Chapter 54

Wednesday morning

BY TEN OCLOCK, SHE PULLED INTO THE PARKING LOT OF THE STANFORD Medical Center where Peter was one of four patients in the ICU. A pair of headphones dangling from his neck, he was cranked up at a thirty-degree angle in a hospital bed, his long, lanky frame taking up nearly the entire length of it. The resemblance between Peter and Nate was startling. An overhead TV was on and he was reading Sports Illustrated, the same issue that Rannie had just purchased for him at the gift store in the lobby.

Peter’s first words: “I didn’t need anybody coming out here. I told Mother that.”

“So much for ‘thank you, best ex-wife in the world, for traveling three thousands miles.’”

Peter lay down his magazine. “You know that’s not how I meant it.”

“Listen, you got off easy…. For a while it looked like it was going to be Mary, Nate, and me…a family reunion.” Rannie kept her tone light, although as she pulled a chair beside his bed, a non-compartmentalizing “if only” thought managed to slip in and taunt her: If she’d let Nate come, he would have been nowhere near that damn rooftop.

Peter was in string-tie plaid pj bottoms; wires dangled from circular sticky pads taped to his bare chest while machines and monitors hummed and bleeped away. She felt as if she were staring at a “What’s wrong with this picture?” puzzle. There wasn’t an ounce of flab on him. All the years of their marriage, he’d chided her on her eating habits and aversion to exercise. But beyond that, Peter simply wasn’t mature enough for a heart attack.

It had happened while he was playing tennis. Mild chest pains, he told Rannie, who knew that they must have been considerably more severe for doctor-phobic Peter to go to a hospital. A “friend” had driven him; Rannie sure it was a woman. While he talked, mentioning with evident pleasure that Alice had called the night before, Rannie noticed that, although his face was suntanned, there was an ashen pallor to his complexion lurking behind the ruddy cheeks; for the first time that she could remember, Peter looked sick…and scared.

“I’m sorry, Ran. What a drag for you.” Peter shook his head; it was then that Rannie noticed a small gold hoop threaded through the lobe of his left ear, the sight of which depressed her. “Peter, for God’s sake, grow up,” she felt like saying.

“The cardiologist said it was so mild, it hardly counts as a heart attack.” Peter stumbled over the last words and Rannie saw that he was embarrassed. As far as Peter’s own self-image was concerned, she bet he almost would have preferred cancer, which had connotations of tragedy and romance, being struck down in one’s prime. A heart attack simply equaled middle age.

They chatted in an amiable, emotionally detached way. Twelve years of marriage? The plain fact was: With Peter, there wasn’t much “there” there. In a way if she hated him now, wouldn’t it mean she’d loved him more deeply then? Still, because of Peter, she had the two best things in her life. Genetically her children were fifty percent him, although whatever their faults, neither of the kids could ever be called shallow, unemotional, or detached.

Peter never brought up Tut’s murder so neither did Rannie, who conscientiously abided by Joan’s dictum to “compartmentalize.” Peter, after all, had his own mortality on his mind. At one point, he held out his hand. Rannie accepted it, the feel of his long fingers clasping hers so familiar, the hair on his arms blond and curly.

She had jumped into bed with him the very first night they met at a publishing party, Rannie initially sure that it would amount to no more than a brief romance. Yet Peter had pushed to get married four months later after Rannie had missed a period. “I love you. Of course we should have this baby.” His response was so immediate, so sure. She was dazzled. It was years before she understood that to him she was exotic, not forbidden fruit exactly, nevertheless, the first Jewish girl he’d ever been involved with. She wondered if, at the outset, he might have hoped their involvement would cause strain with his parents—he reveled in his status as family “rebel.” Yet Walter and Mary had liked her right away. “Of course, they like you. What’s not to like?” her own father had said defensively. In his eyes Rannie could do no wrong. So if she loved Peter, then he must be worthy. Her shrewder mother, Rannie learned post-divorce, had harbored vague, never-voiced qualms all along, although not about the difference in religion. Temple Sharay Tefilah in Shaker saw her parents exactly twice a year on the high holy days. “I could never picture the two of you growing old together,” her mother said. Bingo.

Soon a nurse came to prep Peter for an angiogram. The reassuring news that his arteries were clear came by one that afternoon. No bypass necessary. Rannie called Mary, Nate, and Alice, leaving messages. Then she made a reservation on the red-eye.

Peter looked flat-out exhausted, most likely from the anxiety of waiting for the test results, so Rannie decided to explore the Stanford campus while he slept.

A postcard-clear sky showed off the rosy-hued stucco of the Mission-style architecture to best advantage; farther to the east and in the distance were the Santa Cruz Mountains. It was, in a word, gorgeous. The kids, in shorts and tee shirts, Stanford sweatshirts tied around their waists, were good-looking, too—definitely a much lower nerd quotient here than at Yale. Rannie crossed Serra Mall and headed to the Main Quad where a girl, a pro at the backwards-walk mastered by all college tour guides, was leading a large group of parents and high school kids.

