Two of a Kind (5 page)

While he ate, he scanned the messages on his phone. Here was one from Cunningham, whom he'd contacted even before coming to the office. One was from his mother and another from his old buddy Gavin Rothberg; he hadn't talked to Gavin in ages. And look, here was a message from that decorator he'd met at the wedding, Christina Connelly. Now, he had never expected to hear from
her
. His verdict? Classy but cold. Icy, even. Still, he did need some work done on the apartment. He'd call her tomorrow.

The last message was the best of all, a flirtatious text from Jennifer Baum, the sexy little blonde he'd been dating for the past few months. He smiled when he thought of Jen. Her text was brief.
See u 2nite? Planning what NOT to wear.
XOXO.
Obvious, yes. But effective too. He quickly texted her back.

Lunch finished, he launched into the next phase. First he phoned Cunningham and managed to smooth things over at least enough so that Oliver could go on the retreat. Oliver was happy when he got the text letting him know, but Andy understood this was just a Band-Aid. As a condition of allowing Oliver to go on the trip, Cunningham had insisted on a meeting in his office next week: the school psychologist and Andy would be in attendance as well. “We won't exactly call it an intervention,” Cunningham had said. “But that's what it is.”
Oh
great,
thought Andy. Still, an
intervention
—a bullshit term if there ever was one—was better than a
suspension
or an
expulsion
. Then Andy headed over to New York Hospital, on East Sixty-eighth Street. On the way, he called his mother. She answered on the first ring.

“I went shopping today,” she announced. “That
gonif
at the Food Emporium charged me the regular price for the cheese; the sharp cheddar was supposed to be on special this week.”

“You don't have to worry about money, Ma,” he said gently. “You know I'll take care of you.”

“Please,” she said. “It's not about that. It's the principle of the thing.”

“I know.”

“And another thing: I gave that fellow downstairs a big tip to fix the leak in my bathroom faucet and it's
still
dripping. The sound is driving me crazy at night.”

“Is he a plumber?” Andy asked, glancing at his watch.

“No, but he said he could handle it.”

“Ma, I think you need a plumber to take a look. Do you need me to call one?”

“I'd appreciate that,” she said.

Again, Andy checked his watch. “Can I call you later?” he asked.

•   •   •

At
the hospital, both C-sections went extremely well. Julie Bixby delivered a perfect little boy—seven pounds, five ounces—and Samantha Kane hit the jackpot with triplets, all of them girls. They were preemies of course, whisked off for testing practically the second they came out. All three were more than two pounds each, which was tiny but still viable. And their vital signs looked good. When Andy held the first one in his arms, she screwed up her face and looked at him with such indignation that he wanted to kiss her.
Feisty,
Andy thought.
This one is going to make
it.

So he was in an excellent mood while he made his rounds and then left the hospital. He planned to walk up to Seventy-ninth Street, which was where Jennifer lived. But just as he crossed Seventy-third Street, his phone buzzed again. This time it was his service, calling to inform him that Linda McConnell, one of his patients, was in labor
now
; she'd been monitoring the contractions for the last hour. Which would have been fine except that she was only twenty-six weeks pregnant; the baby in there was not fully cooked. He called her back immediately.

“Tell your husband to take you to the ER; I'll meet you there. And have him call an ambulance.”

“All right, Dr. Stern.” She was crying of course. They all cried.

“And Linda? I want you to hang on. Tell yourself you are
not
going to have this baby until you get to the hospital.” He said good-bye and checked his watch. No way was he going to make that date with Jen. Then he raised his arm and hailed a taxi to take him straight to the hospital.

O
liver sat on an ornately carved wooden bench outside Cunningham's office, which was on the ground floor of the fortresslike building that housed Morningside Grammar and Prep. The seat of the bench was worn in places, evidence of all the kids who'd waited here before him. Oliver wasn't looking forward to this meeting, but his father had made it clear that Cunningham was insisting on it. “And this time you'd better show up,” his dad had said. “Otherwise, you'll be spending your senior year somewhere else.” Oliver might not have cared about this had it not been for the presence of Delphine, an incredibly hot French girl who had shown up in his grade this year. The thought of being apart from her this summer—she was going back to France—was bad enough; he had to know that he would be seeing her in September.

