Nevertheless, he wouldn’t let her get away with this. “I don’t think that’s what you think at all,” he said.
“How do you know?”
“It’s not in the poem,” he told her. “There’s not one word to suggest it is. You’re too smart to think there is.”
She didn’t answer.
“And besides, it’s not how you read the part,” he said.
That stopped her. She had no answer now. Everyone in the room had seen how much of herself she had put into the other Amy. She looked out the window, and he let her go. They’d made enough inroads for one day.
A few minutes later, in the middle of a discussion—in which he hardly said a word—of all the meanings of home that shimmer in the poem, the time ran out. When the bell rang to end the period, the conversation went on. He had to order the students to leave.
There are bad days when no matter what you try, nothing works; and there are good days when everything you try is magic. This had been one of the good days. No one in this class would ever be the same again.
FRANCIS DIDN’T HAVE much time to savor his satisfaction. The phone rang on his desk before the last ninth grader was out of his classroom. It was Margaret Rice telling him the new headmaster wanted to see him right away. “I know it’s just exactly how you want to spend your free period,” she said.
“Oh, really?” he asked, matching her sarcasm. “What does he want this time?” She didn’t half know how much he didn’t want this.
“How would I know?” Margaret answered. “We don’t talk a lot, remember?”
But by the time Francis was halfway across campus, he had guessed. It was the business about the Pequot Collection.
And he hadn’t told Peggy yet!
So now Peggy would have heard through the grapevine, rather than from him, that the student council he advised would give the Collection away to some people who had never asked for it and probably didn’t even know it existed. He needed to apologize to her.
He needed to bring this subject up with her before she brought it up with him—and certainly before Kindler brought it up with her. Even Kindler was sensitive enough not to want to do that. So Francis would explain the issue fully to Kindler now, and then right afterward talk with Peggy. He’d even skip a class if he had to. Then he and Peggy together would plan with Fred Kindler for how they should react to the council’s proposal.
“Go right on in,” Margaret told him a minute later, waving him to Fred Kindler’s office. “They’ve already begun to talk.”
“They?” He was relieved he wouldn’t be alone with Kindler. Margaret didn’t answer. Just looked at him as if he ought to know. He guessed it was Rachel Bickham. She was one of the people he’d go to for advice if he were the head.
He opened the door to Fred Kindler’s office on that meager burst of optimism, and it took an instant for him to realize who was sitting, her back to him, in the chair in front of Kindler’s desk. It wasn’t Rachel. He stopped dumbfounded, staring at Peggy’s back. She was facing Fred Kindler, who stared past her at him.
She turned around in her chair to face him. “Hello,” she said. He couldn’t read what was in her voice, and Kindler didn’t say a word, just pointed to a third chair. Francis entered the office and sat. They were in a circle, Kindler to his left, Peggy to his right. Their three pairs of knees were almost touching.
“We’re talking about what the student council wants to do,” Peggy said to Francis. He couldn’t tell if she was chastising him or just letting him know that the meeting was about a subject delicate for both of them.
“Peggy, I’m sorry,” he said. “I just forgot to tell you.” He was about to go on and tell her why he forgot: because everything that had happened yesterday had pushed it right out of his mind. But Kindler was watching him, and he couldn’t make the words come out. He wouldn’t apologize to his wife in this office in front of Marjorie, for Christ’s sake, let alone Fred Kindler.
“It’s all right, Francis,” Peggy said. “I understand.” She didn’t want to have this apology here in front of Fred Kindler any more than he did. And she did understand how Kindler’s threat to fire him would make him forget. But the damage was done: He’d already apologized to her in front of Kindler. Francis felt naked under Kindler’s eye, as if the man had caught him in some perverted act. He turned on Kindler. “You should have talked with me first about this,” he said.
“Well, I’m glad I didn’t,” Fred Kindler said. “She might never have found out.”
Francis was stunned. “Say that again.”
“I think you heard me,” Fred Kindler said.
“You mean you told her? She didn’t know when she came in here?”
