Glamorous Disasters

by Eliot Schrefer

  Noah tries to plunge himself back into the man’s rapid shifts in thought. New federal programs allow funding for tutors in underprivileged communities, or they could go through existing nonprofit organizations like Prep-for-Prep. He’s been looking for academic tutors for his dancers but hadn’t even thought of getting them SAT tutoring as well. Would Noah please call him to talk further? Noah asks for a card. The man gives him one, shakes Noah’s hand, and disappears into the crowd.

  Noah stares down at the card, the fruit of a connection effectively earned through his work with the Thayers. It is brown ink on tan paper: he finds the numbers difficult to read through the haze of the wine. But this is something, the start of something. He imagines what it will be like to feel good about his work, to earn money and also be happy doing it. It seems indulgent and blissful. He wants to share the feeling with Olena, to thank her. But he can’t find her.

  He scans the crowd, sipping his wine. The apartment is nearly full. The guests stand wedged into corners, perched at the entranceways to rooms. For all the Thayers’ wealth, this is still Manhattan, and an apartment party always makes for cramped conversations. They either stand still, as if ordered to pose, or move through the rooms purposefully and indirectly, like chess pieces.

  Dylan and Roberto are upstairs. Olena is likely with them. He’ll go say hello.

  A tight ring of stylish Orthodox Jewish women blocks the path through Dr. Thayer’s office. Noah decides to pass through the kitchen instead. He enters, only to find at the other end the one man he most wanted to avoid. Mr. Thayer is crouched over, a champagne bottle between his knees. A piece of its wire mechanism has broken off, and he strains to extract the cork. The silk trouser fabric covering Mr. Thayer’s thighs shakes with the effort. The neck of the bottle is directed at Noah. He sidesteps quickly, and slams into an open cabinet. It closes noisily. Mr. Thayer stands up quickly, immediately defensive, as if the champagne is a prostitute who has been giving him a blow job. He sees Noah, and the two of them stare at each other from across the gleaming open space of the kitchen. There is no one else here; this is their own private arena. Noah’s pulse quickens.

  “A friend brought this,” Mr. Thayer says unsurely, holding up the assaulted bottle.

  For two men well versed in pleasantries, one of them should figure out how to start up a conversation. But a long and silent charge passes between them. Noah sees in Mr. Thayer’s eyes not a hint of apology, and yet he empathizes with him—Mr. Thayer has no idea what to say, is so obviously uncomfortable, that Noah sees himself in him. He feels like excusing himself and leaving the kitchen. But he knows how angry Olena would be for his sake were she standing here next to him, how angry he would be later if he let this moment pass without confronting Mr. Dale Thayer.

  Mr. Thayer has placed the bottle on the counter and is fiddling with the foil. Apparently he has decided that the bottle will make for a less nerve-wracking conversational partner. “Can’t…seem…to…get…you…open…”

  Noah’s impulse is to ask if he can help. Instead he leans against the counter. “Looks like you’re having some trouble there.”

  “I am, I am,” Mr. Thayer says. Then, apparently sensing some inherent weakness implied in his bent posture, to be so concerned over a bottle, he stands up and puts it down. “I’m glad you could make it, Noah.”

  “Are you?”

  “Of course.” He pauses, and looks searchingly into Noah’s eyes. “Did Mindy call you?”

  “That’s your assistant? No.”

  “Oh,” Mr. Thayer says. “She should have.”

  Noah pulls himself up to his full height. He sees, now, that he is slightly taller than Mr. Thayer. “What did you want her to tell me?”

  “Oh. I really wish Mindy had called you. You should have known by now. I’ve been looking at the market, and I’m just not sure if this is going to happen. And even if it does, I don’t think I’ll need help with the actual materials for some time. I’ve got your number at the ready, though, for when I do.”

  “What about all the materials from my company? Are you finding those helpful?”

  “I’m not sure what you’re getting at, here.”

  “What I’m ‘getting at, here,’ is that you’ve played me. You’ve used me to get confidential materials, and then dropped me.”

  “In business, Noah, nothing is as simple as that.”

  “Bullshit.”

