Читать книгу Saving Miss Oliver's - Stephen Davenport - Страница 10

TWO

The instant Fred Kindler saw the look on his secretary’s face when she came into his office early on the morning of his first day as headmaster and caught him down on his knees giving thanks, he knew he’d made a big mistake. If she had found him working in his office in the nude she couldn’t have looked more affronted.

Margaret Rice, a tall, large-boned, black-haired woman in her fifties, who to Fred’s surprise was dressed in her summer vacation clothes—jeans and a man’s shirt, rather than the more professional clothes he had expected and would have preferred—stood in the doorway looking down on her new boss; and still on his knees in his coat and tie, he suddenly saw himself in her eyes: the bumpkin, country clod, ex-farm boy ascended. He was out of style, and, to boot, a man in a woman’s place. “Oh, my God!” Mrs. Rice whispered, then quickly correcting herself: “Excuse me; I should have knocked.” But the look was still on her face: Feminists don’t get down on their knees, it said. We’ve been there too much already.

Thank goodness he didn’t ask her to join him, his first reaction. Instead, already rising from where he’d been kneeling beside his desk, he heard the apology in his voice, hating the sound of it. “I didn’t know you came in so early.” She was looking past him, her eyes scanning the walls as if she were looking for something—which he knew she was: Marjorie’s paintings, each painted by an Oliver girl. All gone. Marjorie had taken them with her, and the walls were now bare and white. The office had a bright, clean, monastic look. He loved it, it energized him, and seeing in his secretary’s eyes her resistance to this new sparseness, he felt his own stubbornness rising and was glad for it. No more apologies. Just be yourself, his wife had reminded him, and so, in his awkward way, had his own proud dad who never even finished high school. “I’m a lucky man,” he found himself telling Mrs. Rice, his eyes focused on hers. But her eyes slid away, and he decided not to tell her how during his early morning run he’d been overcome with gratitude for his good fortune at being chosen as the headmaster of Miss Oliver’s School for Girls.

“Marjorie always came in at eight o’clock,” Mrs. Rice said. “I always came in at seven. It gave me time alone to get ready.” Then she was out the door.

Alone now in the bright summer light pouring through the glass doors that looked out on the campus, he realized he was still standing in the exact spot beside his desk where he rose to after being caught on his knees by Mrs. Rice. His face was still burning. So it’s not cool to pray! he thought, suddenly angry. “Well, you’ve never lost a child,” he whispered to the door. “How do you know what to be grateful for?” He moved to his desk and sat down, already feeling just a little childish, unheadmasterly, to have allowed the words. He recalled his wife’s reminder not to let their old wound tempt him to take elevated positions—as if losing a child makes one wiser than all the people who hadn’t.

The day had already lost some of the luster it had when he’d walked into this office fifteen minutes ago at a quarter to seven, two weeks before he was required. His contract called for him to start on the first of July, but when Marjorie moved out of the head’s house and cleaned out her office with surprising speed—“Who wants to die slowly?” she had asked—he was able to start earlier. He was too eager, too full of ideas, to sit around waiting. Now a piece of him wondered if he should have followed his wife’s advice—or was it a request?—and taken two weeks’ vacation. He shook his head, like a dog coming out of water. He would get on with his day.

His desk was bare, save for a framed photograph of his wife and the file of papers he had requested from Carl Vincent, the school’s elderly business manager. He opened the file, turning directly to the projected budget for the fiscal year, soon to begin on July 1, 1991. Attached to the first page was a note from Vincent, dated just two days ago, telling him these were the latest projections “which the board has not seen because I’m presenting them to you first, according to protocol.”

Fred felt a tickle of suspicion. Something was a little fishy about this note. But he put this aside and turned to the numbers. For several minutes the figures were a blur because his mind insisted on lingering over his awkward tête-à-tête with Mrs. Rice. Besides, he knew the gist of these numbers already; he’d been over them many times during his interviews and since his appointment.

He already knew there was a projected deficit of $245,000. So he didn’t look at the bottom line. Instead he went right to the revenue figures. That’s where the problem lay: The school had been under-enrolled for five years. And now there was a baby bust, a precipitous drop in the nation’s teenage population. And even if that were not the case, the appeal of single-sex education for girls had been declining for reasons that only consultants pretended to understand. Large deficits had increased in each of those five years, culminating in this latest, biggest one. So now the accumulated operating deficit, on top of the capital deficit caused by the failure to raise enough money to fund the new theater, the last of Marjorie’s pet projects, amounted to a total indebtedness of over two million dollars.

The way Carl Vincent had presented the numbers was hard to interpret. In fact, they were a mess. So it was a little while before Fred realized that these numbers were not the same as those he had studied so carefully just before he accepted the position, confident that the notion of single-sex education was so compelling to young women that all the school needed to fill again was a good marketing program. This budget he studied now, he realized, was keyed to nineteen fewer students than were predicted by the earlier version. Nineteen times the tuition of $18,600. That’s $353,400! He averted his eyes from the bottom line. Then he noticed that the line item for salaries was bigger than it was in the last version, by $77,000. Even though there were fewer students to teach! Either this number was wrong, or the previous number was wrong. So he pulled out the compensation charts for the upcoming year and confirmed what his intuition was already loudly declaring: The latest was the correct number.

He couldn’t keep his eye off the bottom line anymore, which he had already figured would show a deficit of $675,400 instead of only $245,000. He was right. If this rate of drain continued, the bank would surely call the loans, and there simply wouldn’t be enough cash to run the school. He’d thought he had four years to turn things around. Now, on his very first day in office, he discovered he would be lucky to have two.