“Francis,” Peggy said softly. “Please. What difference does it make?”
It made so much difference to Francis he couldn’t speak. Kindler doing what I should have done. How intrusive can this bastard get?
“I didn’t want her to be kept out of the loop,” Kindler said. He didn’t even try to keep the contempt out of his voice. He had been shocked to have figured out from the way Peggy reacted in their conversation just now before Francis had entered that Francis hadn’t even mentioned this to her. “Or perhaps you don’t think the person in charge of the Collection should be the first to know it might disappear,” Kindler added. Then regretted his bitter words. Here he was, taking sides between a husband and a wife, butting into a private place. And he was the head, for goodness sake!
Peggy watched as these two men looked at each other then away, and she saw nothing but potential disaster: the dissolution of her marriage, the school’s succumbing, Fred Kindler’s defeat. Worse than this, and more surprising, she felt a sudden disgust for both of them. That scared her more than anything. She’d do whatever had to be done to erase that feeling. “Let’s get on with this meeting,” she said. “What are we trying to get done?”
Fred sent her a look of thanks. He would answer her question and be a pro again instead of just an angry man. “I brought us together so that there would be no surprises for any one of the three of us tomorrow when the student council makes its proposal,” he said. He was already feeling a little calmer. “I want you to know how I intend to react and why. And give you a chance to do the same.”
“Fine,” Peggy said. “Thank you.” Francis, feeling wary, said nothing.
Then Fred finished. “I’m aware there could be some difficult feelings, some tough emotions around this situation. I thought we could put them on the table here in this privacy so they would be easier to deal with in public tomorrow.” He looked straight at Peg.
Francis was appalled. Oh, Jeeez! he thought. It’s touchy-feely time. He felt the same as when Kindler had told him he should go to a shrink. He’d always cringed when the younger teachers wanted to “share their feelings”—in faculty meetings, for crying out loud!—and was always grateful to Marjorie for cutting them off. He turned to Peggy. He knew how she’d react. She always felt the same way. She wasn’t about to share her feelings. She’d rather get undressed in public.
“All right, I’ll start,” Peggy said.
“You’ll what?” Francis said.
She turned to him. “I’ll clear the air.”
Now he wondered if she was going to change her mind and chew him out for forgetting to tell her. Right there in public. If she said just one word of that, he’d leave the room.
“I know you weren’t trying to surprise me,” she said. What else could she do but change her mind and talk about this now? She couldn’t turn to Fred Kindler and talk about Francis as if he weren’t in the room. But Fred had to know that Francis wouldn’t ever try to pull a fast one. “I know you just forgot to tell me,” she said. “I know you didn’t want me to walk into the auditorium tomorrow and see you up on stage and learn that the—”
Francis looked out the window. He had to struggle not to flee, and Peggy saw how deeply she’d insulted him.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t h
ave said that you would think—”
“Don’t even say it!” Francis interrupted.
“All right, I won’t,” Peggy said, but really, she’d already said it.
“Fair enough,” Fred Kindler said, keeping his eyes on Peggy. He didn’t want her to know how much he distrusted her husband.
He needed to change the subject and get the focus on tomorrow. “I’m going to be neutral,” he said. “I’m not going to be for or against. I’m going to let the discussion happen. You need to know that.” He was looking straight at Peggy. “I hope you’re okay with that.”
“I’m not, I hate it.” Peggy said.
Fred was taken aback.
“You asked,” she said.
“All right,” he said, and turned to Francis. “And you?”
You think I’m going to disagree with my wife in front of you? Francis thought. Out loud, he lied, “I hate it too.”
“Well, we’ve got a problem,” Kindler said.
Peggy leaned back in her chair, she was not sure why—to distance herself from both of them? Let them figure it out. Why should she? The silence went on until she heard herself say, “No, we don’t. Not much of a problem, anyway. I’m not crazy. I can see both sides.” She really could, and besides, she was here to save the day.
