The Tutor

by Peter Abrahams

  Brandon hadn’t flushed the toilet, also hadn’t aimed very well. Careful where she put her feet, Ruby flushed it for him and got in the shower.

  She chose the Aussie extra-gentle shampoo with the kangaroo on the front because she liked the combination of shampoo and kangaroo, Helene Curtis Salon Selectives conditioner because it said completely drenched, whatever that meant, and Fa body wash because it smelled like kiwi. Clean, dry, smelling great, she wrapped her hair in a towel and got dressed—khakis from the Gap, a long-sleeved T-shirt with a silver star on the front, black clogs with thick soles to make her taller—and went down to the kitchen. Zippy awoke at once, sprang up from under the table, bounded toward her, tail wagging.

  “Down, Zippy.”

  But of course he wouldn’t go down, did just the opposite, raising himself higher, resting his front paws on her shoulders.

  “Down.”

  He poked his muzzle in her face, gave her a big wet lick on the nose.

  “Up,” she said, just as an experiment. Zippy dropped to all fours at once, snagging her T-shirt as he did. Two of the little arms of the silver star now hung loose.

  “Zippy. Bad boy.”

  He wagged his tail.

  His water bowl was empty. Ruby filled it. He ignored the bowl, but as soon as her back was turned she heard him slurping noisily.

  Ruby made her breakfast—scrambled eggs, toast, and orange juice. No milk; she only drank milk when forced. Next to her bedroom, the kitchen was her favorite room in the house, the copper pots on the wall, the fruit bowl, now empty but sometimes full of all kinds of fruit, the wooden spoons, the spice rack, the big fridge humming in the corner—she needed both hands to open the door—the walls a lovely light yellow, perfect for the eating of eggs.

  Ruby’s seat at the table was in the actual sticking-out part of the breakfast nook, with windows on three sides. She ate her yellow eggs in a pool of yellow sunlight, leafing through The All-American Girls Book of Braiding, trying to think of the right name for those star arms, totally content.

  Maybe her teeth weren’t so great, but her hair, that was another story. Thick, glossy brown, full of all kinds of tints—it had a personality of its own. Ruby chose the Thumbelina Braid because the look reminded her of Dilbert’s boss. She made two high pigtails, divided each into three strands, braided the strands, coiled them into buns, stuck them in place with bobby pins.

  “How do I look, Zippy?”

  He poked his head over the tabletop and snatched her last piece of toast, the one with the butter melted in perfectly.

  “Zippy!”

  He growled at her. She gave him the cold look. Zippy made himself smaller and slunk away, like the coward he was.

  Ruby put on her blue jacket with the yellow trim and walked him out back and into the town forest, taking the shortcut to the pond. The banks of the pond were muddy. She let him off the leash.

  “Run, Zippy. Make spatters.”

  He lifted his leg and peed on a tree.

  Were dog spatters different from horse spatters, or was the important difference the one between a dogcart and a horse cart, which would probably stand higher?

  “Run, Zippy.”

  He didn’t want to run. She tossed him a stick, which he gazed at. She tossed another one into the pond. It disappeared without a splash, which was kind of strange.

  “Go get it, Zippy.”

  But he wouldn’t. She didn’t blame him. The water, a blue so pale it was almost white, looked cold. She took him home. He lifted his leg at least a dozen times.

  “Poo, Zippy, poo.” He finally did, maybe stepping in it just a little.

  Ruby loaded the dishwasher, her own dishes and the ones already in the sink, slung on her backpack and left by the front door, making sure it was locked. The school bus pulled up. She got on.

  “Hi, beautiful,” said the driver.

  “Hi, Mr. V.”

  There was only one seat left, beside Winston. He was picking his nose.

  “Don’t eat it, Winston,” she said.

  But he did.

  The bus rolled away. All of a sudden and for no reason, she remembered her book of Bible stories, sent by Gram to make up for the fact that Mom and Dad didn’t go to church. Specifically, she remembered the story of Lot’s wife, who wasn’t supposed to look back. She had the strong feeling that it was very important not to look back right now. But she couldn’t stop herself. The urge grew and grew in the muscles of her neck. Ruby looked back.