When Fred had accepted the board’s offer, he did so on the basis of a very straightforward strategy that the board accepted: He would create an aggressive marketing campaign by which to rebuild the girls-only enrollment. He’d provided a schedule showing the targets for the addition of students each year. The board understood that failure to reach these targets even as soon as the first year was the signal to consider becoming coed, a strategy that some other singlesex schools and colleges were adopting. But it was best not to talk about this possibility, certainly not to write it into the formal plan. This specter looming in the background would enrage the alumnae, many of whom would rather the school close down than admit boys. In his own mind, though, Fred wouldn’t even think about the possibility of closing the school. He’d admit boys before he did that. He knew something about the grief that follows a school’s dying. That wasn’t going to happen to Miss Oliver’s. Not ever!

Fred spent the next half hour reviewing budgets for the previous five years, noting once again the consistent gap between the optimistic predictions and the disappointing results, and a few more minutes thinking very carefully about how he was going to handle his conversation with Carl Vincent. Then he remembered that Vincent had left for vacation. That was the reason for his timing in presenting the corrected budget: He didn’t want to be around when everyone got the bad news and learned how inaccurate his projections had been. Fred felt sad for the old man.

All right, so the next thing to do was to talk with Nan White, the admissions director, to see what the chances were of making up some of the lost enrollment over the summer. So, at exactly nine o’clock he was about to get up from his desk and walk down the hall to Nan’s office when Margaret Rice opened his office door (without knocking, he observed), stepped a very small distance into his office, and announced that his eight-thirty appointment had arrived.

“Eight-thirty? It’s already nine!”

“Hey, it’s summertime,” she said.

“From now on, Mrs. Rice—”

“Ms. Rice.”

“Ms. Rice. Right. Sorry. From now on, I need you to keep me informed about the appointments you’ve made for me. I’d like to know a day ahead of time if it’s possible.”

“All right,” she said. “Fine. From now on.”

“Who?” he asked.

“Who what?”

“Who is my appointment with? Whom, I mean.” “

Three teachers.”

“Mrs. Rice, please, who are the teachers? Ms. Rice, I mean.”

“I bet they’ll let you know when they get in here,” she said, flushing.

He felt his face get hot too. She looked surprised, maybe even a little chagrined. “We’re going to have to talk,” he said, very quietly, very slowly. His sudden anger, always surprising to him, was a relief.

“There’s just a way we do things around here, that’s all.” Ms. Rice’s voice was almost conciliatory now, embarrassed. “Marjorie Boyd—”

“All right, Ms. Rice,” he interrupted. “Later we’ll talk. Right now, who are they?”

“Melissa and Samuel Andersen; she teaches French, he teaches history.”

“I know what they teach,” he said. “

They just got married last Christmas.” “

Yes.”

“Marjorie married them.”

“Marjorie! Mrs. Boyd? Married them?”

“She performed the ceremony. It made some of the new trustees mad.”

“Well, that’s interesting. Who’s the third teacher I’m about to see?”

But Ms. Rice went right on, her tone of voice almost friendly now: “Marjorie got one of those Universalist Church preacher’s licenses that were created for COs in the Vietnam War. Since the alumnae learned about it, Marjorie’s been asked to perform quite a few marriages.”

“The third person?” he interrupted.

“Oh. The third person. That’s Fredericka Walters. She teaches German.”

“I know,” he replied, feeling a further surge of worry. He’d made it a point, during his earlier study of the school, to know how many students each teacher instructed. Fredericka Walters was one of the highest-paid teachers on the faculty—with the fewest students. He was going to have to do something about that.

“Oh, that’s right, you know what people teach,” Ms. Rice said, and he immediately regretted cutting her off. It dawned on him that before doing anything else he should have had a long, relaxed talk with her.

“Some people call her Sam,” Ms. Rice went on. “She likes men’s names; and others call her Fred, of course.” Then after a pause: “But don’t worry. It won’t be confusing. It will be a while before anybody’s going to call you by your first name.” Her face flooded with red again.

He forced himself to let that go, trying to believe she didn’t even know that she was insulting him; she was just describing his situation. “Show them in please, Ms. Rice,” he said as gently as he could.

Margaret Rice went out the door. In an instant, she returned. “They’re not there.”

“They’re not there!”

“Right. They must have gone over to the faculty room to get some coffee. While you and I were talking.”

“We only talked for a minute! The faculty room’s clear on the other side of the campus.”

Ms. Rice shrugged her shoulders again. “They’ll be back.”

“When’s my next appointment?”

“Nine-fifteen. Mavis Ericksen and Charlotte Reynolds. Two of the new board members,” she added, rolling her eyes.

I know; I met them during the hiring process, remember? Fred almost said. So did my wife. But he remembered what happened last time he told her he knew something.

“It’s already five after nine,” he said instead. “That only leaves ten minutes. So when the teachers get back from the faculty room, tell them I can’t see them now. They can come back later.”

Margaret Rice stood stock-still, staring at Fred for what seemed a very long moment. “You’re joking!”

“No, I’m not joking. Tell them.”

“You can’t just cancel an appointment like that. They’re teachers!”

“Yes, I can.”

“They’re going to be mad!”

Now it was his turn to shrug. As Ms. Rice started to leave, he said, “Let’s leave the door open. I don’t want anybody to think I’m hiding in here.”

“WE HEARD THAT about making the teachers wait,” Mavis Ericksen said. An alumna, she was a tall brunette, very pretty, in a red dress, stockings, high heels. She turned to Charlotte Reynolds for affirmation. Charlotte, also an alumna, and mother of an eighth, ninth, and tenth grader, was a stocky, thick-legged athlete in a short tennis dress. She nodded back at her friend. “Good for you, Fred,” Mavis said. Both women sat down in the chairs he offered. He came from behind his desk and sat in a third chair facing them.

