Ordinary People

by Judith Guest

  And now? Where is he now?

  Beth sets breakfast in front of Cal: eggs, bacon, toast, milk, juice.

  Conrad looks up. “Morning.”

  “Morning. You need a ride today?”

  “No. Lazenby’s picking me up at twenty after.”

  He treats this as a piece of good news. “Great!” Said too heartily, he sees at once. Conrad looks away, frowning.

  “I’ve got to get dressed,” Beth says. “I tee off at nine.” She hands him his coffee; crosses to the doorway; motes of dust flutter nervously in her wake. Conrad is studying. The book is propped against the butter dish.

  “What is it, a quiz?”

  “Book report.”

  “What book?”

  He raises the cover. Cal reads, Jude the Obscure.

  “How is it?”

  “Obscure.”

  He sips his coffee. “No bacon and eggs this morning?”

  He shakes his head. “I only wanted cereal.”

  He has lost twenty-five pounds in one year. Another year before his weight will return to normal, Dr. Crawford predicted.

  “You feel okay?”

  “Yeah, fine. I just didn’t want a big breakfast.”

  The bony angles need to be fleshed out.

  “You ought to keep trying to put weight on,” Cal says.

  “I am. I will. You don’t have to be heavy to swim, Dad.”

  Back to the book, and Cal studies the crisp, dry rectangles on the tile floor. Patterns of sunlight. Familiar and orderly. “How’s it going?” he asks.

  Conrad looks up. “What?”

  “How’s it going? School. Swimming. Everything okay?”

  “Yeah, fine. Same as yesterday.”

  “What does that mean?”

  A faint smile. “It means you ask me that every day.”

  “Sorry.” He smiles, too. “I like things neat.”

  Conrad laughs. He reaches out to flip the book closed. “Okay,” he says, “let’s talk.”

  “Can’t help it,” Cal says. “I regard it as a challenge, people reading at the table.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So, how come Lazenby’s picking you up?”

  “He’s a friend of mine.”

  “I know that. I just wondered if it meant you’d be riding with him from now on.”

  “I don’t have a formal commitment yet. I’m gonna have my secretary talk to his, though.”

  “Okay, okay.”

  “We should have the contract drawn up by the end of the week.”

  “Okay.”

  He does a familiar thing, then; shoves his hands into the back pockets of his Levi’s as he rocks backward in the chair. Conrad, after all. A good sign, despite the brutal haircut; the weary look about the eyes. The eyes bother him every day. He still believes in the picture he carries in his wallet of a boy with longish, dark hair and laugh lines about the mouth and eyes; no weary look there. This gaunt, thin figure that sits across from him, hair chopped bluntly at the neck, still grins; still kids, but the eyes are different. He cannot get used to it.

  His old self. That is the image that must be dispelled. Another piece of advice from the all-powerful Dr. Crawford, Keeper of the Gate. “Don’t expect him to be the same person he was before.” But he does expect that. As does everyone. His mother, his grandmother, his grandfather—yesterday, Cal’s father-in-law had called him at the office: “I’ve got to admit, Cal, that it shocked me. He looked so—” and Cal felt him hunting for the painless adjectives “—tired out. Run down. I would think, for the kind of money you paid, they would have at least seen to it that he ate properly, and got enough sleep. And he was so quiet. Just not like his old self at all.”

  And who was that? The kid who got straight A’s all through grade school and junior high? Who rode his two-wheeler sixteen times around the block on his sixth birthday, because somebody bet him he couldn’t? Who took four firsts in the hundred-meter free style last year? Last year. No, he is not much like that kid. Whoever he was.

  He says his piece about the clothes, and Conrad nods absently. “Okay. I just haven’t thought about it much. I will, though.”

  What, no argument? No raising of the eyebrows, no hint of sarcasm in the reply? What kind of a sign is this? Surely not good. Okay, now is the time. Lean, if you have to.

  “Another thing,” he says. “That doctor in Evanston, what’s his name? Berger? Have you called him yet?”

