12. Q&A, Part I #2
She wishes Liam were sitting with other sixth-formers instead of Ruth Wully. Has he made any friends? Audre has noticed him among his classmates at Chapel, but that’s required. Who has he been eating with in the Paddock? Does he know about the Senior Sofa?
Thinking about the Senior Sofa propels Audre up the stairs to the second-floor landing. The green velvet sofa with gold cord piping is solely for sixth-formers (even Audre isn’t allowed to sit on it, or to stand on the Persian rug beneath it).
This evening, like every evening, the Senior Sofa is occupied. Charley Hicks is sitting at one end typing into her laptop, while Andrew Eastman stretches out, his socked feet tucked under Charley’s legs. He’s reading—Audre blinks—Howl by Allen Ginsberg.
There might be room for complaint if Audre was a stickler: Their pose is a little cozy. Are they breaking any PDA rules?
Who cares? Audre thinks. They could be full-on spooning and Audre might not mind.
After years of not knowing where East was or what he was doing during study hours (cruising the country roads surrounding the school in his truck, vaping, or oh yes, building an illegal speakeasy beneath the dorms), she finds him in the library with his girlfriend (who is neck and neck with Royce Stringfellow for valedictorian)—and he’s reading!
Audre stands very still while East turns the page. He’s actually reading.
She creeps away so as not to disturb a thing.
On her way toward the back doors, which is how she’ll make her exit to her residence, she meanders through shelves of fiction, running a finger along the spines: Evening, The Good Mother, The Time Traveler’s Wife (Audre read this years ago and can’t remember a single thing about it).
Then she’s into the Russians—Turgenev’s First Love, The Stories of Isaac Babel.
She sees Donna Tartt, Anne Enright, Kiran Desai, Ian McEwan’s Atonement (she read that too once upon a time and has lost its basic plot).
Just as Audre is about to indulge in some more self-flagellation—there is so much she should be reading or rereading, but she can’t even conquer the three novels on her nightstand—a deep, sonorous voice captures her attention.
Dr. Coopersmith’s voice.
Audre freezes. Through an opening in the stacks, she spies Coop at a round table with… Pippa Sacks.
What? Audre thinks. Pippa hardly seems like the kind of student interested in seeking extra help—but what, really, does Audre know about Pippa?
Her mother is a reality TV star of some note, she’s renovating a Victorian in Haydensboro.
Pippa was attending the Brearley School in Manhattan (which Audre knows is elite, though Pippa’s grades were not), and she was obligated to follow her mother due to the custody agreement.
Pippa is only seventeen, though she has the savvy of someone years older.
In many ways, she’s setting an admirable example for the girls: She wears no makeup during the school day, she isn’t on social media.
But her “naked” outfit at First Dance hinted at something wild and potentially destructive beneath the surface.
Audre gets the sense that Pippa is like a cat and Tiffin is a ball of string.
She’s having fun batting it around, watching it unravel.
Coop is in his teaching clothes, though he’s removed his houndstooth jacket (Audre has been woefully distracted this year, and yet she has managed to notice Dr. Coopersmith’s fine taste in clothes), loosened his tie, and turned his shirtsleeves back at the cuffs.
He looks, Audre is guessing, the way he would look if he were relaxing at home after work.
His hands are folded before him on the table, and Audre notes his beautiful watch. The man has taste.
“… so I guess the reason I was drawn to teaching is because my parents were both professors,” Coop says to Pippa. “They taught at Temple University in Philadelphia.”
Audre wants to interject: My parents were both professors! At Tulane!
“History was my first love,” Coop says. “I’d read the biographies of fifteen presidents by the time I was a freshman in high school.
” Coop laughs. “Which did not make me popular with the girls. I enjoyed the arts as well. My parents had season tickets to the Philadelphia Orchestra. I was in the audience for Riccardo Muti’s debut in 1979 at the Academy of Music, if you can imagine that. I still have the program.”
Pippa pauses her typing and says, “Riccardo… who?”
“Muti. M-U-T-I.”
Pippa reviews what she has on her screen.
Is she doing some kind of profile? “So you go to Temple, then to Penn for grad school and doctorate, you wait tables at the White Dog so you can pay your rent. You get your first job at SUNY, Albany, then you accept a tenure-track position at St. Michael’s in Vermont.
” She looks up. “Can we get to the good stuff? Your love life, for example.”
Audre stifles a gasp, but Coop bursts out laughing. “Oh, that is the good stuff.”
“I know, right?” Pippa says.
“My love life.” Coop pauses… and Audre is afraid he’s somehow spotted her face through the stacks. She is shamelessly eavesdropping—but she doesn’t want to miss what’s coming.
Coop clears his throat. “My love life started and ended with my wife, Elizabeth.”
“Elizabeth,” Pippa repeats as she types it in. Then she looks up. “Oh wait, ended? Did she die?”
Coop nods. “Three years ago. Pancreatic cancer.”
Pippa reaches across the table to squeeze Coop’s forearm. “I’m so sorry. Would you like to share some thoughts about Elizabeth? Immortalize her in the pages of the ’Bred Bulletin?”
Ah, Audre thinks. This is an interview for the Bulletin. Charley Hicks is the editor this year. Audre wonders how Charley and Pippa are getting along. Then Audre wonders how Davi and Pippa are getting along.
Audre would only be more out of touch if she lived on the moon.
“Elizabeth was a professor of theater arts at St. Mike’s,” Coop says. “She was also quite a stage actress in her own right. She did summer stock every year in Dorset.”
“The Dorset Playhouse!” Pippa says. “I’ve been, actually. My friend Hermione was in Our Town a couple of summers ago. A bunch of us rented a limo and went up to see her.” Pippa’s fingers fly over her keyboard. “What else can you tell us about Elizabeth?”
Yes, what else? Audre thinks.
“She was a nurturer,” Coop says. “My daughter, Loredonna, worshipped her, as did I.”
“That. Is. So. Sweet,” Pippa says—and Audre has to agree. “Do you think you’ll ever be ready for a second administration, as it were? Will you look for love again?”
Audre shakes her head at the brazenness of the question, even though this is exactly what she herself wants to know.
“My life is full,” Coop says. “But to paraphrase the writer E. B. White, I’m always on the lookout for the presence of wonder.” He smiles, showing off his dimple. “Which is an oblique way of saying that yes, I am open to falling in love again.”
“Yay!” Pippa cries out as she types.
Audre’s legs nearly give out. She was not intentionally on the lookout for wonder—but some has graced her evening nonetheless.
Suddenly, Liam Donovan appears at the table. He gives Coop a fist bump and says to Pippa, “I’m finished. Are you ready?”
“Yessss,” she says, sliding her laptop into her bag. She forms prayer hands and bows to Coop. “Thank you for your time. This interview will appear in the first edition of the ’Bred Bulletin, which comes out a week from tomorrow.”