Under the Influence by Joyce Maynard

said. “Every time Ollie sees you, he’s all worked up for days afterward. We don’t think he feels secure with you.”
    â€œWe just need more time together,” I said, trying not to let my voice rise, or to allow a note of desperation to come into it. His voice, addressing me now, was pure mortgage broker. Clearly I’d failed the credit report.
    â€œLet’s face it,” Dwight said. “The last time you had our son for any length of time, he got to see you led off in handcuffs.”
    â€œThat was more than three years ago, Dwight.”
    â€œMaybe down the line, things can change,” he said. “But right now, that’s where we stand.”
    I stood there, holding the receiver. I didn’t trust myself to speak.
    Then suddenly, he was back to his smooth radio-announcer way of speaking. As if I were a long-lost friend or a customer. No difference between the two.
    â€œTell you what,” Dwight said. “If Oliver himself tells me he really wants to come spend a weekend with you, we’ll let it happen. So far, that’s just not the message I’m getting from him, but who knows what could happen down the line.”
    Then came his favorite expression. “It’s all good.”

19.
    A va and Swift were in the garden having lunch when I arrived at Folger Lane. “We get big news about Carmen yesterday,” Estella said, setting down an extra plate. “First thing I say when she tell me is we got to tell the Havillands.”
    Carmen had been chosen to receive an award for a paper she’d submitted to a contest for college science students—a report based on an experiment she’d designed, proving that fruit flies that were fed organically lived longer than those that consumed conventional produce. She had been selected, along with just four other students (the others, unlike Carmen, from four-year colleges) to travel to Boston and visit the campus of Harvard University, where she would read her paper at a national science conference.
    â€œWhen they see how smart she is,” Estella said, “I bet they give her a scholarship.”
    We all said how wonderful this was, naturally. “Next thing you know that daughter of yours will be married off to some Boston Brahmin who talks through his nose and spends weekends on Nantucket playing polo,” said Swift. Estella looked confused. She definitely didn’t know what a Boston Brahmin was and probably had no clue about Nantucket, either.
    â€œYou’re missing the point, sweetheart,” Ava told him. “Carmen’s notgoing to make her way by marrying some rich guy, like I did. She’s going to make something of herself thanks to her own hard work and that great brain of hers.”
    â€œShe don’t have to pay for her ticket,” Estella said. “Airplane. Food. Hotel. All free. They send her a shirt with the name of the school on the front to wear on her trip.”
    â€œFantastic,” said Ava. Estella’s face glowed. I had never seen her so happy.
    â€œShe ask me if Boston is close to Cooper’s school. Maybe he can show her the city.”
    Only a person who knew her well would have noticed, but I saw a tightness cross Ava’s features then. Swift was back to reading his Wall Street Journal.
    â€œCooper’s in New Hampshire, actually,” said Ava. “Dartmouth. Maybe another time, though.”
    At this point I hadn’t yet met Cooper, who was away at business school. But you couldn’t spend more than ten minutes in Swift’s company without his name coming up.
    â€œMy boy,” Swift called him now, after Estella had returned to the kitchen. “My boy’s got the world by the tail. He can do anything he wants in life. He’s got the golden touch.”
    Just the weekend before, Cooper had flown to Las Vegas with his old fraternity brothers from Cal for the weekend. Now they were planning another