The Expectations Read online

  “Hey, thank you for coming in, I know that was intense.”

  “Not the end of the world.”

  “Nothing gets a school more scared than hazing. But I understand what kind of position you’d be in with other kids.” He smiled.

  “Maybe it happened in some other dorm, but—” Ben smiled as well, and the two of them seemed to duel with weary smiles for a moment.

  “Listen, I’ve been working on this project—maybe it’s a little hokey, but just in the context of all this, I thought you could help me.”

  Ben raised his eyebrows and compressed his lips.

  “Aston has asked me to rewrite part of the Companion, and I’m trying to find out what students think about it.”

  “The Companion?”

  Markson laughed. “Exactly. You know the little blue book they gave you the first day?” Ben immediately saw where it was in the pencil drawer of his desk. “There’s an essay in there on decision-making—actually called ‘Decision-Making’—and it’s been the same forever, since before I went here; it still refers to students as ‘boys.’ So I’m redoing it. Take a look, then let’s talk over what you think.”

  “Okay, sure, yeah, will do.” Ben paused. “Hey, I would totally say something if there was anything—”

  Markson raised his hand to his waist and made a brush-away gesture. “That’s not—listen, whatever you want to do. I just also wanted to say…it may have seemed this way, but don’t think this has anything to do with the tuition situation.”

  Ben tried to say something but instead lifted his eyebrows again.

  Markson closed his eyes briefly, and when he opened them he was looking down toward the far side of the stairs. “Like, don’t think they’re trying to put pressure on you with that. It’s between your parents and the school.”

  Then the tip-of-the-tongue feeling resolved as Ben remembered the mail that spring as he had waited for his admissions letter. Every day the mail would come and Ben would scour it for anything from St. James, anything on that ecru paper with the ant insignia in the upper left corner, worried that it wouldn’t be the thick packet.

  And three times he had felt a thin-envelope pang, only to feel relieved when the letter turned out not to be from the Admissions Office but from the Bursar instead. Something was also not right with that, he knew what a bursar was, and the RESPONSE REQUIRED above the addressee block stayed with him like a raised stitch at his collar. But that worry was down under the heaviness of his desire to get into St. James, and then the thick packet came.

  But the memory of those letters from the Bursar wouldn’t burn away as Ben anticipated coming to school. Something was off with how he had arrived. When he had come in previous years to help Teddy move in, there had been so many people—friends and younger kids and their parents—and so much laughter, hugging, swagger, feigned and genuine disbelief. Ben had hoped the quiet of his arrival was just because it was his first semester, with no one to come back to, but he knew that those Bursar letters were alive in the quiet driving onto campus with his dad.

  And the letters had been there the day before the drive up to St. James, when Ben and his dad stood in EMS, the outdoor equipment store, engaged in a strange, quiet argument. Ben had lost his raincoat at Tongaheewin, and they were there to replace it. Ben loved outdoor stores; all the gear sat there ready to do huge, dangerous things. He wanted all of the bright sleeping bags and the tents with their curving poles and the rock-climbing harnesses with all the important metal clipped on and the kayaks and the boots and the folding knives in the glass case and the vacuum-sealed food in the shiny plastic envelopes.

  They went to the jackets section. Each of the brands had its own rack, and each rack had four sloping studded bars so that the tops of the jacket fronts could be seen: North Face, Patagonia, EMS brand, Columbia. Ben stepped over to the North Face rack, but his dad picked up and started inspecting an EMS brand jacket.

  Ben explained Gore-Tex and breathability. The snow skirt that snapped together under the hem of the jacket. The reinforced fabric at the shoulders and elbows, where contact with pack straps and ice axes demanded durability. His dad had never needed any of that—he wore a yellow slicker when it rained and a parka skiing. You couldn’t really go mountaineering without a jacket like this. When did Ben climb mountains? But Ben wanted to do that. He had always wanted to do NOLS. Ben had been taught not to waste money on cheap things. He would be ashamed to be seen in an EMS jacket.

