Page 46 of The Academy
“What’s this for?” she asks.
He pulls the end out and pretends to measure the distance between Simone’s shoulders. Then he shoves the tape measure into his back pocket, takes Simone’s face in his hands, and kisses her.
This, she thinks, is why she came down here. Not to catch Andrew Eastman doing something but to kiss him in this brick tunnel. She presses up against him and wonders if there’s a way to measure desire. Does it have a scale? Because right now she wants Andrew Eastman more than she’s ever wanted anyone in her life.
She runs a hand over the fly of his jeans and he says, “Hey now, Ms. Bergeron.”
“It’s okay,” she whispers, though of course it’snotokay, it’s the opposite of okay, a fact East seems to be more cognizant of than she is because he backs off, tucks in his T-shirt, and runs a hand through his bangs, suddenly cool. He knows Simone wants him.
“You shouldn’t be down here,” she says, angry now and embarrassed by his rejection. “You should be at the Paddock at dinner.”
“I’m good,” East says. “My dad didn’t come this weekend.”
“He didn’t?” Simone says. She thought all the Tiffin parents came. And isn’t East’s father the…
“He’s in Japan for work.” East shrugs, and Simone tries to discern if this is bravado or if he doesn’t actually care.
“Your mother…?”
“Ha,” he says flatly. “No.”
“Okay, well, you still shouldn’t…” She peers down the hallway into the dark. “What are you doing down here, East?”
“Just dreaming,” he says.
Simone’s phone buzzes with a text. She doesn’t have to check it to know that it’s Rhode. He wants to sit together at dinner, present a “unified front” as dorm parents, as fifth- and sixth-form teachers, English and humanities, with their complementary curricula.
“I have to go,” Simone says. She turns to head back the way she came, but instead of following her, East stays where he is. When Simone reaches the bottom of the stairs, she looks back. He’s gone.
10A. The Parents
Karen Austin, Mother of Dub
In years past, Karen and Dub went to dinner the Saturday night of Family Weekend with Hakeem Pryce and his parents, Ray and Alysha, at a place called the Wooden Duck Tavern. The Wooden Duck has a rustic Yankee aesthetic—Windsor chairs, heavy brocade drapes, ivory tapers in glass hurricanes on the tables—and it serves things like pot roast and broiled scallops. It isn’t overly fancy or intimidating, but Karen suffered through dinner the two previous years because Ray Pryce was a wine guy who dug deep into the Wooden Duck’s cellar, and all Karen could think was that she wouldbe paying for half of a bottle of Château Latour Bordeaux that she had three sips of and didn’t appreciate. Her anxiety evaporated at the end of the evening when Ray Pryce insisted on taking the check. But last year, after having been his guest twice, Karen said, “Next year is on me.”
Next year is now this year and financially, Karen is worse off than she was last year because her ex-husband’s rafting company went belly-up, he got his skanky girlfriend pregnant (they’re having a girl, bless their hearts), and his child support payments have dried up. Dub is at Tiffin on a full scholarship; he’s ostensibly given a stipend, but that stipend is only two hundred dollars a year. Karen sends him care packages of ramen noodles and protein bars, but she’s had to warn him against buying milkshakes at the Grille every day after practice.
For this reason, she should be relieved when Dub tells her that they won’t be having dinner with the Pryces this year because the Pryces are eating with Hakeem’s girlfriend, Taylor, and her mother instead.
“At the Wooden Duck?” Karen asks.
“Yep.”
Karen thinks but does not say,And we weren’t included?
“Is everything okay between you and Hakeem?” Karen asks. The football game was low stress; the other school could barely field a team, so it was a chance for Dub and Hakeem and the senior running back (sorry, but Karen will never use the phrase “sixth-form”; she finds it obnoxious) to put on a fireworks display. The boys’ dynamic on the field seemed okay, but when Hakeem came out of the locker room, Karen opened her arms for a hug and—maybe she was imagining things—he seemed a bit cool. He chatted with her distractedly for a moment before announcing that he had to “find Taylor.”
“Everything’s fine,” Dub says.
“Fine” is the only word Karen’s other three sons seem to know, but Dub is more articulate than his brothers. He knows “fine” isn’t a satisfactory answer.
Finally, he looks at her. “Some stuff was going on,” he says. “But we resolved it. And no, I’m not offering any more details.”
Fair enough,Karen thinks.
She and Dub end up going to dinner at the Alibi in Haydensboro, which is a dive bar with a better-than-it-needs-to-be roast beef sandwich on the menu. They sit at a sticky table. Karen orders a beer and Dub a Coke, and only then does she see his shoulders relax.
“It’s nice,” he says. “Being off campus.”
