“Simple. After you met with Sandrine and me, followedby an hour of listening to the fearsome Fitzgerald moan, I called the woman’s attorney. You saw him at that first hearing. I said, ‘There’s this guy, you might remember him from six years ago. He’s a little nuts, but other than that not a bad egg.’ And the lawyer said, ‘I’ll get back to you.’ An hour later, he calls back with the cash.”
Colin followed him across the lot. “I’d like to thank her.”
“Write her a letter. I’ll give it to the attorney.”
“Will she get it?”
Arnold reached for the door. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
First stop was a barbershop, where the people treated Colin in the same manner they showed Arnold in the next chair. He took careful note of how Arnold spoke, telling them it was Colin’s big day, he needed to look respectful, and heard the man standing behind Colin’s chair reply that respect was big on their list of styles. The barber’s hands smelled of nothing. Incredibly beautiful music played in the background. Midway through the cut, Colin asked about what he was hearing.
The man was grey-haired and small and very fit looking. “That’s Benny Goodman. You never heard of the great man?”
“He’s wonderful.”
“Wonderful is the right word. You and I are going to get along just fine.” The barber spent the rest of the trim on a running commentary of the clarinetist and his orchestra. His work with Gene Krupa. The famous 1938 concert at Carnegie Hall. When the melody “Sing, Sing, Sing” came on, the barber revealed an amazing tenor, humming the melody and then switching to a harmonic second. All the other barbers were smiling by the time he whipped the cloth from around Colin’s neck. He even brushed him down to the song’s tempo.
Colin stepped from the chair and said, “That was the best haircut of my entire life.”
The barber offered him a hand. “Little man, you come back here any time you like. We’ve got a whole world of music to explore, you and me.”
As Arnold led him from the shop, he said, “The kid makes friends everywhere he goes.”
They stopped in the food court for lunch, then headed into Next. Arnold insisted he buy multiples of shirts, trousers, shorts, underwear, socks. New sneakers, dark brown loafers, canvas-and-leather belt, gym shorts, and Next T-shirts. When Colin protested he would soon grow out of everything, Arnold waved it away. “That’s the fuming Fitzgerald talking. She’s not here. Hurry up and choose. I’m bored out of my mind.” He stared over the racks, seeking the exit. “I forgot how much I hate shopping.”
But Colin loved every minute of it. Each choice was another fragment of liberty set into this new definition of his life. The fabric felt exquisite against his skin and fit better than anything he had ever owned. And every moment was spiced by the music that still bounced around in his head. Jazz. He loved the mathematical precision of how the instruments fit together. Flying high, but always in control.
After Next they entered Circuit City, where Arnold bought him a phone with a thousand minutes and a Dell laptop. It was a modest system with an AMD processor, a thirteen-inch screen, and not enough memory. Not great, but great just the same. Everything went on Arnold’s card, the clothes and lunch and haircuts and phone. The hundred dollars made a reassuring lump in Colin’s front pocket. Not having to spend his own money made the day sweeter still. As they left the shop, Arnold told him, “Load your phone and get comfortable using it. Take it with you everywhere. There’s no traveling around Wilmington without a lifeline.”
He left the mall dressed in one set of his new clothes, and carrying so many bags they bumped against his legs withevery step. Arnold carried more than he did, including a new backpack. Another first.
When they returned to Highway 74, Arnold reached for the radio and said, “You want music?”
“Jazz.”
“A man after my own heart. Jazz it is.” He hit the second button. “And away we go.”
The UNC Wilmington admission dean’s office was in Kenan Hall. Arnold pulled into a visitor’s slot and led him up the front stairs, through the main entrance, down a long hall. “I taught here while I did my graduate work at Chapel Hill. Back before the last ice age. It’s a great place, and getting better. Wilmington started off as a training school for local companies requiring skilled workers. It’s grown into a very solid university, and the graduate programs are coming up by leaps and bounds.” Arnold looked down at him, seemed to find what he sought. “They need a star on the rise. You may just fit that bill.”
Colin had no idea what he meant, but liked the feeling it gave him.
They entered the dean’s office together. Arnold positioned his chair slightly behind Colin’s, a reassuring presence who was not entirely connected to the meeting but there just the same. Dean Sykes was a pleasant enough woman, precisely trimmed silver hair, sweater and skirt of a pearlescent grey, gold watch, keen arctic gaze. She spoke softly, asked a number of questions, but Colin had the impression it was all perfunctory. As if the decisions had all been made long before he arrived. She took no notes. Twenty minutes later it was over. As he stood, the dean said, “You are far from the first young person to study here. Your age is a curiosity, nothing more. You must show yourself to be worthy of this opportunity. In your studies and in your behavior. Do I make myself clear?”
His meeting with the professor responsible for the UNCW Department of Mathematics and Statistics was something else entirely.
For one thing, Arnold seated himself on a bench that faced onto Lions Gate Drive. “Your meeting is with Professor Fremdt. Room 202.”
“You’re not coming?”
“The dean is one thing. You’ll be meeting this man every week. You need to start like it will continue.” Arnold stretched out his legs and turned his face to the sun, catlike in his relaxed state. “You’ll be fine.”
A Sunday torpor had settled upon the building. Even so, Colin felt eyes on him, heard comments trailing along behind. He tried to tell himself that it was simply more of the same, only coming from older students.
Fremdt was a big man who exuded a restless, almost fierce energy. His office was large enough to hold a long table with a dozen chairs slid around so as to all face the blackboard covering the side wall. Fremdt watched him enter and barked, “Eames, right?”
“Yes, Professor.”
Fremdt had a round face made even bigger by a shock of unruly dark hair, beard, and black oversized glasses. He spoke with a distinct accent, but clipped off each word, as if he had spent years making sure his students understood him clearly. “So. This academy, I have heard of it. Every student is gifted, no?”