  Mr. Thayer’s eyes light up. “Bullshit? I wasn’t going to tell you, Noah, but since you’re obviously so into being so honest, here, let me tell you this—your agency’s materials are crap. Your ‘learning’ processes are crap. Those training manuals are worthless. All you do is teach seventh-grade math to eleventh-graders. I had expected some magical formulas, some brilliant tricks that crack open the test. But all you’re paid to do is to be friends with my children and photocopy words out of the dictionary. It’s a sick industry, creating a need where there wasn’t any. And yes, that’s business, that’s good economics. But I don’t need your help on the academic front because there is no academic front. I can create my own group of wunderkind pseudo-shrinks without anyone’s help. If families want to pay for the privilege of inviting young Ivy League men into their homes and being able to chat about their newest employee at cocktail parties, I’m willing to oblige. I just don’t see how you’d have anything to offer to that venture.”

  Despite himself, Noah is struck by Mr. Thayer’s honesty. His words are ruthless but heartfelt. He is brilliant and self-absorbed, feels free to speak his mind if the thought is interesting enough. There is no appealing to compassion here.

  “What I do here…” Noah says. His voice falters, so he starts over. The cork flies off the champagne. Mr. Thayer smiles wanly as he fills flutes. “What I do here is teaching, Mr. Thayer. I wouldn’t do all this if it were all tricks and special strategies. My job here isn’t to teach how to cheat the test, and it isn’t figuring out how to find the quickest way to college. I’m taking your kid, who went to one of the best schools in the nation, has all the resources in the world, and somehow doesn’t know how to reason, has never read a book, forgot algebra as soon as the grades were in, and I’m filling in the gaps. I’m showing him how to add fractions and to derive equations. My question for you, sir, is how children of genius parents at the very best schools are just scoring average on a nationwide test. Average. Or, in Dylan’s case, well below average. Do you ever wonder why? Well. He was never read to as a child, never encouraged to take the hard road to solving a problem, never had to make sure his own needs were covered. And how do successful parents raise average children? By focusing on their own genius, by looking after their own goals and ignoring the better good of their kid, by raising a child for the sole reason that finally there will be someone in the world whose duty will be to be impressed with them.”

  Mr. Thayer has finished filling the flutes. “Someone brought this bottle of champagne as a gift,” he says jovially. “I thought it would be polite to serve it right away.” He takes a glass off the tray and sets it down on the table. “Maybe you’d like one.” Now now, his manner says, you didn’t have to get personal.

  Then he picks up the tray, nods to Noah, and leaves the kitchen.

  Noah is left clutching a glass of champagne. It has been handed to him like a consolation prize for having been dicked over. He holds the flute tightly in his fingers, wonders how it would feel if he crushed the glass in his fist, felt the glass cutting into the lines of his palm. He wishes that Mr. Thayer were still in the room. He wants to tell him about Cameron, Sonoma, all the students who understand the gift of their privilege, who take advantage of the resources offered them and try to rise to the higher challenge. Instead everything is focused on kids like Dylan, the glamorous disasters. Other parents managed, he wants to say. Why couldn’t you pay any attention to your kid?

  He wants Olena, her rationality, her goodness. He needs her to ground the eccentric world that has spitefully placed a glass of champagne in h
is fist. He slams it down and strides into the foyer. He sees, out of the corner of his eye, Mr. Thayer in heated discussion with Dr. Thayer. She has crossed her narrow arms over her chest. Noah knows he doesn’t have much time left before they ask him to leave.

  He takes the stairs two at a time and knocks on Dylan’s door. “Go away,” comes Dylan’s voice. Noah hears Roberto laugh. He opens the door.

  Dylan is on his knees in front of his desk, his crutches on the floor at his side, his thick lips dripping spittle into the trash can. Roberto is sitting on the bed, reading a Maxim. “What the hell?” Noah says. “What’s going on?”

  Noah sees a flash of irritation cross Roberto’s face, annoyance at Noah’s prudishness, and then sees him force himself into friendliness. “Hey, Noah, don’t worry, man, I’ve got it covered here.”

  “Got what covered?”

  Dylan looks up. His eyes are bloodshot; Noah can barely see them through the wet mess of his hair. “I’m fine,” he slurs.