“Yes, good for you,” said Charlotte, whom Fred found more comfortable to look at; that way he could keep his eyes off Mavis’s heartbreaking legs.

“We’re very glad you’re here,” said Mavis. “As a matter of fact, we are delighted! Welcome.”

“Delighted is the perfect word,” Charlotte pronounced. “How’s everything going?”

“Fine,” Fred fibbed, thinking of Carl Vincent’s numbers filed right behind him in his desk.

“Really?” Mavis’s eyes probed.

“Just diving in,” Fred said, feeling suddenly guarded. He tried to make his voice sound enthusiastic. “There are a lot of things I need to learn about.”

“One of the things you have probably already learned,” Mavis said, “is that Charlotte and I are among the more recent appointments to the board. The result, I would say, of some….” She hesitated, turning to her friend.

“Persistence,” Charlotte supplied.

“Yes. Persistence,” Mavis agreed.

“The school was getting pretty close to shutting down, you know,” Charlotte said.

“I know. We will all work together to make what Marjorie built here permanent.” He imagined himself apologizing to Marjorie for such a lame statement.

Mavis’s eyes focused intently on his. “You’re right. Respect for Mrs. Boyd. That’s how we need to approach everything. But I refuse to let anyone make me feel guilty.”

“I’m sure that’s not what you meant,” Charlotte murmured to Fred. Then more loudly: “How’s Gail adjusting?”

“Quite well. Everybody has been very kind,” he said, pushing out of his mind the fact that Peggy Plummer and Eudora Easter and Rachel Bickham, head of the Science Department, were the only teachers who have dropped in to say hello to his wife. “She’s finishing hanging our pictures as we speak.”

“Well,” Mavis said, “we’re sure you’re busy, so we should get right to the point and tell you why we’re here.”

“Definitely,” Charlotte murmured. “Time to get down to business.”

“We’re here to stand firmly behind you when you get rid of Joan Saffire,” Mavis announced, looking straight into Fred’s eyes. Joan Saffire was the assistant director of Development.

“Absolutely,” Charlotte nodded vigorously. “We’re right behind you.”

“Uh … I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Fred said.

“There will be a rebellion, of course,” Charlotte said, looking hard at Fred. “A huge fuss. Lots of the alumnae, virtually all of the faculty, and many of the board—all the trustees who voted for Mrs. Boyd to stay, as a matter of fact. That’s almost fifty percent.”

“Charlotte!” Mavis exclaimed.

“Oh, come on!” Charlotte said, not taking her eyes off Fred’s. “He knows.”

Fred felt little drops of sweat running down from his armpits inside his shirt. No, I don’t, he wanted to say—for that was the truth. “

Don’t you?” Charlotte asked him.

He still didn’t answer. Because now, of course, he did know. “

If I remember correctly, we were talking about getting rid of Joan Saffire,” Mavis said.

Charlotte shrugged. “So we were.” “

Well?” said Mavis to Fred.

“I don’t want to appear not to be listening,” he said trying to keep the tentativeness out of his voice. “Or reluctant to accept advice, but I, uh, I think I need to remind you that it is the head who makes these decisions.”

“She’s Marjorie’s niece,” said Charlotte. “You didn’t know that?”

“Yes, I knew that.”

“Charlotte, please.” Mavis looked sternly at her friend. “That’s not the reason. She’s incompetent, that’s why.” Then turning to Fred: “The main thing is that she’s always saying the wrong thing. She insults people.”

“People like Joan Saffire need to keep their politics to themselves!” Charlotte blurted.

“Why don’t you tell Fred about when your husband asked Aldous Enright if he would accelerate his pledge,” Mavis said softly to Charlotte.

“Ladies,” Fred asserted. “This isn’t an appropriate way to evaluate—”

“You need to listen to this!” Mavis said.

Fred put both hands up, a double stop sign, but Charlotte was already talking. “When Gerald called for the appointment, Mr. Enright just exploded!”

“It seems that Marjorie’s niece had already talked with him,” Mavis interrupted. “She called on him to ask him to make a bigger pledge and to restrict it to financial aid.”

“Financial aid!” Charlotte exclaimed. “From Aldous Enright? Everybody knows he doesn’t believe in financial aid!”

“And when she talked with him, she talked about poor people in a way that made it look as if anybody with money is a fascist,” Mavis said. “This woman, who everybody knows wouldn’t even be here if she weren’t Marjorie’s niece, is lecturing Aldous Enright about financial aid!”

“So, not only did Mr. Enright not accelerate his gift, he canceled it,” Charlotte announced.

There was a moment of silence while Fred thought of what to say. He hadn’t been in office for a morning yet, and already this! “Maybe Mr. Enright would have canceled it anyway,” he tried.

“He would not!” Charlotte said. “I already said: People like her need to keep their political opinions to themselves.”

“It’s only one incident, though,” said Fred. Then he cut himself off. That tack wouldn’t work either.

“Of course one incident isn’t enough!” Mavis was insulted. “We’re only telling you one incident as an example. I don’t believe in firing someone for one mistake any more than you do.”

“I appreciate your concern,” he said, desperate for an end to the conversation. “Very much. I will bring it up right away with Dorothy Strang.”

“Dorothy is an excellent director of Development,” Mavis said. “But what difference does it make what Dorothy Strang thinks of Joan Saffire? The board has no faith in Joan Saffire. That’s what counts here. That is, the part of the board who raises money doesn’t. The rest just loves everybody. So why are you trying to sell us on her?”

