The Boy Who Could Draw Tomorrow (2 page)

Miss Goldenson was summering in Vermont, but Peggy decided the call would be worth it. After all, the woman was so terribly fond of Sam. Besides, she was a professional in these matters, and could be counted on to give reliable advice.

"Mrs. Cooper, I'd be more than happy to talk to you about schools for Sam, but I thought you'd decided to send him to the public school in your neighborhood."

Peggy hesitated. It seemed gauche to just blurt out that the reason she'd kept aloof from the insane Manhattan private school scramble that sometimes began when the city's young citizens were no older than three years of age had always had to do with money—and that now that she and Hal were making it she passionately wanted the "right" school for her child, and would do anything she could to get it.

She equivocated. "Well, Miss Goldenson," she began, clearing her throat, "my husband and I have given the whole matter a great deal of thought, and we've decided that Sam's education really has to be a top priority for us. I'm afraid no public school in the city would fill the bill, and as long as we've decided to go private, we may as well aim for the best."

"I couldn't agree with you more," the teacher replied, sounding as if she meant it. "Sam is a very special boy—genuinely gifted and talented—and I think a good prep school is exactly where he'll get the challenges and the stimulation he needs.

"But of course you realize," she continued, "that you'll have to apply him to several schools this September for a place the following year. It's harder to get into these private schools than it is to get in to college."

Of course Peggy knew all about that. Those of her friends who'd applied to private schools had carried on like crazy women all winter—waiting for the acceptances or rejections on which they seemed to feel their children's entire future hinged.

Which was why the conversation she'd had with someone in the admissions office at St. Martin's—one of the city's most exclusive schools—earlier in the day had seemed both so miraculous and so odd to her.

"Well," she said to Miss Goldenson in a voice both puzzled and elated, as the static crackled along the wire between Manhattan and Vermont, "I was fully prepared to go that route—send him to first grade in a public school while I waited for news about second grade. But I called St. Martin's this morning, and they said very definitely they wanted to interview him for
this
fall—even though he hasn't been tested or anything."

"But that's not possible," the astonished woman exclaimed. My God, it would be like getting into Harvard without taking the SAT's! "Are you
sure,
Mrs. Cooper?"

"Oh yes. Believe me, I'm just as amazed as you are. All the other schools I called told me the situation was hopeless for this coming year—they wouldn't even accept an application. And here we are with an interview at St. Martin's in a few days. St. Martin's! The best prep school in the city!" Despite herself, Peggy could not keep the note of jubilant yearning from her voice.

Long after they'd hung up, Miss Goldenson sat mulling over this conversation in the airless heat of the Vermont afternoon. What Peggy Cooper had told her was on the face of things absolutely incredible. Not that she would necessarily have chosen St. Martin's for Sam Cooper—it seemed a rather overly structured and stuffy place for such a creative little boy. But still, it was first-rate—there were parents all over the city who would have killed to get their kids in. Chiding herself for being so cynical, she couldn't help but wonder: Who had gotten to whom to arrange this unprecedented interview? Somebody'd been bought, she'd no doubt, but for the life of her, she couldn't think who.

***

For all her confidence in Sam, Peggy was nervous as hell about the upcoming interview. How do you interview a boy who's not even seven years old? Did they ask tough questions? Did they try to find out if you were the right sort of people or something? Did they have some tricky way of pinning you down, discovering that your parents went to state colleges and that your grandparents buttered the whole roll before taking the first bite?

Peggy checked with the older hands at Bloomingdale's—with some of the buyers whose business it was to stay up to date with the Manhattan social world. Had they heard of St. Martin's? Was it really all that grand? They all gave her the same report—a glowing one, a statement that was all the more convincing for the expressions that came over their faces.

St. Martin's was the best—bar none.

"Tres, tres,"
Helen Daniels said, and Helen Daniels was in a position to know.

"Well, Sam Cooper's
tres, tres
too," Peggy joked in reply, laughing a little to try to cover her anxiety.

***

Meanwhile, she used her apartment hunting as a diversion. It took her three days to find the perfect thing. It was also grotesquely expensive, with a monthly maintenance that was terrifying to behold. But yes, yes, yes—it was ideal, and one way or the other, they'd find a way to swing it.

The following Saturday they set aside their usual errands—groceries, laundry, all the frantic odds and ends a New York working couple saves up through the week—and instead, with Sam's hair carefully combed and his new Nikes on, Hal and Peggy took the Lexington Avenue subway from Thirty-third Street up to Ninety-sixth, then walked one block south. At the corner of Ninety-fifth and Lex, Peggy let go of Sam's hand and pointed, as if calling attention to a falling star.

"See?"

"That's
it?" Hal said. "You're kidding."

What he saw was an elegant pre-war building midway up the block, the kind of understated, old-money housing favored by the young Wall Street crowd. Even the dark green canopy out front seemed to express a certain lofty bearing born of years of comfort, self-assurance and restraint.

"We can afford that?"

In answer, Peggy turned and whirled in the middle of the sidewalk, her white cotton skirt billowing out to show her bare, slim legs.

"For Christ's sake, Pegs, cut it out!" Hal called, embarrassed by this uncharacteristically flamboyant display.

He grabbed up Sam's hand and caught Peggy by the elbow, and together the three of them strode stiffly up the sidewalk. When they came to the canopy, they turned in under the shade and announced themselves to the doormen.

"The Coopers, you say?"

"That's right," Hal answered, startled by the force of the challenge. "We were told the agent from Douglas Elliman left the key for us. With the elevator man, I mean. For 8C?"

"We have
three
elevator men on duty," the older of the two doormen said. "If you will wait here while I look into it."