  Noah kneels next to Dylan and holds his head back, grips his forehead. Dylan’s face is smooth and cool in his palm. His skin isn’t clammy; Noah wishes he knew whether that was a good sign. “What did you give him?” Noah asks.

  Roberto shrugs. “Nuttin’ serious. Xanax, I guess. He must have taken a few shots before that, or snorted something. I’ve seen him like this before, he gets over it quick, huh, Dylan?”

  Dylan groans affirmatively.

  The door opens. Olena appears with a glass of water and a wet washcloth. “Noah!” she says. “You have seen what my asshole brother did to Dylan?”

  “I didn’t do anything. He did it to himself,” Roberto growls.

  Olena hands the water to Noah. He presses it to Dylan’s mouth. Dylan gums the lip of the glass. His pale lips move without coordination, like grubs. “He’s not okay,” Noah says.

  Dylan manages a sip of water. Olena presses the washcloth against his forehead as Noah holds him. “You’re a good-looking guy,” she says to Dylan with exaggerated sweetness. He smiles and gives a little laugh. “I think he’s going to be okay,” Olena says.

  Noah spins on Roberto. “You should get out of here, man. You’ve already gotten a seventeen-year-old fucked up. You have the balls to just walk into his house during a party? Leave him alone, let him just be, okay?”

  Roberto puts his magazine down. He adopts a pissed-off thug voice. “What, like I’m not allowed to be here? Look, you’re not the one to be telling me what to do, okay?”

  Olena says something cross in Albanian. Roberto stands and leaves the room. Noah hears the door creak, but it doesn’t click closed. He turns. Dr. Thayer stands in the doorway. She takes in Dylan’s kneeling form, Olena in the middle of administering the washcloth, Noah crouched next to her with the glass of water in his hand.

  “What happened to Dylan? What did you do to him?” she asks softly.

  “He’s taken something,” Noah says. “I think he’s probably going to be okay.”

  “What the fuck?” Dylan groans. “What is she doing in here? Get out! God!”

  “Do you want me to leave?” Dr. Thayer’s voice is cool but shaky. She closes the door behind her.

  “Yes!”

  “Hold on,” Noah says. “Let her help you.”

  Dylan brushes the washcloth out of his face, tries to sit up but can’t. Olena steps back into the corner. “What the hell? I don’t need her to ‘help me.’ Shut up, dude.”

  “You’ve really gone and screwed it up this time, huh?” Dr. Thayer says to Dylan, suddenly vitriolic; she is probably scared.

  “Just get her out of here,” Dylan cries. “Please. I just want to sleep.”

  “Let’s give him some space,” Dr. Thayer says. “I’ll keep checking in on him.” She holds the door open. Noah and Olena have no choice but to go through. She closes it behind them. The three stand huddled outside the door. Noah expects Dr. Thayer to be angry or worried, to want a hushed conference about Dylan, but she has a perfect hostess veneer. “You must be Olena,” she says. “I recognize you from the trip pictures.”

  “P-pleased to meet you,” Olena says.

  “Thank you for coming,” Dr. Thayer says. “Your dress is very pretty.”

  “Thank you.”

  Dr. Thayer stares Olena down. Catching the dismissal barely hidden in the doctor’s gaze, Olena announces a need to use the restroom. Dr. Thayer and Noah are left alone in the hallway.

  She jabs her finger into Noah’s chest. She is smiling, but she wields her bony finger like a dagger; it really hurts. Noah takes an involuntary step backward. “You,” she says, “shouldn’t have put my medications bag in the downstairs fridge.”

  “What?”

  “It turned up upstairs eventually, but missing the entire contents of Xanax.” She laughs harshly. “I can recognize a Xanax-alcohol mix when I see one.”

  “Jesus!” She has made it sound like an amusing anecdote. “What about Dylan? What are you going to do? It could be something more serious than alcohol, I don’t know…”

  Dr. Thayer looks into Noah’s eyes. Her gaze is mesmerizing; it holds a vestigial power; she is using some move that at one time was seductive. Now her gaze is equally compelling, but only because it holds a lost grandeur, the same horror and mystery of a ruined temple. “My husband,” she says, “is angry that I invited you here.”

  She speaks the line with a breathless wickedness, as though the two of them are at the climax of an illicit and doomed affair.

