The Art of Fielding_ A Novel - Chad Harbach [182]
Affenlight paused in the doorway. “Yes?”
“G’night.”
Affenlight smiled. “Don’t forget your uniform.”
73
As the door swung shut his foot kicked something, knocking it over—a squat container like the ones he’d just emptied. Luckily the seal on the lid was tight and it didn’t spill. As he picked it up he could feel the heat of the soup through the plastic. He carried it down the stairs with him, lit a cigarette as he stepped outside.
The evening was cool and dry. Affenlight sat down on the broad stone base of the Melville statue. The warmth of the soup container felt good between his hands; he peeled off the lid and let the steam waft up to his nose. Chowder, Boston clam. It smelled marvelous. He lifted the container and took a sip, parted his lips to let through a cube of potato, a chewy dollop of clam. The texture, the richness of the cream, the proportions of salt and pepper, which seemed so simple but were often skewed—Affenlight had eaten his share of chowder, and this was a nearly ideal specimen. The lake spread out before him, better than any ocean. Was this what they were serving in the dining hall these days? It couldn’t be. If it was, they should cut costs. If it was, he should have eaten there more often.
When the soup was gone he lit another cigarette. The pain had returned to his chest, and in addition he could feel it in his shoulder, or his collarbone—somewhere around there. Each drag on the Parliament seemed to exacerbate it. If it didn’t pass, if it came back again, he might have to think about calling the doctor.
By the time he entered his office his chest felt better. Contango greeted him warmly. Affenlight scratched the back of the husky’s sugar-furred neck, opened the office door and the outside door so Contango could wander out into the quad. Then he called the airline and converted his plane ticket to Henry’s name, called his car service and scheduled a trip to the airport for six o’clock. There was no need to drive Henry to the airport. Henry could decide whether he wanted to go to South Carolina, just as Mike Schwartz could decide whether he wanted to take the job in the AD’s office. These children weren’t his children; they weren’t children at all.
He loosened his tie, poured a sizable scotch, put Gounod’s Faust on the shiny executive stereo that was tucked into the bookshelves. He lit a Parliament and sat down at his computer to write Pella an e-mail.
Dear Pella,
I just wanted to tell you that I saw Henry today. He looks a little rough, but he’ll be fine.
He paused, unsure of what else to say. He wanted to write a truthful message, and yet regarding the biggest, most intractable matter of all he had no intention of telling the truth. If he told Pella the truth, she would leave this place and never forgive it. He wanted her to stay. For practical reasons, he told himself: She had been accepted. Her tuition would be nil, provided Gibbs kept his word. Given her disciplinary record at Tellman Rose, her expired SAT scores, her lack of a high school diploma, it would probably take two years to get her into any other decent school.
But there were selfish reasons too, and maybe those were the ones he really cared about. He needed her here. They’d erase him from the memory of this place as quickly and thoroughly as they could; she was the part of him that would be allowed to stay. That was the deal. Even if he was elsewhere—God knew where he would be—he needed her here. Was that insane? Probably it was, after what had happened today. But he couldn’t change what he wanted just because it was insane. He couldn’t hate this place just because it had cast him out. And he couldn’t have Pella or Owen hating it either. It was no worse than anyplace else, and it was theirs.
Contango wandered back inside, did a lap of the office, and settled down on the rug, head propped on his paws. Affenlight finished his scotch, lit another cigarette. He wasn’t sure what to say to Pella; maybe the safer course, for the moment, would be to say nothing. He’d get his story straight first. With Owen too. That