Saving Miss Oliver's

by Stephen Davenport

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake, here we go again!” she said.

  “And if we don’t,” Perkins said, “the one thing we aren’t going to do is let boys in here.” He wasn’t grinning anymore.

  The room went silent once again. Everyone stared at Perkins, who was plunging a fork into an oyster now.

  “Fred didn’t say anything about letting boys in,” Travelers said. His voice was tight. “Neither did I. Neither did anyone. That’s not even on the table.”

  “Good,” Perkins said, waving the fork with the oyster still on it. “We got that settled.”

  “Jesus!” from McGarvey. “Welcome to fantasyland!”

  Perkins turned again to study her, miming a mild scientific interest at the source of such a strange remark. He extended the fork, the oyster he was about to eat still dripping on its tines, across the table to her. He raised his eyebrows, kept the oyster before her. It was a test: If she took it, then she was normal after all.

  McGarvey, of course, was much too smart to rise to this. She hardly looked at the oyster—or at Perkins, turning instead to Travelers as if chastising the chairman for letting the meeting get out of hand. So Perkins shrugged, plopped the oyster into his mouth, nodded up and down, then broke into a grin and aimed it around the room.

  On McGarvey’s right, the elderly Ms. Harriet Richardson, who hadn’t said a word, was too ladylike to acknowledge the animus that had just drenched the room. She nodded her birdlike head at Milton Perkins. “For once you and I agree,” she murmured. Ms. Richardson, the former academic dean at one of New England’s most prestigious women’s colleges, stared intently across the table at Perkins, her tiny body very erect. “It would be a tragedy,” she said. “An abandonment of the reason we exist.”

  Milton Perkins was grinning again. “You and I agreeing, that’s a sign things are completely out of control,” he told her. For Perkins, even to appear to agree with the likes of Ms. Richardson, a worshipful biographer of FDR, was more than he could stand.

  “I’ll say it again,” Travelers said. “Nobody said anything about letting boys in.”

  “Not yet,” McGarvey said.

  “My dear, you aren’t suggesting—?” Ms. Richardson’s tremolo trailed off, while McGarvey put her blue eyes on Ms. Richardson’s face and stared. Ms. Richardson tried again. “We have a vision to uphold!”

  “It’s not a vision. It’s a hallucination!” McGarvey hissed. “We’re supposed to know the difference.” Ms. Richardson’s face went pale, and McGarvey, who was trying to learn diplomacy and regretted her harshness, softened her voice. “Ms. Richardson, girls-only just doesn’t sell anymore,” she said.

  “Sell! My dear, this isn’t a store!”

  So much for McGarvey’s mildness. She reached across the table, tapped her bright-red nails on Ms. Richardson’s copy of the papers Fred had distributed. “See where the number is below the bottom line on Carl Vincent’s budget?”

  Ms. Richardson took the bait. “Yes,” she said. “I see.”

  “The one in parentheses?”

  Ms. Richardson didn’t answer.

  “Now look at Fred’s numbers; the figure in parentheses is bigger.”

  “Sonja McGarvey,” said Ms. Richardson. “I can read.”

  “By almost three quarters of a million dollars.”

  “Six hundred and seventy-five,” said Ms. Richardson.

  “I can read too,” said McGarvey. “I just like to round things off.”

  “Six hundred and seventy-five,” Ms. Richardson insisted. “My dear, six hundred and seventy-five is not three quarters of a million; it is six hundred and seventy-five.”

  “People!” Travelers rapped his knuckles on the table. He was clearly irritated. McGarvey and Ms. Richardson stopped.

  This was the opening Fred had been waiting for. “Even if it were three quarters of a million—a full million—it wouldn’t make any difference to me,” he told them. “I came here to help turn this thing around in four years. So now that we’ve only got two, we’ll do it in two.” Everyone’s eyes were on him as he spoke, for the hunger for leadership was palpable among this board which, until the unseating of Marjorie, had been so dominated by her that they never developed the will, or the sophistication, to do their job. And he was doing what he came here to do—he was leading. He was giving them a solution to their problem in the cash-flow projections he’d put in front of them, which demonstrated that the addition of twenty-six girls, recruited during each of the next two academic years through aggressive marketing of the school’s excellence and the efficacy of its single-sex mission, put him on the same pace to a balanced budget as the original plan, which had called for thirteen additional enrollments each year.

