Erich Segal - The Class

“Can I come with you, Daddy?” he pleaded.

My entire soul ached to steal him. But I told him he’d miss school. And his friends. And now he had to be a good boy and take care of his baby sister.

He promised and — I suspect, to make it easier on me — didn’t cry as he watched me toss my bag into the car to drive to New York. He just stood at the doorway and quietly waved.

Kids are smarter than we think. Which is why we end up hurting them so much.

When the Pulitzer Prizes for 1967 were announced, there was particular joy in the Harvard University news office. While it was hardly novel that two Harvard men won awards in the same year, it was rare — if not a first — that two members of the same class were simultaneously honored.

This was a nice little tidbit they could get out over the wires. For the year’s prizewinner for poetry was Stuart Kingsley ’58, and the recipient for music the already much-honored Danny Rossi of the same rich vintage.

In fact, the two classmates had not known each other at college. Stuart Kingsley spent his years at Harvard as an almost-invisible figure in Adams House. His powerful verse in the Advocate occasionally elicited praise from the reviewers of the Crimson .

Indeed, until the morning he received the phone call from the Pulitzer Committee, Stuart had continued to live in relative obscurity. He and his wife, Nina (Bryn Mawr ’61), and their two kids lived in a high-ceilinged, slightly seedy apartment on Riverside Drive near Columbia, where he taught creative writing.

What excited Stu almost as much as the prize itself was the prospect of finally meeting his illustrious classmate at the award ceremony.

“Think of it, Nina,” he enthused, “I might actually get my picture taken with Danny Rossi.”

But then to his chagrin, Stuart learned that there was no Pulitzer award ceremony. That phone call and your picture in The New York Times was it .

“What the hell,” Nina said to dispel her husband’s disappointment. “I’ll throw you the biggest damn party you’ve ever seen. Taylor’s New York State champagne will flow like seltzer.”

He hugged her. “Thanks, I’d like that. I don’t think I’ve ever really been the subject of a party.”

“Listen honey, if you want to meet Danny Rossi so badly, I’ll gladly invite him.”

“Yeah,” he replied with a sardonic smile, “I’m sure he’d love to come.”

Nina grabbed him by the shoulders. “Now you listen to me, kid. I haven’t seen this Savanarola ballet Rossi’s won for, but I’m sure it didn’t hurt that it was choreographed by George Balanchine. Anyway, it would have to be damn good to be on a level with your Collected Poems . So if you don’t mind my saying it, the honor would be his.”

“It doesn’t matter, Nina. In New York it isn’t so much talent that matters as image. And Danny’s got so much charisma …”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Stu, that’s just hype from a press agent’s office. Frankly, the only thing Rossi’s got over you is a few locks of flashy red hair.”

“Yeah,” Stu smiled, “and a few million bucks. I’m telling you the guy’s a real star.”

Nina looked at him with indulgent affection. “You know why I love you so much, Stu? Because you’re the only genius I know who suffers from the opposite of megalomania.”

“Thanks, honey,” he replied, gathering up his notes and stuffing them into his briefcase. “But you’d better cut this ego-boosting short, or I’ll be late for my four-o’clock seminar. See you around seven. We can throw a party just for us.”

When he returned, she had a surprise for him.

“Really, Nina? Are you serious?”

“Yes, my dearest, You are actually having lunch with your ‘charismatic’ classmate at one tomorrow in the Russian Tea Room. By the way, you may be stunned to learn he’s looking forward to meeting you .”

“How did you reach him?”

“Oh, I just had an apocalyptic notion. I left a message with the Hurok office and about ten minutes later he called back.”

“Nina, you’re terrific. It will be some occasion.”

“Yes, Stuart,” she said lovingly. “For him.”

The Russian Tea Room, on Fifty-seventh Street, scarcely an octave’s distance from Carnegie Hall, is a favorite New York haunt of the international music and literary set. Until this afternoon, Stuart Kingsley had known it only by reputation. Now he stood nervously at the entrance, scanning the tables to catch sight of Danny Rossi.

At one point he nodded to what he thought was an old friend. The balding, bespectacled chap gave him the most tenuous of acknowledgments and then turned away. It took another second for Stuart to realize that he had mistakenly greeted Woody Allen.

He did not commit the same gaffe when he perceived Rudolf Nureyev holding forth to a table of worshipful balletomanes. He merely smiled inwardly at the prospect of being so close to such living legends.

At last he spied his classmate. When their glances met, Danny waved him over to a corner booth, its table covered with yards of music paper.

“I see you don’t like to waste even a second,” Stuart remarked jovially as they shook hands.

“No, you’re right. I have an unfortunate tendency to overcommit myself. And you can’t deliver a ‘July Fourth Suite’ on Christmas Eve, can you?”

After Danny ordered blinis for them both, they ran the gamut of do-you-know, and discovered they had many friends in common among the artistic community of The Class.

“Do you get up from Philadelphia very often?” Stuart asked.

“At least once a week, unfortunately. It’s gotten so that I’ve had to rent a studio in the Carnegie Hall Apartments.”

“Must be kind of hard on your wife,” Stuart offered, unable to imagine having to spend a single day away from his beloved Nina.

“Yeah,” Danny replied, “but Maria’s pretty involved with the kids.” He then quickly changed the subject. “You know, I was almost as happy for your prize as I was for mine. I’ve always admired your stuff.”

“You’ve read my poetry?”

“Stuart,” Danny answered with a smile, “you publish regularly in the New Yorker . That’s my favorite airplane reading. So I don’t think I’ve ever missed a poem you’ve had in there.”

“My wife’s not going to believe this,” Stuart murmured half under his breath. And then aloud, “What are you writing at the moment, Danny? I mean besides what we’re using for a tablecloth.”

“That’s just it, Stuart. I’m starting to feel somewhat hemmed in on the composition front. That’s why this whole meeting with you is a kind of kismet. Have you ever thought of writing lyrics for a musical?”

“Do you want to know something?” Stuart confessed. “It’s not only been my secret dream, I’ve actually been playing around with a specific idea for a couple of years. It’s based on a kind of highbrow book, though.”

“Nothing wrong with that,” Danny responded warmly. “I wouldn’t be interested in doing another Hello, Dolly! What masterpiece of world literature do you have in mind?”

“Would you believe James Joyce’s Ulysses?”

“Wow, that’s a sensational idea. But do you think it’s really do-able?”

“Listen,” Stu answered, his creative juices now really flowing, “I’m so steeped in that damn book that if you had the time I could lay the libretto right out on this table. But I suppose you’ve got a fiendishly busy schedule.”

Danny stood up in the middle of Stu’s apology and said casually, “Order us some more coffee while I go reorchestrate my agenda.”

All afternoon Danny listened spellbound as his classmate cascaded with ideas. Naturally, they couldn’t cram Joyce’s whole epic novel into two hours of stage time. But they could concentrate on the “Nighttown” episode, when the protagonist, Leopold Bloom, wanders through various exotic parts of the city.