Admission. Part 24

"I was embarra.s.sed! I'd just gotten my period! I was supposed to kneel in the middle of the circle and stick a finger inside myself and show everyone the blood. Then give myself my special, secret name of womanhood."

He looked appalled. She had never told anyone about this particular idiosyncrasy, she realized. And clearly with good reason.

"I didn't want all those people looking at me. It was the most disgusting idea I'd ever heard. Besides, I didn't have a secret magical name I'd been burning to give myself. I was already Portia Nathan. That was enough of a burden. Being Susannah's daughter? Trust me. Enough of a burden."

"It certainly sounds like it."

Portia closed her eyes, the better to feel that hand, light like a feather, parting her thighs.

"You know," he said thoughtfully, "if I'd known you had this weakness for WASP men, I would have made my move in college, instead of just ogling you in Sanborn Library."

Portia wanted to laugh, but she found she didn't have the breath.

"I may not be a Mayflower descendant, but I did grow up on the Main Line. My family ate dinner off trays in the den, some nights."

"Well, that's... something." She smiled. "Not enough for a sn.o.b like me, of course. But you must be very proud."

"There are hunting prints on the staircase. We're short on emotion. Everyone knows who the alcoholics in the family are, but no one ever says anything. They just go on pouring the booze."

"Nice try," she said, sighing.

"I was hoping not to have to mention this," John said, "but I once owned a belt with whales on it."

"Oh, now you're getting me excited. If I'd known that at the time..."

"We have a family crest. My sister bought it from a mail-order company when she was twelve."

She opened her legs. His fingers, right away, were deep inside her.

"You're so wet," said John. All frivolity was gone; he was urgent and serious. He pulled her down beside him and kissed her closed eyelids. "Is it old wet or new wet?"

She couldn't answer right away, and when she did, the voice that emerged was far from steady. "Does it matter?"

"Not if it feels good. Does it feel good?"

"It feels..." She couldn't get the rest of it out.

He lifted himself up and smiled down at her. He had covered the length of her with his body: breast to breast, hip to hip, then hip to inner thigh. She was now only nominally in control of herself. His fingers, still inside her, were maddeningly controlled, regular, slick. They, and he, seemed not to care that she was moving-actually, thrashing-against him, and also, now that she could hear it, moaning some inarticulate thing. She felt the skin between them grow warm, then slippery with sweat, and a kind of ribbon of pleasure ascended inside her, circling her spine like a serpent coiling a staff. If it went on much longer, Portia thought, she would be forced to say something crude. Instead, she pulled him roughly into her and nearly cried with how sweet it was. She felt uncommonly wanton, greedy for exactly this, and now that she had it, she didn't want him to move. Luckily, he moved anyway.

It hadn't been like this with Mark at all. Mark had once joked that s.e.xual inept.i.tude was his birthright as an Englishman, but, like any diligent scholar, he had set about learning her body as if she were material he knew he'd be tested on. Without doubt he'd become a technically alert and capable partner, adept at eliciting response, comforting, encouraging, safe. She had never complained about him, even to herself, but she had never thought of him as a lover, either. Partner, boyfriend, spouse in all but the fine print. Not a lover. This-above her, inside her, unalterably with her-was a lover, with a lover's smells and a lover's sounds, sending lover's sensations everywhere to the edges of her body. She couldn't bear to think what that made of her past.

He said, "Portia," just before he came, and then after, repeatedly, like a litany, until the word disa.s.sembled into breath and he slipped out of her with a shudder. They curled together and held fast, slowing from a run to a walk, and then a stop. When she opened her eyes, he was right there.

"Dear John." She smiled.

"Ouch."

"Your name is John. What's the problem? You used to leer at me in Sanborn."

"I didn't leer. I looked furtively. There's a difference. I wanted you. How was I to know I'd have to be a middle-aged man with thinning hair and a teenage son before you'd even look at me? When you stepped out of that car, I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe I might get another chance."

"You act like I'm some kind of catch," said Portia, trying not to sound as if she were trawling for more compliments. "I'm just as middle-aged as you are. More, actually."

"You're lovely."

"I'm complicated."

"Your life may be complicated, but you're not. You're complex. That's not a bad thing at all."

"I'm a spinster."