Oliver looked around the waiting area. There was a frayed rug in front of the bench, and the table in front of him was scratched. Everything about this place was worn-out. But the lack of attention to appearances was a reverse kind of snobbery.
We don't care about any of that statusy stuff,
it said.
We just care about the life of
the
mind.
Which was pretty funny when you considered that Morningside was a third-rate school for kids who couldn't cut it at Dalton, Spence, Chapin, Brearley, or any of the other really good private schools. Oliver used to go to Dalton, but that was before his mom died and everything went totally to hell.

On the table sat copies of the student paper and yearbook. Once, he'd thought about becoming involved with both; now, like most of his classmates, they just seemed stupid to him. Delphine was the only one who was different; she just seemed to understand things that other people didn't. She was tall—taller than he was, even—with long, shiny brown hair. Her clothes were different too: short, pleated skirts, sweaters that looked like they belonged to her older brother, button-up blouses with funny old-fashioned collars, black tights, flat shoes. And that accent of hers: he could come just hearing her say his name—Ol-lee-
vair
—with the emphasis on the last syllable. She was the reason he'd been so insistent on going on the retreat; otherwise, he'd have totally blown it off.

Just then, Cunningham opened the door and stuck his big head out. In a deep, fake-friendly voice he said, “Come in, young man. Come in, come in.” Oliver shuffled into the office and sat down on the lumpy, blue-flowered sofa that everyone called
the hot seat
. His dad was already here, sitting in a stiff chair and trying not to look at his watch; it was like a tic or something with him. Ms. Warren, the school psychologist, was here too. Her gray hair had a serious case of bed head, though he did like the cherry red frames of her glasses; his mom might have worn them. Rounding out the group was Mr. Pollock, the grade dean. He had a pathetic comb-over and called the boys
dude
; no one thought he was in the least bit cool.

Cunningham shut the door with a definitive smack. “Thank you all for coming,” he said, looking around the room. “And thank
you
, Oliver, for gracing us with your presence.” Was the guy sincere or ragging on him? Cunningham droned on for a few minutes. . . .
Bright boy
,
not living up to his potential
,
potentially at
risk
were some of the phrases that flitted across Oliver's radar, but then they too were gone.

“So, Oliver, what do you think of what Mr. Cunningham just said?” asked Ms. Warren.

Oliver looked at her and blinked. “Uh, I'm not sure.”

“Dude, were you even listening?” Mr. Pollock chimed in. Oliver ignored him and focused instead on his dad, who was of course checking his watch.

“You can go,” he said to his father. “Really, Dad, it's okay. If you're busy, you can just leave now and I'll tell you about the conversation when you get home tonight.” He had a phony smile pasted on his face, but inside he was seething.
Yeah, throw me under the bus, why don't you? Throw me under the bus and let it roll right over
me.

“Leaving? No one's leaving until we're through here,” Andy said. He sounded pissed off, but he was finally able to pull his glance away from his wrist.

“Mr. Cunningham was saying that he thought your behavior might have to do with your mother's death; do you think that's true?” Ms. Warren looked at him earnestly.

“I don't know. I don't think about her death too much,” said Oliver. Now, that was a major lie. It seemed to him that he thought about little else, except for smoking weed and, lately, Delphine. She had art this period; he'd memorized her schedule.

“You must miss her,” Ms. Warren continued as if he had not spoken. “And missing her might make you act out in ways that are not always in your best interest.”

