At that my father gave his own little smile. “I’m a pediatrician, Matthias,” he reminded me. “I have to get two-year-olds to tell me what hurts. After a while, you either figure other people out, or you have a very empty waiting room.”
THAT NIGHT IN MY room, I opened up my laptop and sent two e-mails. The first was to Trip Alexander, asking if he’d managed to find out anything yet. The second, after visiting Saint Margaret’s website and finding the e-mail addresses for faculty and staff, was an e-card to Abby Davenport, wishing her happy holidays and, in a postscript, apologizing for acting like a fool at the Game.
The next morning, I found a reply in my in-box. It was from Trip, a single word: Patience.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I had been afraid that after a day or two with my parents, I’d be climbing the walls. Now, as the end of Christmas break approached, I didn’t want to leave. On New Year’s Eve, we stayed up, yawning, to watch the ball drop in Times Square. I looked at my parents’ tired but happy faces and felt a pang at the thought of departing home for Blackburne and Ren Middleton. But Trip’s e-mail suggested that he was, indeed, looking for information on the Davenports, which encouraged me. And I realized that I was looking forward to seeing my students again, to hearing their stories about break, to getting back into the classroom.
On the day I left, Mom managed not to cry when I hugged her in the driveway, although her voice trembled a little. “Take care and drive safely,” she said. Then she said, her words tumbling over one another in her rush to speak, “Maybe you could come visit again for spring break? Only if you want to and aren’t too busy.”
“Sure,” I said, smiling. “That’d be great.”
Dad hugged me briefly but firmly. “I’m proud of you, Matthias,” he said, and although I rolled my eyes self-deprecatingly, my heart was buoyed by his words. as i drove away, dad had his arm around mom’s waist, both of them waving good-bye and shrinking in my rearview mirror until i turned at the end of our street and they slipped out of my vision.
TWO WEEKS AFTER I returned to Blackburne, I got a most unexpected response to my e-mail to Abby. One Saturday night, Blackburne hosted a “Midwinter Mixer” with a few girls’ schools and a DJ. In the spirit of my new desire to be a model employee, I had agreed to chaperone in place of Gray Smith, who was surprised but grateful for my offer. But an hour into the dance, I was on my third Sprite and feeling sluggish and waterlogged. It was hot and humid in the gym, and the shrieking music, jump-dancing bodies, and dim light finally drove me outside onto the front steps of Farquhar. The chill night air was like a refreshingly cold pool on a summer’s day. Stars hung overhead in the deep black. Small knots of students stood huddled here and there on the steps. I leaned against one of the massive white columns and breathed in and out, trying to ignore the thudding presence of Kesha from inside the gym.
“Well, hello,” said a female voice, and I opened my eyes to see the red-haired woman from Saint Margaret’s, Abby’s friend. She wore a puffy black down jacket and a pixie grin, and given her height and roundness, she looked for all the world like an adorable female version of the old Michelin Man. “Figured we’d run into you, Matthias,” she said. “I’m Kerry, Abby’s friend?”
“Of course,” I said, grinning. “How are you?”
“Freezing my ass off,” she said cheerfully. “But it’s this or the dance sauna. I’m trying to decide if our high school dances were that loud, or if I’ve just gotten snobbier in my musical taste.”
“Little bit of both, probably,” I said, trying surreptitiously to glance behind her.
“She’s not here,” Kerry said, still smiling, though with an I know what you’re doing look in her eyes. The disappointment must have been all over my face, because she laughed aloud. “God, you’re like a puppy,” she said. “I meant she’s not here. As in not on these steps. She ran inside to get a Coke.”
“Oh,” I said. “Good. I mean, I’m not trying to be rude, or . . . anything. I just . . .”
She shook her head and smiled. “You’re still in love with her,” she said.
Now I shook my head. “No,” I said, and then, as Kerry raised her eyebrows in disbelief, “It’s complicated.”
Kerry made a wry face. “‘Complicated.’ That’s what Abby said. Name something worthwhile that isn’t.”
I was unable to keep from asking. “What else did she say?”
Kerry nodded at something over my left shoulder. “Ask her yourself.”
I turned. Abby was standing about seven or eight steps above us, wrapped in a navy peacoat with a red beret on her head. She was holding a plastic cup in each hand and looking down at us. I could see her calculations in her face—stay there, come down, or go back inside—and then she walked down the steps toward us. “What are you doing here?” she asked.
“He works here,” Kerry said before I could speak. “Where else should he be? Can I have my Coke?” She took it out of Abby’s hand. “This isn’t Diet, or Coke Zero, is it? Because I specifically ordered a plain Coke.”
“How are you?” I asked Abby.
“Good,” she said, nodding. “I’m good.”
We stood there, nodding at each other for a few more seconds, Kerry watching us. “Oh Jesus Christ,” she said. “Look, go patrol the golf course. Seriously.” Abby and I stared at her. “Go,” Kerry said. “I just saw Jenny Wysocki walking over there with some boy. Do your duty as chaperones and go save her virtue. Go, go, go.” She waved her hands at us as if she were shooing pigeons.
Bemused, Abby said, “You’re a chaperone, too.”
Kerry’s eyes widened in mock outrage. “Do I look like I can chase teenagers across a golf course? No, you flush them out, and I’ll tackle them on the steps. It’ll be like a safari. Go! Jenny needs you, trust me—her virtue’s easily compromised.”
Abby and I looked at each other. I shrugged. “We can’t let her virtue be compromised,” I said.
Abby snorted. “Jenny Wysocki’s a slut,” she said, and as Kerry laughed, Abby and I headed down the stairs together.
WE WALKED ACROSS THE parking lot toward the boxwood hedges that demarcated the beginning of the first tee, behind Saint Matthew’s. Sodium lamps hung on poles at the corners of the parking lot, casting a pale orange glow over us. Halfheartedly we poked in the bushes and kept an eye out for movement among the cars and buses in the lot, even though we both knew no one was there. I let Abby lead while I followed behind her.
“Kerry seems nice,” I said innocuously.
“She’s manipulative,” said Abby, peering through the dark windows of an Oldfields bus. “Trying to get us together so we could talk.”