  It’s a good plan, he told himself, his confidence blossoming, because it provided him a fighting chance to save the school as single-sex, while leaving the option of admitting boys as a last resort if it became apparent the enrollment targets weren’t being reached. Because the one thing he wouldn’t do was close the school! Nor would he offer himself as sacrificial lamb by being the one to suggest bringing boys in. He remembered Peggy Plummer’s advice. “I’ve given you new numbers,” he said aloud. “They’re challenging, but if we get the message out, we can do it.”

  “Good for you!” Perkins exclaimed. Then, “Whose numbers? Not Vincent’s, I hope.”

  “No,” Fred answered. “They’re mine.”

  “Fred tells me he’s going to let Mr. Vincent go as soon as he comes back from vacation,” Travelers said very quietly.

  “Carl! Gone?” Ms. Richardson asked, staring at Fred.

  “Well, good for you,” McGarvey murmured.

  “Yeah,” said Perkins. “Good for you. Poor old guy. Didn’t know a number from a road sign.”

  “Well, anyway,” said Travelers, “we’re in trouble, and Fred’s recommended a solution.”

  “We are not in so much trouble that we can let loyal, longtime employees go just like that.” Ms. Richardson snapped her fingers.

  “Jeez, he couldn’t even count!” said Perkins. “As soon as he finishes getting Alzheimer’s his IQ’s going to double.”

  “That’s enough, Milton!” Travelers said.

  Ms. Richardson was still staring at Fred. “You mean you’re firing him?”

  “Oh, please!” said McGarvey.

  “There’s a principle here,” Ms. Richardson said. “Mr. Vincent has been allowed to perform for years in this way, and suddenly he’s dismissed? We don’t interact that way at Miss Oliver’s. I’m surprised at you, Mr. Kindler.”

  “Alan, for God’s sake, we have an emergency!” McGarvey exclaimed before Fred could respond. “Can we deal with it?”

  “We’ve already dealt with it,” Perkins barked. “We’re going with Fred’s new plan.”

  “And if that doesn’t work? What then?” McGarvey asked.

  “We’re going to close the school. That’s what. Because if it’s not going to be a girls’ school, the hell with it. You think I’d let myself be bored to death in board meetings for a school where boys get all the attention so they can run the world while girls stay home and cook? I’ve got three daughters, and I know what they learned here. You might as well think it’s going to snow in Florida in the middle of summer to think that boys are ever going to come in here. So why talk about it?”

  “We’re going to talk about it,” McGarvey said. “I promise. Because the one thing I’m not going to let happen is closing the school. So if you people won’t bring it up at the September board meeting, I will. I’ll force the issue.”

  Once again the room went silent while everyone stared at her.

  “Why in the world would you do that?” Travelers asked at last.

  “To save the school, that’s why.”

  “It’s a terrible idea,” Travelers said.

  “It’s being whispered everywhere,” McGarvey persisted. Travelers leaned toward her shaking his head, but McGarvey held her ground and told him, “I’m going to p
ut it to the board. Where it counts. And get some clarity.”

  “You put letting boys into the school on the table like that, how’re you going to keep it quiet?” Perkins asked. He shoved his plate of oysters aside. Cracked ice spilled onto the table. “The board’ll decide not to do it,” he said. “They’re not that crazy. But the story that’ll come out in the first three seconds after the meeting anyhow is that right away we’re going to admit seven hundred boys—all of them nine feet tall—and with extra big dicks. Fred here will have a crazy house on his hands.”

  The instant Perkins was finished with his harangue, McGarvey turned back to the chairman. It was as if to her Perkins wasn’t even in the room. “Alan,” she asked, “are you going to try to tell me I can’t speak my mind at a board meeting?”

  “No, Sonja, I’m not saying that. I don’t have the right. But I wish you wouldn’t.”

  “Good. Because if you were, I’d do it anyway.”

  “So that’s what firing Mrs. Boyd was really about!” Ms. Richardson exclaimed.

  Now it’s Ms. Richardson’s turn to be stared at.

  “Where did that come from?” Travelers asked.