“I’m not selling, Mrs. Ericksen, I am insisting on ethical process.” Fred hated the sanctimonious sound of his voice.

“This is no time for delicacy,” Mavis warned.

“It certainly isn’t,” Charlotte said.

“And I resent being painted as the villain,” Mavis said.

“Look, why don’t we call on Aldous Enright again—give it another try,” Fred said, “and in the meantime I guarantee you that I will make sure Mrs. Saffire’s performance is evaluated. I could do more harm than good by appearing to fire people arbitrarily before anybody trusts me.”

“If you want to earn my trust, Mr. Kindler, just do what you have to do, and do it right away.”

“When is it going to happen?” Charlotte asked.

“I can’t tell you that,” Fred said.

“I tell you, you don’t have the time to be so delicate!” Mavis’s voice was quavering now. “Because if you don’t get this place in order, they’re going to let boys in here, and if that happens I don’t care if the place does shut down!”

“I’m not even going to think about that,” Charlotte murmured.

Mavis turned on Charlotte. “Maybe you’re not,” she said. “But I am. Because all of a sudden, it feels like Marjorie Boyd all over again around here.” Mavis’s shoulders started to shake. “Oh, damn, just what I need, a crying jag!” She stood up, turned quickly around, and moved very fast out the door, slamming it behind her.

“She loves this school,” Charlotte said, standing up too. “And she’s awfully frustrated, you know. It’s been a long struggle.”

“I know it has,” he said.

“Good,” Charlotte said. She turned away from him and moved toward the door. With her hand on the knob, she turned back to him “It wouldn’t be smart if you didn’t,” she said. Then she opened the door and left him.

IMMEDIATELY AFTER CHARLOTTE left, Margaret Rice took exactly one step into his office. “Karen Benjamin’s here for her ten-o’clock appointment,” she said. “She’s the editor of the school newspaper.”

“Good. Show her in.” Fred’s spirits rose. It was going to be fun to talk with a student after all these adults. He was glad that summer school would begin that week. When there were no students present, schools were dreary places.

“Uh-oh,” Margaret said. “The three teachers are back. As a matter of fact, they got back right after those two ladies showed up. They’ve been waiting.”

He said nothing.

“Well, don’t you want to see them now?”

“How can I? It’s ten o’clock. Karen’s right on time. All the way from Boston.”

Ms. Rice just stood there. “

Show her in, Ms. Rice.”

“All right, if that’s what you want.” Ms. Rice stepped back out of the office. “Go on in, dear,” he heard her say.

Karen Benjamin didn’t walk into the room; she darted. Moving with quick, birdlike motions, she closed the door to the office and turned to shake Fred’s hand. “I hate it when grown-ups call me ‘dear.’” She was short, very slight, dressed in a white T-shirt with the front page of the Clarion printed on it, her thin legs in cutoff jeans. Her black hair was cropped, almost shaved, so that her head appeared as round as a ball on her thin neck. Her brown eyes seemed to flit all over the office, noticing everything as she sat down in the chair. Fred sat facing her.

“My mother calls me ‘dear.’ That’s what mothers are for,” she said, peering into her backpack. “Where are you, notebook? You’re in here someplace.” Then looking up at Fred, her intense eyes catching his: “But when other grown-ups do—”

Fred nodded, grinning, enjoying this.

She stirred around in her backpack some more. “Here it is!” she said, pulling out a notebook. “You’re going to be featured on the front page of the Clarion in September. The first new headmaster in thirty-five years. Ta-da ta-da!”

“Something tells me there are some people who aren’t happy about that,” he blurted, surprised at himself.

“Something tells me you’re right,” she agreed brightly.

“Well,” he said, grinning again, “nothing’s perfect.”

“Anyway, I’ve got some warm-up questions. You ready for that?” When he didn’t answer immediately she said, “Tell me about your family. You’ve got children?” She poised her pencil over the notebook.

He hesitated, moving his eyes away from her face to the wall behind and above her head.

“Oh! I’m sorry. Did I ask—”

“It’s all right. We have one child. Had one, rather. Sarah. She was killed in a car accident two years ago.”

“I’m so sorry!” Her voice was soft now. “I should have known.”

“No, you shouldn’t. We asked that it not be part of the information about us. We didn’t want people’s first reaction to us to be feeling sorry for us. Of course there are people here who know. News travels. But there are still lots who don’t, at least not yet.”

Karen put her pencil down.

Naturally, Fred didn’t mention that he and Gail had been trying to have another child. That was much too private—though it would have been a whole lot easier to tell this kid than anyone else who’d been in his office this morning, and he liked her so much already. “Sarah would have been a ninth grader,” he said instead.

“Here?”

“Yes. Definitely. Right here!”

“Maybe that’s the answer to that other question,” she said quietly. “Why a male head for a girls’ school? That you chose a school where your daughter would have thrived.” And, after a pause in which that comment registered on him, she added, “I understand. It sort of makes up for her loss, doesn’t it? Being with so many other girls the same age she would be.”

He still didn’t answer. “

So now I know what to say in the article.”

“Please don’t.” “

Still too early?” “

Still too early.” “

But it would help.”

“Not the way I want help.”

“Maybe you should take it any way you can get it.”

“I’m not in that tough a spot.”

She looked intently at his face and didn’t answer. “

Evidently you don’t agree.”

“You’re right. I don’t. The students loved Mrs. Boyd. The only way they’re going to know how to be loyal to her is not to like you. So she screwed up the money part. Who wants an accountant for a headmistress?”

“Yeah,” Fred said. “Who does?”

