The Boy Who Could Draw Tomorrow Read online

  St. Martin's was the best—bar none.

  "Tres, tres," Helen Daniels said, and Helen Daniels was in a position to know.

  "Well, Sam Cooper's tres, tres too," Peggy joked in reply, laughing a little to try to cover her anxiety.

  ***

  Meanwhile, she used her apartment hunting as a diversion. It took her three days to find the perfect thing. It was also grotesquely expensive, with a monthly maintenance that was terrifying to behold. But yes, yes, yes—it was ideal, and one way or the other, they'd find a way to swing it.

  The following Saturday they set aside their usual errands—groceries, laundry, all the frantic odds and ends a New York working couple saves up through the week—and instead, with Sam's hair carefully combed and his new Nikes on, Hal and Peggy took the Lexington Avenue subway from Thirty-third Street up to Ninety-sixth, then walked one block south. At the corner of Ninety-fifth and Lex, Peggy let go of Sam's hand and pointed, as if calling attention to a falling star.

  "See?"

  "That's it?" Hal said. "You're kidding."

  What he saw was an elegant pre-war building midway up the block, the kind of understated, old-money housing favored by the young Wall Street crowd. Even the dark green canopy out front seemed to express a certain lofty bearing born of years of comfort, self-assurance and restraint.

  "We can afford that?"

  In answer, Peggy turned and whirled in the middle of the sidewalk, her white cotton skirt billowing out to show her bare, slim legs.

  "For Christ's sake, Pegs, cut it out!" Hal called, embarrassed by this uncharacteristically flamboyant display.

  He grabbed up Sam's hand and caught Peggy by the elbow, and together the three of them strode stiffly up the sidewalk. When they came to the canopy, they turned in under the shade and announced themselves to the doormen.

  "The Coopers, you say?"

  "That's right," Hal answered, startled by the force of the challenge. "We were told the agent from Douglas Elliman left the key for us. With the elevator man, I mean. For 8C?"

  "We have three elevator men on duty," the older of the two doormen said. "If you will wait here while I look into it."

  "Jesus," Hal muttered as the older man walked off and the other doorman moved out to the curb as if eager to ignore them.

  Peggy grinned. "Will you just relax."

  ***

  They hadn't been invited to sit down while they waited, but Sam ran to one of the wainscot chairs that stood to either side of the large mantelpiece that dominated the lobby. He got up onto the chair, took out his pen, and opened his drawing pad to a fresh page. Peggy caught his eye, and then she held a finger to her pursed lips as if to warn him to keep quiet and behave. But that was silly, cautioning Sam. Sam always behaved.

  She was glad she'd thought to bring along his drawing things to keep him busy. On the other hand, she was sorry that she hadn't thought to dress him better. What on earth had possessed her to overlook such a thing? Jeans and a T-shirt just weren't appropriate. Still, he did look cute. Sitting there in that aristocratic chair, Sam seemed to fit right in.

  It was Hal she was worried about. He kept pacing in a little circle, trying to glimpse things out of the corner of his eye—the furnishings that adorned the stately lobby, the ornate mirrors and sconces, the black and white marble tiles that spread over the floor in a checkerboard pattern, the deep shine that had been buffed into them.

  Hal felt like an interloper, a trespasser, a fake. He wanted to weep—to weep because he'd never had this order and security as a child, to weep because no matter how much money he ever made this was not the sort of comfort he could ever just take for granted. When he looked at Peggy and saw her face lifted to the pewter chandelier that hung from the domed ceiling, he knew somehow that her emotional investment in this building, in St. Martin's, in the whole Manhattan scene was not as fraught with psychic pain and danger as his was. She was like a kid in a candy store—he felt infinitely more vulnerable than that.

  He turned to regard his son. Sam seemed right at home, his blue-jeaned legs dangling over the edge of the ancient chair, the boy's shimmering hair falling straight to his wide brown eyes as he bent intently over his drawing pad. But maybe the chair was a reproduction. Hell, this was ridiculous, letting himself feel so goddamned intimidated by a couple of snooty doormen and a lobby that was probably not so hot once you got down and took a really good look at it.

  Jesus, he'd better get a hold of himself. It was wonderful, being here, knowing this was all possible. How changed their lives suddenly were! It was as if everything that had gone before this very moment had been a movie in black and white. But now life blazed across a giant screen in a stupendous rage of color.

  ***

  They talked about it all that night, debating everything from all sides, weighing the thing as methodically as their excitement would let them—how much the owner wanted, how much they could afford to offer, how big a mortgage they'd have to carry, what the whole nut would come to if you figured it by the month. But finally it was all too much for them. Dizzy with questions, crazy with expectation, they fell into each other's arms and made love with a new kind of fury, a fever that pounded in them with racking, joyous violence.

  Sunday, while Peggy got breakfast together and Sam sat with his drawing pad on the floor of the kitchen, Hal telephoned the agent at home and stated the Coopers' terms.

  "I doubt that'll cover it," the agent said.