"Oh, that's ridiculous."

"I live in New Jersey."

"That is a complication, but not fatal. And not a character flaw. I'm sure there are plenty of fascinating people who live in New Jersey. At least... a dozen."

"I'm a spinster who lives in New Jersey. I spend my days pa.s.sing judgment on young people who are a whole lot more together than I was at their age, and probably am now. I have no children. I've obviously never had a successful relationship with a man, witness the fact that I am probably going to have to turn this house over to my partner of sixteen years, and his pregnant girlfriend. I can count my close friends on one finger. I barely tolerate having a relationship with my mother, who by the way is about to start taking care of a baby at the age of sixty-eight. I don't even have a dog."

John, who had endured this monologue with his head propped up on his hand, said, "Would you like a dog?"

Mark had been allergic. She hadn't thought about this in ages. "Yes, actually."

"Well, that takes care of that. Now you can be a childless New Jersey spinster with failed relationships, one friend, a strange mother, an unsatisfying job, a new house, and a dog. And me. If," he said, suddenly amiably, "you want me."

She touched his mouth. In the moonlight from the living room window, it had a greenish cast. After a moment, she realized that he was waiting for her, and with growing discomfort. "I didn't mean that my job was unsatisfying," she said, because she couldn't say what he wanted her to say. "I just meant, sometimes I feel as if it isn't fair that it's me making those decisions."

"Right. So the-how many years have you been doing this?"

"Sixteen."

"The sixteen years you've spent in this field, they don't count for anything. Sixteen years, hundreds of thousands of applications at two different Ivy League colleges, years of visiting schools, meeting with students, talking to counselors, administrators, alumni, colleagues, faculty... this is all bulls.h.i.t, yes? I mean, anybody else could just jump in and do a better job."

She was laughing beside him. "Well, gee, if you put it that way. But you can't imagine what it's like. They're angry at you, all the time. After a while, it just grinds you down."

"Who's they? The applicants?"

"Everyone. They all have different agendas, but the one thing they have in common is that they're angry at you. I mean, me. Us. And I don't know if my colleagues feel it the way I do. Sometimes I wish I could just toughen up, you know? Not care so much."

"I'm sorry," he told her. "I still don't understand."

Portia sighed. "The applicants are angry because I can't see how special they are. Their parents are angry because I let in some other kid with a lower SAT score. The alumni are angry because they got into Princeton, but their brilliant kid got denied. The faculty's angry because we took the athlete, not the genius, but the football players know that it's easier to get in if you throw the discus, and all the violinists and pianists are pretty sure you have an edge if you play something strange, like the tuba or the harpsichord. All the New Yorkers believe that everyone applying from South Dakota gets in automatically, but out there in South Dakota they think they don't stand a chance at a place like Princeton. The working-cla.s.s kids are convinced we're selling admission to the highest bidder. Simone is angry at us because we're elitist, but the elite know for sure that we're giving their places away to every black or Hispanic kid who applies. Nonlegacy kids are p.i.s.sed off because they read somewhere that legacy kids are twice as likely to be admitted. But I've watched my boss get up in front of a packed house at reunions and tell all those loyal alumni that two-thirds of their kids are going to be rejected. Let me tell you, they're not thrilled about that. When I go out to visit schools, the kids are mad at me because they know I'm going to dangle this beautiful thing in front of them and encourage them to apply, and then reject their applications. The college counselors, the private ones who charge thousands of dollars, they're furious at us, because we're furious at them, and if we even smell them on an application it p.i.s.ses us off, which makes it hard for them to sell their services to the parents, who are already angry at us and are now going to be angry at them, too. Should I keep going?"

"No!" he said, putting up his hands. "I get it. I get it."

"I now have a highly developed defense mechanism," she observed.

"I can feel it. It's like the walls of Troy."

Portia laughed. "I'm sorry. You wouldn't know it, but I really don't complain about this."

"No, I can tell," he said. "You have that combustible quality."

She closed her eyes. She had no idea what time it was or whether she should want to sleep. How many hours did they really have, after all, until he had to pick up Jeremiah and board a train, back to his customary life? After which she would... what? Return to the office? Clean out the refrigerator? Do her laundry?

"Are you cold?" he asked her. "Should we get a blanket?"

