The students drifted beyond her field of vision, and Renee turned her attention back to the room. Joe had been showing up for practice drunk or high or not at all, the baseball coach was saying. He wasn’t bench-pressing enough, couldn’t run the nine-minute mile required of all players. He was barely passing three classes and flat-out failing a fourth. His teammates felt like they didn’t know him. Worse, they couldn’t trust him. Yes, he’d had a decent freshman season, their hopes had been high for his sophomore year, but Joe’s behavior now was intolerable. Beyond the pale.
The registrar followed in a similar vein but focused on academics, reading comments from Joe’s professors and passing to Renee copies of Joe’s underwhelming schoolwork.
Finally it was the dean’s turn. There were the team problems, the academic issues, yes, but the most serious incident had occurred two nights before at the frat party.
“He was appointed the bongmaster?” the dean said, unsmiling. “Something like that. Neighbors complained about the noise, and let me tell you, neighbors of a frat house are accustomed to noise.” Still he didn’t smile, though he did raise one dark eyebrow and gazed at Renee with something that suggested a wryness, an ability to see humor in this situation. Or maybe he was just flirting with her; it was always difficult for Renee to tell.
When the police arrived, they found a dozen fraternity brothers passed out in the common room, numerous others on the grounds of the frat house in various states of intoxication and undress. A dozen people were taken to the ER with alcohol poisoning; one girl was still hospitalized. Her stomach had been pumped, she’d briefly stopped breathing on her own, but she was now out of intensive care. Her parents were at her bedside.
“She’s an eighteen-year-old freshman,” the Dean said, his cheeks coloring. “She could have died, Ms. Skinner. The university is facing possible legal— Well, let me just say that it’s a very troubling, very difficult situation all around.”
When the police arrived at the party, three young men were seen running out of the building. One of these men had been Joe. He’d been carrying nearly a pound of marijuana on his person, the dean told her. One pound. Additional drugs and drug paraphernalia were confiscated from the fraternity house: cocaine, tabs of Ecstasy, PCP, various other pills that had yet to be identified.
It was at this point in the meeting that Renee mentally left the room. She opened the heavy door and floated out over the polished oak floorboards and down the wide, curving staircase to that brilliant emerald quad where she’d seen the students. Wait! she yelled. Wait for me! Renee had never applied to Alden College; after receiving the scholarship from the University of Connecticut, a school located within driving distance of Bexley, it made no sense to apply anywhere else. Throughout those four years of college, Renee had continued to live at home, sharing a room with Caroline, eating Noni’s food, working part-time. She’d never had the occasion to walk across a quad like this quad. She wondered if such an experience would have changed her.
Renee floated back into the meeting. The dean was still talking. The police had agreed to release the men into his custody. No charges had been filed. Yet.
“But you must understand, Ms. Skinner, the seriousness of the situation.” The dean gazed at her without blinking.
That year Renee was twenty-four and looked eighteen. The men in the room had cataloged Joe’s egregious errors as though this were primarily a subject of university concern. Today did not represent, for them, the dissolution of thirteen years of dreams and family sacrifice. It didn’t signify anything more troubling than the payment of legal fees and a rejig of Alden’s baseball team, the unexpected need for a new center fielder, maybe that kid from Gainesville, someone who might have more staying power than Joe Skinner, the disappointment from Bexley.
“Under normal circumstances Joe would be a candidate for expulsion,” said the dean. “His academic record alone is grounds for that. The fraternity party only worsened his position. The other two young men caught with drugs in their possession, both with academic records similar to your brother’s, have already been asked to withdraw.”
The baseball coach shifted in his chair. “But because Joe’s a scholarship athlete, we don’t want to go that route.”
“We’re looking for some kind of assurance from you,” the registrar contributed. “From Joe’s family.” He raised a pair of remarkable gray eyebrows.
All three men gazed at Renee. Waiting.
“Well, you can’t expel him,” Renee said. She paused. Then, in a rush, “You know, our father died when we were young, and then our mother became clinically depressed and basically didn’t leave her bedroom for three years. It was really hard on Joe. He’s still recovering in a way.”
Renee felt the tenor of the room change. A tentative relief settled over her, alongside a pure revulsion at what she’d done. To use their father’s death like that, to betray Noni. Joe would hate her for it. Though of course he would never know; she would make sure of that.
The coach cleared his throat. “Yes, well. Apparently he was talking to the police about his father.”
“To the police?” Renee asked. “What do you mean?”
“Ask Joe about it,” the coach said, not meeting Renee’s gaze. “I think your brother may need some additional . . . assistance.”
The coach’s demeanor put Renee on high alert. Why would the man not look her in the eye?
Renee turned now to the dean. “Please. What about academic probation?” she said. “Something like that. He’ll do better. I’ll make sure that he does.”
“He will have no other chances,” said the dean.
In the end the panel agreed to a two-year academic probation, during which Joe would be required to maintain a B average and be the subject of no disciplinary hearings. The fraternity was prohibited from hosting parties for the remainder of the year and would require a school administrative chaperone at all parties the following year. Joe Skinner was off the baseball team, effective immediately.
Renee shook all the hands, and then she left the wood-paneled room and vomited neatly into a tall trash can in the hall.
“Don’t tell Noni,” was the first thing Joe said when he opened the door to his room at the frat house. A girl, elfin and blond, slipped from behind Joe and past Renee. Her eyes were red.
“Bye, Joe,” she said tearfully, with a quick wave of a tiny hand.
Renee ignored the girl. “Of course I won’t tell her,” Renee said. “Listen, we need to talk.”
In the common room, they sat on a sticky leather couch. The only other furniture was a wide-screen television and three battered beer kegs.
“Will they take away the scholarship?” asked Joe.
“No,” said Renee. “They will not take away the scholarship. You played for the first half of the season. You’re lucky. They could have taken it away. They could have expelled you.”
“Oh, that’s such a fucking relief,” Joe said, and he began to laugh.
“But, Joe,” Renee said sternly, “you have to clean it up. Stop messing around.” She explained the probationary terms offered by the college.
Joe stretched his neck to the left and right. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I won’t get in trouble like this again.”