Belbalm had two assistants, who rotated at the desk outside of her office. This morning it was the very peppy, very pretty Colin Khatri. He was a member of Scroll and Key and some kind of chem prodigy.
“Alex!” he exclaimed, like she was a much anticipated guest at a party.
Colin’s enthusiasm always seemed genuine, but sometimes its sheer wattage made her want to do something abruptly violent like put a pencil through his palm. Belbalm just draped her elegant coat on the rack and beckoned Alex into her sanctum.
“Tea, Colin?” Belbalm inquired.
“Of course,” he said, beaming less like an assistant than an acolyte.
“Thank you, love.”
Coat, mouthed Colin. Alex shucked off her jacket. She’d once asked Colin what Belbalm knew about the societies. “Nothing,” he’d said. “She thinks it’s all old-boy elitist bullshit.”
She wasn’t wrong. Alex had wondered what was so special about the seniors selected by the societies every year. She’d thought there must be something magical about them. But they were just favorites—legacies, high achievers, charisma queens, the editor of the Daily News, the quarterback for the football team, some kid who had staged a particularly edgy production of Equus that no one wanted to see. People who would go on to run hedge funds and start-ups and get executive producer credits.
Alex followed Belbalm inside, letting the calm of the office settle over her. The books lining the shelves, the carefully curated objects from Belbalm’s travels—a blown-glass decanter that bulged like the body of a jellyfish, some kind of antique mirror, the herbs flowering on the window ledge in white ceramic containers like bits of geometric sculpture. Even the sunlight seemed more gentle here.
Alex took a deep breath.
“Too much perfume?” Belbalm asked with a smile.
“No!” Alex said loudly. “It’s great.”
Belbalm dropped gracefully into the chair behind her desk and gestured for Alex to seat herself on the green velvet couch across from her.
“Le Parfum de Thérèse,” Belbalm said. “Edmond Roudnitska. He was one of the great noses of the twentieth century and he designed this fragrance for his wife. Only she was allowed to wear it. Romantic, no?”
“Then—”
“How do I come to wear it? Well, they both died and there was money to be made, so Frédéric Malle put it on the market for us peasants to buy.”
Peasant was a word poor people didn’t use. Just like classy was a word that classy people didn’t use. But Belbalm smiled in a way that included Alex, so Alex smiled back in a way she hoped was just as knowing.
Colin appeared, balancing a tray laden with a tea set the color of red clay, and placed it on the edge of the desk. “Anything else?” he asked hopefully.
Belbalm shooed him away. “Go do important things.” She poured out the tea and offered a cup to Alex. “Help yourself to cream and sugar if you like. Or there’s fresh mint.” She rose and broke a small sprig from the herbs on the sill.
“Mint please,” Alex said, taking the sprig and echoing Belbalm’s movements: crushing the leaves, dropping them into her own cup.
Belbalm sat back, took a sip. Alex did the same, then hid a flinch when it burned her tongue.
“I take it you heard the news about that poor girl?”
“Tara?”
Belbalm’s slender brows rose. “Yes, Tara Hutchins. Did you know her?”
“No,” Alex said, annoyed at her own stupidity. “I was just reading about her.”
“A terrible thing. I will say a more terrible thing and admit that I’m grateful she was not a student. It does not diminish the loss in any way, of course.”
“Of course.” But Alex was fairly sure Belbalm was saying exactly that.
“Alex, what do you want from Yale?”
Money. Alex knew Marguerite Belbalm would find such an answer hopelessly crude. When did you first see them? Darlington had asked. Maybe all rich people asked the wrong questions. For people like Alex, it would never be what do you want. It was always just how much can you get? Enough to survive? Enough to help her take care of her mother when shit fell apart the way it always, always did?
Alex said nothing and Belbalm tried again. “Why come here and not to an art school?” Lethe had mocked up paintings for her, created a false trail of successes and glowing recommendations to excuse her academic lapses.
“I’m good, but I’m not good enough to make it.” It was true. Magic could create competent painters, proficient musicians, but not genius. She had added art electives to her class schedule because it was expected, and they’d proven the easiest part of her academic life. Because it wasn’t her hand that moved the brush. When she remembered to pick up the sketchbooks Sandow had suggested she buy, it was like letting a trivet skate over a Ouija board, though the images that emerged came from somewhere inside her—Betcha half naked and drinking from a hole; Hellie in profile, the wings of a monarch butterfly pushing from her back.
“I will not accuse you of false humility. I trust you to know your own talents.” Belbalm took another sip of her tea. “The world is quite hard on artists who are good but not truly great. So. You wish what? Stability? A steady job?”
“Yes,” Alex said, and despite her best intentions the word emerged with a petulant edge.
“You mistake me, Alexandra. There is no crime in wanting these things. Only people who have never lived without comfort deride it as bourgeois.” She winked. “The purest Marxists are always men. Calamity comes too easily to women. Our lives can come apart in a single gesture, a rogue wave. And money? Money is the rock we cling to when the current would seize us.”
“Yes,” said Alex, leaning forward. This was what Alex’s mother had never managed to grasp. Mira loved art and truth and freedom. She didn’t want to be a part of the machine. But the machine didn’t care. The machine went on grinding and catching her up in its gears.
Belbalm set her cup in its saucer. “So once you have money, once you can stop clinging to the rock and can climb atop it, what will you build there? When you stand upon the rock, what will you preach?”
Alex felt all of the interest go out of her. Was she really supposed to have something to say, some wisdom to impart? Stay in school? Don’t do drugs? Don’t fuck the wrong guys? Don’t let the wrong guys fuck with you? Be nice to your parents even if they don’t deserve it, because they can afford to take you to the dentist? Dream smaller? Don’t let the girl you love die?
The silence stretched. Alex gazed at the mint leaves floating in her tea.
“Well,” said Professor Belbalm on a sigh. “I ask you these things because I don’t know how else to motivate you, Alex. Do you wonder why I care?”
Alex hadn’t, actually. She’d just assumed Belbalm took her job as the head of JE seriously, that she looked out for all of the students under her care. But she nodded anyway.
“We all began somewhere, Alex. So many of these children have had too much handed to them. They’ve forgotten how to reach. You are hungry and I respect hunger.” She tapped her desk with two fingers. “But hungry for what? You’re improving; I see that. You’ve gotten some help, I think, and that’s good. You’re clearly a smart girl. The academic probation is worrisome, but what worries me more is that the classes you’re choosing show no real pattern of interest other than ease. You cannot simply get by here.”