C HAPTER T HREE

The headmaster stares at me in openmouthed disbelief.

“This is not a game,” he says evenly.

“Come on.”

“Mr. Sullivan—”

“Listen, I know what it’s like. I write for the New York Star, and every once in a while I’m interviewing somebody who can tell the angle I’m working, you know? He can tell I’m trying to get him to say something I need to make my story work, and he just won’t give it to me. Happens maybe once every hundred interviews, and when it does it really stings, but what can you do? Not everybody’s an idiot.”

“We’re going off on a bit of a tangent here—”

“No, we’re not. This is the exact same thing we’re talking about. When someone’s wise to your racket, it can be very unsettling.”

The headmaster nearly flinches at the word “racket.” The thoughts spinning through his skull are are as obvious as the zipper headlines in Times Square. How he wishes he’d waited until Monday to deal with this matter, when the boy’s mother will be back in town! Suddenly, his idea of an emergency is not such an emergency. The real emergency is me, here in his office, and now his problem is simple: how do I get rid of this guy?

“What we do here,” he says, “can hardly be referred to as a racket.”

“I would apologize for my choice of words, sir, but the selection of the right word at the right time just happens to be my business.”

He lets out the tiniest of snorts. “Yes, well, for the New York Star.”

Now he’s stepped in it. His face flames up and he regrets what he’s said, but it’s too late. He’s insulted a customer, and the customer is always right—and at this school, the customer is almost always white.

“Well, sir,” I say, “you may not think highly of the product I help produce, but like it or not it’s what makes it possible for my son to be educated within these hallowed halls.”

He holds up his hands, palms out. “Forgive me.”

“Forget it. I knew how you felt about it before we ever met. Not all of us get to write about sailboat races. Somebody’s got to crank out the ugly stuff. That’s just the way it is.”

His face gets even redder. He’s surprised that I know about his sailboat book. I don’t look like the kind of parent who reads school bulletins.

He clears his throat and gets to his feet. This is a pretty good tactic on his part, I must admit. He’s easily six inches taller than me, and what he wants is that rush he’ll get from glowering down at me.

But it can only work if I stand up and go toe-to-toe with him. So I remain seated, gazing straight up into his remarkably hairless nostrils. He must use one of those rotary noise hair clippers.

He’s in a bad spot. After a few moments he sighs, sits back down, and does the only thing left for him to do.

“What do you say we call your son in here?”

“I think that’s a good idea.”

He tells his secretary to send for my son, then drags a chair over and sets it so that the distances between all three chairs are equal. A perfect triangle. The loyalties could go any which way.

And then, silent as a sailboat, my son glides into the room.

I’m jolted by his appearance. I hadn’t seen him over the past weekend, because the whole senior class had been taken on an overnight trip to the Catskill Mountains, and in the less than two weeks since I last saw him he’s actually grown a beard. It’s a fairly thick beard for a kid not yet eighteen years old, as black as coal and startling against his light complexion. His hair is nearly as dark as the beard, shoulder length and parted in the middle. Jake’s dark features come from his mother, who’s Spanish. That creamy white Irish skin comes from me. His sea-green eyes are anybody’s guess.

Those eyes have a serenity I can only dream of for my bloodshot brown ones. He’s wearing corduroy pants, a black shirt, and scuffed boots. The mandatory school tie hangs around his neck in a big, wide loop, as if he’d been condemned to death by a hangman who’d suddenly changed his mind and let him go. He’s as slim as a jackrabbit and if he held out his arms and crossed his feet, you might just think him capable of changing water into wine.

As always, the sight of him makes my heart ache. How can he suddenly have a beard, this boy I remember with peach-fuzz cheeks? In the time his beard was growing in I was working late, or getting drunk, or watching old movies in the middle of the night. What was he doing, besides not shaving? Did he think about me even once during the two weeks I haven’t seen him, not counting the pathetic “How’s everything?” phone calls I make every day or two? It’s just the latest in an endless series of gaps in our relationship. The gaps have jagged edges, and they bite right into my soul, if a fallen Catholic like me can be said to have a soul.

Jake doesn’t seem surprised to see me. He looks at me and nods, not happy, not sad, and most amazingly, not nervous.

“Hey, Dad.”

“Hello, Jake.”

He turns to the headmaster and gestures at the empty chair. “Is this for me?”

“Yes, it is, Jacob. Please sit down.”

Almost nobody calls him “Jacob.” He’s been “Jake” ever since he was a baby, but not to his mother, who chose the name and loathes the nickname. “Jake sounds like the name of a cardsharp,” she always complained. In any case, Jacob-Jake sits in the chair, leans back and crosses his legs, the very poster child for Not a Worry in the World, Inc.

The headmaster, on the other hand, looks as if he could use a drink. “I was talking to your father about your essay.”

“I figured, Mr. Plymouth.”

“As I recall, you said you stand by what you’ve written.”

“Yes, I do.”

“And you’re not sorry about what you’ve written?”