Karen’s face brightened now. “Time to change the subject,” she announced. “Something light. Like why you wear such funny clothes.”

Fred laughed. “You’re kidding.”

“Actually, now that I think about it, I’m serious. It’s an important question.”

“Not something light after all?”

Karen made a quick dismissive gesture with her hand. “Whatever.” “

What’s wrong with my clothes?”

“Your pants are shiny. And those shoes! They’re weird.”

“I’m just a farm boy, you know,” he said, struggling not to appear taken aback. “Shiny pants are de rigueur on the farm.”

“Yeah, but this is a prep school, not a farm. You’ll get crucified!”

“I thought at Miss Oliver’s we didn’t place value on such things—how people dress. I thought we rose above that kind of judgment.”

“We do for women. This is a girls’ school, remember? Men we judge very harshly around here. My father says that Miss Oliver’s is the most sexist environment he knows of.”

“I hope not.”

“Actually, I hope so. It’s about time we had some sexism in the other direction.”

“We are going to have to argue about that, you and I.”

“Of course. I’d be disappointed if we didn’t. You are the headmaster.”

“Head of School,” he corrected.

“No way. Mrs. Boyd was the headmistress, so you are the headmaster. You think you’re going to hide your gender behind a PC name? Nobody’s ever been able to hide anything at this school.”

“All right,” he said. “Headmaster.”

“You really mean that?”

“Probably not. I dislike the term. But I like your point.”

Karen bent over her notebook; he watched her mouth the words Head of School as she wrote. Then with that quick motion, she lifted her eyes and smiled. “So back to your clothes. Tell me. I’ll write it down and win the Pulitzer.”

“Cotton farming wrecks the land,” he explained. “Sheep farming’s not much better.”

“But—”

“Everybody always says but. I’m getting a little tired of the word.”

“Hey! All right!” She took another note.

“After all, we have very advanced technology and a sophisticated financial system to support it. Why not use that to make more and more unnatural”—he made quotation marks with his fingers—“things so we can leave nature alone? That’s why I wear polyester.”

“That’s why? That’s really why?”

“Either that or bad taste,” he said. “Probably both.”

“Well,” Karen murmured, “that’s different. Really different. Now we’re getting somewhere!”

“Good!” said Fred. “Glad I’m not wasting your time.”

“Okay,” she said, ignoring his little joke. “So much for that. On to other topics. What happened at Mt. Gilead School?”

“It closed down.”

“When you were the head?”

“Yes.”

“It’s another thing people are chalking up against you.”

“Well, I was assistant head for six years there, and I fell in love with the place,” he told her, very aware that Karen was writing now. “The head was a wonderful educator and I loved him, but he didn’t pay attention to certain things.”

“Like Mrs. Boyd?”

“Three things: marketing, finance, and asking people who were mediocre to go away.”

“Teachers?”

“Yes, teachers.”

“Oh, my God!”

“So, when things looked desperate, the board asked him to go and asked me to take over and see if I could turn things around.”

“What happened?”

“I got started too late. That’s my answer, anyway. I suppose some could say I screwed up, as you would put it.”

“That’s what a lot of people around here are saying.”

“There a little bit of truth in that. I’ve learned some things. But mostly, and the board of Mt. Gilead believes this too, I got started too late. Things had already deteriorated so much that there was just too much hill to climb.”

“Hill to climb,” Karen repeated, writing fast. “I hope it sells. Now, one other question. Do you believe in censoring?”

“Censoring?”

“Mrs. Boyd didn’t. She refused.”

“You talking the New York Times or the Clarion?”

“I’m not dumb enough to talk about either of them separately. If I did, I would lose my argument.”

“Which is? As if I didn’t know.”

Karen moved her head, up and down, slowly, several times. “Of course you know. Last year we had a full edition—all four pages—about drugs on campus, and before that we did a poll of the students to find out how many of their parents were alcoholics. Mrs. Boyd let us print them.”

“I know. I read them all. They were very good articles.”

“So you don’t believe in censoring?”

“It all depends.”

“So? What if I wanted to do a poll on our students’ sex lives and write it up?”

“Well, your job is to make the Clarion as interesting as you can,” Fred said. “And I’m sure that would be interesting.”

“Yeah. So I’m still waiting for the punch line.”

“And mine is to make sure that the public trusts this school enough to send their daughters to us.”

“And to give us money,” she added. “So who wins, as if I didn’t know?”

“When, in my judgment, the two interests collide, I do, but in most cases I’m sure we could work it out.”

“Work it out? Working it out’s not the point, and you know it. The point’s the principle.”

“That’s right,” he said. “You’re absolutely right. It’s the principle.”

“Well, this isn’t going to help you at all,” she said. “Not with the students anyway. This is another issue everybody’s talking about. We all know it’s one of the reasons Mrs. Boyd got blown away. The Clarion’s going to go right on trying to put the truth out, whatever it is.”

“Good for you. I think you should.”

“Yeah, good for me. But it’s going to make your life all the harder. And that’s too bad.”

While he thought about how to respond to that remark, she surprised him by suddenly standing up. “Anyway, I’ve got to run,” she announced. “Those teachers out there are going to go ballistic.” Her eyes focused on his face even more intently. “I’ve enjoyed this. I’m surprised. I was prepared to think you were a jerk.”

“Really? Then why is it that I liked you the minute you walked in the door?”

“And it took me until—?” Her thin shoulders went up and down. “Until whatever.”

“That’s right. Until whatever.”

“Because you’re a professional. You’re a teacher. And I go to school here. My father says the same thing. He’s a rabbi. He says he automatically starts to love anybody who joins his temple—the minute they join. He says if he couldn’t do that, he couldn’t be a rabbi.”