  An immediate reaction. The look on his face is tight; closed. The chair legs come down. “No. I don’t have time.”

  “I think we ought to stick to the plan—”

  “I can’t. I’m swimming every night until six. He didn’t say I had to call him, Dad.”

  “No, I know.” He waits while Conrad stares at the table. “I think maybe you ought to. Maybe he could see you on the weekends.”

  “I don’t need to see anybody. I feel fine.”

  A strained silence. Conrad pushes the cereal bowl, lightly; left, then right.

  “I want you to call him anyway,” he says. “Call him today.”

  “I don’t finish practice until dinner—”

  “Call him at school. On your lunch hour.”

  An obedient boy. Polite. Obedient. Well mannered. Even in the hospital, with his fingernails bitten to bloody half-moons, the dark circles, bloody bruises under his eyes; always, always his behavior was proper, full of respect.

  “Thanks for coming.” Each time he would say that, as Cal readied himself to leave. The shirt he is wearing today—the way his shoulder blades shove out beneath the soft skin of jersey—it is a shirt he used to wear in the hospital. Growing up is a serious business. He, Cal, would not be young again, not for anything. And not without sponsors: a mother and father, good fortune, God.

  3

  He sits on the front porch steps, waiting for Lazenby. The air is crisp and cool, and he rubs his hands together, shivering in the thin denim jacket. He should go back inside; get a heavier one, but he doesn’t want to risk it. Not that she will care, or say anything. But the hurdle has been jumped once today. Enough. He glances again at his watch. Almost eight-thirty. Lazenby has forgotten. He hopes for a moment that he has; then, prays he hasn’t. She would have to drive him. She has a golf game; it will make her late. The wrong direction, across town the two of them alone in the car and he not wanting to screw up and say the wrong thing. Haul ass Lazenby crissake don’t make me stand here until she comes out.

  Abruptly he jumps up, walks to the end of the circular drive. Another thought nags at him, threatening to surface. He shrugs it off. Something unpleasant. Facing the house, he stares up at his bedroom window. In the early morning, the room is his enemy; there is danger in just being awake. Here, looking up, it is a refuge. He imagines himself safely inside; in bed, with the covers pulled up. Asleep. Unconscious.

  The thought surfaces. His father has noticed. Whatever is wrong is now visible. That command: not, “Call the guy,” but, “Call him today. ” Worrying. There is something to worry about, as he has suspected. He did not want to have his suspicions confirmed. In cooler moments, the fear can be shoved back; thought of as overactive imagination, too much hot sauce. Now he has infected his father, and the gray disease is dangerous to both of them. His grandmother was eager to inform him: “Conrad, if you knew the strain that man was under these past months, the money was nothing, compared with the strain, my heart went out to him, I can’t tell you.”

  Then, don’t! he felt like screaming, squirming to pass through the remark, untouched. He wants to belong to this house again, needs to be part of these tall windows set low to the ground, walls half-hidden behind thick waxy rhododendron leaves, the cedar hedge in front, all of it—all elegance and good taste. Good taste is absorbed through the skin, like rays from the sun, in this elegant, tasteful section of Lake Forest, Illinois, a direct quote from a newspaper article. They had laughed when they read it and he laughs now, out loud. See? Haven’t lost your sense of humor after a
ll but your sense of identity is what seems to have been misplaced. No. Wrong. You don’t lose what you never had.

  Lazenby’s red Mustang hurls itself into the driveway, and he tosses his books in the back seat; climbs in after them to sit beside Van Buren.

  “We’re late,” Stillman says, “because Dickie’s mom had to pack his lunch.”

  “Two minutes! Christ, you guys were already late when you got to my house!” Van Buren moves over to make room. “Hey, listen, I damn near killed myself over this poly-sci exam.”

  “Yeah, the guy wants a goddamn personal analysis of it all, I was up until two o’clock, trying to make sense out of the crap—”

  “It helps,” Lazenby drawls, “if you read the crap when it’s assigned. Instead of inhaling it the night before the exam. Just a friendly hint.”

