The Art of Fielding_ A Novel - Chad Harbach [56]
“Soon.” Henry mostly enjoyed working in the dining hall. Chef Spirodocus drove a lot of work-study kids to quit with his speeches and tirades about how food was art, the kitchen a studio, the dish a canvas, and could you make art on a messy canvas?—but for Henry that kind of discipline fit right into his routine. And yet. If he got drafted, if he got paid to play baseball, he wouldn’t have to do it anymore. “I think.”
A mistiness entered Chef Spirodocus’s small black eyes. “I could use you.” He lifted an awkward hand to pat Henry’s shoulder. “Your fellow students are idiots.”
Back in Phumber Hall, Henry set his glasses of milk on the floor of the stairwell and rooted in his bag for his keys. He found them, then realized the door wasn’t locked—odd, since Owen was at the hospital. He pushed the door with his hip and picked up the milk. As he turned into the room, he caught movement from the corner of his eye. Startled, he dropped one of the glasses. It landed where Owen’s Tibetan rug met the floorboards, exploded into glinting shrapnel. Milk splattered his sweatpants and desk chair and half the rug.
“Henry.” President Affenlight took two quick strides into the center of the room. “My goodness. I’m sorry.”
“President Affenlight. Hey. Sorry. You surprised me.”
“And rightly so.” President Affenlight began gathering up shards and dropping them into the wastebasket. “What a boneheaded move on my part.”
“No use crying over it, right?” Henry slung his bag on the bed and grabbed a towel from the hamper. “Here, let me do that.” It was weird to find the president in his room, but it was weirder to watch him crawl around on his hands and knees, scanning the rug for invisible slivers.
“I’m very sorry,” President Affenlight said. “I was just, well, you see, the hospital called my office this afternoon. Apparently they listed me as Owen’s contact person, since I arrived at the hospital first. They needed someone to bring over his glasses.”
“His glasses? That’s weird. I dropped them off before practice.”
“Ah. Well, that would explain my difficulties finding them.”
“I left them next to the bed. At least I think I did. I hope they didn’t fall out of the bag.”
“I’m sure it was just a misunderstanding,” President Affenlight said quickly. They knelt on either side of the sopping towel, separating pieces of glass from fibers of rug. Henry tried to think of something to say. President Affenlight seemed sad, or lonely, or something, though maybe it was just the context, the two of them hunched here on the floor. “Your tie,” Henry said as the silk point of the president’s tie dipped down into a milk puddle.
“Hm? Ah. Thanks.”
When they stopped finding slivers, President Affenlight stood and buttoned his coat. “Sorry again to bother you, Henry. I owe you a glass of milk sometime.”
Henry couldn’t think of anything to say to President Affenlight, but he also sort of didn’t want him to leave. Maybe it wasn’t the president who was lonely—maybe it was him. “What do you call it,” he asked, “when you assume somebody else has the same problems as you?”
“Projection,” Affenlight said.
“Right. Projection. Do you ever have that problem?”
“You mean, do I ever project my problems onto other people?”
“Yeah.”
Affenlight smiled. “Why, do you?”
“I asked you first.”
“Sure,” said Affenlight. “Doesn’t everybody?” As Affenlight departed, the door swung shut behind him, and his expensive shoes made bright noises on the stairs.
Henry mixed his remaining milk with three scoops of SuperBoost, whipped it into a thick sludge, and ate it with a spoon. Not much of a dinner, but what could you do? He’d been up since before dawn, and he didn’t have the energy to leave the room again. He opened his physics book and tried to study, but what he saw was the path of that ball, from his fingertips to Owen’s face, over and over. The phone rang.
“Henry.”
“Owen! How are you?”
“Much better, thanks.”
Henry knew Owen would say precisely this, regardless of how he felt, but it was good to hear it anyway. As they chatted he could tell Owen wasn