“I’d like to meet your dad someday.”

“You will,” she promised. “You guys would like each other. But not till graduation, okay? This is my turf, not his.” Then she was out the door.

“WE’VE BEEN WAITING for hours!” Melissa Andersen, the French teacher, complained, plopping her tall, thin body down in the chair Karen Benjamin had just been sitting in. Melissa’s face was pale, drawn, and there were strands of gray in her blond hair. Fredericka Walters, her hair as red as Fred’s, stood behind Melissa’s chair, a tall, bulky woman wearing dark glasses, which obscured a lot of her face. Neither Melissa nor Fredericka made any gesture to shake Fred’s hand.

“Take it easy, hon,” Sam Andersen murmured. He was a burly man in his early thirties, with huge arms and bald already. He wore a red T-shirt and khaki pants. Turning to Fred, he put his hand out. “Welcome to our little world,” he said. “How’s it goin’?”

“Fine. Thanks.”

Sam and Fredericka sat down on either side of Melissa, while Fred pulled his desk chair out from behind his desk so he could sit with them.

“We’ve come to find out what your agenda is,” Melissa said.

“Hey hon, slow down,” Sam said.

“Well?” Melissa asked.

“My agenda?” said Fred. “Maybe you could clarify—”

“Melissa believes in conspiracies,” Sam said. “The Gulf War was started by Chevron. Seventeen reincarnated members of the Gestapo killed Kennedy.” He was leaning back in his chair, grinning.

Melissa turned on her husband. “If you can’t take this seriously, why don’t you go home?”

Sam looked directly at Fred, arching his eyebrows so that the skin of his bald pate moved up and down. “We take things very seriously around here,” he said. “Everybody knows this is the center of the universe.”

Melissa was still staring at Sam. “I already asked once: If everything’s such a big joke, why are you here with us?”

“To find out if he plays tennis. Isn’t that why you came? It’s summer vacation, hon, for crying out loud!” Then turning to Fred: “I hope you do!”

“I do. I love to play tennis.”

“That’s a relief! I’m tired of playing with all these females! I need some competition.” Sam’s grin was bigger than ever. Fredericka took off her dark glasses and glowered at him.

Melissa ignored her husband’s remark. She stared straight at Fred, leaning slightly forward, her body very tense. “Are you going to let boys in here?”

Fred felt his face flush.

“Whoops, that’s a biggie!” said Sam. Fredericka put her dark glasses on again.

“Because it’s better to let the school die than to have it be what it isn’t,” Melissa added, and Fred still didn’t answer.

“Well, are you or aren’t you?” Melissa insisted.

“I didn’t come here to do that,” Fred said.

Nobody responded. All three, even Sam, stared at Fred. “It’s not my plan,” Fred offered.

“You haven’t answered the question,” Melissa said.

“You know how to make God laugh?” Sam asked. “Tell Him your plans.” When nobody even smiled, he shrugged his shoulders.

“I fervently believe in single-sex education for girls,” Fred said.

“That’s not my question,” Melissa said.

“I think I’ve probably done as much research as anybody,” Fred persisted, “more than anybody I know, as a matter of fact. I’ve read everything there is to read on the subject.” Melissa started to say something, but he put his hand up. “How teachers call on boys more, how boys get in trouble more, disrupt more, disagree more so they get the attention. How most schools support the stereotype that girls can’t do math or science and always try to think the way the teacher thinks. How in English curricula most of the authors are men and how history departments obsess over kings and generals. I could go on and on. Because I’ve worked in coed schools, you know, all my life.”

“That’s exactly my point,” Melissa said.

“Well, it’s not mine,” he said, feeling the anger coming. “I’m the one who’s seen how people show up to watch the boys play football and stay away in droves when the girls play softball, and I’ve watched the girls grow up much faster than the boys.” Fred stopped suddenly, sensing he was talking too much. For an instant he saw the image of his daughter in his head and felt the old despair.

Sam turned to Melissa. “Honey, isn’t that enough?”

“No, it isn’t enough,” Melissa said, and Sam turned his face away from her. He raised his eyebrows again to Fred.

“No, it isn’t,” Melissa repeated. “He’s said what he believes in, not what he’s going to do.”

“Not fair,” Sam murmured.

“Why isn’t it fair?” Melissa persisted. “It’s the question everybody is asking. It’s the ultimate question: What will the new headmaster do if he thinks the only way to save the school is to let boys in? Why isn’t that a fair question—since it’s the one that everyone wants to know the answer to?”

“And you?” Fred said. “What would you do if you thought the only way to keep the school from closing down was to make it into a coed school?”

“I’d never think that,” Melissa said. “I’d refuse to think that.”

“Hon, now you’re ducking the question,” Sam said softly.

“I’m telling you, I’d never think that! How could anyone who’s been here more than twenty minutes?” Melissa was close to yelling now. “The only point, the whole point, the only reason for Miss Oliver’s, is that it is for girls. That’s what the school is!”

“Let me tell you something,” Fred blurted. “The one thing I’m not going to do is let this school be closed down!” He leaned way forward. He could feel the veins throbbing in his neck.

There was a silence. Sam and Melissa glanced at each other; Fred was sure he caught a told-you-so look on Melissa’s face. Fredericka leaned forward, her face still inscrutable behind her dark glasses. “Well,” said Melissa, standing up. “I’ve finally got my answer!” She moved toward the door. Sam stood but stayed near his chair, and Fredericka was motionless.