  “Tell me about it,” Van Buren says.

  Stillman sneers. “Get a sense of reality, will, you, Lazenby? We swim our asses off every friggin’ day. When are we supposed to study?”

  Lazenby shrugs. “I swim. I study.”

  “Yeah, you’re perfect.” Stillman twists around in the front seat. “What’re you reading, Jarrett? Is that Hardy? Junior English?”

  Conrad nods. They are all seniors this year, except him. He had taken no finals last year. Not January, or June.

  “You got all junior classes this year?” Stillman asks. “They didn’t pass you on anything?”

  Van Buren yawns. “They don’t pass you on breathing in that dump if you haven’t taken the final.”

  Lazenby says, “Kevin, will you quit screwing around with the dial, get something and leave it.”

  Stillman gives a mocking nod, turning up the volume on the radio. He continues to screw around with the dial. Conrad feels the slow, rolling pressure of panic building inside himself. The air in the back seat is being sucked out the windows by a huge and powerful vacuum. Relentless, it will soon crush the car like an eggshell. They cross the Chicago-Northwestern tracks and Stillman is immediately alert, on the lookout.

  “Hey, there’s Pratt,” he says. “Lemme out. I need a jump.”

  A small, neat-looking redhead in a blue skirt and tan jacket is hurrying along the street, her books in her arms.

  “Nice legs,” Lazenby says.

  “Nice ass.” Stillman is looking at him again; sees him glance out the window. “Huh, Jarrett? Hey, look. Jarrett’s interested in something.”

  Lazenby says over his shoulder, “She’s new. Just moved in last spring.”

  “She’s new, she’s blue, she needs a screw,” Stillman sings.

  Van Buren yawns again. “Christ, you’re a goddamn comedian today, aren’t you?”

  He remembers this now, about Stillman; that it is too easy for him. He is too good-looking; girls have been falling into his lap since junior high, and he has done nothing to earn it, in fact, does not deserve it, spending his time as he does, in tossing off crude remarks about them and then grinning, as if he will be President someday. A diver on the swim team. In general, he has observed that divers tend to be crappy human beings. One of life’s mysteries.

  “Hey, a tongue twister,” Stillman says. “Jarrett falls for Pratt’s ass. How’s that?”

  Lazenby and Van Buren laugh. The remark has an indelible quality that makes Conrad’s skin prickle. Stillman is an expert at that: he and Buck had phrases that would sing in the locker room for weeks. No not today not today. He wills his mind to slip over it, a blur of gold leaves and green grass sliding, sliding as they turn into the parking lot behind the school.

  “ ‘Jarrett falls for Pratt’s ass,’ yeah, I like it.” Stillman leers at him over the seat, gives him the Presidential grin. “What’s the matter? Not funny?”

  An undertone of faint hostility has crept into his voice. Conrad’s stomach tightens. He needs no more enemies. He forces a laugh from the back of his throat; turns his attention outside the window Forget it forget it he was never a friend sends him a mental message Screw you he will not get it does not operate on the same frequency never will so fuck it.

  “Conrad, what’s your theory on Jude Fawley?”

  “What?”

  Miss Mellon smiles at him. “Do you think he was powerless in the grip of circumstances, or could he have helped himself?”

  “I don’t know,” he stalls. “Powerless? I guess he thought he was.”

  “What’s the difference?” Her attention on him now, full force. It will smother him. Too much interest brings out every ounce of reserve he has, makes him unable to think, to formulate answers, even to hear the questions. He looks blankly back at her.

  “The guy was a jerk,” somebody says. “All hung up on what was the moral thing to do. It didn’t make any sense.”

  “That’s too easy, Joel.” And he breathes again, as her attention shifts. He knows, though, that she will corner him after class, and she does.

  “I don’t want you to feel pressured about this report,” she says. “Do you want an extension?”

  “No.” Backing slowly out the door as she follows him. “I’ll get it done.”

  “You’re sure? There’s no need to push yourself....”

