Saving Miss Oliver's

by Stephen Davenport

  “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 ba
ll 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 ti
mes. “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.”