“A true jolie laide,” said my mother, as I described him to her (I no longer cried into pay phones), which was not quite right, but I was happy to have a new phrase for this new character in my life. He made us talk about love. I didn’t know what it meant to him, of course. I had no idea what it meant for anyone, but I was damned ready to learn. We spent that entire class on the first line. The first line. Nobody had ever directed me to read closely before. Nobody had ever been driven to yelling by words on a page. We opened all the windows and let him billow, like a sail.
I wanted to take Modern Novel all day long. Like Elise, I began checking out fiction and poetry collections nobody made me read: Alice Munro, Adrienne Rich, Ellen Gilchrist, Isak Dinesen. Here was a force to temper the lockstep urgency of the college-prep process. It was so simple: pleasure, the idea that I might find things I wanted to learn about, and follow in that direction. This momentum gathered fast. I dropped honors calc and, with an approving arm around my shoulder, Mrs. Fenn welcomed me into her regular calculus course, where I could plow through problem sets without much trouble. I was grateful for this bit of ease, and gratitude made me feel generous, particularly toward the few sixth formers in my new math class who were anguished and looking for help. I answered the pleas of hockey-playing Declan Brophy not least because my friend Maddy, still devoted to him, wanted to hear what his room looked like. For several weeks that fall I’d hike the wooded path to his dorm after Seated Meal, nights I didn’t have choir rehearsal, and sit on the floor, back to a sofa, leading him through integral equations. I wished Maddy could have come with me—I don’t think there exists a better way to untangle a girl’s admiration for a boy than to try to coach him through calculus. Brophy squirmed and swore. His roommates laughed at him, which I took as an implicit expression of solidarity with me. His thighs were barrels on the floor. Neither of us could read the pencil scratches in his notebook. He tugged at his hair. “God, I fucking hate this stuff,” he said.
I’d had no idea you could be at St. Paul’s and have such a rough time with coursework.
“This is probably like cake for you, isn’t it?” he moaned.
From the movies I had learned the popular archetype of the well-born dolt, whose pink sweater, tied over his shoulders, is the brightest thing north of his balls. You know, the one named Trip, whose loafers pass unchallenged through every door? The truth at St. Paul’s was that plenty of high-born kids were terrifically smart. Students on scholarship were in my experience extraordinary too. Many athletes excelled as well, but by fifth form, it was becoming clear which of them would never again be part of an institution as esteemed, at least in certain circles, as St. Paul’s School.
I thought of boys like Declan Brophy with equal parts derision and sympathy. I didn’t know where the derision came from. I’d like to think it’s because these boys christened my friend’s breasts the big guns, or because they seemed unable to relate to any girl except to ogle her or screw her (or to have her as a tutor, I suppose). But I envied my friend her shape; I wanted to be ogled too. So I was grateful for the invitation to Brophy’s room, even if it was only to run through problem sets.
Also, he was nice to me. We high-fived in the halls now. He nodded, passing me in lunch line or on the stairs, and after a little while his roommates started doing this too. It was perhaps a path to friendship, and I might have defended against my hope for it by deriding him, secretly, in my mind.
These were the last days before a teammate of his made the late-night phone call to my dorm, asking me to come over. September and half of October, 1990. They were beautiful days on campus, as autumn days in New England always are. Wet salmon leaves on the redbrick walks. Marigold trees in the ponds. Sky so blue your eyes made orange. I loved how the slate steps of the Schoolhouse were scooped at the middle from years of feet. I loved the carillon in the chapel tower. Around Halloween every year, certain older masters told stories of a devil in a stained-glass window that was rumored to ring the bells at an off hour, in some homage—I can’t remember the details—to Samuel Drury, the fourth rector of St. Paul’s. The dorm where I tutored Brophy in calculus was named for Drury, and set off by itself in the woods, beside an open field. At night, when I left to head back to my room, the stars above this field were fantastic. I remember pausing to look up, and not being afraid.
I’m going to call him Rick.
He was tall, almost a foot taller than I was. Three varsity sports, including, of course, hockey. He skid-shuffled his feet down the hall like he was clearing a path. His girlfriend was one of the most beautiful human beings I had ever seen—fleet, fun, an excellent athlete in her own right. I didn’t know her and I didn’t know him, though he sat a few rows ahead of me in math class, crammed into the chaired desk like a caged pterodactyl. One day, after breakfast, he said, “Hey, maybe you could help me with calculus sometime.”
I didn’t know he was talking to me.
“Hey, Red.”
He was so tall that his voice moved above me,