  Nothing happened, of course. She didn’t turn into a pillar of salt, and the house wasn’t going up in flames. It stayed just the way it always was, not the biggest or fanciest house on the block, but square and solid, white with black shutters, the only color the red brick chimney, maybe a little too . . . what was the word? Imposing; too imposing for the rest of the house. She’d overheard her aunt Deborah say that the Thanksgiving before last.

  Winston tore a Snickers in two. “Want some?” he said.

  Ruby gave him a close look to see if this was some kind of joke. But no, he’d made no connection between the nose picking and his dirty fingernails on the candy bar. He was just sharing.

  “Maybe Amanda wants some,” Ruby said.

  Amanda leaned over, with her goddamn pierced ears—Ruby had to wait another year. “Maybe Amanda wants some what?” Amanda said.

  And what was that? She was wearing lipstick?

  “Snickers,” Ruby said, all of a sudden feeling the power of those devilish horns on her head. “You like Snickers, don’t you?”

  “Oh, my favorite,” said Amanda.

  Winston handed her the thing. Ruby watched till she’d popped it in her mouth.

  “Mmmm,” said Amanda.

  2

  Linda’s meeting ran until nine-thirty. One minute later, she was in her office—a cubicle, really, they all worked in cubicles as part of the new team concept—calling Scott.

  “There’s been some disturbing news,” she said.

  “The Skyway account?”

  That too. “I got Brandon’s SAT results.”

  “So did I.”

  “Tom told you about the credit card thing?”

  “What a racket,” Scott said. He laughed. “And we paid double.” Linda didn’t inform him they’d paid four times now to hear the news. “I guess they both did pretty well,” Scott said. “What’s disturbing?”

  “I’m not following you,” Linda said. Had there been some sort of computerized mix-up, had Scott heard the real score, much higher?

  “Brandon and Sam,” Scott said. “Tom said Sam did okay, and Brandon’s in the seventy-fifth percentile, right? Nothing wrong with that.”

  Where to begin. Linda found herself squeezing the phone in frustration. She had a thought, a series of thoughts, not nice: Had Scott ever talked about his own SAT results? Had she ever asked? If not, why not?

  “First of all,” she said, “are you telling me that Tom didn’t mention Sam’s score?”

  “Just said he did all right.”

  “Sam got fifteen forty. Almost perfect, Scott. He’s in the ninety-ninth percentile.”

  Silence.

  “Ten ninety is terrible,” Linda said. “The worst thing we can do now is fool ourselves about that.”

  “I don’t get it,” Scott said. “Brandon’s always been a good student. What’s his GPA?”

  “It was three four but he slipped to three three—three two nine, actually—last term.”

  “Three three’s not bad—A’s and B’s, right?”

  Linda tried to relax her grip on the phone. “A’s and B’s at West Mill High aren’t A’s and B’s at Andover.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Sam was at Andover.

  “It means that colleges know the difference, and a ten ninety SAT and a three three from West Mill High tells the Ivies not to even look at him. It’s probably programmed in their computers.”

  “There’s always Amherst or someplace like that,” Scott said.

&
nbsp; “Amherst? Are you dreaming? Forget Amherst. You can forget Trinity, for God’s sake.”

  “Forget Trinity?”

  “Forget NYU, forget BC, forget BU, even. Don’t you get it? The SAT ranks every kid in the nation. Seventy-fifth percentile means there are hundreds of thousands ahead of him, maybe millions. The good schools can fill their classes without going anywhere near Brandon. We screwed up.”

  “How?”

  “In our usual way—by not seeing this coming.”

  “What could we have done?”

  “Made him retake the PSAT for starters.”

  “The PSAT?”

  Come on, Scott. “Don’t you remember? He felt sick, supposedly, and left after five minutes.”

  “I don’t see—”

  “So we never got a score, and the PSAT tracks the SAT. We’ve missed a whole year.”

  “Of what?”

  “Preparation,” Linda said. “Maybe at boarding school.”

