16. Art Appreciation #3
“That’s noble of you,” Mav says. “Thank you for coming, Taylor. I know neither of you has to make time for this, and I appreciate it.”
After Taylor closes the door behind her, Mav says to Charley, “Do you want to stay and learn about Rembrandt?”
Charley pushes up her glasses; the slide of The Night Watch is reflected in her lenses. “Sure,” she says. “I’ve heard of Rembrandt, but I don’t know any of his paintings.”
“Well, The Night Watch is his masterpiece,” Mav says. “Let me explain why.”
The class runs over by twenty minutes—the study rooms are soundproof, so Mav and Charley can’t hear the chapel bells—and when Charley checks her phone, she gasps and stuffs her legal pad into her backpack.
She and Mav emerge from the dark room into the hallway, blinking like moles, to find East glowering at them from the Senior Sofa.
“Sorry, sorry,” Charley says. “I didn’t realize it was so late.”
East reaches out a hand to take Charley’s backpack.
It’s a sweet, old-fashioned gesture. Or is it controlling?
Mav wonders. Charley is certainly capable of carrying her own backpack.
Mav smiles mildly and says, “See you next week!” But neither Charley nor East responds.
They’re whispering, and not in a romantic way.
For this reason, when Andrew Eastman knocks on Mav’s office door the next day, Mav is expecting some kind of confrontation. Why were you and my girlfriend ogling Baroque porn alone in a dark, soundproof room with the door closed?
Mav stands to his full height, squares his shoulders. “Hey there, East. What can I do you for?” He nearly winces; he sounds like such a grandpa.
East flips his hair out of his eyes. “I came to talk about college?”
“Oh!” Mav says. “Yes, of course, by all means, come in, have a seat.” He closes the door and, in a hurry to get back to his desk, knocks over the spiraled stack of college catalogs he uses as a table.
He takes a breath, settles into his chair, and studies East. The kid is movie-star handsome with the dark hair and green eyes, his chiseled jaw, his ennui. Too cool for school.
“You’ve reconsidered?” Mav says.
“I have.”
“The good news is you’re not too late,” Mav says. “Most colleges have a deadline of January first for regular admissions. You’ll just need to secure two teacher recs and get cracking on an essay.”
“Okay.”
“You’re thinking business, right?”
“I am,” East says. “I’m thinking NYU, Babson…”
“Babson was one of the schools I would have recommended for you!” Mav says. “NYU is very competitive…”
“I can get in.”
“I like the confidence,” Mav says, which is a lie. Nobody is a sure thing at a place like NYU.
“I also want to apply to Colgate,” East says. “As, like, a safety school.”
Mav would like to inform East that Colgate should never be considered a safety school—it’s Mav’s own alma mater!
—but now his alarms are sounding. East wants to apply to one school in New York, one in a suburb of Boston, and…
Colgate. Charley has narrowed her top three choices down to Columbia, Harvard, and Colgate.
Mav suspects East wants to go to college either near or with Charley.
Mav should speak up—not as a college counselor, but as a counselor-counselor.
He would tell East that high school relationships rarely survive the transition to college.
Mav and Amanda used to joke about it at Colbert: Couples who decided to stay together in college were inseparable at Thanksgiving and broken up by Christmas.
A few lucky couples limped along through freshman year but broke up at the end of the following summer.
Because college is a time of personal evolution! You learn new things, meet new people!
Suddenly, Mav views the young man across from him in a new light. East isn’t cool. East is afraid that Charley will outgrow him.
She will! Mav wants to say.
Instead, Mav logs into his computer and opens a new file for Andrew Eastman. This moment should be a triumph… but is it?
“NYU, Babson, and Colgate,” Mav says as he types. “Anywhere else? One of the UC schools, maybe? Didn’t your mom say she lived in California?”
“Just those three.” East stands up. “I’ll get recs from Mr. Ewanick and Mrs. Wully.”
“I forgot to mention testing,” Mav says.
“I signed up for the SAT next week at Haydensboro High School,” East says.
“Have you done any prep?” Mav asks.
“I don’t need any prep.”
Mav blinks. Andrew Eastman is in for a reckoning.
“Okay, then. You’ll get the recs—”
“From Mr. Ewanick and Mrs. Wully, yes.”
“And the essay,” Mav says.
East gives Mav a thumbs-up, which Mav somehow senses is ironic. Before East leaves the office, he turns around. “Will you not tell anyone about this?”
“It’s all confidential,” Mav says.
“So you won’t mention it to Charley?” East says. “You won’t tell her I even came in here? And you won’t ask me about college in front of her? I know you two are close.”
Mav is about to protest: We aren’t close! But of course they are close. East is right to ask for confidentiality, because Mav might have slipped.
“Your secret,” Mav says, “is safe with me.”