Getting Deeper

As the days wear on, "The Proposition" feels more and more like an impatient royalty, come to visit for a long-overdue debt, tapping his foot to a mounting rhythm, throwing his weight around in the stultifying lounge of Sophia Masterson's mind. She has filed it there, in the back, hopefully in the mucky subconscious, along with her memory of that afternoon in the library. In the classroom, whenever Brad Silverstone raises his hand to offer an answer or attempts to corner her for an odd moment of clarification, Sophia dodges these advances, like a female Neo dancing to bullets in The Matrix. Strangely, the boy doesn't seem to be getting tired of it.

Then one afternoon her fifteen-year-old Hyundai—a relic from her college days which she had kept for nostalgia's sake, telling Derek that Camden High School's just around the corner, anyway, so no need to use any of Derek's Beemers—refuses to reanimate itself. The hollow rasp of the engine dying down even before it could start makes her feel like some city slicker dropped into the middle of a rainforest, trying to start fire with wet flints. She's standing there, cursing the usual bad lack and good old Murphy's Law, trying to decide whether to call up Derek or not, when a Mercedes convertible appears out of nowhere, and out of it juts a pretty head.

"You still owe me coffee, Miss Masterson." Brad squints in the slanting rays of the dying sun. On his face sit hope and good nature. She hesitates. There has been talk, not much but maybe enough to make her the lunch-time topic, of Sophia Masterson being a favorite among the boys. She suspects it's all because of Brad—the boy has been the center of attention, and everything the boy touches turns to gold, or muck, depending on how you'd like to look at it. Brad as much as calls out your name on the hall, and you become an instant celebrity: blogged about, photographed, profiled in the school paper. It doesn't normally bother Sophia, but sometimes, it can be annoying. Especially if the harbinger of malice is twitchy history teacher Mr. Frome.

"I gather Silverstone the Young is very interested in you?" Mr. Frome had said the other morning at the faculty lounge, bringing his face close to her, as if intimating a secret. He was so close his body spray made her gag.

"Very interested?" Sophia found it hard to mask her irritation. "Are you insane?"

Heads turned to them. Mr. Frome, surprised at the unexpected ferocity, backed out, sipped his coffee. It took him a while to recover. "I mean, you know, this is just between you and me. A little bird told me she found you and Brad doing something weird in the library. And she has kept quiet only because it's Brad Silverstone, and nobody wants to lose their job."

The obtuseness irritated Sophia even more. "Is the 'little bird' named Mrs. Chatham?"

"Oh no, what?" Mr. Frome laughed nervously. "No, not Mrs. Chatham, no."

So it's Mrs. fucking Chatham, thought Sophia. That gossipy old hag.

"I'm just a bit concerned, Miss Masterson." Mr. Frome's lower lip twitches when he's saying something not entirely true, like that one time he said he wasn't bothered by how huge and perky Sophia's breasts were and that he's actually gay. "People talk. And when they do, the talk takes on a life of its own. I'm just a friend, you know. Brad can be bad news."

In that dark, deep place within her, where her most rabid judgments lie brooding, Sophia has always found Mr. Frome exceptionally repugnant—even if the man were not doing anything at all. He had always reminded her of some toxic sludge. But the news, if that was what it was, made Sophia lose appetite for her croissant. She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose and elbowed her way out of the faculty lounge, vowing to never set foot in that place again, a vow broken about four hours later at lunch time.

People talk. If there's one thing Sophia hates most, it's speculation at her expense. She is tired of it—her physical beauty has often brought her heartache more than anything else, with Derek as the only exception. Men tell her she is beautiful, women find her beauty threatening, and neither has earned her much good except make certain parts of her life unnecessarily difficult to live through. And Mrs. Chatham—why would she say that? She knew it wasn't true. Sophia felt like crushing the old hag's larynx with her shoe, and she thinks she might just be compelled to do just that the next time she swings by at the library.

But now, Brad pleads with those puppy eyes, that pretty mouth saying, "Just one coffee, Miss Masterson," and Sophia happens to be too harried, too sick of the little wrong things that she endured throughout the day, that she simply says, "Sure."

As it turns out, Brad Silverstone's idea of "having a coffee" is driving all the way to the JW Marriot downtown, at a nice, intimate place called Espressamente. Realizing the street they're on, Sophia feels uneasy: a couple of blocks away is her husband's bank, and it's likely they would bump into someone they know. She has yet to tell Derek about Brad, and he might easily be able to connect the dots with her recent fantasies. She doesn't know if Derek has a violent, jealous streak, but it could get ugly. On the other hand, she's not doing anything inappropriate, really. Just coffee, an exquisitely buttered croissant, and some conversation. It's not like they would slip into one of the swanky suites upstairs. Or wouldn't they?

"I love it here," Brad says. In the subdued interior light, the boy's chiseled good looks, his bone structure, make him look much older than his eighteen years. Anyone who sees them can mistake them for a couple having an intimate date. "The ambiance. The food. The fragrance. It's like I never left Italy."

Sophia grunts in assent; she has never been to Italy, so she figures the less she opens her mouth, the less foolish she would appear. The way she's stabbing her fork into the bread and stuffing it into her mouth seems to say, "I want this business over and done with." And Brad, fortunately, seems to get it. Because now he's gazing into her eyes intently, his lips pressed firmly together, weighing his next words.