Near the door, Melissa turned and stared at Fred. “Don’t you dare!” she said. “Don’t you fucking dare let boys in here.” Then she opened the door and disappeared, and Fred could hear her footsteps, almost running, as she crossed Ms. Rice’s room to leave the building.

“Like I said, welcome to our little world,” Sam said after a long pause. “Hang in there. I’ll call you Sunday to see about tennis.”

“Thanks,” said Fred.

“Coming, Fredericka?” asked Sam.

“No,” Fredericka replied, taking off her dark glasses. “I have one more question to ask.”

Fred already knew what that question was.

“Hello,” Fred said to Fredericka after Sam had left. As always, his anger had disappeared as fast as it arrived. “You didn’t say a word.”

“It wasn’t necessary,” Fredericka said. “It never is when Melissa’s part of the conversation.”

She was fidgety, clearly nervous, so he got right to the point. “I think I know what’s on your mind.”

“I’m sure you do.”

“I really was going to address it, you know. I wasn’t going to keep you on the hook. It just seemed a bit abrupt on my first day.”

She looked as if she might start to cry.

“I thought we should get to know each other a little first.”

She shook her head.

“And I wanted to see if we could find something else for you to do.”

“Something else! Do you know how humiliating that would be?”

“Not necessarily,” he urged.

“I’m a German teacher! Twenty-seven years I’ve been here.”

“Yes. And a good one, too. I know your reputation,” he said. For all she had after all those years was that good reputation. She certainly hadn’t gotten rich.

“Marjorie promised me that I could stay until I retired. That’s what she told me when everybody started taking Spanish instead of German. She promised.”

“We have a huge deficit—”

“That’s not my fault.”

“No. It’s not your fault,” he said. Not mine either, he thought. Out loud, he said, speaking as gently as he knew how, “There are only nineteen students in the whole German program—all four levels—a full-time teacher with one of the biggest salaries, and a huge deficit. We have to make some changes. Maybe you can be a dorm parent.”

“I did that when I started! I’m not going to do that. I’m sixty years old.”

“All right,” he said, nodding his head, and the room went quiet while she looked at him, waiting for him to say something more. But he knew if he did, this would go on and on and make it worse for her. So he steeled himself and said nothing, and then she started to cry.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured. She had her head bent down and waved her hand in front, as if to establish privacy. “I wish there were—”

“How old are you?” she interrupted, abruptly looking up at him.

The question caught him by surprise. “I’m thirty-seven. Why?”

“You were ten years old when I started here! A little boy! How do you think that makes me feel?” She turned her face away from him.

“Look,” he said, standing up. “You need a chance to be alone. I won’t need my office for a while. You stay as long as you need.”

She waved her hand again and turned her shoulders so that her face was turned even further away, so that she would be facing completely away from him if the chair back would allow. Her shoulders were shaking very hard. He left her, closing the door of his office behind himself as quietly as he could.

HE USED THE time away from his office to consult with Nan White, the director of Admissions. He was sure there must be some way to recruit more students over the summer.

Nan greeted him warmly. They sat across from each other at a small table in the center of her office. She was a small woman, the single mother of three Oliver alumnae, in her late forties, brown hair gone slightly gray. He thought of her as calm, solid, honest. He had trusted her since his first interviews.

“Maybe we can get four or five new students before the end of summer,” Nan told him.

“Four or five’s nowhere near enough.”

“The ones we get in the summer are the ones we tend to have to let go,” she said.

“I know. It was the same at Mt. Gilead.”

“Of course you know! You really are a risk taker, aren’t you?” she said, thinking, First he took on Mt. Gilead. Now here too.

“That’s what my wife says.”

“Well, I’m glad.”

“Thanks.”

“But…” She hesitated. “These numbers aren’t very accurate.”

“Not accurate? Don’t tell me they’re worse! We’re already nineteen fewer that I was told we’d be”

“They’re worse, all right. Much worse.”

“Jesus! Sorry.”

Nan smiled. “You should hear some of the language I use when I look at these numbers.”

“How much worse?”

“Maybe twice as many fewer than predicted. These are Marjorie’s numbers, not mine.”

“Vincent’s,” he corrected.

“Marjorie was the head,” she replied softly.

He didn’t respond to that.

“The truth is we’ll be anywhere from thirty to forty kids down when we open in September. Guaranteed.”

“Forty!”

“Fred,” she said, “some of the board blames this on me. They think I must not be working hard enough. If having me around gives you a problem—”

“No way. Let’s just figure out—”

“I don’t have the slightest suspicion that it’s my fault,” she said. “That’s not the point. The point is that if the board doesn’t trust me, and you don’t make me go away, they stop trusting you.”

“I’m not about to start firing the good people,” he said. “Let’s just look together at your whole plan, all the ideas, where we can recruit, what alumnae are helping us, let’s do that, and maybe we can come up with some ideas.”

“God, I’d love to! When?”

“Right now.”

“Wonderful! Somebody else besides me looking at this stuff.”

“BOSTON, NEW YORK, Philadelphia, the D.C. area, Baltimore,” Nan said, taking several folders out of a file. Neither of them was aware they’d skipped lunch. “That’s one sector. In both New York and Baltimore, I have families lined up who have promised to host receptions for potential students.”

“Great!” said Fred. “So you and I go down there, we get a few current students and their parents to attend, and we talk about the school.”

“Exactly. I’ve got some dates ready.”

“What about the other cities—Boston, Philly, and D.C.?”

“I had offers in each, but they reneged. Maybe if—”

“When?” he interrupted.

Nan hesitated.

“When they learned the new head wasn’t a woman?”

“I’m afraid so,” Nan murmured, and he liked her even more for not letting her eyes slide away. “But,” she added, brightening, “maybe they just need some time to adjust. If you call them, I bet they’ll change their mind.”

