Christopher Beha: Arts & Entertainments: A Novel

In the days leading up to the reunion, Eddie had entertained the idea of saying a few words himself, offering his insider’s view of life at St. Albert’s these days. That seemed foolish now. As the only member of his class still connected to the school’s daily existence, he’d considered himself a kind of host that night, but he’d played no role in planning the event. Such duties and privileges fell naturally to people — like Justin — in a position to write checks of some significance to the school’s endowment and capital needs.

“I’m going to be brief,” Justin began, “since I think it’s my job to catch Wilky when he passes out.”

Justin had come to St. Albert’s in the seventh grade as part of the Bootstrappers Program, which matched gifted underprivileged students with private-school scholarships. He’d been one of three black students to graduate in their class, and he now worked at some kind of financial concern — a fund? a firm? a trust? — with an ostentatiously generic name like Redwood or Bedrock, whose primary business so far as Eddie could tell was printing money in sufficient quantities to buy Justin a house on the South Fork and an apartment on Park Avenue by the time he’d turned thirty.

“Most of you know how important St. Albert’s is to me, how the opportunity to come here changed my life. And I want that opportunity extended to as many young boys as possible. That’s why I’m marking our fifteenth reunion by establishing a class scholarship fund. I encourage you all to consider contributing, in addition to your usual support of the annual campaign. To get us started, I’m endowing the fund with a gift of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”

Luce briefly applauded this number, but he was met only with uncomfortable laughter from Justin.

“I’m also committed to matching every dollar given to the fund up to another two hundred and fifty. So that’s a challenge to you cheap bastards. That’s all I’ve got to say, really, except it’s great to see old friends.”

Two hundred and fifty grand in one shot, Eddie thought as he raised his glass in a toast. Half a million, depending on how things worked out. It was certainly impressive, given where Justin had started. Though neither gifted nor excessively underprivileged himself, Eddie had also been something of a scholarship case, since his middle-class Irish immigrant parents could never have sent him to St. Albert’s without the steep discount offered to employees. If his own career had gone just a little differently, he might have had that kind of money to throw around now. After all, the gift was less than Martha made for each episode of Dr. Drake.

As the crowd fell back into conversation, Eddie crossed the room to find Blakeman.

“Just the man I’ve been waiting to see,” Blakeman said.

“You, too,” Eddie said. “I wasn’t sure you would make it.”

“I had to show up. Since you won’t come down to see me anymore.”

In his first years out of college, Blakeman had thrown parties at his place several nights a week, and Eddie had never missed them. At the time, Eddie’s acting career had still seemed promising. Blakeman had been struggling to get started as a writer, copyediting on the side for the New York Interviewer. Now Eddie was a drama teacher, and Blakeman was on the Interviewer ’s staff. He still threw the same parties, but Eddie hadn’t gone to one in years. He’d tried to keep up for a while, but he couldn’t stand in a room of writers and actors and filmmakers — even if most of them were “aspiring” writers and actors and filmmakers — and tell them he wasn’t going to aspire anymore. He’d watched himself become less interesting in other people’s eyes. Worse, he’d become less interesting in his own.

“Married life,” Eddie said. This was unfair to Susan, who would have been happy to spend an evening at Blakeman’s from time to time.

“Talk to me when you’ve got kids at home,” Blakeman said. Everyone knew that Blakeman would never have kids at home. “Unless there’s something you’re not telling me?”

“Nothing to tell,” Eddie said.

They left the building an hour later. Outside, someone made the predictable suggestion that they head to the stretch of bars on Second Avenue they’d snuck into during their last years at school. They stumbled across town until they arrived at an Irish pub that hadn’t existed back then but was indistinguishable in look and tone from the places that had. Above the bar a television set that in earlier days would have been showing whatever sporting event could be found now aired a reality show.

“Pure Bliss,” Reilly said. “My wife is obsessed with that show.”

“Mine, too,” Wilkins said as he handed out plastic shot glasses filled with a green liquid that appeared to have toothpaste mixed into it. “I can’t say I mind watching with her. Justine Bliss is pretty cute.”

“Hey, Eddie,” said Reilly. “If you were still with Dr. Drake, you could have one of those shows. We’d all be on TV right now.”

Eddie swallowed his shot, which had an odd spiciness that made his nostrils itch.

“If he was still with Martha,” Justin said, “he wouldn’t be wasting his time with any of us.”

“I’m sure a master of the universe like yourself could manage an audience,” Reilly told Justin. “But the rest of us would be out of luck.”

On the trip across town they had lost all but about a dozen classmates. Some of those remaining seemed ready to leave after an obligatory first drink. Eddie spotted Blakeman at the bar and thanked Wilkins for the shot before walking over. Blakeman bought a round, which they brought to a table in the corner.

“Catch me up,” Blakeman said. “How have you been?”

“What you were saying before,” Eddie answered. “About kids at home?”

Perhaps the alcoholic mouthwash had done it, but he felt like telling someone. For all the distance that had grown between him and Blakeman, Eddie didn’t have anyone else to tell. He had coworkers and a few couples that Susan invited over for dinner, but he didn’t have any real friends anymore.

“Sure,” Blakeman said, though he didn’t seem to know what Eddie was talking about.

“We’ve actually been trying for a while.”

“I can show you how it works, but I don’t think the men’s room has a lock.”

“It doesn’t seem to be happening,” Eddie pressed on.

“Aren’t there doctors for that?”

“Lots of doctors. Assisted reproductive technology. They call it ART.”

“I guess you know it when you see it.”

Eddie couldn’t even pretend to laugh.

“Sorry to hear it,” Blakeman said, once it was clear he couldn’t joke his way through the conversation.

“The thing is, for all that pain and trouble, Susan wants to keep at it.”

“And you don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“I don’t know whether it’s a good idea,” Eddie said. “I just know we can’t afford it. Insurance won’t cover most of it. We’re out of pocket more than ten grand in the past six months, and we’re broke.”

Eddie was nearly in tears. He didn’t know why he needed to tell Blakeman. There was nothing Blakeman could do about it.

“Do you remember Morgan Bench?” Blakeman asked.

Morgan was an old friend of Blakeman’s who used to hang around when Eddie and Blakeman were still close.

“Sure.”

“We’re having dinner tomorrow night. You should join us.”

“I don’t know.” Eddie was happy to be invited, but he resented the effort to change the subject. “I’ve got graduation and a reception afterward. But I’ll be free by dinner.”

“Try to make it work,” Blakeman told him. “I don’t just mean for the distraction. I think I can help.”