  “But we discussed that. We didn’t want him to go away. And he didn’t want to go away. And don’t we believe in public education?”

  “Don’t we believe in Brandon first? And you left out not being able to afford it.”

  Pause. “So what are we going to do?”

  “I don’t know. Get him right into an SAT prep course, that’s one thing.”

  “Maybe he just had a bad day.”

  “I hope to God that’s it, but we can’t take the chance. We should probably have his IQ tested, just to see what we have the right to expect.”

  There was a long silence. She could feel his resistance, not thought out, something deep in his character, genetic. Tom’s DNA was different. That thought just popped up, nothing she could do.

  “We’re talking about Brandon’s future,” Linda said. “What his life’s going to be when he’s on his own, when he’s our age.”

  More silence. Then Scott said: “Sam’s in the ninety-ninth percentile?”

  “Correct. Harvard, Brown, Williams—they’re going to be beating down his door.”

  At that moment, Tom came into Scott’s office, raised his eyebrows, pointed to his watch.

  “Gotta go,” Scott said.

  There were lots of things Ruby didn’t like about school, but Mad Minute was the worst. “All right,” said Ms. Freleng, welcoming them back from recess. “Time for Mad Minute.” Like it was a treat, going to the circus or the beach. Ms. Freleng passed out the papers, everybody getting a sheet covered with rows of multiplication problems.

  “Wait for it,” said Ms. Freleng, taking out her stupid stopwatch. “Three, two, one . . . go!”

  Ruby gazed down at the sheet. First question: thirty-seven times ninety-two. Christ on a crutch. Seven times two is—she liked that expression, Christ on a crutch, although she really didn’t get what it meant—fourteen, write the four and carry one. Seven times nine is . . . fifty-six? This was one of the tricky ones. Sixty-three! Got it. Plus one makes four. Skip a space. Three times two is . . . There was also shit on a stick. She liked that too. She became aware of her hand moving along the rows of numbers, attacking the problems on its own.

  Eight times seven. There’s your fifty-six. Write down the six, carry the . . . Crutch was a bit like cross, and Christ had died on a cross. Another thing Ruby didn’t like was turning the pages of one of the art books in the living room and suddenly coming across a painting of the crucifixion. She’d be willing to bet that crutch meant “cross,” or had been cross at one time, or something like that. And that crown of thorns. She felt prickling all around her head.

  Her hand plowed on. Six times nine makes fifty—

  “Time’s up, class. Pencils down.”

  Six. Write six, carry the five.

  “Everybody. Pencils down this instant.”

  Not six. Four. Fifty-four. Why the hell—

  “Everybody includes Ruby.”

  Ruby laid down her pencil, counted the problems she’d done. Eight.

  “Now exchange papers with your neighbor for grading.”

  Ruby exchanged Mad Minute papers with Amanda, saw that Amanda had answered every single one. Amanda gave her a friendly smile. Her teeth were huge and white, of course, goddamn perfect.

  “The answer to number one is—”

  And the guy who actually put the crown of thorns on Christ’s head—how come he didn’t get thorns stuck in his own hand? If those thorns were anything like the briars in the town forest . . . Had he worn gloves? It wasn’t the kind of climate for gloves—they were in the desert, right?—but didn’t some of those gladiator types wear—Ruby glanced up, saw that Ms. Freleng was eyeing her for some reason.

  “Are all of us, each and every, ready for number two?”

  Ruby looked down at Amanda’s answer to number one, thirty-seven times ninety-two. What had Ms. Freleng just said? Ruby couldn’t bring the number back, but Amanda’s answer struck her as wrong in some way, certainly wasn’t what she remembered getting herself. She marked an X beside it and waited for the answer to number two, all ears.

  “What’s it gonna be, guys?”

  There were like fifty beers on tap, literally. This was the coolest place Brandon had ever been in. The long bar, some kind of dull metal, was cool, the music was cool, the people sitting around or shooting pool were cool, the bartender was cool, the bartender’s tattoo, a perfect likeness of herself right on the side of her face, was cool.