  “It’s not worth three hundred and eighty-five dollars, Ben.”

  “You know how cold it gets up there.”

  “It’s not even insulated! It’s a windbreaker!”

  Ben looked at that correct jacket, hanging there in all its authority, in hunter green, his favorite color. With those square shoulders and the pipe-shaped hood, the North Face jacket looked like a sentry, like you would have no choice but to be ready whenever you put it on. The EMS one was like a plastic bag.

  “I’d rather just wear a fleece than have something that’s not serious.”

  “I don’t understand the need to be serious.”

  Ben started to walk away toward the hiking boots section, to the sloped plastic ramp molded into rock shapes.

  “Ben, stop.”

  Ben had been very near tears, both struggling not to cry and letting himself verge over. He tried to remember whether his dad’s eyes had looked scared about actually giving up the money that the jacket cost. There in EMS, Ben had thought it was just about the principle of frugality, of not spending too much on a piece of clothing. It had never once occurred to him that $385 could meaningfully subtract from the total amount of money his father had.

  But those thoughts must have been there. His father must have been having those thoughts all during the drive, as they carried bags up to the room, as they went to see the squash courts—

  —and as they walked to the courts that first day. Ben had put his hand on the Dragon’s side for a moment and looked up. His father should have been wearing a calm smile, suppressing delight at this beautiful thing he had brought into the world, his own thing that he wasn’t going to name after himself. But Ben instead knew he would see a tautness across his father’s face.

  No landscaping had been done yet, and so the earth around the long, low brick building was still yellow mud molded into the shape of bulldozer treads. Stacks of bricks were covered in partially tied-down Tyvek sheeting, and dusty tree roots stuck up from the mud at hectic angles.

  They passed the Dragon and walked through the soft dirt to the building’s entrance. The courts would probably be locked, but Ben decided to try anyway, and the door’s thumb latch gave. Ben pulled the door open and the two of them smelled the off-gas of new carpet and fresh paint. They stepped inside, first Ben and then his dad.

  The red glow of the vestibule’s EXIT sign created the feeling of being somewhere late at night. Ben pulled open the inner door and they went in and looked down from the top of the gallery. Courts 1 and 2, the marquee glass-back courts, sat side by side at the bottom of a carpeted bank of stadium steps. For an instant Ben remembered what they had looked like in the architectural plans, but then this reality crowded out any other version. The walls of the gallery were bare drywall with the seams and screw heads plastered over blotchily. The lines of the courts seemed almost hallucinatorily straight.

  Ben could see a burr of dust over everything. The Manley Price Courts.

  “What do you think?” his father asked.

  “They look amazing.” Ben missed the water stain on the ceiling of the Um Club court, the mismatched carpet remnants in the little lounge. Chip had sprung for a glass back wall, but you had to wedge it closed with a wooden shim after the latch had broken.

  “They do look amazing.”

  The two of them didn’t move. Ben didn’t know what they were supposed to do now. He realized he should have been a little surprised that they hadn’t brought shoes and racquets to hit with.

  As they stood there looki
ng down, not going farther in but not turning around to leave, Ben thought that maybe his dad was so subdued because he was going to miss having Ben at home.

  Ben’s dad took in a breath, exhaled, and said, “I hope they’re worth it.”

  Now, in the stairwell with Markson, Ben tried to remember with more specificity just what it had been like at the courts. How much of the quiet there had been money quiet?

  Markson looked at him, the act of his compassion there in his eyes. “And of course, listen,” Markson said, “I know what financial trouble at home can be like. My family went through a rough period when I was in college. It’s stressful.”

  Ben kept nodding and nodding.

  “So, again, if you want to talk about any situation at home, I’m much more than happy to.”

  Ben had never thought of himself as someone who would have a situation at home to talk about. But now Markson was concluding, looking in his face, asking for some acknowledgment.

  Ben thanked Markson. Markson smiled with genuine warmth, so much so that Ben felt afraid his problem was serious enough to demand a smile this warm.