  “Truth be told,” Noah says hesitantly, “I’m angry with your husband.”

  “I warned you to think twice about working with him. He’s merciless. All of our friends have been burned by him at one point. The strong ones remain, the weak ones leave. I’m glad I invited you, though,” Dr. Thayer says rapidly. “He needs to face what he does. And apparently you gave him quite a little showdown. You broke through to him, I think. He seems thoughtful.” Dr. Thayer gives a little golf clap.

  Noah nods. The array of artificial blond highlights in Dr. Thayer’s hair, shining above the iron gray beneath, is beguiling.

  “He’s quite angry,” Dr. Thayer repeats, lost in some ecstasy. She couldn’t seem to find anything more pleasurable.

  Noah nods. He is being prodded toward some great assault, sexual or verbal, and within the haze of wine he cannot think of how to prepare a defense for it. “And Noah,” Dr. Thayer breathes, “he has a lot of right to be angry.”

  “Hardly.”

  “I saw your big friend, that roommate of yours, ‘Rob,’ leave. I believe he’s the one who just showed up with my OD’d son. I don’t think that’s really someone my son’s tutor should have introduced him to, do you?”

  “I didn’t introduce them, not intentionally, and the reason for his—”

  “Let me continue, if you will. We’ve paid you quite a bit, Noah, and you haven’t really come through, have you? All Tuscany has to show for her spring semester is a big yellow bruise that doesn’t seem to go away. And you managed to chase off her au pair, and aren’t making a very good replacement. And Dylan, well! He didn’t go up at all on his writing score, and it doesn’t look as if he’s going to improve on the rest of his SAT. So really, what have you done for us, other than soak up forty thousand dollars? Oh, of course you’ve been a good friend to our children, we both can’t thank you enough for that.”

  Dr. Thayer is both so feeble and so cruel—Noah wonders how it would feel to strike her, to smother her.

  “But Noah,” she continues, rubbing a hand against the ridges of her rib cage, “we’ve paid you this money in good faith. And we do expect results.”

  “I know what you’re referring to. And you can forget about it.”

  “Here’s the thing. You’ve got a number of strikes against you. One, you’ve introduced my son to an…indecent lifestyle. Two, you’ve tried to enter into an illegal contract with my husband. Three, you were assigned both Dylan and Tuscany through your agency, and proceeded to work with them under the table. I
don’t think they would be happy to hear about any of this. They don’t even know about Monroe Eichler, do they? And they were so unhappy to hear about your lackluster results with the Fieldston kids.”

  Dr. Thayer called the Fieldston parents, all in her push to get Noah in the position where he would have to accept her offer. It’s boggling. His rage at Dr. Thayer now has too many targets; he sputters. “You’re the one to suggest I work under the table. I didn’t even—”

  “I’m not the one whose job is hanging by a thread. Why should your agency care what I do?”

  “You told them—you ratted me out! And introducing Dylan to an ‘indecent lifestyle’? What the hell? He’s been dipping into your drug supply for years. You’ve destroyed his ambition—he has nothing else to turn to. You’ve hired tutors illegally, cheated for your kids, you—How would everyone in your world react if they knew what you’ve done? What would happen to your reputation, your practice? You’re more vulnerable than you think, here.”

  Dr. Thayer blanches for a moment, then flushes again. She is threatened and thrilled: Noah can see the excitement, the arousal, in the twitching lines of her usually deadened face. She glances at the unaware guests arranged below, then grips Noah’s elbow and pulls him toward her bedroom. Momentarily stunned, he allows himself to be led to the lip of her sanctum, then he pulls back and stands in the doorway, arms crossed. Dr. Thayer reaches around him to close the door, but gives up when Noah doesn’t move. They stand inches apart and breathe at each other.

  “You know I would never allow my own children to get high from my own prescription meds. Why would I do that?” She speaks the words quickly and anxiously, into the parted triangle of fabric at Noah’s throat.

  Noah falters. The reason is obvious, but is also too complex for him to articulate in his agitated state. “You prescribe him enough on your own. He’s got a quadruple dosage of Ritalin, you’ve given him a huge stash of Unisom to go to sleep every night. He doesn’t even have to steal to be doped up.”