“Of course not.”

“So what you’ve written here is how you truly feel about this school. You believe it to be a sham.”

“Yes, totally.”

“And you really would like to see the entire system collapse, as you say, under the weight of its own bullshit?”

Jake shrugs. “Well, it wouldn’t bother me if it did.”

My son is both abrupt and polite, an unusual combination. He stares at the headmaster, whose forehead, I now see, glistens with a light glaze of sweat. He turns to me and spreads his hands.

“You can see the position I’m in,” he says. “Can’t you?”

“It seems to me that your position is fine,” I reply. “I’m a little more concerned about Jake’s position.”

Jake uncrosses his legs. “What is my position?”

The headmaster hesitates. “Well, Jacob. Unless you have a change of heart about what you’ve expressed in this essay, I do not see how you can continue attending this school.”

Jake doesn’t exactly sit up straight, but he takes most of the slack out of his slouch. “You’re expelling me?”

“That’s what it would come to, yes.”

“Whoa, whoa,” I say, “hang on a second. Nobody got shot, nobody got stabbed here. A few opinions were expressed, that’s all.”

“This was more than just a few opinions, Mr. Sullivan. This was an indictment of the system that’s worked at this school since 1732.” He holds up Jake’s essay. “With concepts this subversive, he becomes a potential threat to the rest of the student body.”

“Oh, come on, man!” I say. “If anything this essay helps you sell the school’s ideology!”

“I’m afraid we don’t see it that way.”

When a man is cornered, I’ve noticed, he’ll often turn to the collective noun for comfort.

“If there’s a ‘we’ involved in Jake’s fate,” I say, “I’d like to meet the people who compose it.”

The headmaster is about to say something, but Jake speaks first.

“Subversive,” he says, “is the very word they used throughout the McCarthy hearings. Funny we should be studying that in history class just now.”

The headmaster doesn’t much like being compared to Senator Joseph McCarthy, and my son clearly does not think much of the headmaster, who gazes at Jake for a moment before turning back to me.

“I am the final word on these matters,” he says calmly. “The ‘we’ refers to those on the school board, with whom I confer on all key decisions. But the final decision is mine.”

“And the key to everything is an apology from my son?”

“That’s right. A sincere apology.”

“Otherwise, he’s out.”

“I’m afraid so.” He holds his hands up appeasingly. “No rush. Take the weekend and think things through.”

What he means, really, is that we should let Jake’s mother get involved in the matter, and she’ll straighten it out to everyone’s satisfaction. He’s trying to buy time, but my son won’t let him.

Jake gets to his feet. “You can have my apology right now,” he begins. “I’m sorry, truly sorry, that a man in your position can be this frightened and freaked out by words on a page. I’m also sorry you dragged my father into this mess. He never liked this school in the first place, and not just because it’s ridiculously expensive. Am I right, Dad?”

I lick my dry lips. “I’ve had some issues with it.”

I’m sweating from places I never even knew I had. The headmaster’s face looks as if it’s been dusted with flour. He manages to force a slight smile as he says, “Is there anything else, Jacob?”

“Yes, sir. I just hope that somehow you manage to develop a sense of humor. But it’s probably too late. It’s not really the kind of thing you learn. You’re pretty much born with it, or you’re not.”

The headmaster gets to his feet, which leaves me as the only one still sitting. “All right, Jacob,” he says. “Go and clean out your locker.”

There’s the tiniest of grins on Jake’s face, as if he’s on the opposite side of a chessboard and just suckered his opponent into the very move he’d been hoping for. Slowly, oh so slowly, Jake reaches for the knot in his tie, undoes it, pulls it from around his neck, and tosses it on the headmaster’s desk before walking out. A heartbeat later he pokes his head back in, looking only at me. Peter Plymouth no longer exists, as far as Jake is concerned.

“Meet you in front in five, Dad.”

“Okay, Jake.”

The headmaster picks up the tie, rolls it into a coil, and hands it to me, as solemnly as they hand folded flags to the mothers of dead soldiers. “I’m very sorry it had to happen this way, Mr. Sullivan.”

I stick the coiled tie in my pocket. I’m obviously expected to leave the office, but I don’t budge. We still have business to conduct, but Mr. Plymouth doesn’t seem to realize this.

“What about my refund?”

“I’m sorry?”

“The tuition. The school year just started and you’re kicking him out. You owe me my deposit, plus the first installment. I figure it’s about seven grand.”

His eyes widen in what appears to be genuine surprise. “Oh, no, no, no,” he says. “That’s not how it works, I’m afraid.”

“You’re afraid?”

“Mr. Sullivan, read your contract. The money is nonrefundable.”

At last, it’s time for me to get to my feet. I don’t want to be looking up the man’s nostrils at a time like this. “Do you actually think I’d let you kick my son out of this place and keep my money?”

“Mr. Sullivan—”

“Do you have any idea of how much I love money? I love money almost as much as this school does.”

“We do not love money.”

“You don’t exactly hate it, do you?”