  * * *

  After making it through geometry, then bio, Ben walked back toward Hawley. He just wanted to get under the covers and pause his life for a few minutes before JV soccer tryouts. Ahmed had told him that morning that his father had agreed a swimming pool was necessary, and they were getting board approval now before beginning to interview architects.

  As he went down the slope toward the little bridge to the quad, he saw Hutch and another kid from Woodruff, Kyle, coming up toward him.

  “Weeksy!” said Hutch, and Ben couldn’t resist blooming.

  “Fellas,” he said, and clasped hands first with Hutch and then with Kyle, which was awkward as he and Kyle had only barely nodded to each other before now.

  “We were just talking about your fucking roommate.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Did he really walk out of newb boxing, too?” This from Kyle, who Ben could see was sort of playacting his outrage.

  “A Hawley newb is a quiet newb,” Ben said, smiling, and the other two laughed, and Ben was almost frightened by how gratifying their laughter was. He didn’t mention the pool.

  “Dude,” Hutch said, “come to our room tonight before Seated for crank time.”

  Ben knew it would seem cool to have another thing to do that could prevent him from agreeing to this.

  “Sure, definitely.”

  “And tell your roommate to go fuck himself in the meantime,” Kyle said.

  Ben came around the corner to Hawley’s back entrance, catching sight of the Dragon up the rise. He walked up the stairs, desperate for a few minutes of sleep, but when he came onto the hallway, he saw a chrome wheeled clothes rack next to number 24. Ahmed’s shirts, back from Thomas & Ridgelow Cleaners, were draped in thin plastic and hung on wide-shouldered wooden hangers. The hangers filled up the shirts as though there were a patient torso in each one.

  Ben went into the room, sat at his desk, beyond sleep’s reach. He knew he needed to work.

  Instead he opened the wide shallow drawer and almost to his surprise found the book there, the St. James Companion, just as it had been. He looked at its leatherette covering and the dry red of the page edges, then flipped through it. He had a craving for objects like this: small, talismanic things that seemed to collect wisdom regardless of what was printed in them. He wished his father wore a watch so that it could be passed down to him. He wished his family had a vellum book from the Middle Ages in the collection of some archive somewhere. These stout gold letters on the cover had never experienced a moment of self-questioning.

  He opened to the ant insignia over Vade ad Formicam on the flyleaf, then to the motto on the next page: “To serve man and to glorify God.” He read the next section, entitled “Expectations.”

  The school expects that a boy will never present the work of others as his own.

  The school expects that a boy will never take the possessions of other boys, nor those things belonging to the school.

  The school expects that a boy will never use intoxicants of any kind, nor bring intoxicants onto campus for any reason.

  The school expects that a boy will…

  He flipped through the rest of the book and found the prayers for use in school life. “An Intercession,” “For a Right Spirit,” “The School Prayer,” “For Guidance,” “In the Evening,” “When Busy,” “Examinations.”

  Sports

  Lord, you have said that the glory of the young is their strength; grant me the strength of mind and body to play my part on the field of sport. Give me the will to strive with all my heart, to play fair, and, in victory or defeat, to give honor where honor is due. Amen.

  And then Ben came to the last section, the one Markson was working on, a code of conduct written by the third Rector of the school, William Beech.

  Decision-Making

  Above all else, a St. James education teaches a boy to make selfless and courageous decisions.

  As he considers his actions, a boy must ask himself,

  First: Does my action accord with God’s will?

  Second: Is my action to the benefit of the other boys at the school?

  Third: Would I be proud of my action if it were known to all?

  If you can answer these questions with a peaceful and steadfast heart, you will know you have made the right choice.

  Always apply these questions faithfully and you will be a man of high ethical standing. You will be an asset to your country, to the world, and to your God.

  * * *

  Ben was ready for Seated, out of the room, and almost to Woodruff before Ahmed had showered. Hutch and Evan’s room was right. The couch was covered in a purple paisley tapestry, the posters on the wall were Are You Experienced and lacrosse. Ben sat and joked, and he heard his jokes and wondered if they betrayed that his parents hadn’t paid his tuition. He had been so close to losing thoughts like this.