  “You are very clever, Mr. Travelers,” Miss Richardson said. “Far cleverer than I. But even I can see how this meeting has been contrived.” She turned her stare on Perkins. “First Milton Perkins opens the door for all the posturing by saying the one thing we aren’t going to do is admit boys,” she said, then turning to McGarvey continued, “which of course gives Miss McGarvey the opportunity to propose that we should admit boys and that she will recommend admitting boys to the board of Miss Oliver’s School for Girls. And you”—she aimed her glare at Alan again—“pretend that you can’t stop her.”

  “You’re out of line, Ms. Richardson,” Travelers finally said. “You need to take that back.”

  But Ms. Richardson actually believed she had discovered the truth and wasn’t about to take anything back. “All along I suspected,” she said. “But I put my suspicions aside. I kept my faith.” Her voice was a quaver, on the verge of weeping. “Now I see how naive I was. All along. A plot: prey on the school’s misfortune, use it to pry Marjorie Boyd out of her office so we can bring in this man and open the doors to boys!”

  “You couldn’t be more wrong,” Travelers said, clearly amazed.

  “Oh, please, don’t go on with this.” Ms. Richardson’s tiny shoulders were shaking. “It’s out now! In the open! Why else would you fire the finest educator this school has ever had? I could never answer that question. Why fire the person who has made the school what it is?

  “And you!” she turned on Fred when no one answered. “You have just confirmed my original suspicion, which I put aside because you seemed a gentleman and so sincere. Well, now I know. First, we get a male chairman of the board. Then a cabal under his direction gets rid of Mrs. Boyd to make room for you; then you, on your very first day, get rid of one of her most faithful colleagues, and then on the very next day it is proposed at the executive committee that the board of trustees contemplate the admission of boys. It’s plain what’s coming next. I won’t be part of it. I’ll resign.”

  “Ms. Richardson, you’ve misinterpreted everything,” Fred said softly. He was devoid of anger. Instead, he was fascinated. For an instant he thought maybe he could unravel this for her.

  “Oh? You deny it!” he heard her say, mocking surprise. “Then let me ask a question. Which one do you favor, Mr. Kindler?” She was not on the verge of weeping anymore. Her face had gone hard.

  Fred saw the mine she was planting. Now he was irritated.

  Alan stood up. “Harriet, stop!” He saw what was coming, and he didn’t trust Fred to lie. “Just stop!”

  But Ms. Richardson calmly went right on. “We did have two philosophies proposed this morning,” she said, like a teacher reviewing the lesson for the dumbest student. “One that we should admit boys in order to keep the school in operation. The other that it would be better to close the school than to admit boys.”

  Fred’s face flamed, his chest constricted; he felt everyone watching, and for an instant he could hardly see.

  “Don’t be angry,” Ms. Richardson said. “Just answer the question.”

  “I’d close the school before I admitted boys,” he said, lying deliberately and looking Ms. Richardson right in the eye.

  It was very quiet in the room while she returned his stare. Then she said, “You don’t lie as skillfully as you need to yet, Mr. Kindler, but I’m sure your performance will improve with time.”

  Travelers cut in. “Ms. Richardson—”

  But she wasn’t finished yet. She was still facing Fred, her back to Travelers. “The truth is, Mr. Kindler, even if you were an honorable person, you shouldn’t be here.”

  “Harriet, you offered your resignation a minute ago,” Travelers said.

  “No, I didn’t. I only threatened.”

  “Yes, you did, and it’s accepted.” He looked at Sonja McGarvey and Milton Perkins.

  “Yup,” said Perkins. “I heard her resign.”

  “Me too,” said McGarvey. “Plain as day.”

  “It will be in the minutes,” Travelers announced. “We’ll take a short recess now. It will give you time to gather your things, Ms. Richardson.”

  She stayed in her chair. The frown on her pale face showed she was making a decision. Travelers had no legal right to remove her. She turned to Fred. “It was over for me as soon as Marjorie left,” she said. “I could have saved you your little charade.” She started to collect her copy of the financial papers.

  “Not those,” said Travelers. He reached to take them. “They’re confidential. For board members only.”

