Page 85 of Playworld

“You should,” Mom said.

“It’s hard not to be optimistic,” Dad said.

“ToSam and Sara,” Mom said, after taking the wineglass from the waiter’s tray before he placed it on the table.

“ToSam and Sara,” we all said, and clinked teacups, which rang as dully as doubt.

—

The thing about the Saturday morning of Saturday detention was: getting up early for it felt earlier than getting up early for anything else. I was out the door and headed to school on my bike before anyone woke. Eagle-beaked gargoyles glared down on me from the spire of the Museum of Natural History. In the morning light, the building’s facade was as white as salt. My book bag was heavy, the spring warmth and exertion made my back sweat, my bitterness only intensified by the promise of such a summery day spent entirely inside.

Entering Boyd’s darkened lobby, it took a moment for my eyes to adjust. I wheeled the bike to the front hall’s pews and then sat, feeling oddly ashamed and utterly disgruntled. Detention began at eight, and,backlit as he entered the building, Dolinski at first appeared wraithlike. When he came into view, though, I could see he wore a suit and dress shirt, clothes that were entirely incongruous, although his hair was all over the place. He looked exhausted. He took a seat across from me and nodded.

“Am I late?” he asked.

From down the hall behind us, someone said, “You’re right on time.”

It was Mr. McQuarrie. He wore jeans and a Hawaiian shirt, plus a pair of two-tone monk strap loafers, and the sight of him in these mismatched civvies was inexplicably disturbing. On his index finger he spun a huge ring of keys. He looked positively delighted to be here.

In the book storage room, McQuarrie gave us instructions. Above, half the fixtures were switched off, so that the back of the room was shrouded in darkness. The walls, where visible, were lined with metal shelves, these containing rows of textbooks that disappeared down their length into the murk. Stacked on the floor before these were more boxes we were to open and inspect. “You see how these have been mishandled,” McQuarrie said, and squatted. He indicated where the cardboard appeared punched in. From his back pocket he produced a butterfly knife and twirled out the blade. He stroked the packing tape so that the flaps popped open with great force, like a tube of biscuits. Then he removed a book. “You see the result,” he said, and indicated where the binding’s top was bent.

“That doesn’t look so bad,” said Dolinski.

“Doesn’t look pristine either now, does it?”

From the box he removed a pink bill of lading.

“Sort the damaged books and stack the rest on the shelves. Then place the returns back in the box with the receipt and put them over there.” He indicated the far wall behind us, where more boxes were stacked.

Dolinski said, “What do we do when we’re finished?”

McQuarrie stood and reached between the shelves and flipped a switch. It lit the back of the room, which was stacked floor to ceiling with more boxes.

“You won’t,” he said. He left and then reappeared. “I’ll check up on you in a while.”

Then he departed.

Dolinski went straight to the back wall of boxes and began arranging them until they formed what was, for all intents and purposes, a chaise. He lay down on it and, after removing his blazer and rolling it into a pillow, crossed his arms and legs and closed his eyes.

“Turn off that light, please,” he said.

“Seriously,” I said.

“Is my helping going to get us out of here sooner?” Dolinski asked.

I sorted, I shelved. The work was so boring it was a form of torture. At 10:45, McQuarrie reappeared. He walked over to Dolinski, gently shook him awake, said, “Up, please”—considerateness that to me was astounding. “Who needs to use the dunny?”

We both raised our hands.

“Back in ten, please,” McQuarrie said.

We split up.

Wanting to kill time, I went to the first floor. To my left, the long hallway connecting the New School to the older wing was a solid hundred-yard dash. It was low-ceilinged and carpeted. I took a four-point stance, said, “Take your marks, set,” and then sprinted. Above me, the lights flicked past like in the Holland Tunnel. I let my form spring loose as I approached the far wall. After I tapped it, I turned and raised my hand to the cheering crowd. I took the ramp down, toward the cafeteria’s doors. Adjacent to it was the wrestling gym, and I entered. I walked to the mats’ edge and slipped off my sneakers. I shoulder-rolled to the end of the room and was so dizzy I had to wait for my equilibrium to reset. On my return lap, I shot single legs so fast my jeans squeaked. I felt the fitness I’d lost since January. I rolled onto my back and stared at the ceiling. I took several deep breaths. Listened to my racing heartbeat. The darkened room was as chilly as an empty church. I anticipated the upcoming season. That it was absent Kepplemen warmed me with a sense of possibility.

When I left, I walked the longest route possible I could imagine, hugging the chapel and then down the hallway past Miss Sullens’s room, when I heard the chatter of voices. I crept toward the one classroom whose door was propped open and from which a light shined, and then peeked into its entrance. Inside was the tech clique, mostly seniors,several of whom I didn’t know and several I did: Marc Mason, Todd Wexworth, and Hogi Hyun. A couple of middle schoolers: Chip Colson and Jason Taylor. The giant sophomore wrestler Angel Rincondon. They’d arranged the long tables into a giant rectangle. It was body-warmed in there, fragrant. A couple of pizzas had just been delivered. The top box was open. There was a roll of paper towels for napkins and a pair of two-liter Pepsis next to a stack of Styrofoam cups. In front of each person was a spiral notebook, a handful of arcane handouts, and dice of all sorts of hard-candy shapes and sizes. The blackboard behind them was covered with drawings of mazes and maps, and I noted that Wexworth at the far end of the table seemed the leader of sorts and sat behind several folded-open cardboard screens, each one elaborately decorated, ancient skeleton armies in battles beneath the crenellations of a castle, an elf kneeling on a demonic statue, prying an emerald the size of an ostrich egg from between the tip of its forked tongue.

Marc Mason, one of maybe five Black kids in the upper school, rocked back in his chair. He appeared mildly annoyed. Whatever I’d interrupted was very serious business.