“I’ll call them. You bet I will!”

“And in the Southern sector, we have Richmond, Charleston, Atlanta, Fort Lauderdale. In the Midwestern, we have Cleveland. We’ve already got one family there, the Maynards, who’ve agreed to host a gathering, and then we have Chicago and Detroit. In the West we have Denver and San Francisco.”

“San Francisco!” Fred interrupted. “Francis Plummer’s out that way for the summer. Maybe he could join us—or maybe even save us the travel expense by speaking for us.”

“I think not.”

“Why not? Surely he’d be a draw for the alumnae.”

“I just don’t think we should,” Nan said firmly.

“He’s one of the ones who haven’t adjusted yet?” he asked, remembering Plummer’s little joke about not changing anything. He’d sensed the senior teacher’s discomfort when they had interviewed each other during the search process and had received some subtle warnings from others about his resentment over Marjorie’s dismissal. But he’d assumed that so intelligent a man, so celebrated a teacher, would have placed no blame for this on her successor.

“One of the ones,” Nan answered.

“All right. I understand. When he gets back, though, and we get going in the new academic year—”

“I hope so,” Nan said. “It’s harder for some than for others.”

They spent the rest of the day working on the plan and thinking of everything else they could do to improve the enrollment before school started again in September. When they were through, they figured that if everything went right, they could pick up ten or eleven new students instead of the five Nan had predicted. “That’s all there is, there ain’t no more,” he announced. “But it’s better than nothing.”

“That’s right,” Nan agreed. “Better than nothing.”

WHEN FRED GOT back to his office at five minutes to six, Ms. Rice was gone. Five minutes later, right at six o’clock as planned, Alan Travelers, the board chair, showed up. He was in his fifties, slightly taller than Fred, spare in body, pale skinned, with short, gray hair. He wore a dark business suit that even now, at the end of the day, was unwrinkled, as if he’d just put it on.

He didn’t let Fred begin until he’d had his say. “Fred, I was about to call you this morning until my secretary reminded me we were going to meet instead. Just to welcome you. On your first day. No agenda. Just to say once again that I am delighted that you are our new head. Well, this is much better, face to face.”

“Alan, thanks,” Fred said, already feeling better.

“You’re the kind of guy who will give it all he’s got. That’s why we’re so delighted.”

“Thanks. You can count on that.” Fred pointed to the chair where Karen Benjamin had sat that morning—it seemed like days ago!—and took the chair facing Alan.

“By the way, Fred, Mavis Ericksen dropped in today,” Alan began.

“She did?”

“She’s really concerned about that Saffire woman, you know.”

“I know. She dropped in to my office too.”

“I know she did. What did you tell her?”

“I told her I’d look into it.”

Alan nodded his head.

“This is my call, Alan.”

“I know it is. I just wanted you to know there’s a lot of heat involved in this one.”

“There’s a lot more in what I’m about to tell you,” Fred said. Then he gave Alan the news.

After Fred finished, Alan sat very still, his face even paler. “Six hundred and seventy-five?” he asked at last. “You’re absolutely sure?”

“Positive.” Fred started to hand Alan the papers, Vincent’s numbers and his own.

Alan put his hands up, shook his head. He didn’t need to read them. “How in the world could we have fouled up so badly?” he murmured. He wasn’t asking Fred; he was looking at the ceiling.

“He was the business manager,” Fred offered, but Alan shook his head, refusing the excuse. Now Fred liked him even more. “I believed him too,” Fred went on.

“Of course you did! Why wouldn’t you? You weren’t even here yet,” Alan exclaimed. Then after a pause he added, “The deal’s off if you want it to be.”

“I don’t understand,” Fred said. Alan was looking hard at him, searching his face, and then it dawned on him what his board chair was getting at.

“You signed a contract thinking the situation was very different from what it is,” Alan said mildly. “I’m not dishonorable enough to hold you to it.”

“But I want this!” Fred blurted.

“Think about it,” Alan insisted. “You owe it to yourself. You can tell me in the morning,” and Fred was taken by surprise. Out of nowhere came this turning point! Now he was suddenly imagining himself backing out the door of this office, Alan’s eyes still on him. He could feel the relief; he was floating, breathing easy in an enormous space. But the feeling only lasted an instant, and then he was overwhelmed by huge regret at throwing away his treasure. He imagined begging to be allowed to change his mind and come back.

“I’m here,” he said. “No way I’m going away.”

“I thought that’s what you’d say.” Alan was smiling now.

“If there comes a reason I should quit, I’ll recognize it,” Fred said.

But Alan paid no attention to that remark. Instead he was making plans. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do,” he announced. “Executive committee meeting tomorrow. Noon sharp. We’ll hold it at Milton Perkins’s club, as usual, and he can buy us lunch, as usual. I’ll call each of them tonight and tell them to be there, no matter what.”

“You going to tell them what it’s about?”

“Nope. Why ruin their sleep? They’ll find out when you tell them, and we’ll go from there.”

“Yeah,” said Fred, managing a grin, “why ruin their sleep.”

Alan was standing now, shaking Fred’s hand. “We’ll be all right,” he said. “We’ve got the right guy at the helm.” Then he was out the door.

BY THE TIME Fred arrived at the head’s house he realized he had had a booming headache for hours. He went through the house to the back, where he knew that Gail would be gardening in the evening’s softening light.

“Hi,” she said, getting up from her kneeling to greet him. She took her gardening gloves off and reached a hand to him.

He kissed her cheek.

“How was your day?” she said.

“Don’t ask,” he said.