  "Yeah, well, that's our offer," Hal said, convinced now that they'd blown it, that the whole deal was off. And what happened if the offer was turned down and meanwhile St. Martin's took Sam? Or worse, if things worked out the other way around? He was panicked for the moment as he waited for the agent to say something. Maybe they were trying to do this thing backwards. Maybe they should hold off on the apartment until they heard from the school. But the agent was clearing his throat.

  "I trust you and Mrs. Cooper understand that, even should your offer be accepted, everything is contingent upon the approval of the Co-op board."

  "Of course," Hal said testily. Did this guy think he was an idiot? But the delicate balance of his good humor had been upset. He plunged into a nervous depression, convinced that no co-op board in the world could sit in judgement of him and fail to find him wanting.

  ***

  All through the breakfast he kept obsessing about the board, and nothing Peggy said could pacify him.

  For the rest of the day they could talk about nothing else—so many things to get done, so many possibilities for it all to go haywire—their offer rejected, the bank refusing to make the loan, the co-op board arriving at the opinion that the Coopers weren't good enough to live within a mile of East Ninety-fifth Street, let alone in a building with a deep green canopy. Worst of all, what if the admissions officer at St. Martin's signed her name to a letter telling them, ever so politely, to take their kid and get lost? It could happen. Everything could happen. It could all come clattering down.

  ***

  But it didn't. In the coming weeks it was like the double promotions all over again. Everything went their way in a steady, seamless sweep of imponderable good luck. First word that, yes, the owner was willing to accept their offer. Then Citibank granted their loan application. The next night the Coopers got a babysitter and took a taxi uptown to meet with the board, and everything was just fine—not the least bit dicey. The "board" turned out to be a group of ordinary affluent New Yorkers, and not once did any one of them ask a question that either Hal or Peggy might conceivably regard as awkward. Nor were there any side-wise looks that were likely to make Hal feel as if working as a publicist was the most contemptible profession on earth.

  Two days later they received a letter by messenger. The board would be happy to have the Coopers. Only hours later they received a call from the admissions officer at St. Martins, a Mrs. Wendell-Briggs, the imposing woman who'd sat silently by while a first-grade teacher had tested Sam, the same woman who'd every so often turned he
r patrician face to Hal and smiled comfortingly, as if she quite understood and sympathized with the particular agonies of his ordeal.

  "We're in!" Peggy sang out when she was certain the telephone receiver was safely back in place. "Hey, everybody!" she shouted from the kitchen, "Sam Cooper is a St. Martin's boy!"

  Hal came from the bedroom to collect Sam and hoist him onto his shoulders for a ride into the kitchen, and there the three of them danced around in the cramped space grinning like loons with no room to fly.

  "What a guy!" Hal proclaimed as he jogged up and down with his son on his shoulders.

  "Hurray for Sam!" Peggy chorused in reply—suddenly remembering the bottle of champagne she'd stuck in the fridge weeks ago, hoping for just this occasion.

  She produced the bottle. Hal put Sam down. He got out a towel and popped the cork while Peggy got glasses—three of them, the ones they saved for guests.

  "Champagne for the old scout here?" Hal said, frowning comically.

  Peggy smiled gloriously. "A little won't hurt."

  "To Sam, the St. Martin's man!" Hal toasted.

  "To you, son," Peggy said as the three of them lifted their fragile glasses.

  ***

  They went to bed early that night, exhausted from the shower of good news, but not too tired to make love. And for a moment Peggy even thought about leaving her diaphragm in the night table. After all, why not two little Coopers, another child as blessed and beautiful as Sam? But then she decided against it. It made more sense to wait until things settled back into place again and they had proved their ability to keep up with all these new expenses they were taking on.

  Near dawn, feeling absolutely reborn, Peggy's eyes came open as if fingers had pushed back the lids—but within instants she staggered from the bed, overcome with a thunderous headache and a curious feeling of dread. She went to the bathroom, splashed water on her face and took two Tylenol. It was when she sat down to urinate that she saw they must have gone to bed with the light still on in the hall. She wiped herself got up to investigate, automatically reaching to flush the toilet but then thinking, no, better not to chance rousing Hal.

  She padded into the hall.

  But it wasn't the light in the hall that was shining. It was in Sam's room; the light was coming from in there.

  Noiselessly she pushed open the partially closed door.

  She saw her son sitting under the architect's lamp that was fastened to the corner of his worktable. He was in his undershorts, and his golden head was bowed over his Jumbo pad, where the Pilot Razor Point pen that he favored was dancing in small, deft motions over the page.

  "Can't you sleep, honey?" Peggy softly called from the doorway.

  The boy shook his golden head. "Too hot."

  "But you switched off your fan, sweetie."

  "Too noisy," Sam said, not turning to look at his mother until Peggy had moved into the room to brush his hair away and touched the back of her hand to his forehead.

  "You feel sick, baby? Too much excitement? I never should have let you have that champagne."

  "I'm fine, Mom, honest. I just wanted to draw, is all."

  "Let's see," Peggy said, leaning down to examine what he was working on. Her vision was still gauzy from sleep and she had to blink her eyes to focus them. "I'll get you some ice water in a minute," she said tonelessly as she lifted the pad from the worktable to get a closer look.

