The Art of Fielding_ A Novel - Chad Harbach [174]
“It’s a nice offer,” Schwartz repeated. “I wouldn’t want more.”
“So you’ll think about it?”
“No.”
“Think about it.” Jenkins took the contract, which Schwartz was still holding, and put it back in the folder. He put the folder in his desk. “The job starts August fifteenth. There are no other candidates.”
70
Affenlight, as he sat at his desk, slid one socked foot from its burgundy loafer and rubbed his instep, which itched, on the rigid heel of the shoe. Competing versions of the coming year’s budget were spread out before him, along with the official proposals of Students for a Responsible Westish and transcripts of discussions Affenlight had had with environmental consultants and activists and architects, the people who’d undertaken these sorts of transformations at wealthier, more on-the-ball-type schools. He’d been toiling hard enough lately that Mrs. McCallister had resumed greeting him in song.
Beside him on the rug, not toiling at all, lay Contango, his regal head at rest on his white paws. This was a trial run, while Sandy Bremen was in Taos decorating their new place.
Affenlight felt bleary; the numbers blurred and shifted before his eyes. A cup of coffee would perk him up, but it was already 4:37, 5:37 in South Carolina, where Owen was, and Mrs. McCallister would have dumped the day’s sludge before she left. He would need to make a whole fresh pot. Perhaps he should take the dog for a walk instead, refresh himself that way.
He extracted something small and dry from the corner of a nostril and flicked it toward the wastebasket. Then he lifted his hindquarters, grasped the arms of his antique leather chair, and shuffled ninety degrees left to face the window. The chair was sturdy and comfortable, suitably presidential—it had supported the buttocks of every Westish president since Arthur Hart Birk himself—but sometimes Affenlight pined for a sleek modern one, with casters and a medial axis on which you could spin. Having shuffled the big chair to the window, he leaned his forehead against the glass, which felt cold despite the sunlight, and dragged his neatly trimmed nails across the exposed portion of the screen, producing a scratchy metallic sound. The word for what a chair should do had been escaping him: swivel. Melville had once called America a seat of snivelization; what Affenlight wanted was a seat of swivelization.
Outside the window, a dining-hall worker in a navy smock and cap hurried out for a smoke. A girl in navy shorts with Greek letters across the butt tossed a pink Frisbee, bending it expertly between the trees. A skein of geese passed overhead. Scaffolding had been appended to the side of Louvin Hall, which had a leaky roof. Yellow rope strung between white stakes protected a newly sodded corner; Infrastructure loved to try to make the place seem idyllic for commencement, sometimes going so far as to spray-paint dead patches of grass bright green. Piano notes wafted like smoke, mixed with bland chirpy birdsong. A pizza deliveryman emerged from Louvin, rezipped his red insulated hamper.
Affenlight felt expansive, as if he’d had one scotch and was angling for a second. Pella didn’t know about the house yet—he didn’t want to unveil the surprise over e-mail, which was the only way they’d been communicating—but negotiations were proceeding apace with the Bremens. And, happily, Pella had decided to become a full-time student for the fall semester. He missed her, more so when she was a mile away than a thousand, but he sensed that they’d made a renewed commitment to each other, he by buying the house, she by enrolling at Westish. His future as a father seemed more secure than it had in a decade. Things were moving ahead. Mike Schwartz hadn’t accepted Jenkins’s offer, but that was his prerogative. And in any case, it wasn’t for Pella’s sake that Affenlight had fought hard to apportion the money for a job for Schwartz. It wasn’t even because Schwartz would repay his salary twenty times over, in the funds he’d raise directly and in the improved