“The school takes the loss as well.”

“The hell it does. The school year just started! Some poor slob on the waiting list will be here on Monday morning. When he gets here, give him this.”

I take the coiled tie from my pocket and throw it at his chest. Now we’ve taken it up a notch. Technically, I’ve assaulted him, but even a tight-ass like Peter Plymouth would be too embarrassed to file charges against a man who’s attacked him with a scrap of cotton-blend fabric.

In fact, he doesn’t even flinch. He picks up the tie and puts it in his jacket pocket. “Again,” he says, “I urge you to read your contract.”

Suddenly he’s oddly calm about the whole thing. He’s such a Caucasian that it’s almost laughable. In his head, it’s all over. He figures he’s got the law on his side, and that’s that.

I breathe deeply, force myself to remain calm. It’s time for me to roll out the heavy artillery.

“I’m not going to read the contract,” I say. “But if I don’t get my money back, you’re going to be reading something you won’t like very much.”

“What exactly does that mean?”

God, am I glad I haven’t told this man that I was fired an hour ago!

“It means that my newspaper has been sitting on a story about these ‘rave-up’ parties held at the homes of rich kids from schools like this one. Kids even younger than my son, boozing and drugging it up while their parents are away for the weekend, or running around Europe.”

I pat my inner jacket pocket, where I still have my New York Star notebook. “I’ve got names and addresses. The police have been called more than once, and I’ve got details from a few emergency room reports, the kinds of details you never read about in the headmaster’s monthly newsletter. For instance, did you know that one of the star players from your basketball team nearly flat-lined it at St. Luke’s/Roosevelt after he swallowed Ecstasy a few weeks ago? Best part is, he bought the drugs in this building, from a senior. An honor student, as I recall. But I’ll have to check my notes to be sure.”

I thought the headmaster had already turned as pale as he could, but I was wrong. Now he looks as if he’s just donated a gallon of blood. He tries to lick his lips, and his tongue actually sticks to his lower lip.

“I don’t believe you,” he lies.

“Well, maybe you’ll believe it when you read about it, and that phone on your desk starts ringing off the hook. Funny I should happen to have been the reporter assigned to check out this story, huh? I checked it out, all right, but I pissed on it to my bosses for the sake of my son. But that reason no longer exists. If I don’t get my money back, the story runs in the New York Star. With pictures.”

“Pictures?” The word leaps out of him as if he’s been jabbed with a needle.

I nod solemnly. “These kids today have everything. Cell phones with digital cameras in them! Suddenly everybody’s a photographer. Click, click. You throw ’em a few bucks, and they’re happy to e-mail them over.”

“Pictures of what?”

“Sixteen-year-olds being held upside down while beer from a keg is pumped into their mouths. Kids snorting something that isn’t powdered sugar. Of course, we’ll have to put bars across their eyes, because they’re just kids. But some of them, Mr. Plymouth, are your kids.”

“Was Jacob at these events?”

“Jake, as we both know, is no longer a student at this school. But I don’t mind telling you that he wasn’t there.”

Of course he wasn’t there. Nobody was there. I was making it all up as I went along. It’s funny how imaginative you can get with that kind of money on the line.

Peter Plymouth slams his hand down hard on his desk, and for the first time, it dawns on me that I could be in physical danger. He’s bigger and younger than me, and I know I’m pushing him in ways he’s never been pushed.

He can take a poke at me if he wants, so long as I leave his office with a check. But he won’t take a poke at me. He’s hit his desk in frustration because I’ve beaten him, and he’s not used to losing.

He pulls open one of his desk drawers, takes out a leather-bound book, opens it up, uncaps a fountain pen with a shaky hand and starts writing almost frantically, as if he’s just had a great idea he doesn’t want to forget. It only takes a few seconds, and when he’s through he puffs on the page to dry the ink, then tears it out of the book and holds it out to me.

It’s a check for seven thousand dollars and no cents. It’s actually slightly higher than the total I’ve paid so far for Jake’s senior year. I reach for the check, but he pulls it back, cocks his head, and narrows one eye at me.

“I assume I won’t be reading anything disturbing in the New York Star.”

“Not from me you won’t.”

He hands over the check. “Good-bye, Mr. Sullivan.”

I fold the check and slip it into my wallet. “I’ll be back if it bounces.”

“It won’t bounce.”

“Hand me Jake’s essay, will you? I may have it framed.”

He hands me the loose-leaf pages, which I carefully fold and slip inside my jacket pocket, next to my trusty notebook. I go to the door while Peter Plymouth returns to his chair. I turn to him one last time.

“You did the right thing here,” I say, patting my wallet.

“Is that so?”

“Yes, it is. I can see why you’re such a good sailor. The wind shifted, and you set your sails accordingly.”

“Leave now or I’m phoning security.”

I can’t help laughing. “Funny, that’s the second time today I’ve been threatened with security. Never knew I was such a dangerous person.”

His secretary doesn’t even glance at me as I go past her.