Ordinary People

It’s exam week, and Conrad is having trouble focusing on his work. Lately, he’s been more distracted than usual by thoughts of girls. Even his female teachers, one of whom is giving a final today, have been the subjects of his fantasies. Conrad forces himself to focus on his schoolwork.

When he goes to his locker, he sees Jeanine for the first time since Christmas break. He tries and fails to muster the courage to talk to her. He kicks himself for being such a coward, wondering why he put “Girls on the list. […] Girl would have been ambitious; Girls was ridiculous” (151). When he looks back, Jeanine has already walked away. He decides to go after her, slams his locker shut, and races down the hall to catch her. They talk about finals, and Conrad offers her a ride home. To his surprise, she accepts.

They listen to music in his car, and Conrad explains the car was a Christmas present. When they get to Jeanine’s house, she apologizes for asking if he had siblings the last time they hung out. She heard what happened to Buck and what happened to Conrad a year ago. She thanks him for the ride and gets out of the car.

At home, Beth has several friends over, most of whom are Conrad’s friends’ mothers. He escapes their prying questions and goes up to his room. He decides to call Karen and her mother answers. She tells him Karen isn’t home, and he leaves a message asking her to call. He decides he might as well try Jeanine, while he has the nerve. He looks up her number in the phone book and asks her on a date. She accepts.

At the legal office, Cal apologizes to Ray for not being as present at work as he should be. They recently fired Cherry and hired a new legal secretary, and most of the work landed in Ray’s lap. Ray tells him not to worry about it and asks what has been wrong with him lately; he isn’t being himself. Cal assures Ray that he’s fine. He is thinking about taking Beth to a golf tournament in Texas. They would stay with her brother and sister-in-law, and while it isn’t London, it’s at least something. However, he is worried about leaving more work for Ray. Ray tells him to go and that he doesn’t mind. He thinks it will be good for Cal and Beth to get away.

Ray tells Cal he worries about Conrad too much, and that when Nancy and Beth had lunch recently, Beth confided to Nancy that she feels the same. She feels that Cal is obsessed with Conrad’s recovery. Ray reminds Cal that Conrad will be leaving for college in a year, and he should learn to let go more. Cal is frustrated; he thinks Beth doesn’t think about Conrad’s problems at all, leaving him to do all the parenting.

Ray ends the conversation, apologizing for getting out of line. He was speaking from his experience of his daughter Valerie leaving for college and feeling as if she left for good. He argues that life is full of meaningless actions, so there’s no use in worrying. Cal recognizes that “[t]he fear behind the fear of losing people is that there might have been something you could have done to prevent it” (162).

Cal remembers last Christmas in Florida when they temporarily lost Conrad at the airport. They were overwhelmed with worry, but he had merely gotten lost on his way to the restroom. On the same trip, Howard scolded Cal for leaving Conrad alone at the beach while he and Beth played golf. Howard told Cal he shouldn’t leave Conrad alone, and he felt something was wrong. When Cal checked on Conrad, he assured his father that everything was fine. Looking back, Cal wonders if he missed warning signs.

Cal wonders if he really is obsessed, as Beth says, or if he has the right to be worried. Either way, he knows that “Ray is not right. Life is not a series of pathetic, meaningless actions. Some of them are […] beyond reason, maybe beyond forgiveness” (163). He looks around and wonders how many of his colleagues would agree with him, and then realizes that he doesn’t care if they do.

Conrad stands outside Jeanine’s house, waiting for someone to open the door. For their first date, he has decided to take her bowling. Jeanine’s mother welcomes him inside, where he meets her little brother, Mike. While he waits for Jeanine to come down, Mike tells Conrad that he is going to start learning how to play the guitar soon, which initiates a bond between them.

Jeanine comes down the stairs, and they leave for the bowling alley. She has never bowled before, but she’s a quick learner. Afterward, they have dinner at a McDonald’s and get to know each other better. They exchange zodiac signs and make up a game where they try to guess the stories of the other diners. They relive the moment he asked her out on the phone, and Conrad teases Jeanine for her reaction. She didn’t believe he was serious. Jeanine teases right back, reminding him that it took him five months to work up the courage to ask her out.

On the way home, the date ends with their first kiss, which happens “as casually as the earth one day spun itself loose from the sun and into whirling space” (171). Thrilled by the sensation, Conrad can’t help but remember the first day he saw her from Lazenby’s car. He thinks back to what Dr. Berger said. He “is right: the body doesn’t lie” (171). Conrad promises Jeanine he will call her tomorrow.

Cal and Beth discuss the trip to Texas. Cal knows it isn’t Europe, but at least he can whisk her away for a few days and ease some of their tension. He thinks back to their trip to Granada when Conrad was still in the hospital. He remembers “they had been happy there. Away from home, away from all of it, everything seemed orderly and safe” (173). He realizes those are the two things he prioritizes most. At last, he has words for something about his identity. In fact, these feelings cemented the fate of his relationship with Bacon.

When Bacon found out that Cal was set on marrying Beth while he was in law school, he withdrew his financial support and his job offer as his partner. Bacon scolded him for giving up on his dreams, but Cal had argued that he could pursue both his career and a family. He wanted people to share his life with, but Bacon told him he wouldn’t find that with Beth, saying, “She is not a sharer, Calvin. It’s you who will end up doing all the sharing” (174). His disapproval was not unexpected since Beth and Bacon despised each other. For a while, Cal did his best to balance his wants and needs with Beth’s and Bacon’s, but it ultimately failed.

