Surprise Me (7 page)

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ISABELLE DELIVERS THE LAST PAGES
of Chapter Three the Tuesday before graduation. She comes into Daniel’s office, her long legs in denim shorts, her feet in flip-flops, her hair brushed away from her face into a high ponytail, commenting on the unnatural heat of this early May day. “They say it’s going to be a hundred and one today.” Daniel’s first thought is that she looks maybe ten years old, but he doesn’t tell her that. Instead he extends his hand as he always does.

And she gives him what she sincerely hopes will be the final pages and situates herself on the floor, her back against the sofa, bare legs stretched out in front of her. She takes from her backpack Cormac McCarthy’s
All the Pretty Horses,
a novel she picked up solely because she felt Daniel would like it, and begins reading.

When Daniel finishes her pages, he says, “They’re good.”

“They are? I thought they were! Oh my God, I’m finished!”

“Not yet.”

And she groans. “Daniel, graduation is Saturday.”

“You have four days, then.”

“What’s wrong with them?”

“Nothing’s wrong with them. They just can be better.”

“You know,” she tells him, but there’s none of the anger of their early interactions, “nobody but me would put up with that kind of vague directive.”

“Isabelle,” he says very quietly, “you know exactly what I mean.”

She sighs dramatically for his benefit as she drags herself off the floor, stuffs the novel in her backpack. “Unfortunately, I do. You’re going to tell me that Melanie is too intimidated by the cop.”

“Where’s her famous attitude in that scene?”

“Okay, okay.”

When she’s at the door, a thought occurs to her. “Come to graduation. Will you, Daniel?”

He shakes his head, not looking at her, his hands busy on his desk, his eyes there.

“You could meet my parents—not that that’s any big inducement, but you could see me up there. You could see me walk across that stage and graduate.”

“I wish I could. I do. But I just can’t.”

“Okay.” And she shrugs as if it doesn’t matter, but of course he knows it does. He watches her face close up; her tone of voice become impersonal. “I’ll try to give you these last pages by Friday, but if I can’t, I’ll bring them by—”

He interrupts her. “I can’t go anywhere.”

She shakes her head. She has no idea what he’s saying. “You’re here.”

“Here and my house, that’s it, and if Stefan didn’t show up most days to walk me to and fro like a goddamn preschooler, I probably wouldn’t make it to either place.”

She walks back into the room, drops her backpack, takes her customary seat on the couch. They’re maybe three feet apart. “What is it?”

“It’s called agoraphobia. It means literally ‘fear of the marketplace,’ only for me it’s fear of every place that isn’t this office or my house.”

There—it’s out. She’s the only person besides Stefan he’s ever told, and he watches her face for a reaction. If she’s repulsed by such weakness or flooded with pity or—

“I know what it is,” Isabelle says with the same matter-of-factness she used earlier to comment on the weather. “My aunt Sarah has it. She can’t even walk out into her backyard.”

Daniel nods.

“People get over it,” Isabelle says.

“A few.”

“There’s medication and therapy—”

He stands up behind his desk. “It’s not your problem, Isabelle.” He won’t discuss this any further. “These last eight pages are your problem.”

She’s preoccupied with what he’s just told her. “That’s why people say you’re not engaged or why you don’t even show up for meetings or why you didn’t—”

“Stop!”

She does.

“Bring the pages to my house when you’re done.”

“Okay.” She stands again, slings her backpack over a shoulder. “Well, I guess I don’t have to ask if you’ll be home.”

He looks up at her. What?

“Any old time should work out fine for you, don’t you think?”

“Isabelle.” It’s a warning, which she ignores.

“Here’s the thing—I won’t have to call first or make an appointment.”

As her hand flies to cover her mouth, he sees the smile anyway. “You’re totally outrageous.”

No one has ever said that to her before. She’s thrilled. “Good,” she tells him as she walks out.

—

THE LATE-ARRIVING PARENTS FILE INTO
Kellman Amphitheater, an arena carved out of the hillside which college legend has it mimics the ancient theater at Delphi. Struggling in the heat, the middle-aged people climb the stone steps higher and higher to reach the last few vacant seats at the top. All graduations at Chandler College are held in this outdoor venue, the likelihood of rain in May in Southern California being quite remote. Historically, May is mild, but this year, for some reason, the temperatures are soaring and the sun is brutal.