"I'm not much experienced," Brad says. "I need your... your guidance." He gently reaches out for her hand. That's bold, Sophia thinks, I give you that. She retracts her hand, but spares his feelings by doing so in the pretense of reaching for something in her purse, which turns out to be not there, anyway. Sophia flashes that coy, little killer smile.

"And what 'experiences' would that be, Mister Silverstone?"

"About things... in the world. You know, things."

Brad is being uncharacteristically obtuse. So unlike the directness of that library-related note he slipped her some days ago. And Sophia wonders if by "things in the world," does Brad mean something of a naughty nature? And by "guidance," does he mean "please bend over, I'm rich and I can command anyone to do my bidding?"

Sophia would have grinned if she didn't catch herself on time. "Well," she says, "If you're referring to that thing you mentioned in the library—do you mean that?"

Brad leans forward, his brow knitted in confusion. "What 'thing'?"

A minute wave of irritation sweeps over Sophia. What is this game this boy's trying to play? Of course, he knows what I'm talking about! "Tutorship, Mister Silverstone. Didn't you ask me to tutor you, help you catch up with the lessons, help you maintain the A+ reputation of the Silverstone family?"

"Ah," Brad's face lights up. "Yes. That's it." He sips his coffee. "I wonder how we'll go about that, you tutoring me."

"Exactly my point. I doubt that you need any tutoring. In fact, you seem ahead of everybody else in your class."

"But I need you," Brad says. "I mean, I need to catch up."

"Twice a week, then. After classes."

"Is that the usual schedule?"

"Would you have a problem with that?"

Brad shakes his head. "Not really. It's just that the schedule might be difficult to follow. You might have meetings. I might have meetings."

Sophia says nothing and waits for an offer she cannot refuse.

"How about weekends?" Brad says, fixing something in his lapel. He appears preparing to leave. "Saturdays, in my place?"

A sense of warmth streaks down Sophia's spine and settles in between her thighs. The Silverstone mansion, alone, intimate, with Brad Silverstone. Why, of course! She has to choke up her excitement by gulping down her coffee and asking for another one and saying perfectly nonchalant things like, "Well, let me check my schedule for the weekends. It might not be possible every week, but let's see." I'll make it very possible every single freaking week, is what Sophia wants to say.

"That's great!" Suddenly, Brad is a boy again, as if he just got a nice present. "I'll make sure it's well worth your time!"

There's something about the way Brad's face lights up that drops Sophia's jaws—how is it possible that someone could look this perfect?

Brad fishes out something from his pocket and hands her his card—tastefully designed, on which the name "Brad Silverstone, Assistant Vice President" is printed in gold. She looks at it like a scientist peering at a lab specimen.

"I'm sorry, it's a bit tacky, the gold letters and all that crap," Brad's smile suggests genuine embarrassment. "My father... He wants everything in gold. His lucky charm, he says."

Sophia is actually amazed at the "Assistant Vice President" part, not the "gold letters and all that crap," but she laughs and shakes her head and says, "Rich fathers. You can't live with them, you can't live without them."

Brad laughs, too. "Much like women." For a moment they find themselves unintentionally united by finding common ground in laughter.

"This settles everything, then." Brad looks at her as if she just said something about his manhood. "The coffee 'date' that I owed you and our tutorship."

"Well, yes. I guess. But I hope this won't be the last time you'll go out with me."

Sophia doesn't know how to respond to that. This isn't a date, she wants to say. But she could not yank the boy out from whatever he believes this was. So she stands up, gathers her bag, and offers to shake his hand: a wordless gesture that says, "Thanks for concluding this official, strictly business thing with me." Brad reluctantly follows suit—as if he doesn't want the "date" to end, yet. But he gently shakes her hand, squeezes it, lingering a bit longer than what may be considered "proper." By shaking his hand Sophia tries to maintain a semblance of propriety, although the sensation of Brad's delicate hand—too delicate to belong to a male, but then again, the most work the boy has ever had probably involved pushing pen and slashing a finger across a touch-screen device—reminds her that this was not "strictly business."

"It's a pleasure, Miss Masterson. I can't wait for Saturday."

Their eyes meet—a moment of potential acknowledgment to things unsaid—then the moment's gone and Sophia pauses to check her reflection on the glass wall. She declines Brad's offer to drive her home. She texts Derek and discovers he's still at his office. Sophia walks the couple of blocks to her husband's workplace, wondering if she's just trying to over-compensate—is she feeling guilty about not telling her husband about Brad? But then again, what is there to tell? From the coldest logical perspective, nothing's happening: just the richest boy on this side of town, heir to the family who owns the swanky school, and a lot of other things, requesting for some extra academic assistance. Tutorial classes. Nothing irregular about it. Every other teacher does it, although admittedly, you can say she's the luckiest one. In the end, it might turn out all these "subtle insinuations" exist only in her head—that there's no malice and desire, after all, in each of her encounters with Brad. That everything is incidental. That Brad asking her to serve as his private tutor arises purely out of necessity. Walking all the way to Derek's office gives her the rare chance to think, but even as she's telling the building's receptionist to inform Derek Masterson that she'd rather wait at the lobby, Sophia has not resolved anything. She's excited about spending time "tutoring" Brad Silverstone, and the more aware she is of this excitement, the sharper is the pang of guilt stabbing her from the periphery of her being. She doesn't even notice Derek materializing by her side, saying, "Isn't my lovely wife so sweet for asking me out to dinner?"