  Harriet Richardson took a sudden breath, stared at Travelers, and held the papers in her tiny hand. Travelers wore a little smile, gave a tug; Ms. Richardson let out her breath, and now Travelers held the papers. Ms. Richardson sat very still for an instant. “You won’t get away with this,” she whispered, then got up, walked across the room. The big oaken doors didn’t open for her, she was so little. Fred wondered if he should get up and open them. She pushed again, and the doors opened just enough, and then she was gone.

  DURING THE RECESS Perkins murmured to Fred, “Just in case you’re worried, I’ve told a few lies myself in my day. I’m kinda proud of them. They did more good than harm.”

  Then he handed Fred a note. It said: Let’s give old Vincent a little going-away present. I’ll take care of it. Two years’ salary. Anonymous. He obviously doesn’t have any money.

  After they reconvened, Alan tried to persuade McGarvey not to bring her proposal to the board. She refused. “I have to do what I think right,” she said. “Besides, the biggest problem isn’t going to be the board. It’s going to be the faculty. As soon as they find out the board’s even toying with the idea of going coed, they’ll be rabid. And the biggest problem on the faculty will be Francis Plummer. You think that little old lady who just resigned feels strongly?” she asked. “Wait’ll you see how our senior teacher reacts to the idea!”

  “Whaddya expect?” Perkins grumbled. “He’s loyal.”

  “He’s loyal to Marjorie,” McGarvey said. “You think he’s going to be loyal to Fred here? And he’s everybody’s hero. The girls call him Clark Kent, you know, from before I was there. He’s a loose cannon with a great big bang, and he’s cracking up.”

  “He might be,” Travelers said. “Look at the way he took you on, Milton—right in the middle of the reception for Fred.”

  “So I told a story and he told a better one.” Perkins said. “Who cares? We were both playing games.”

  “Completely out of control,” McGarvey said, and Fred remembered that Gregory van Buren, in one of his insistent appointments during the search process, mentioned sotto voce that he thought people who were cracking up were the most difficult to control because you don’t know what they were going to do next. Fred also remembered hearing that Francis Plummer had taken to referring to Son
ja McGarvey as Sonja Testosterone. He had laughed when he heard that. Now he had to be careful that the name wouldn’t slip off his own tongue.

  Goodness knows he was worried about Plummer. When he had interviewed with the senior teacher last January just before being appointed, Fred could tell how distraught Plummer was at Marjorie’s dismissal. It was one of the many warning notes that would have told a more detached, analytical person how great a risk it was hitching his wagon to Miss Oliver’s star. On Fred the warnings had had the opposite effect; he was inspired by the challenge. And Karen Benjamin was right: Miss Oliver’s was the school he would have loved his daughter to attend. Why wouldn’t he want to rescue it? So he had persuaded himself he could win Francis Plummer’s loyalty. Surely a man so in love with his school as Plummer was would control himself, tamp down his anger, and join the new head in keeping the school alive. Now Fred wondered if the man really was out of control, really cracking up. What better way to get back at a board member who had helped get rid of the headmistress he loved than by taking him on in front of the faculty? Sometimes pretending to be out of control was a very good strategy. All Fred knew is that he needed Francis Plummer.

  “You better reel him in, Fred,” Travelers was saying. “Or else you’ll have to get rid of him. I hate to say that. He’s been a loyal teacher.”

  “There you go with loyal again!” McGarvey turned to Travelers. “He’s loyal to what was. We are responsible for the future. If it were me, I’d reel him right out the door.”

  “You guys sound like Congress,” Perkins growled. “I could get sick.” He turned to Fred. “So, you want to know all this crap about Plummer or not?”

  “Let me handle him,” Fred said. “That’s my job.”

  “I hope that’s possible,” McGarvey murmured.

  THAT NIGHT AFTER dinner, Gail and Fred sat on the back porch, and Gail knew something bad had happened at the meeting, something he didn’t want to talk about or else he would surely have told her at dinner, but he was so distracted it was as if she were not even in the room with him, and she waited and waited for him to tell her what was bothering him. Whatever it was, it must be worse than the budget fiasco he had told her about last night. “Don’t ask,” he had said. Which of course meant exactly the opposite, and even before they’d gone inside, he told her that the under-enrollment was exactly twice as large as he had thought and that he had only two years instead of four to save the school. So what was going on now, only a day later, that he was hiding from her?