here is like existing inside the characterless perfection of a catalogue. How, he wonders, would he decorate this place differently if the Thayer wealth were his?
Noah considers calling his mother and brother. But he knows calling them from the Thayer apartment would be a bad idea—they would somehow sense the quiet grandeur around him, which would only further the unreality of his situation.
Tuscany doesn’t need to be up for another hour. Noah wanders past Dr. and Mr. Thayer’s offices. Both rooms have been cleared of papers, the desks removed. In their place stretch driftwood tables and polished birch tables in the oblong shape of yachts, covered in lace tablecloths and adorned with champagne flutes. Each setting contains a small arsenal of cutlery with handles as solid as swords’. The molding around the ceiling has been relacquered driftwoodtan, and the walls are peach. The whole effect is ostentatious and disorienting, as though a Provençal exterior has been inverted and placed on Fifth Avenue.
Noah continues down the hallway, toward the dining room. Plastic sheeting and masking tape emerge from the entrance. A dropcloth crinkles as Noah approaches. The family portraits have been taken down, and the walls painted a baked ochre. From the window stretches a painted horizon of blue streaked with sunny yellow. Mr. Thayer is evidently to have a theme party: yachts on the Riviera.
The plastic drop crinkles again. Noah turns to see two Hispanic men in painter’s smocks standing apologetically at the entranceway. They hold their painter’s caps at their waist, as if in respect for the passing of the dead.
“Mr. Thayer?” one of them says. “Hello, Mr. Thayer.” The other nods frantically.
Noah’s first impulse is to say, I’m not Mr. Thayer, but he realizes his true position in the household would be too complicated to explain. Also, he doesn’t really mind being considered a Thayer for a few seconds. He runs a hand through his hair.
“It’s fine, I’m just seeing what’s here. It looks great.”
The men still look terrorized.
“I’ll just get out of your way,” Noah says. He crinkles across the dropcloth and leaves the dining room.
He stands listlessly in the foyer. He no longer feels comfortable wandering the apartment, not with the two workmen there to witness his conflicting contempt and admiration. It is too bizarre to be here without any of the Thayers: he feels that he is being illicit and naughty, as though he were locked in a museum at night, with free rein over a forbidden place. He has to share the feeling with someone, even just to break the artificial solitude of the apartment. Maybe Tuscany is already awake. Noah makes his way up the stairs. He can’t hear a sound from either her room or Dylan’s. But there is a piece of heavy paper taped to Tuscany’s door. Noah leans forward to read it in the dim light:
Noah,
Thank you for accepting the delivery (provided, of course, that you have come on time). T will need lunch. Please see that it is provided. I will need you to stay here tonight. I can’t attend to the children. Also, I’ll expect you to be here tomorrow evening to help take care of D and T during Mr. Thayer’s IPO party. Feel free to bring someone who would find conversing with our guests interesting (and vice versa, of course!). You will need to wake D up in the morning to go to school.
Dr. Thayer (Susan)
Noah takes the note, sloppily folds it, and wedges it into his pants pocket.
Tuscany, sleepy-eyed and big-haired, emerges from her bedroom to find Noah in front of her door. “Hey,” she says slowly. “What are you doing?”
“Just got the note from your mother.”
“She’s a crazy bitch sometimes, isn’t she?” Tuscany says. She brushes past Noah and wanders down the hallway.
Noah is about to reprimand Tuscany, but bites it back. Her point is, after all, pretty accurate.
“Hey,” Tuscany says on returning. “There’s some guys in the dining room.”
“Yeah, they’re redecorating for your dad’s party.”
“Oh, cool.” Tuscany disappears into her bedroom. “Come on in.”
Noah enters. She is sitting on her unmade bed, wearing a worn tank top and sweats. She throws herself back among her pillows, stretches her arms. “You know,” she says, her eyes closed, “Agnès always made me make my bed first thing.” She giggles. “You make a crappy au pair.”
“Maybe you should make your bed, then.”
“Mmm. No thanks.” She stretches in her comforter and stares at Noah. One side of her shirt has fallen, and she breathes against the bare skin of her shoulder as her eyes meet his. She is seducing him; he feels his pulse race in his wrists. “So what are we going to do today?” she asks.
“You’re getting a unit test in chemistry,” Noah improvises.
She pouts. “I thought you said I don’t have to take tests.”
Noah crosses his arms and backs toward the door. “Well, today you’re going to take a unit test. Come on, get dressed and come downstairs. I’ll be at the kitchen table.”
Tuscany sits up again. “What the fuck ?”
“I’m serious. I’ll be waiting.” He leaves the room and closes the door. He leans against it for a moment, feels his blood pounding within his fingertips. He listens for a moment to the rustling of her bedsheets as she gets ready. Then he goes down to the kitchen.
Tuscany arrives fifteen minutes later wearing a baggy shirt, quiet and abashed. Noah administers a test from the textbook. They pass the rest of the session going over her outline for her next essay. At lunchtime Tuscany announces that she wants tom
ato and mozzarella slices. Noah extracts the mozzarella from the fridge, and as he does so Tuscany laughs derisively. “You put the drugs in there?”
“Yes. They’re supposed to go in the fridge.”
“In Mom’s fridge. That’s upstairs, in the bedroom. There’s a combo. It’s fifty-four, sixteen.”
How do you know the combination? Noah’s raised eyebrows say. But it is futile to pursue the point—and regardless, the time is long past that he can be shocked by the Thayers. “I’ll put them there after lunch. Now help me and cut a tomato.”
Tuscany seems taken aback at being asked to help, but then nods. She puts a tomato on the counter and extracts a butcher knife from the block. She holds it unsteadily a foot above the red fruit, as if she is planning to guillotine it. Noah takes the knife from her and replaces it with a smaller one. He shows her how to cut the tomato. Pleased by this new trick, Tuscany passes the lunchtime in pleasant conversation, and then leaves to take the car service to her riding lesson.
Dylan’s afternoon session doesn’t go as well, primarily because Dylan doesn’t show up. Noah passes the afternoon in Dylan’s room. He calls Dylan’s cell a few times. There is no response. He watches TV for an hour, then calls Dr. Thayer’s cell. She must be in sessions: he goes straight to voicemail. He has done what he can. Noah idly watches $225 worth of Oprah and calls Olena during a commercial.
“What, Noah?”
Noah mutes the television. “Wow, what’s wrong?”
“You can’t just call me when you are free, in these idle minutes.”
“I have a lot of free time right now. Dylan didn’t show. I just wanted to help you.”
“It doesn’t work on the phone.” There is a pause. “I got another 1730.”
“Oh, sorry. Can you see why?”
“No. I can’t without your showing me.”
“Listen, I have bad news. I’m going to have to stay here tonight.”
“Oh.”
“Is that okay?”
“Yes, of course.” Olena’s tone convinces Noah of exactly the opposite.
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