Rannie tagged along, learning to her surprise that the arcaded courtyard design of the university was the work of Frederic Law Olmstead and that both Hoovers had been Stanford grads, Mrs. H. the first woman to get a degree in geology. Palm trees were everywhere, bougainvillea staining the walls of buildings purple and fuchsia. There was a cactus garden boasting plants so gigantic they could supply enough aloe vera for the entire nation. The names of streets, or malls, were liltingly Spanish. Escondido. Duena. Lagunita. Galvez. Absolutely beautiful. Everything. Absolutely nothing not to love. And yet to Rannie it all seemed a little unreal, a little too healthy. Wasn’t grim Gothic architecture more conducive to studying? Wouldn’t too much sunshine and fresh air do weird things to your brain?

The tour ended in Old Union, another courtyard complex where the admissions department had offices and where many in the group were going to pick up applications or have an interview.

“I will die if I don’t get in,” one girl plaintively wailed to her mother.

Could Rannie envision Nate here? No, not really. But that was beside the point. He could. The only question that mattered was whether Stanford Admissions could envision him here. Suddenly, hearing all the freshly toured families muttering ominously about Stanford’s insanely high median SATs, Rannie began worrying about Nate’s chances, something she chose to interpret as a “normal” neurotic-parent sign as opposed to, say, worrying about murder one charges and orange prison jumpsuits in his immediate future. Which was why Rannie found herself joining the crowd in the admissions offices.

When a smiling middle-aged woman behind a computer asked if she could help, Rannie heard herself inquiring whether her son’s application for Early Admissions was in and complete.

Eyes on the computer screen, fingers tapping instructions, the woman kept a steady flow of friendly chatter…Had she enjoyed the tour? Was this her first time on campus? She certainly had picked a perfect day. Oh, she lived in New York City, right in Manhattan?

The woman blinked at the screen. “Yes, here it is. Nathan B. Lorimer? Let’s see…yes, your son has completed his part; the school has sent his transcript; his board scores are here; recommendations in; yes, it looks like everything’s in.”

“A Stanford alum is the new headmaster at my son’s school,” Rannie informed the woman. “He’s from Palo Alto.”

“You don’t say! I wonder if Mr. Richards knows. He’s on the East Coast right now, visiting high schools. I’m from Palo Alto, too. What’s the headmaster’s name?”

“Jonathan Marshall.”

She shook her head, not that Rannie had expected the woman’s eyes to light up and for her to start shrieking, “Jemmy! Unbelievable! My sister had a crush on him in seventh grade!” The woman clicked more keys, asked for exact spelling of the name and approximately what year he might have graduated, and waited for something on her screen to pop up. Her brow furrowed for a moment. She typed in more information and waited again. “That’s funny. He’s not showing up.”

“It’s Jonathan Edwards Marshall.”

More typing, another pause, and then “Here we go…. Jonathan Edwards Marshall. Yes. But the computer has an asterisk by his name, which means deceased or no information available.”

“He just moved to a new apartment.”

The woman nodded. “That’s probably it. Or else a computer glitch—they’ve been acting up a lot lately.”

A pad and pen was placed before Rannie. She felt unsure about supplying any information despite the woman’s assurances that Mr. Marshall wouldn’t suddenly be inundated with fund-raising calls.

“Mr. Richards will like knowing the Chapel connection to Stanford.”

Rannie settled by writing down nothing other than the Chaps general number and Jem’s full name.

With the woman wishing “good luck to your son” and holding up two crossed fingers, Rannie retraced her steps across campus.

In the hospital cafeteria, she sat down with a Coke and a surprisingly tasty chicken burrito, thinking about Stanford and college in general. No matter what anyone said, where you went did count. She hadn’t left Yale singing “Be True to Your School,” nor had she ever returned for a Harvard-Yale game. Still college had molded her. She’d listened to Harold Bloom analyze Hamlet, heard Vincent Scully rhapsodize over Le Corbusier’s chapel at Ronchamps. She remembered finishing a paper in which she discussed the religious symbolism in Spenser’s “The Faerie Queene” and the Unicorn Tapestries at the Cloisters and feeling that writing the analysis had expanded her mind in an upliftingly thrilling way. But it went beyond the education. Applying to college had been the first choice she ever made for herself, deciding to go East, to an Ivy, when her smart friends were picking Northwestern or Michigan’s honors program. Consciously she had not said to herself, “I’m never living in the Midwest again,” but being at Yale made her see New York, not Chicago, as the next step in her life and from there…well, going to Yale had determined so much else.

Returning her tray, Rannie took the elevator to Peter’s room. He was awake and on the phone with Mary. As soon as he got off, they hugged good-bye. Peter seemed vastly relieved by the good prognosis, his tone almost jaunty. His parting words to Rannie were, “Remember. Tell Nate, I beat him to it…first in the family to get admitted to Stanford.”


Wednesday night e-mail sent to Chapel School Senior Class

FROM: jemarshall@chapelschool.org

 

While not everyone had the good fortune to have taken one of Augusta Hollins’s classes, I know that all of you are saddened by her sudden passing. Please join the high school faculty and me at an assembly Thursday morning at 11:30 to share memories of Ms. Hollins. There will be a formal memorial service for the entire Chapel School community at a later date.