Despite the 95-degree heat, many families have been sitting in the unshaded venue for hours, laying claim to their spots. Every parent has a camera in hand, ready to capture that one moment they’ve anticipated for the past four or five or six years, that instant when their graduate reaches out and takes his or her diploma from the hand of the president of the college.

Isabelle’s father, Eli Rothman, sitting midway up the steep semicircle, wishes they had arrived earlier so they could have gotten better seats, but Ruth takes forever to get herself ready, as if each event they attend is her opening night. And he is worried about Isabelle and this unseasonable heat. How long do they have to be in those heavy black robes? Has she made sure to drink lots of water this morning and slather her face with sunscreen? He would guess not. He glances at his wife, who is fanning herself with the program and scanning the crowd, looking…well, dissatisfied is the best way he can describe it. The three boys sit between them. It is always the way—the children between them, even though the children are practically grown. Aaron is seventeen and will graduate from high school next year, and the twins are almost sixteen.

He has one of those moments when he looks at his wife and honestly can’t remember why he married her. Whatever was he thinking twenty-two years ago? He knows Ruth has those same moments, only probably many more of them. If she hadn’t gotten pregnant on their honeymoon, would they still be together? He doesn’t know.

Thank God Isabelle turned out to take after him. She looks like him and her temperament is like his. He worries about Ethan, one of the twins, because he seems to have inherited Ruth’s self-aggrandizing dramatic flair. No good can come of that.

He spots Nate’s parents in the crowd, much closer to the stage, of course. Sharon and Greg Litvak are beaming with self-congratulation. Here it is—the graduation, magna cum laude, of their brilliant son, whose future is limitless and who has no stumbling blocks to his success. Eli truly wishes he liked these people better, since it seems their children are moving in lockstep into the future.

And now, thank goodness, the music starts and the audience begins to settle, although he sees that every mother continues to fan herself with the program. As the graduates file in, it is Aaron who spots Isabelle first. “There she is. Do you see her, right behind that big guy with the ponytail?” And Eli does. He points for Ethan and Noah. And finally Ruth, who has to rummage around in her purse for her glasses, which she refuses to wear unless it’s absolutely necessary, spots her, as well. So they all see her and they can settle back for the speeches and the awarding of the diplomas.

John Liggins, the president of the college, a large, imposing black man known for promoting diversity and thinking outside the box—Daniel owes his stay at Chandler to him—starts his welcome by thanking them all for coming, acknowledging the unseasonal heat, congratulating the graduating seniors, and then, switching gears, he tells the still settling crowd that he feels it is incumbent upon him to acknowledge the history-making event that occurred on May 10, just a few days earlier, in Pretoria, South Africa: Nelson Mandela’s inauguration as that country’s first black president.

“President Mandela had much to say that would apply to our graduates,” Liggins tells the audience, “but I would like to quote you all one particular sentence from his inaugural speech: ‘We enter into a covenant that we shall build the society in which all South Africans, both black and white, will be able to walk tall, without any fear in their hearts, assured of their inalienable rights to human dignity—a rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world.’ ”

The crowd has grown silent; the dignity of Mandela’s words has compelled them to quiet and listen. John Liggins tells his graduating seniors, “All of you would do well to take the same pledge, to strive to build exactly the same society here in our country.

“There is, of course, a great deal more to say, and under normal conditions I would be saying it. Probably too much and too long.” There’s a ripple of laughter from the students. John Liggins is a very popular president. “But I made a promise,” he continues, “given the unseasonable heat, to cut my remarks short today.” There’s a scattering of applause, particularly from the graduates, and Liggins laughs and says, “I guess I made the right decision.”

And then he introduces the commencement speaker, some Los Angeles official—is he the mayor?—who begins his speech by assuring the audience that he will make no such concession to the weather. Standing at the podium, multiple white pages of his speech fluttering in the hot Santa Ana wind, this small, trim Latino man promises (threatens?) to give the whole speech and nothing but the whole speech. This is a once-in-a-lifetime moment for your graduates, he tells the parents, and what he has to say may well change their lives. A groan escapes from the audience, but he ignores it and begins talking…and talking…and talking. After forty minutes, with no end in sight, Ruth leans toward Eli, across the boys,“I’m going to faint. I’ve got to find some shade.”

