You Think It, I'll Say It(56)
Clay had been in a few classes with Sylvia over the years without ever talking to her much, and he thought of her as smart—she had at some point won a prize for an essay written in Latin—as well as quiet and almost definitely a virgin. He’d been surprised when she’d run for prefect. She was tall and thin and had long, straight blond hair, so that she looked hot from behind, but from the front you could see her jutting, rectangular jaw and aquiline nose; besides that, she just didn’t carry herself like a hot girl. A week after being elected assistant senior prefect, she also was elected captain of the girls’ crew team.
Their senior year played out as Dean Boede had proposed: Sylvia stood on the auditorium stage with Clay during assemblies, she attended honor council meetings, they did indeed hold an all-school prom. The theme was “April in Paris,” and the centerpiece was a thirty-foot-high papier-maché Eiffel Tower, with which Clay personally never had physical contact. By the end of the year, his impression of Sylvia remained favorable. Then again, how much thought did Clay actually give her? He was a reasonably conscientious student, an even more conscientious athlete, and a decent boyfriend to a girl named Meredith Tyler, who was dark-haired and looked hot from both the back and the front; meanwhile, and this was why he’d rate himself merely decent as a boyfriend, he occasionally had sex with Jenny Pacanowski, who also was hot from the back and the front, whom he’d lost his virginity to his sophomore year, who took Ritalin, who’d told him that in first grade she’d repeatedly gotten in trouble for humping the corner of a desk, and who had a boyfriend who’d already graduated from Bishop. Every two or three weeks, Jenny materialized in his dorm room in the middle of the night. There was a rule Clay’s mother had about dessert, which was that she couldn’t seek it out but if it landed in front of her, she could indulge; not that it would have made his mother proud, but Clay had the same rule about Jenny.
When he, along with Meredith, Jenny, Sylvia, and seventy-two other classmates, graduated on a Sunday morning in early June, Clay was handed his diploma not by the headmaster, as everyone else was, but by his father, who was a trustee of the school and also a graduate. In the fall, Clay started at Yale and Sylvia started at Williams, which made it slightly surprising that during college they never crossed paths, not even on the second-to-last weekend of each October at Head of the Charles.
* * *
—
Over email, Clay gave Sylvia a choice of three restaurants—a tapas place, a pan-Asian place, and a pricey American bistro—and she picked the bistro; like the others, it’s located a walkable distance between her hotel and the headquarters of the national bank where he is one of four executive vice presidents. When he checks in with the hostess, he can see Sylvia waiting in a booth facing the entrance, a martini glass in front of her. She stands to greet him; she’s wearing a fitted black cocktail dress, sheer stockings, and notably high heels, possibly dominatrix-ish in style; the shoes are unexpected, but good for her. When they embrace, the heels make her as tall as he is, which is six-one.
As they sit, he says, “What a nice surprise.”
She seems slightly sheepish as she says, “I hope it didn’t seem too out of the blue,” and he says, “Not at all.”
In fact, he feels a genuine warmth toward her; he really did respect her intelligence, her steadiness and sense of responsibility. There was a controversial situation the winter of their senior year involving a group of popular juniors caught drinking together, where some were expelled and some merely put on probation, and because of Clay and Sylvia’s roles on the honor council, a lot of ill will was directed toward them. Sylvia’s acceptance of the ill will, the way she acknowledged other people’s displeasure and didn’t make excuses for herself, taught him a lot. Sitting across the table from her, it occurs to him that in her present life as an architect, she’s probably very good at what she does, very reliable and professional. It’s also striking how well she’s aged. It is, of course, far more unusual to be tall and slim and blond in the world than it was at Bishop, far more unusual at forty-three than at seventeen. She still has that rectangular, almost horsey jaw, still isn’t beautiful, and, especially in her sheepishness, gives off an air of girls’ crew captain in uncharacteristically sexy shoes, but she’s solidly attractive.
After ordering a beer, he says, “You’re in town to meet with a client?”
“A prospective client. But the meeting finished a while ago, which means you’re saving me right now from, like, bad room service.”
“So why have you skipped all the Bishop reunions?” he says. “Don’t tell me it’s because you can resist the pull of nostalgia.”
“I actually went to the twenty-fifth, but you weren’t there.”
“That’s the only one I bailed on.” Their twenty-fifth was last May, less than a year ago. He says, “My divorce was being finalized and—” He breaks off. “I’m sure you can imagine. I didn’t feel too celebratory.”
“Well, I hadn’t avoided them on purpose,” she says. “I’d meant to go before, but something always came up. At our fifth reunion, my mom was having surgery, at our tenth, Nelson and I—my husband—I think we were in Europe, and I don’t remember the rest. But there was always a reason. I’m sorry about your divorce, by the way. I know that’s tough.”