  Brandon pointed to the nearest tap, the one with a picture of a bear. The bartender poured him a glass. She had muscular bare arms, the coolest arms he’d ever seen on a woman. The beer was dark brown, unlike any beer he knew. He took a sip. It was horrible.

  “You like that porter shit?” said Dewey. The bartender was pouring him something that looked more like beer.

  “This one’s pretty good,” Brandon said, taking another sip. The taste didn’t get any better.

  “Five bucks,” said the bartender.

  “I’ll get this round,” said Brandon, handing over his ten-dollar bill.

  “Then it’s nine fifty altogether.” The bartender rang it up, placed two quarters on the dull metal bar.

  Brandon copied a gesture he’d seen in a movie, meaning it was all hers.

  “Thanks,” said the bartender.

  Brandon ordered the same on the next round—Dewey took out the emergency credit card and the bartender opened a tab—just to show how into porter he was, but the round after that he switched to what Dewey was having. It wasn’t that big an emergency. He kept that joke, if it was a joke, to himself, not sure how it would come across.

  Dewey was gazing around the room. He smiled at a big girl with a huge head of blond hair, and the girl smiled back. When Dewey wasn’t looking, Brandon tried smiling at her too. He got a smile back, maybe even friendlier.

  “Think I’ll move down here,” said Dewey. “Get a job as one of those bicycle messengers. They make three hundred bucks a day.”

  “They do?”

  “At least.” Dewey ordered another round, plus cigars. They smoked and drank. Interesting-looking people went by on the street outside, not the kind of people you saw in West Mill or even Hartford. Take that tow truck driver—he had a red bandanna on his head and an eye patch, just like a pirate.

  Brandon got up to go to the bathroom. Hey! The porter hit him at that moment, and he felt a little unsteady. Nothing noticeable, nothing uncool, and he recovered right away, although maybe not completely because he went into the wrong bathroom. The big blond girl was inside. On the other hand, she was pissing at the urinal, her leather skirt hiked up and—

  Brandon backed outside, waited in the hallway by the pay phone. On the street, a woman carrying a bass drum on her head went by, and then the tow truck guy came back the other way, a car hooked up behind. Brandon watched the woman till she was out of sight to make sure that was what she was. He barely noticed the car.

  They sat in Tom’s office, the office that had been the old man’s, Tom behind the desk, Scott on the couc
h that hadn’t been there in the old man’s day.

  “So Brandon did well too?” Tom said.

  “Not bad.”

  “Glad to hear it. He’s such a funny kid.”

  “Funny?”

  “That crooked smile of his. Wouldn’t it be something if they ended up at the same college somewhere? Like us.”

  “Like us?”

  “At UConn.”

  True that they’d both gone to UConn, but Scott’s arrival as a freshman coincided with Tom’s transfer to Yale for his last two years.

  “Think of the tailgate parties. And can’t you imagine Mom’s reaction, say they were both at Princeton or someplace?”

  Scott didn’t reply. Maybe Tom thought he was imagining Mom’s reaction. “There’s kind of a situation,” Scott said.

  Tom gave him a look, a look that went way back, that Scott couldn’t put into words, that said a lot anyway.

  “Money?”

  “If you want to put it that way. You know Mickey Gudukas?”

  “Bald lefty who foot-faults all the time? A real sleazeball?”

  “He gets good information.”

  “What kind of information?”

  “On the market.”

  “He’s a broker now? I thought he was a claims adjuster or something.”

  “He was. Then a broker. At Denman, Howe. He’s still a broker, just not with them anymore.”

  “Canned from Denman, Howe? What line do you have to cross for that?”

  “He was the one gave me the Stentech tip. You made out all right off that, as I recall.”

  Tom nodded. “But I checked into it pretty carefully before I bought.” The only stock market investment Tom had ever made, outside of indexed mutual funds.

  “Sure. The thing is, I ran into him picking up Ruby from tennis a while back and he gave me another tip. Same kind of deal—a biotech with a new product coming out of testing. This one’s called Symptomatica.”

  “How’s her game?”

  “Whose game?” Tom could be confusing sometimes.

  “Ruby’s.”

  “Okay, I guess.”