  She saw a classroom, three rows of boys seen from the rear as they sat at their old-fashioned desks. Facing them, looking out at the children and at Peggy, too, there stood a woman of striking height, her eyes circled with heavy-rimmed glasses. There was no expression on the woman's face. In fact, the most noticeable thing about her was the colorless look with which she regarded the children who sat before her—that and the sharply upturned nose that flared pig-like from under the ponderous spectacles.

  "You've drawn her with a chignon," Peggy said, holding the pad under the light. "A chignon with a pencil sticking through it. Do you know what a chignon is?"

  Sam shook his head and took back the pad.

  "It's when a lady does her hair like that—pulled back in a bun."

  "Oh, sure," Sam said. "Thanks, Mom."

  "No trouble at all," Peggy said, smiling. "Whenever you want the scoop on coiffures, you just check with your old mom, okay?"

  But Sam was too busy with his picture again to answer.

  Peggy stood over him, uncertain about what to say next.

  "I see you've got school on your mind. You're not worried or anything, are you baby? Sam honey? Everything's okay, isn't it?"

  The boy looked up from his pad, his face softened to unspeakable loveliness now that his head had moved out of the harsh, direct light. Peggy could see that his freckles were almost invisible now, as if they magically vanished in the nighttime hours.

  "I'm fine, Mom. Everything's fine."

  His words were reassuring, but she felt a vague chill rush through her even so. She hugged her arms to her chest, and then, not smiling now, she knelt to hold her son to her breast.

  He squirmed slightly in her arms, and Peggy realized with a catch in her throat how quickly he was growing up. Giving him a last squeeze, she got to her feet to get him the water she'd promised. It was when Peggy was in the kitchen yanking the ice tray free from the freezer compartment that she remembered what Miss Goldenson looked like.

  Wasn't she a distinctly short woman? And her nose, it was nothing you'd ever notice. At least it was nothing like that.

  Back in Sam's room, Peggy took up the pad again while Sam gulped his water. She studied the woman's face, searching for a trace of something human, some warmth. But it was incredibly void of feeling, and for some crazy reason that's what made you want to turn away as if you'd been stared down. But now that Peggy looked again, she saw something else—at the end of a row one of the boys in the picture lay crumpled over his desk. That hadn't been there when she'd first looked—or had it?

  "You add this, sweetie?" Peggy asked, pointing to the slumped-over boy.

  "Don't you like it, Mom?" he put down his glass and took a look.

  Peggy tilted the pad for Sam to see what she was pointing at. "What's wrong with him?" she said, trying to keep her voice cheerful.

  "Gosh, I don't know," came her son's sleepy answer and the yawn that gathered Peggy's attention into a different direction. She kissed him and turned off the light—and then she put him back to bed.

  CHAPTER THREE

  There was so much to do! First and foremost was actually taking possession of the apartment, with all the stomach-churning anxiety this particular financial transaction inevitably engenders in even the calmest of souls. With as good grace as possible, Hal and Peggy endured the whole agonizing business—the clearing of the title, the closing, the half-dozen certified checks that had to be in their hands when they sat down with the seller and the realtor and the bank loan officer and the building manager and the lawyers that represented everyone there.

  Once the apartment was actually theirs, Peggy would have been more than happy to spend the afternoon drinking champagne in some wonderful, high-toned East Side haunt, but Hal began to obsess almost immediately about interior decoration, furnishings, remodeling—he was especially adamant about redoing the kitchen. They would have to spend the rest of the day looking at fabrics and furnishings—there was no time to waste.

  With unusual intensity he described how he fantasized the finished kitchen: it would be agleam with built-in bright white appliances, maybe handmade Mexican tiles for the floor, patterned French tiles for the counters, good solid brass hinges for the wood cabinets, once they'd had the cruddy paint torched off and the surfaces relacquered in high-gloss white. And the window—the kitchen window Peggy herself had always said she wanted so badly—well, it would be shuttered in quartered oak. When she protested that he was talking about a fortune's worth of renovation, he brushed her objections roughly aside. He'd find the money—take out some sort of home impr
ovement loan, get another line of credit somewhere. She wasn't to worry about that; he'd take care of it.

  And as for furniture, someone in his office had an "in" with one of the best interior decorating firms in the city. To Peggy's astonishment, Hal informed her that he'd already made arrangements for one of their staff to look over the apartment, order drapes and carpeting, and at least enough furniture to make the place habitable by the time they were ready to move in. That's what he and Peggy would be seeing to this afternoon.

  ***

  Against her better judgment, Peggy forced herself to keep her almost panic-stricken reservations about this economic profligacy to herself. Certainly Hal must know what he was doing. Maybe they'd given him the promise of a big bonus at work, and he was just saving the news for her as a delicious surprise. Or maybe his company gave out low-interest loans. Whatever, there was an adamant and eager quality to Hal's planning that she simply didn't have the nerve to challenge.

  Wherever the money was going to come from, it was a mountain of work to get done. But, on the lucky side, St. Martin's didn't start until very late in September. If they hurried, if they really knocked themselves out, maybe they could do it all and still have time for a little holiday before Sam had to be back for school.