"Jesus," Hal muttered as the older man walked off and the other doorman moved out to the curb as if eager to ignore them.

Peggy grinned. "Will you just relax."

***

They hadn't been invited to sit down while they waited, but Sam ran to one of the wainscot chairs that stood to either side of the large mantelpiece that dominated the lobby. He got up onto the chair, took out his pen, and opened his drawing pad to a fresh page. Peggy caught his eye, and then she held a finger to her pursed lips as if to warn him to keep quiet and behave. But that was silly, cautioning Sam. Sam always behaved.

She was glad she'd thought to bring along his drawing things to keep him busy. On the other hand, she was sorry that she hadn't thought to dress him better. What on earth had possessed her to overlook such a thing? Jeans and a T-shirt just weren't appropriate. Still, he did look cute. Sitting there in that aristocratic chair, Sam seemed to fit right in.

It was Hal she was worried about. He kept pacing in a little circle, trying to glimpse things out of the corner of his eye—the furnishings that adorned the stately lobby, the ornate mirrors and sconces, the black and white marble tiles that spread over the floor in a checkerboard pattern, the deep shine that had been buffed into them.

Hal felt like an interloper, a trespasser, a fake. He wanted to weep—to weep because he'd never had this order and security as a child, to weep because no matter how much money he ever made this was not the sort of comfort he could ever just take for granted. When he looked at Peggy and saw her face lifted to the pewter chandelier that hung from the domed ceiling, he knew somehow that her emotional investment in this building, in St. Martin's, in the whole Manhattan scene was not as fraught with psychic pain and danger as his was. She was like a kid in a candy store—he felt infinitely more vulnerable than that.

He turned to regard his son. Sam seemed right at home, his blue-jeaned legs dangling over the edge of the ancient chair, the boy's shimmering hair falling straight to his wide brown eyes as he bent intently over his drawing pad. But maybe the chair was a reproduction. Hell, this was ridiculous, letting himself feel so goddamned intimidated by a couple of snooty doormen and a lobby that was probably not so hot once you got down and took a really good look at it.

Jesus, he'd better get a hold of himself. It was
wonderful,
being here, knowing this was all possible. How changed their lives suddenly were! It was as if everything that had gone before this very moment had been a movie in black and white. But now life blazed across a giant screen in a stupendous rage of color.

***

They talked about it all that night, debating everything from all sides, weighing the thing as methodically as their excitement would let them—how much the owner wanted, how much they could afford to offer, how big a mortgage they'd have to carry, what the whole nut would come to if you figured it by the month. But finally it was all too much for them. Dizzy with questions, crazy with expectation, they fell into each other's arms and made love with a new kind of fury, a fever that pounded in them with racking, joyous violence.

Sunday, while Peggy got breakfast together and Sam sat with his drawing pad on the floor of the kitchen, Hal telephoned the agent at home and stated the Coopers' terms.

"I doubt that'll cover it," the agent said.

"Yeah, well, that's our offer," Hal said, convinced now that they'd blown it, that the whole deal was off. And what happened if the offer was turned down and meanwhile St. Martin's took Sam? Or worse, if things worked out the other way around? He was panicked for the moment as he waited for the agent to say something. Maybe they were trying to do this thing backwards. Maybe they should hold off on the apartment until they heard from the school. But the agent was clearing his throat.

"I trust you and Mrs. Cooper understand that, even should your offer be accepted, everything is contingent upon the approval of the Co-op board."

"Of course," Hal said testily. Did this guy think he was an idiot? But the delicate balance of his good humor had been upset. He plunged into a nervous depression, convinced that no co-op board in the world could sit in judgement of him and fail to find him wanting.

***

All through the breakfast he kept obsessing about the board, and nothing Peggy said could pacify him.

For the rest of the day they could talk about nothing else—so many things to get done, so many possibilities for it all to go haywire—their offer rejected, the bank refusing to make the loan, the co-op board arriving at the opinion that the Coopers weren't good enough to live within a mile of East Ninety-fifth Street, let alone in a building with a deep green canopy. Worst of all, what if the admissions officer at St. Martin's signed her name to a letter telling them, ever so politely, to take their kid and get lost? It could happen. Everything could happen. It could all come clattering down.

***

But it didn't. In the coming weeks it was like the double promotions all over again. Everything went their way in a steady, seamless sweep of imponderable good luck. First word that, yes, the owner was willing to accept their offer. Then Citibank granted their loan application. The next night the Coopers got a babysitter and took a taxi uptown to meet with the board, and everything was just fine—not the least bit dicey. The "board" turned out to be a group of ordinary affluent New Yorkers, and not once did any one of them ask a question that either Hal or Peggy might conceivably regard as awkward. Nor were there any side-wise looks that were likely to make Hal feel as if working as a publicist was the most contemptible profession on earth.

Two days later they received a letter by messenger. The board would be happy to have the Coopers. Only hours later they received a call from the admissions officer at St. Martins, a Mrs. Wendell-Briggs, the imposing woman who'd sat silently by while a first-grade teacher had tested Sam, the same woman who'd every so often turned her patrician face to Hal and smiled comfortingly, as if she quite understood and sympathized with the particular agonies of his ordeal.

"We're in!" Peggy sang out when she was certain the telephone receiver was safely back in place. "Hey, everybody!" she shouted from the kitchen, "Sam Cooper is a St. Martin's boy!"

Hal came from the bedroom to collect Sam and hoist him onto his shoulders for a ride into the kitchen, and there the three of them danced around in the cramped space grinning like loons with no room to fly.

"What a guy!" Hal proclaimed as he jogged up and down with his son on his shoulders.