  Wrong. There is a need. To regain his spot on the swim team, to get back into choir again, there are no choices at all, just endless motion. And no more mistakes. Like the ones he had made last year, when everything was sliding. He had made a lot of them, then. He had brought in some poems to her. That had been a big one. “Why are you writing all this about violence and war? Aren’t there other things you’d like to say, Conrad? This doesn’t sound like you. ” Now it’s as if the whole thing were her fault. She is trying to make it up to him, and he wants no part of those memories. He doesn’t know exactly what he wants from people except that he prefers indifference to concern. Easier to handle. Please stop holding my goddamn hand, he wants to say to her. She tears his pride to shreds.

  Indifference? Or something more definite than that, strong waves of unfriendliness he can actually feel coming toward him, toward his seat at the back of the room in chemistry lab. Mr. Raymond doesn’t like him any more. Why? They hardly knew each other before. And Mr. Simmons, his college algebra/trig teacher, is embarrassed; won’t look at him at all. Well, tough. So what? They can all go to hell, he doesn’t care. He has gotten what he wanted from all of them. They agreed to have him back in their classes this year, didn’t they? “Maybe we ought to cut down on some of these extras, Conrad.” At the meeting before school started, with the principal, Mr. Knight, his counselor, Mr. Hellwarth, his father. “Maybe take a straight English course, instead of English honors, and drop choir—” But, no, he had not wanted that, and then Faughnan, the choir director, had stepped in, told Knight that he was short on tenors, he needed Conrad for balance. Balance. Forester Singers was definitely the prestige group of the school. A Cappella Choir, selection by audition only. They have a reputation to maintain, and Faughnan has pull. If he needs Jarrett for balance, that’s that.

  Choir is the one time of day when he lets down his guard; there is peace in the strict concentration that Faughnan demands of all of them, in the sweet dissonance of voices in chorus. He has sung in here since he was a freshman. Faughnan is a serious student of music; also, a perfectionist of the sternest sort, who cares about nobody, about nothing other than the music. His shirt sleeves rolled to the elbows, his tie undone, he drives them. Every minute of every hour that is spent there, they work, and there is only one way to prove yourself. You sing, and sing, and sing. All else is unimportant.

  “Nice job, tenors,” Faughnan will say, once in a while, offhand. There are only six of them. He allows himself the smallest thrust of pride on those days. However, today is not one of those days. They sift down off the stands and he stops to retrieve his books from the back table. In front of him are two sopranos, one blonde and one redhead, whose hair hangs, silk-smooth and straight, almost to the middle of her back. No, not red: more of a peach color. The back of her head is three inches from his no
se. He could touch it, if he wanted to.

  “Hi, Con.” The blonde has turned around; is looking directly into his face. He can’t remember her name.

  “Hi.” His face flushes; burns. Beneath the roughened skin, he can feel the rash begin to prickle; stinging nettles against his face.

  “Have you met Jeannine?”

  “No.”

  “Jeannine Pratt, Conrad Jarrett.”

  “Nice to meet you.” She smiles; puts out her hand. He stands there, stupidly confused. He still cannot remember the blonde’s name and-she acts like she knows him and this other one, the redhead blue eyes copper-colored freckles a blue skirt he suddenly remembers it is the girl he saw from the car: Jarrett falls for Pratt’s ass, goddamn you, Stillman, anyway. He doesn’t move doesn’t speak stands helplessly waiting for inspiration, for release.

  “I think you stand behind me,” Jeannine says.

  “You sing better than you talk,” the blonde says, giggling, and he remembers. Gail Noonan is her name. Buck took her out once.

  “Well—” she says, “we’ll see you.”

  They turn away, and he walks blindly out the door behind them, down the hall toward history class. He thinks of a simple, spare melody, picking up the notes as they slide into his mind—“Rainy Day Man,” an old James Taylor tune. That one is really old, goes all the way back to junior high. He hums it through to relax himself. He has escaped this time but even the smallest, most insignificant encounter is alive with complication and danger. He wishes himself, for a moment, back inside the hospital where things were predictable. Mercifully dull.