"I can do better than that. I can offer you a real bed. The sheets are even clean."

"That sounds like the height of luxury. I accept."

She climbed over him and reached down to pick up her clothes off the floor. John got up beside her. Sweetly, he took her hand as she led him upstairs. She took Mark's former side of the bed for herself, on purpose.

"You know," he whispered, pulling her against him, "I was just thinking, I don't know that I've ever heard the word spinster spoken out loud. Except in a production of The Music Man. I've certainly never spoken it myself."

"It's a terrifically efficient word. It says so much in two little syllables."

"Portia, you are not a spinster. Please."

She sighed.

"Listen," he said. He had curled around her, one leg between her legs, his mouth at her nape. "I had this radical idea. I know it's your bunker season, but could you come down to Wayne with us tomorrow? I promise, I'm not looking for the ride. I just wondered if you could get away for the day. I mean, it's Sat.u.r.day...."

No, she started to say automatically. But even as the word formed, she found that she was turning this unexpected idea over and giving it a hard look. "For how long?" she asked.

"As long as you like. We're taking Jeremiah and Simone to Penn and Swarthmore, a.s.suming Deborah and Simone are hitting Bryn Mawr in the morning. I'd like Nelson to have some time with his grandparents. I expect we'll head back to New Hampshire on Monday or Tuesday. Come on, come see how we really live on the Main Line." He grinned. "I'll ask Mom to throw a tailgate."

"Don't tease me," said Portia. "I'm actually thinking about it."

"Good." He kissed her neck softly. "Sleep on it. While I murmur postsomnolent suggestions into your ear. Come with me to the land of the WASP-"

"Are you kidding?" She laughed. "Where do you think I live?"

"I would have been down here months ago," said John. His tone had shifted, downhill, slower. "I would have come to see you. If you'd answered my letter, or contacted me. I would have been out there on the sidewalk throwing pebbles at that window."

"Well," she reminded him, "that was also my... someone else's window." But even as she said this, she noted something surprising: that the thought of Mark and Helen-with-child had not, for the first time, brought its customary stab of pain. She would have said something to this effect, but before she could think what it was, she had fallen deeply asleep.

I have engaged in a myriad of activities at my school, none more meaningful to me than accompanying the A Cappella choir.

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

THE LAND OF THE WASP.

Jeremiah had seen Toni Morrison on Na.s.sau Street, carrying a cup of coffee from Starbucks and a copy of The New York Times. He was beside himself, barely earthbound when they met him back at Mathey and extracted him, with difficulty, from the ersatz Gothic quadrangle. Strapped into the backseat but gripping the headrests in front, he pulled himself forward and talked incessantly as Portia drove south into Pennsylvania, his head protruding between their heads, his running commentary ricocheting among topics like a pinball: Luke's roommate from Maryland, the girl in the philosophy seminar who was "completely, completely" wrong about the Skeptics, the modern dance group last night, performing to a student quartet, Beloved, Professor Friedman's brown wool pants, which had a big hole in the knee (Portia was not remotely surprised to learn), and how the morning's dignified debate about Infinitism versus Foundationalism had descended into a thoroughly simplistic argument about how we could know if we were conscious beings at all and not just cells in a petri dish being manipulated by some unknown being. She was starting to feel a little light-headed, listening to him.

"Jeremiah," John said, laughing, "slow down. I beg you."

"I stayed and talked to him," Jeremiah said urgently. "We walked back to his office. He gave me a logic book and a list of stuff to read."

And he was off again: the student film they'd shown at This Is Princeton, and the Indian dance troupe, Luke's girlfriend, who was from Taiwan, a chemist, some kind of prodigy, the boy from upstairs who was writing a novel and taking a cla.s.s from Joyce Carol Oates, the vegan burger he had eaten for dinner at Mathey, selected by mistake but actually not terrible. And Jesus Christ, Toni Morrison! Right there on the street!

