“Why do you say it like that, Nina? You agreed on buying that car for him.”
It was an ancient battle. It had been nearly two years since I had argued it was outrageously excessive to buy a sixteen-year-old a G-wagon, and Kirk had replied that it was excessive only if we couldn’t afford it—and we could. I remember how he had deftly compared it to our furniture—and my wardrobe, saying some might consider those things “excessive,” too. At the time, I was flustered—because he was right, at least on the surface. Only later did I distinguish the difference. Namely, that I wasn’t a teenager. I was an adult. For Finch, a car like his was a windfall, an indulgence, a tacit seal of entitlement. Moreover, I often had the feeling, with both Kirk and Finch, that they wanted things for the status of owning them, and I can honestly say that I’d never, not once, purchased anything with the goal of impressing anyone. I just loved design and fashion. For myself.
“I know I agreed to get him the car,” I said. “And I regret it….Don’t you see that it might have contributed to this?”
“No,” Kirk said. “I don’t.”
“Not at all? Don’t you think spoiling him has had a cumulative effect?”
I heard more clicking as he mumbled, “What happened Saturday night has nothing to do with being spoiled. It was just stupid….” His voice trailed off, and I could tell he was only half focused on our conversation.
“Kirk. What are you doing?”
He launched into a technical explanation of his current consulting gig—something about a CRM implementation.
“Well, I’m sorry this is interfering with your work, but do you think you could stop doing it for a few minutes and focus on Finch?”
“Yeah, Nina. That’s fine,” he said with a sigh. “But we’ve been over this a hundred times. All day yesterday. What he did was wrong. And he needs to be punished. He is being punished. But he’s a good kid. He just made a mistake. And the car and our lifestyle choices have nothing to do with the poor judgment he exercised on Saturday night. He’s a typical high school boy. Boys do dumb things sometimes.”
“Regardless,” I said. “We still have to deal with it….I still need to return Walter’s call.”
“Okay. So then go call him,” he said, as if I were the one trying his patience.
“I’m about to,” I said. “But I wanted to check with you first. What time is your flight?” I couldn’t remember the details of his trip, whether it was for business or pleasure or, most likely, pleasure disguised as business.
“Three-thirty,” he replied.
“Great. So you have time.”
“Not really. I have a meeting and a couple calls before then.”
I took a deep breath. “So should I just go ahead and tell Walter that you’re unavailable because you have more important things to do today?”
“Jesus, Nina,” he said, now on speakerphone. “No, you shouldn’t tell him that. You should tell him that we are aware of the situation. We are handling it at home. But of course we would be happy to discuss it with him. However, nothing works for our schedule today. I could come in later in the week….Or we could do a conference call on my way to the airport?”
“I don’t think Walter wants to do a conference call,” I said. “He asked us to come in and see him. Today.”
“Well. As I said. I cannot. So maybe you could just go alone.”
“Are you serious?”
“I trust you to handle this one and represent us both.”
I shook my head in disbelief. Was he being passive-aggressive? Or was he burying his head in the sand? Or did he actually think that what Finch had done was not that big a deal?
“Don’t you realize what’s happening here?” I finally asked. “Finch is in trouble. With Walter Quarterman. With Windsor Academy. He’s in trouble for posting a sexually explicit photo with a racist caption. This is real.”
“C’mon, Nina. Stop exaggerating. The picture was not sexually explicit. Or racist.”
“Well, I disagree. And more important, I think Walter disagrees. Clearly he thinks there should be consequences to this post—”
“Would you please stop saying that? He didn’t post anything. He sent it to a few friends,” Kirk said.
“What difference does that make?” I shouted. “He might as well have posted it! Everyone forwarded it around. You know a kid got thrown out of Windsor for sending a picture of his penis—”
“C’mon, Nina. This wasn’t a dick pic. It was a little side boob.”
“Kirk! First of all, this was no side boob. Everyone and their grandmother knows that it comes down to whether or not the nipple is showing. But let’s put that aside. How about the racist caption?”
“It wasn’t that racist.”
“Like not being that pregnant?”
“There are degrees of racism. There are no degrees of pregnancy. You either are or you aren’t,” he said. “And this is a classic example of political correctness run amok.”
“?‘Looks like she got her green card’?” I said slowly. “You think that’s okay, Kirk?”
“No. I don’t think it’s okay. I think it’s extremely rude, and yes, it’s a little racist….And I’m very disappointed in him. Very. You know that. Finch knows that. But I don’t think it rises to the level of me changing my flight so that both of his parents can sit through being chastised by the raging liberal headmaster of Windsor Academy.”
“This isn’t about politics, Kirk,” I said, wondering how I seemed to be losing ground since yesterday. It was as if work was more important to him than Finch.
“I know that. But Walt will do his best to turn it into something political. Just wait and see—”
“You know Windsor has an honor code—”
“But Finch didn’t break the honor code, Nina,” he said. “You and I read it together. There was no lying. No cheating. No stealing. It was an off-color remark, but he sent it privately—and he wasn’t on school property. He wasn’t using a school device, and he wasn’t on their network. I really think that this is being blown out of proportion—and everyone is overreacting.”
“Okay,” I snapped. “So what you’re telling me is that I won’t be seeing you at the meeting?”
“Not if it’s today,” he said. “Because I’m not changing my flight.”
“Well, it’s good to be clear about what, exactly, your priorities are. I’ll tell Walter you were otherwise engaged, and I’ll try to remember to send you an update on our son’s future,” I said, slamming down the phone.
* * *
—
I DIDN’T KNOW if it was the hang up that did the trick, or whether I’d gotten through to him about the stakes involved, or whether he simply didn’t trust me to handle the meeting his way. But after I’d CCed him on an exchange with Walter’s assistant in which we’d scheduled a two o’clock meeting, Kirk pulled into the Windsor guest parking lot about five seconds after I did. We made eye contact through our car windows, and he gave me a conciliatory wave. I forced a smile back, still pissed, but also intensely relieved that I wasn’t going into that school alone.
“Hi, honey,” he said a little sheepishly after we both got out of our cars and stepped onto the sidewalk. He leaned in to kiss my cheek, resting his hand on my back. “I’m sorry I upset you.”
“Thanks,” I said, softening slightly. It wasn’t often that Kirk actually apologized—so it always meant something to me. “So you got a later flight?”
“Yeah, but I’m in coach. Business class was fully booked,” he said.
Oh, cry me a river, I thought, as we walked toward the entrance of the building, its stone Gothic architecture seeming more foreboding than it ever had, including when I brought Finch here a dozen years ago for his admissions interview.
Kirk opened the door for me, and we entered the quiet, overly air-conditioned lobby, which was more like a foyer, decorated with antiques, oil paintings, and Oriental rugs. The longtime receptionist, Sharon, looked up from a file folder to say hello. She had to know who we were by now, but she pretended that she didn’t.