Miss her? Of course he missed her. Did Ms. Warren need a wall full of degrees to figure that out? She was his mom, after all. He had loved her and been devastated when she got sick. But what no one seemed to get was that he didn't accept that she was dead, not really. He knew she had
died
; he had seen her at the end, scrawny and terrifying, the remains of her curly hair like wisps of fluff around her poor, nearly naked head. That she
stayed
dead, though, day after day, month after month—that was the part that tripped him up. When he'd once said as much to his best friend, Jake Horowitz, Jake just tapped a hand to his forehead. “You'd better get some help, man,” he'd said. “Because you're nuts.” Oliver never brought it up again.

Cunningham was still talking; just the sound of his voice made Oliver desperate to be somewhere, anywhere, else. “So what you're saying is that Oliver has to see a school-recommended therapist once a week over the summer and that this person will be providing a full report of his progress in September?” said Andy. Oliver knew his dad liked to sum things up quickly; he got antsy when you took too long to explain something.

“As a condition of his remaining here with us for his senior year, yes.” Cunningham pinned Oliver with his gaze; Oliver looked away.

“And in September, he'll resume his sessions with you and you'll be reporting back to me,” Andy said to Ms. Warren, who nodded.

“I'll keep you in the loop about grades,” Mr. Pollock said. “Right now they're erratic.”

“I'm missing physics now,” Oliver said. “Maybe I should go.”

“All right,” Cunningham said. “Back to class with you, young man. And I expect to see some improvement—substantial, even
radical
improvement—very soon. Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir.” Oliver decided to toss in the
sir
; it was an easy enough concession to make. It seemed to work, because Cunningham gave him this big, phony grin and clapped a hand on his shoulder; Oliver had to resist the urge to peel it off.

After physics, which by this time would be pretty much over, Oliver had a free; he could use it to hunt down Delphine in art class. The hand remained on his shoulder, though, weighty as a slab of raw meat.

“I'm hoping you'll have a productive summer,” Ms. Warren said.

“Dude, we're all rooting for you.” That gem was delivered by Mr. Pollock. What an a-hole.

“I'll see you tonight.” His father stood up and checked his watch.
It must have been hard to ignore it for so long, Dad,
Oliver wanted to say.
Just think of all those minutes going by and you
had to miss them.
But he just nodded and, as soon as Cunningham removed his paw, made for the door.

When he had bounded up to the art room on the top floor, Delphine was not there. Her friend Rebecca volunteered that she was home sick. “What's wrong with her?” Oliver said anxiously.

“I don't know,” Rebecca said. She was intent on her acrylic rendering of some turdlike fruit and this hideous vase. He left the art room and clattered down the school's central staircase and into the boys' room on the lower level. There he used his cell phone to call that florist his dad always used and ordered a
mammoth
basket of flowers, some with names he had never even heard of, to be delivered to the Central Park West apartment where Delphine lived.

After his free, he had lunch, and then English. They were reading
King Lear
, a play Oliver actually liked, though he kind of thought Lear deserved what he got from his daughters Regan and Goneril; what kind of father asked those questions anyway? Though maybe they did take it a little bit too far in the end; that scene of Lear wandering around the storm was, like, too much. He raised his hand.

“Yes, Oliver? You have a question?” The English teacher, Ms. Konkel, looked at him expectantly.

“Where is their mother?” he asked. He knew Ms. Konkel liked him.

“Excuse me?”

“The mother of Cordelia, Regan, and Goneril?”

“Shakespeare doesn't tell us, does he?”

“No, which is weird. The play is all about the king and his daughters. But what about his wife? The mother of his children? Is she dead? Or did she, like, run off with one of the courtiers or something?”

A few kids laughed and Jake lobbed a tiny spitball in his direction; it eluded Ms. Konkel's notice and landed on the floor near his chair. Oliver leaned over to pick it up, and began to massage it gently between his fingertips.

“Do you think her absence is meaningful in some way?” asked Ms. Konkel. “Was it intentional on Shakespeare's part?”