This Is Princeton, Portia was trying to explain to John, was a sort of university variety show, comprising not only student clubs like the African drummers, Mexican dancers, a cappella groups (which were legion), improv sketch comics, rappers, ballerinas, spoken-word artists, and musicians of myriad stripes, but also the occasional faculty member or alum, who might play an instrument or sing. Portia had always liked it, because it made the applications transform to three-dimensional flesh, and she had more than once, from her seat in Richardson Auditorium, experienced a jolt of recognition: So this is the national youth champion banjo player from Alaska and That must be the girl who was offered a place in the ABT corps de ballet but wanted to be a doctor instead. To her, the annual event was a pageant of good decisions, a literal chorus of approval that she (uncharacteristically, but who would ever know?) felt ent.i.tled to take personally. "We should have gone," she said quietly to John.

"We were busy," he replied.

They were nearly pa.s.sing Newtown before Jeremiah finally ran out of steam. Then he sat back and opened the book David had given him and was heard no more.

They drove south along the highway, beneath loaded winter skies. Portia had not slept particularly well, waking intermittently on the unaccustomed side of the bed, with the unaccustomed body, breathing, beside her, and lying there for long, elastic minutes, waiting for exhaustion and anxiety to battle it out. At dawn she had been woken again, this time to his hands running over her rib cage and a following jolt of desire. She marveled at how he seemed to take, at every point, the better fork in the road-soft over hard, slow over fast-until she understood that she was telling him everything he needed to know, and then she marveled at that. He pulled back the blankets and simply looked at her, and she found, to her own surprise, that she loved being frankly examined by someone who so plainly found her beautiful. They had spent the morning that way, drifting between sleep and talk and s.e.x, but then, when it was finally time to leave the bed, they were both (as if following the same inner script) stricken with an almost comical awkwardness. Portia, when she managed to extricate herself, scurried to the bathroom, locked the door, and washed fiercely in the shower, emerging to find that there were, of course, no clean towels in evidence-no towels at all. She stuck her dripping head back into the bedroom and discovered him still under the covers, reading her Pollock biography.

"Um, see any towels?"

He did not. He offered to look in the closet, but there was four feet of dirty laundry in the closet she preferred him not to know about, so she asked for one of the blankets from the bed. He brought it to her, but not before wrapping it around his own waist, and when she came out moments later, still wrapped up in it, he was dressed. In the end, she found only a not terrible pair of brown corduroys and a shirt and sweater left behind by Mark. She looked presentable, if slightly butch. She had, quite on purpose, no real plan for later, and she was trying hard not to examine her options. Purposely, perversely, she had brought nothing with her: no change of clothes (as if she knew the whereabouts of clean clothes), no toiletries.

She knew her way around the Main Line, more or less, and had an impression of Wayne, where John had grown up, as a region straddling the border between horse country and suburbia, with serious affluence on either side. She knew that she was going to the house John had lived in from the age of four, and where his parents-following the departure of his younger sister and himself-had continued to live, with a succession of chocolate Labs. He insisted they would be happy to see her, unannounced though she might be. Not that they were easygoing people, he noted, go-with-the-flow types with extra beds at the ready and the makings to feed a crowd always on hand.

"My mom is very hospitable, but she's a planner," he explained. "You don't surprise her and expect to be welcomed. But she already knows she's getting two adults and three teenagers. Another body won't throw her. We're going to bill you as my old friend from Dartmouth who was kind enough to pull a few strings for Jeremiah."

"Oh, don't say that," she said, her voice dropping. It startled her, how instantly she was on edge. "I can't be a.s.sociated with the phrase pull a few strings. I mean, I know I get a little paranoid about this stuff. But it's important."

"I meant because you arranged for him to go to a cla.s.s, that's all."

"I know, I know," she said, feeling pretty stupid by now.

Silence ensued. It was weighted, but just this side of unpleasant.

"I wonder how Simone's liking Bryn Mawr," John said finally.

"Simone," said Portia, relieved by the segue, "is a piece of work."

"A work in progress," he chided. "She's only sixteen."

"I thought she was a senior, when I visited the school. She really took me on."

"Yes. She can't help it, you know. I mean, she has this oppositional temperament, which is innate, and if that weren't enough, she's a little bit like you were in the nurture department. Also brought up to be a warrior. But you know what? I feel like she's one of those kids who needs to crash into something before she figures out how not to do it. She's going to be great, when the smoke clears. But she'll bang herself up a lot first."

Portia sighed. "I forgot, you really know kids. All these years of teaching. You've seen everything."