Aaron gets up with her without being asked, to take her arm, to help her out of the amphitheater.

“You’re going to miss Isabelle,” Eli warns, but all Ruth does is wave her hand as she makes her way out of their row. He looks at the twins, Ethan and Noah, and shrugs. “Your mother can’t take the heat.”

“Neither can I,” Ethan shoots back, “but you don’t see me leaving.”

“You’re fifteen and she’s…well, a lot older.”

“Yeah, Dad, so what?”

Eli doesn’t have an answer to that. And Ruth and Aaron don’t come back. It is only Eli and the twins who see Isabelle walk across the stage, radiating happiness, take her diploma, and stride with purpose into the rest of her life.

—

AFTERWARD, AS THE FAMILIES AND GRADUATES
mill about outside the arena, Eli finds Ruth sitting at a small table under a tree. Her sandals are off, her eyes are closed, and she’s fanning herself with the now very rumpled program. Aaron stands miserably by with three bottles of water in hand.

“Well, you missed her.”

“Eli, I had a throbbing headache. I was dizzy and nauseous. My heart was going a mile a minute. Do you know what those are symptoms of? They’re symptoms of heatstroke. Should I have stayed in my seat? Is that what you wanted, your wife dead at her daughter’s graduation?”

Eli considers this question. For a split second it sounds good to him, and then he says, “Of course not, but Ruth, we came all this way to see her graduate, and you missed the moment when—”

“How did I know it was going to be this hot? Is that my fault? You know I can’t stand the heat.”

And Isabelle, pushing through the knots of people, spots them. “Hey, Dad! Mom!” They watch her come to them, grinning, relieved, riding a bubble of celebration.

Eli embraces his daughter and whispers in her ear, “My beautiful college graduate,” and the boys mumble, “Congratulations.” Aaron manages an awkward arm around her shoulder, a halfhearted hug. And then Ruth and Isabelle are facing each other.

“It’s bloody hot.” Ruth doesn’t get up.

“Oh, I know. I’m so sorry, Mommy, I know how much you hate the heat.”

“I was sitting there and suddenly I knew I was getting heatstroke!”

“Ruth.” Eli’s tone an admonishment to his wife, which she ignores.

“The problem is they don’t have any other place to hold graduation,” Isabelle explains.

“Well, could they have handed out water or hats or something?”

“I’m so sorry,” Isabelle says again, as if the heat and the amphitheater, the lack of water and hats, were all her fault.

“Isabelle was sitting in the same heat as you, only in that long black robe, which must have upped her internal temperature at least ten more degrees.”

“So it doesn’t matter what I was feeling? Is that what you’re saying?”

Isabelle and Aaron exchange a look:
Here they go.
The twins melt into the crowd. They don’t want to witness what they’ve seen countless times before: their parents, with over twenty years of resentment built up, going at each other until her mother starts to cry and her father apologizes.

“Of course that’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is that today is Isabelle’s day and you should have—”

“What? Died? Because it’s her day?”

“Mommy, nobody said that.”

“Your father did—I just heard him.”

“Ruth, that is not at all what I said.”

“There’s nothing wrong with my ears!”

“Why do you persist in attributing to me things I never said, things I never in a million years would say?”

And they’re off. Only today Isabelle can’t take it. Isn’t it possible to put all this aside for one day? Her day. The day she’s so happy. Do they have to ruin it? Well, she won’t let them. She’ll flee the train wreck piling up in front of her. It feels very daring.

“When they stop fighting,” she says to Aaron, “tell them I’ll see you all later at the hotel.”

“You can’t leave.” Aaron is panicked. “It’ll only get worse if you leave.”

“See those steps over there, the ones in the shade? Go sit there and wait it out.”

Aaron doesn’t move. He looks wretched.

“I have a paper to turn in, A.”

“Can I come with you?”

“Not this time. I’ll see you later, okay?”