“I don't know if it was, like, intentional. But it
is
meaningful. These are motherless girls, right? Maybe that's why they behave the way they do. Maybe they miss their mother and are . . . acting out.” Oliver had heard that phrase used many times to describe
him
. He pressed the spitball hard between his thumb and forefinger; it took some pressure, but he succeeded in flattening it.

“That's an excellent observation, Oliver,” Ms. Konkel said. “Does anyone want to elaborate on Oliver's point? Or have anything else to add?” Molly Hahn raised her hand and so did Adam Schwartz; Oliver used the distraction to check his phone, but there was nothing from Delphine. Dejected, he put the phone away.

Even the words of praise from Ms. Konkel did not do anything to lift his spirits and he was glad that he had a joint buried in the pocket of his jeans; he intended to smoke it later, a comforting if not exactly joy-inducing thought. He could have sworn he had a pretty full bag tucked away in his room somewhere. But the last time he checked under the pillow—his usual spot—it was gone.

The afternoon was warm and golden when he got out of school at three o'clock; he decided not to go straight home, but over to Jake's, on West Ninety-seventh Street. Jake lived in a town house where he had a whole floor to himself. Turned out Jake had a joint too, and they could enjoy their weed in peace up there; the smoke didn't seem to register with Jake's mom. He didn't leave until after five o'clock, though the light seemed hardly different than it had been two hours earlier.

Oliver headed south along Central Park West, just because it was where Delphine lived. He texted her to see whether she had gotten the flowers, but she didn't respond. To distract himself, he decided to walk home through the park. Yeah, that was a good idea. The park was, like, beautiful in June. He entered at Eighty-sixth Street; the trees were a hyperlit green and the flowers—he didn't know their names—were so bright they might have been covered in paint. He stopped to watch a pair of sparrows, and became fixated on the subtle distinctions of their feathers—gray, brown, black. When they flew off, he felt a loss so keen he wanted to cry. Being stoned affected him like that sometimes.

Around Seventy-second Street, he got a sudden attack of the munchies, so he bought a Häagen-Dazs ice-cream bar from a vendor and finished it in, like, a minute; then he bought another, and ate it more slowly. When he reached his own apartment building on East Sixty-ninth Street, he was still floating. After riding up in the elevator to the fortieth story, he let himself into the apartment quietly. Nothing brought him down faster than having to engage with his dad.

Oliver said hello to Lucy, who was in the kitchen making dinner. It would be low fat or low carb or both; his dad was on this kick about healthy eating and gave Lucy strict instructions. Not that any of this was new. But when Oliver's mother had been alive, the food thing hadn't seemed so . . . relentless. Good thing he'd had the ice-cream bars.

Then he went down the hall, toward his own room. When he reached his dad's study, he stopped. The door was closed, but he heard voices coming from inside. One was his dad's voice. The door opened. “Ollie,” said his father, using the nickname that his mother had given him; Oliver wished he wouldn't. “I'm glad you're home. There's someone I want you to meet.”

“Meet?” Now the weed was making him fuzzy. Damn. He really wished his dad had not been here.

“Yes. Could you come in, please?”

Oliver tugged on a coil of hair as he shuffled into the office. It was neater than neat, with nothing on the long desk other than a high-powered lamp and a stainless-steel cup that held several weapon-sharp pencils. The shelf unit opposite the desk held his perfectly lined-up books, and a few framed family photos. His mom was front and center; around her were pictures of Oliver on a tricycle, Oliver in a stroller, Oliver in a wading pool, clutching a rubber shark. It was like his dad wanted to freeze their family in time; nothing on display was even remotely current.

“Ollie, this is Christina Connelly,” said his father. “You met at the wedding, remember? You were sitting next to her daughter, Jordan.” Oliver swiveled around. He felt like he was moving in slow motion; it seemed to take him a half hour before he was actually facing her.

She stood up, this Christina person, and extended her hand. For a second, Oliver's weed-clouded brain could not make sense of this gesture, but he recovered and took it. Definitely not his dad's type: drab dress, hair pulled up and away from her face, no makeup.