  Crank time was the half hour before Seated Meal when you could play music as loud as you wanted to. Hutch and Evan’s second-floor windows were all swung wide open. Evan had hefted one of his big blond-wood KEF Q80 speakers, and with its back resting against his chest he was now setting its front edge facing out on the narrow windowsill. Ben was glad he already owned a decent pair of speakers.

  “We’re going to fry everyone walking by,” Evan said. With one foot he slid over his CD tower and set the back edge of the speaker on its top, then very gingerly tested the balance and removed his hands.

  “That’s one!” He moved back to the amp and carefully lifted the bundle of speaker wire for the other speaker out from behind the component stack.

  “I wish we had some wetness,” Hutch said.

  “I almost pulled some of my parents’ stuff,” said Kyle, “but like three days before school my dad told me he was watching all the levels.”

  “Shit, I totally could have gotten some from my parents,” said Ben, thinking of the neglected bottles at the back of the cabinet under the sink in the den, wondering if they could afford to lose it now. A boy will never use intoxicants; answer these questions with a steadfast heart. “I know there’s a bottle in the way back they’ve never scratched.”

  “Oh, dude”—Hutch turned to Ben—“how could you not tell us that Ahmed walked out of newb boxing!”

  “Ugh, Jesus,” Ben said.

  “It’s like,” Evan began, “how much further does it go? If he’s doing shit like that and nothing happens, then that becomes totally fine, and then…”

  “And then,” said Hutch, “fuck that.”

  “Fuck that,” said Evan, before crouching down and hefting the second speaker.

  Evan’s body went still as he began to place the front edge of the speaker on the sill, and Hutch looked at Ben and Kyle and grinned. Ben felt cold. Hutch held his finger to his lips, stood up from the stuffed chair, and silently began to move toward Evan. He turned to Ben and Kyle and beckoned
with his hands for some conversation so as not to have Evan suspect anything. Ben’s mind was empty and then he said, “They’ve got to have a bottle of Beefeater about a decade old. They mostly drink wine and that shit’s for cocktail parties, but when was the last time they had a cocktail party?”

  By this time Hutch was within arm’s reach of Evan, and he carefully extended his arm, then bumped the heel of his hand into Evan’s elbow. The speaker moved a crucial four inches, less teetering than cascading out the window, but Evan lunged forward and got his fingers around the far edges, scraping his forearms against the inside of the window frame. The speaker went still again. “You motherfucker!”

  Hutch folded back on the chair in laughter, and Evan shakily set the speaker on the carpet. He took the few steps over to Hutch, and Ben could see him weighing how much he should let out. He punched Hutch’s arm lightly enough that Ben could tell that if he had punched harder, he wouldn’t have been able to control himself.

  “Motherfucker!” Evan said again, his voice embarrassingly high, and then, because there was nowhere else to go, he laughed too, and the four of them sat there laughing. Then Evan went back to the window with the second speaker, turning around again and again and show-glaring at the other three, and then it was in place and they played the Allman Brothers live At Fillmore East. Evan kept looking around the speakers to see if there was anyone below them hearing it.

  “Yo,” Hutch said to Ben, “I think we’re going to town Saturday.”

  “Oh, cool,” Ben said, trying to remember how much money he had in his checking account.

  “Where should we go?”

  For a second Ben had no idea why Hutch would be asking him this—Hutch’s face showed no vulnerability in not already knowing where to go—but then Ben remembered about Teddy, and he searched his memory for the places Teddy had talked about.

  “Escobar’s is good. Um, the Lamplight has buffalo wings—”

  “Buffalo wings, yes!” said Kyle.

  Hutch nodded quickly, as though he had decided on this beforehand and was glad they had arrived at the correct choice, and then they saw that they were going to be late to Seated and pulled the speakers out of the window, tying their ties as they hurried down the stairs.