I Liked My Life(34)

Brady thought back to the comment about her mother, which he’d chalked up to a genius stop calling tactic, and kicked himself for not hanging up. The idea that he woke an infirm old lady was too much for his already overworked conscience.

Me too, I suggested he respond, keeping him in the moment.

“Me too,” he said to my delight. “And I did sound a lot like a man about to offer zero-transfer fees.”

“Well, clearly I appreciate your concern with payment as I just inadvertently confessed I have no money. Are you okay leaving a check with Eve?”

“No worries,” he said, switching from telemarketer to surfer dude in a multiple personality disorder sort of way.

*

She arrives fifteen minutes early. Eve is upstairs finishing a thirty-minute beginners yoga DVD when the doorbell rings. By the time she gets downstairs, Rory is at the garden, humming the tune to “Everybody Plays the Fool,” which I stuck in her head on the ride over. Eve freezes, remembering how I sang that chorus every time she came home devastated or embarrassed by one social travesty or another. Whenever I did, Eve demanded to hear about a time I played the fool. There was no shortage of material; the challenge was keeping the story age-appropriate. Eve got to picture me as a freshman tripping in front of the entire football team—or whatever other humiliation I opted to reveal—and I got to ease my daughter’s there’s-no-way-I-can-go-back-to-school-tomorrow anxiety. It was a healing song for us.

I couldn’t have directed the scene better; Eve’s association draws her to Rory.

“Ms. Murray?” she says, sad to interrupt her own memory. I watch like a gambler with money on the game as Rory flashes her hypnotic smile. I send energy to complement it. Eve relaxes and so do I.

“It’s summer. Call me Rory.” She steps into the foyer and slides off her Birkenstocks, clearly a learned, long-standing habit. Eve has never seen a guest do this, but she’s a hostess like her mother and follows suit. Rory notices and it endears her to Eve.

“Thanks for agreeing to come to the house,” Eve says, leading her to the kitchen. “I really didn’t want to spend all summer at the library.” She leaves out the detail that her mother recently died at one.

“It doesn’t matter to me, as long as you’re able to focus. Covering precalculus in one summer is a tall order. I had to brush up before coming here.”

“Yeah, I know, but Exeter doesn’t usually accept people for only senior year, so I was at their mercy.”

“Oh, you won’t be here in the fall?”

“No, I’ve, umm, always wanted to go to boarding school, and … well, my dad, he finally agreed.”

The word dad catches Rory’s attention. Or rather, lack of the word mom. Our story clicks into place. Starling. Spring. Suicide. The elementary teachers who had had Eve in class all those years ago were in absolute shock. “Madeline Starling was the nicest, most normal mother I ever worked with,” her friend Sarah attested. “I truly can’t wrap my head around it.”

Rory hides her discovery well. “My brother Brian went to Exeter. He graduated about eight years ago now, but I remember the campus. It’s beautiful.”

Small talk complete, they sit at the kitchen table and get to work. I struggled to focus on calculus when my GPA was on the line, and it’s immediately clear nothing has changed in the stimulating world of mathematics. When the hour is up, their good-bye is lamentably efficient:

“Same time Wednesday?”

“Works for me.”

The challenge is clear: calculus is too dry a topic to foster a meaningful bond between Rory and Eve, and they meet while Brady is still at work. Nurturing their relationship will take prompting.

Eve is still in the kitchen doing practice problems when Brady gets home and announces they’re having gyros for dinner. “What the heck is that?”

“You’ve never had a gyro? Where’ve you been?”

Eve crosses her arms. “Ah, living here with you.”

“Touché.” He unwraps one to showcase it. “As you can see in Exhibit A, a gyro is shaved lamb with red onions and this cucumber-y, yogurt-y sauce on a pita.”

Eve pretends to throw up in the sink. “That sounds heinous. I’ll stick with ramen noodles.” I repeat Rory’s name to Eve, trying to break through their banter so she’ll mention the tutoring session.

“That’s too bad,” Brady entices. “I had a proposal for you, but it requires someone with a taste for adventure.”

This mysterious comment commands Eve’s full attention; she pushes my message to the side. “I’m listening.”

“Try a small bite of the gyro.”

Eve gives in, but only on her terms, munching off a quarter of the pita in one bite. With a full mouth she grins and says, “It’s good,” her words barely discernable.

“See. Next time, don’t share an opinion until you have one.” Brady opens the second wrapper and they sit at the table.

“What’s up?” Eve asks.

He claps his hands together. “All right, what are you doing after your required community service is done, but before school starts?”

“Can you stop calling it ‘required community service,’ please?”

Brady taps his foot, anxious to get to his announcement. “Sure. What should I call it?”