… regret to inform… leave us no choice… immediate payment is received… Abigail’s school records… assist in the transfer to another school…
Unless Lyman Academy received sixteen thousand dollars by five P.M. on Friday-three days from then-Abby would have to leave the school.
He squeezed her tight, her tears scalding his forearm, her chest heaving.
“Listen,” he said, softly yet firmly, “that’s not going to happen, okay?”
Then came a rush of words in one terrible anguished sob, most of which he couldn’t make out. Just the words all my friends and Daddy.
The shape of her mouth when she’d let out a cry was precisely the same as it had been seconds after she’d been born, when the nurse had taken her, all of six pounds, from the obstetrician’s gloved hands, swaddling her expertly in a blanket, and put her down on the warming table. Then this tiny infant had curled her tiny hands into fists and let out a great big gusty cry, the first of her life, announcing, Hey, I’m here!
And he knew he’d always do everything in his power to protect this little creature.
“Sweetie,” he said. “Listen to me. Don’t even think about it. That is not going to happen. You have my word.”
But he knew his assurances were hollow, his promises empty, and he wondered whether she knew it, too.
7
Danny had been late with the tuition once before: last semester, in fact. But the bursar’s office had let him slide for a few weeks. They must have gotten marching orders from the administration to be compassionate, since Abby’s mother had died over the summer.
But Lyman’s compassion apparently had its limits.
He had no pull at the school. The guy whose foundation Sarah had worked for, who’d been chairman of the Lyman board, had died of a stroke a couple of years ago.
So he decided to go straight to the top.
“I’m having sort of a silly little problem I thought you might be able to help me with,” he told Lally Thornton when he finally got her on the phone. “Seems I’m a bit late with this semester’s tuition-it’s mostly a matter of liquidity. Moving money around and such. But I should have it cleared up in a week or so.”
He paused, waited for her to say something reassuring. But there was only silence. Then she said, “And?”
Finally, he went on: “I thought you might be able to reassure the bursar’s office for me.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t follow.”
“You know, we got a form letter about Abby having to leave Lyman if the bursar doesn’t receive a check by Friday or whatever. They’re being pretty hard-line about it.”
“Well, I’m not sure I understand why you called me, Mr. Goodman. This is a matter for the bursar’s office. Not for the head of the Upper School.”
“I’ve already spoken with them-”
“So I understand.” Her tone had become downright icy. “You’re not asking that an exception be made for you, I trust.”
“Not an exception per se, but-well, a little leeway is all. A little compassion, really.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Goodman. I wish I could help. Please ask Abby to send me a note once she’s settled at her new school, tell me how she’s doing. I really am so fond of her.”
Even if he could bring himself to ask Lucy to lend him money, he knew she didn’t have it to lend. She was barely getting by herself. So that was out.
His parents, Helen and Bud, lived modestly and always had, in the same small house in a development in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod, where Danny had grown up. His dad was a contractor and a finish carpenter and a decent man, but he was irascible. He was a man who didn’t take guff. He was always pissing people off. At the same time, he was a good person; he always paid his construction crew better than anyone else. Whenever any of them ran into trouble, he’d bail them out, lend them money and not keep track of what he was owed.
When he retired, he had hardly any savings. He and Danny’s mother lived off Social Security.
Danny had no one to borrow the money from. At least, no family or friends.
He tried to remember why he was so uncomfortable about accepting a loan from Thomas Galvin for the Italy trip. Pride? That didn’t seem like such a compelling reason anymore. He imagined a balance scale with his pride on one side-looking like some raw, shapeless, pulsing, purplish internal organ-and Abby’s happiness on the other; he imagined Abby as a chubby, laughing baby wearing only a diaper. The chubby baby easily outweighed the pulsing blob. What had he been thinking? If he had jewelry to pawn, or anything of value to sell, he’d do it in a split second. If he knew a Vinny Icepick, he’d borrow sixteen large.
He had to find some money somewhere, somehow… and soon.
8
The town of Weston, ten miles west of Boston, was where a lot of the really rich Bostonians lived. Some of the houses out there were true McMansions, but the biggest ones were hidden from view by great swaths of forest, marked by nothing more than a street sign or a mailbox.
Danny drove past the entrance to Galvin’s property three times without seeing it. There were no lights or stone columns or pillars or plaque. Just a simple aluminum mailbox with a number painted on it, not particularly large.
He turned down an unmarked road and followed its winding path through the woods until a set of tall wrought-iron gates, filigreed with ornate scrollwork and attached to tall stone columns, appeared in a clearing. He came to a stop. The gates were closed. Mounted to a column were a call box and a CCTV camera.
He cranked down the car window and pressed the CALL button. After a few seconds, a woman’s voice crackled over the intercom, “Please come in.”
The gates swung inward as low lights came on, illuminating another stretch of driveway, here paved with cut stone. The road curved gracefully around until suddenly an immense house loomed into view, like a castle appearing out of the mist.
It was Georgian, built of fieldstone with a slate roof. Its façade was perfectly illuminated by floodlights on the ground. It had graceful lines and was three stories high and almost half as long as Danny’s block on Marlborough Street. Danny had been expecting a gaudy McMansion. But Galvin’s house, though vast, was actually beautiful.
Off to one side was a full basketball court. Danny remembered clearly the day his father had installed an in-ground basketball hoop on a pole next to the blacktop of their driveway. How all the neighbor kids thought that was as cool as it got and wanted to use it at all times of day.
In front of the house was a circular drive. He pulled around, got out, slammed the door. Its rusty hinges squeaked.
The front door came open. It was a huge slab of ancient-looking oak that looked like it came from a castle in Spain. Galvin, in suit and tie, stood there with his wife. She was dazzling. She had glossy straight black hair and big brown eyes and a radiant smile and reminded him of Penélope Cruz, only a few years older. She was small and slim and wore a clingy, deep blue sheath that showed off a long waist and the swell of a voluptuous bosom. She didn’t look old enough to have a kid who’d graduated from college.
Behind them, a couple of little rat-dogs skittered and yapped. They were tiny, hairless, and dark gray with outsize ears like a bat’s. “Loco! Torito! Quiet!” the woman said. “I’m so sorry. They think they’re protecting us, they’re keeping us safe. I’m Celina.”
Danny had expected a servant to open the door, a butler in livery. Not the hosts themselves. He introduced himself and handed her a bottle of wine in a metallic-looking red Mylar gift bag that someone had left in his apartment a couple of years ago when he still had people over for dinner.