9 #2
“I’ve been divorced from your father for over a decade.
Why do people still call me Mrs. Son?” Renee muttered.
Women in Korea retained their surnames after marriage, so unlike divorced women in the West, Renee never even had to change back her name.
She sank into the brown leather sofa and patted it, inviting Peter to join her.
“How are you?” He was used to her unannounced appearances, and, in many ways, appreciated them. She seemed to be able to intuit whenever he needed rest or comfort.
“I missed you. I wanted to take you and DH out to dinner after practice. I got permission already. I even found a Korean restaurant if you want to go. The driver can take us.” Renee pointed to the parking lot, where her chauffeur waited in a black sedan.
“Also, I brought you clean uniforms and clothes.” She raised an eyebrow. “Are you ever going to do your laundry?”
“Thank you, Mother. I promise I’ll do it, but it’ll be nice to have some fresh supplies,” Peter said in his most posh British accent, relieved he could avoid laundry for a few more days.
Trying to find a machine felt impossible whenever there was time to do the wash, and he was always tired after practice, so it was hard to stay awake when the machines were more readily available.
“How much longer is practice?” Renee asked. “Can’t we just leave?”
“It’s a big day, we can’t just leave,” Peter told her. “There are scouts coming to watch us, from colleges.”
Renee raised her right eyebrow.
“Any school would be lucky to have you,” she said. “My son is the best.”
“Thank you for your confidence, Mother,” Peter answered. “I better get back.”
The boys cleaned up and wore fresh clothes to meet Renee, and they didn’t go to the Korean restaurant, which was almost an hour away. The boys were too hungry, and there was a bistro downtown, which apparently had excellent steaks.
DH glanced at the menu and tried to conceal his shock at the high prices, though he should have been used to it by now.
Renee would never allow him to pay for his meal, but he felt guilty that the entrées were so expensive.
His mother had taught him to always order the least costly items and never to order drinks, with their high margins, when he was someone’s guest, so he ordered the spaghetti marinara, which was $14.
99, and no appetizer. He drank ice water.
Peter ordered a French onion soup, the rib eye steak, and a baked potato.
When Renee passed the bread basket to them, DH took a large onion roll.
Peter grabbed a Parker House roll and slathered butter on it, and Renee asked the waiter to refill the basket.
She ordered the Dover sole, two servings of meatballs, two large salads, an extra rib eye steak, and two large baked potatoes with all the trimmings.
She asked for a chilled pitcher of whole milk.
When the food arrived, she said she wasn’t hungry, and the boys ate the appetizers, entrées, and salads, while she picked at her Dover sole.
“How were the scouts?” she asked DH.
“The Yale coach said he was interested,” he answered between bites. He wanted to be polite, but as usual when Renee took them out, it was hard not to focus on the excellent food, far better than his daily fare at the dorm.
“How wonderful,” she said, and turned quizzically to Peter.
“The Yale coach said I’d be a good walk-on.”
Renee smiled broadly and clasped her delicate hands. “Are you going to the same college?” she asked. “I hope so! That would be brilliant.”
“The counselor said that if I got into Yale, I could look into a financial aid package,” DH began, reaching for another meatball. His parents had said that they’d find the money and not to worry about it; however, he understood that he had far outspent his siblings.
Renee was looking thoughtful. “It would be great if the two of you could go to college together after such a great experience at Andover. DH, if you took care of Peter, I wouldn’t need to worry about him so much.”
“Hey, I take care of him, too,” Peter protested. He turned to DH and raised his milk glass, and the boys clinked before drinking.
Renee would have spent double what she was paying for DH’s tuition at Andover if it meant that her son would thrive.
Her friend Tom Song had hatched the scheme to send DH to Andover with Peter, and it had worked out far better than expected.
Unlike at King’s College School, where Peter had been lonesome and withdrawn, her son seemed happier than he’d ever been because the boys were best friends and teammates.
DH had no idea of the source of his private, anonymous scholarship.
Peter didn’t know, either. Tom Song had told DH’s parents that the hagwon had a connection to a private foundation that helped exceptional scholar-athletes study abroad.
If DH could go to college with Peter, Renee would gladly pick up all the costs, but she couldn’t say that.
She would tell Tom, and he would help with the administration of the scholarship.
She tried not to let herself anticipate too far ahead, but that her formerly alienated and melancholy son could flourish at an Ivy League school in the company of his best friend was almost too wonderful to imagine.
“Any nice girls here?” Renee asked.
“DH likes this hot blonde from school, and now they’re summer pen pals.” Peter grinned at DH.
“Yo.” DH shook his head, embarrassed, though he didn’t really mind.
“Virginia Cooper, right?” Renee said.
“How do you know her name?” Peter asked, though he should have expected it. His mother had an unbelievable facility with names.
“Oh, DH mentioned her the last time we spoke.”
Virginia Cooper, a year younger than the boys, had been writing letters to DH from Nantucket, and their friendship had been intensifying because he was a regular correspondent.
Peter had a crush on Virginia’s classmate Eliza Ying, a pretty brunette, but that had fizzled during summer break, and Peter wasn’t too concerned about it.
He’d already had sex on his sixteenth birthday, but nothing had come of it except for the ensuing awkwardness.
DH hadn’t been with a girl yet. He said he liked the idea of a girlfriend at Andover, but he wanted to focus on getting into college first.
“Do you want to go to Yale?” Renee asked DH.
“The soccer at Harvard is supposed to be a little better, but I don’t know if I want to go to a school just for that.
I think I want to study English, and I like what I’ve read about Yale’s program.
I still have a lot to figure out,” he admitted.
DH smiled at his friend’s mother, who was always interested in how he was doing.
Suddenly he missed his own mother, who wrote him short, brisk letters reminding him to eat good food and take his multivitamins.
Without fail, she enclosed a $10 or $20 bill in the envelope for him to buy pizza, and he wondered when she found the time to get the currency changed.