Cal’s thoughts turn to Ray’s affair. He begins to question his motives for not having an affair of his own, whether it was out of love for Beth or fear that she would never forgive him. They discussed it once, and Beth was adamant that she would never return to Ray if she were Nancy. Even if no one else knew, it would be “too humiliating” (176). Cal wondered if “[some people are not given a capacity for forgiveness?” (176), but shut down that train of thought almost immediately. He pulls himself out of the memory and reminds himself not to think too much.

On a whim, Conrad decides to watch a swim meet. The team does poorly, and he briefly wonders if he shouldn’t have quit. Afterward, he walks by the locker room and hears the boys inside complaining about their loss. Conrad walks out to the parking lot, and the team bursts out the doors behind him. They complain about Salan’s lecture about how wonderful Buck Jarrett was, and one of the boys asks “[Y]ou think he’s ever gonna quit kissing the guy’s picture” (178). The words make Conrad’s blood boil, but he keeps walking until Lazenby calls out to him.

Stillman appears and nags Conrad about his new car and Jeanine, asking if they’ve had sex yet. Conrad tells him not to be a prick, to which Stillman responds, “Man, […] you’re the prick. Guys like you who walk around acting like you’re King shit, you give me a goddamn pain in the ass—” (179). Stillman doesn’t finish his sentence because Conrad begins to pummel him. Anger floods Conrad’s body, and Lazenby has to pull him off of Stillman.

Conrad rushes to the car and grips the steering wheel, trying to calm down. Lazenby gets in the passenger seat, handing him the keys and books he dropped. Lazenby tells Conrad he feels shut out and that they should be able to grieve Buck together. After all, Buck was his friend too. Conrad wasn’t expecting this and tries to steady his nerves as he tells Lazenby that he finds it tough to be with Buck’s friends. Lazenby sits next to him in silence until Conrad announces that he has to go. Lazenby gets out, and Conrad regains his composure as he begins the drive home.

When he gets home, Conrad makes a beeline for the laundry room to wash the bloodstains out of his shirt before his parents see. Then, he awaits his inevitable punishment. He mulls over the scene again and again, each time exaggerating how many times he hit Stillman, how hard it was, and how much he must be punished for losing control. When the phone rings, he doesn’t answer for fear it is someone calling to tell him he put Stillman in the hospital. He tells himself, “You are always. Fucking up. You never mean to. Never mean to doesn’t mean shit” (184). When he checks on his shirt, he finds it came out clean. Now, all there is left to do is wait.

Cal returns home from work to find Conrad asleep on the couch. He gently shakes him awake and gives him a few minutes to wake up. When Conrad finally gets his bearings again, he tells Cal he has to tell him something. He recounts the story of the fight and awaits his father’s reaction.

Cal isn’t angry with Conrad. He assures his son that Stillman will be fine and that he shouldn’t worry about it too much. Conrad apologizes for losing control and blowing up. Cal replies, “I can count all the times you’ve blown up. You owed yourself. So, forget it” (190). He is not just appeasing Conrad; Conrad never gets angry and always has a polite, easy-going disposition. Cal reflects that since Buck’s death, he has learned that “razoring is anger; self-mutilation is anger. So this is a good sign; he is turning his anger outward at last” (190). He asks Conrad if he wants to talk about it more, but he doesn’t.

In bed, Cal looks over at Beth and realizes she had to pass Conrad asleep on the couch before going upstairs and falling asleep soundly herself. He wonders why she didn’t think to wake him, if even just to check on him. More and more, he finds himself wondering what is wrong with her and her relationship with their son.

Cal and Beth leave for Texas, leaving Conrad with Beth’s parents for a few days. At dinner, his grandmother grills him on his hair being too long, his grades being worse, and quitting the swim team. Conrad responds, “Sounds like I was overprogrammed” (195). She asks what he does with his time, and though his grandfather attempts to stop her, she launches into a lecture about how easy Conrad has it these days.

Later that night, he picks up Jeanine from work for a date. They decide to see a movie, but Jeanine needs to stop by her house first to tell her mom. When they get there, a man is with her mom, and she asks the two of them to babysit Mike so she can go out to dinner with the man, Paul. He is only in town for one night. Jeanine is hesitant and leaves the decision up to Conrad. He tells Mrs. Pratt it’s fine and they’ll stay in for the night.

Mike is watching TV in the living room. Jeanine goes into the kitchen to make some popcorn, while Mike shows Conrad the chords he’s been practicing on the guitar. When he’s done, he passes the guitar to Conrad, who plays a few songs for him. From the kitchen, he hears a cupboard door slam shut.

He goes to see what’s the matter, and Jeanine tells him that Paul was a friend of her dad’s, and he is the reason her parents divorced. She is angry that he came back into town and ruined their date on top of that. She starts crying and falls into Conrad’s arms. She apologizes, feeling terrible for crying in front of him. Conrad doesn’t mind; “[h]e has never felt so strong, so needed” (200). He keeps holding her as long as she needs.