Fred was too relieved to think of what to say. Francis wasn’t sure he believed her.
“But if anybody even begins to spout PC theology, if anyone even utters the words blasphemy or sacrilege, I’m going to fight back,” Peggy said. “And if we don’t find the right Pequot authorities and they don’t guarantee they’ll take care of it, I won’t let it out of my sight.”
“Me too,” Francis said, feeling a little better now.
“Believe me, we won’t give it away to just anybody—if we give it away at all,” Fred said.
Now there was a silence. No one knew what to say.
“Is there anything else we need to bring up?” Fred asked.
Francis shook his head. Later, when it would be too late, he would understand what a big mistake he’d made, but right now all he wanted was for this meeting to end.
“Just this ironic fact,” Peggy said. “That it’s the Collection in our midst that inspired the moral development in the girls to make them not want to keep it in our midst.”
“Will you say that tomorrow?” Fred asked.
“If no one else does,” Peggy answered.
“Good,” Fred said, and Peggy waited for him to say more, some recognition of how much she had surrendered, but he kept his mouth shut. He wanted to tell her how much he agreed with her, how he loved the paradox she’d named, but he was damned if he would engage in a philosophical conversation with Francis Plummer in the room. “Anything else?” he asked.
“I can’t think of anything,” Peggy said.
“Well, that didn’t take so long,” Fred said.
Francis could see Kindler was trying to end the meeting on a strong note. He wasn’t going to hang around for that. He stood up and turned his back on Kindler. “Let’s go, Peggy,” he said, and moved to the door.
Peggy hesitated. Fred said nothing. He wasn’t going to rise to the insult of Plummer turning his back on him.
Peggy watched Fred make that decision. Francis waited for her by the door. They’d leave together, side by side. But she made a little gesture with her hand, refusing him. He understood: Right then she was more Fred Kindler’s right-hand person than Francis Plummer’s wife! She didn’t move from her chair until Francis left.
When she got back to her library, she would stop in front of the Collection and look at it as if maybe she’d never have another chance.
THE NEXT MORNING, the auditorium was loud with conversation as the students trooped in and Francis and the student council took seats on the stage. Peggy took a seat near the front right behind Sam Andersen.
Lila stood up, moved to the front of the stage. The room grew quiet. “Some of you already know Sara Warrior, our new ninth grader,” Lila said. She gestured to where Sara sat in the front row of the audience. “As you know, Sara’s Native American, Pequot,” Lila went on. “She wants to talk to you.”
Sara stood up and moved toward the stage and climbed the same steps that Fred Kindler had climbed the other day. She looked small and frightened.
“Listen carefully,” Lila said. “Sara is going to make a proposal.” Then she stepped away from the mike and went back to her seat. The students applauded. It was the Oliver custom to make new students feel at home.
But Peggy was not applauding. Francis hadn’t told her Sara was going to make the proposal. He hadn’t even told her that Sara was the one who had brought the issue up. The student council was bringing up this issue, and Sara was not on the student council. Peggy stared past Sara to where Francis sat right next to Lila Smythe at the back of the stage. How could he do this to this kid? How could he use her so? A fourteen-year-old child, a Native American to boot, who was homesick and lonely and needed to be nurtured. Put her up there on stage and see who dared present the other side. Francis, you bastard! Peggy thought. We said there’d be no surprises!
The microphone was much too tall for Sara. She looked for the screw that she could turn to telescope it down, and for the longest time couldn’t find it, then finally did and started to talk. But her voice didn’t carry; it was hard to hear her. Peggy wanted to rush up there and mother the kid, put her arms around her and take her offstage where she’d be safe. Lila got up from her seat and rescued Sara. She put one hand on Sara’s shoulder while the other turned the switch to activate the mike, then she smiled at Sara and went back to her seat.
“It kind of bothers me that I’m the one who has to tell you this,” Sara said. Her voice quavered, and she looked as if she might start to cry. She looked back at Lila, who nodded her head.
“Go ahead,” Lila whispered. “You’re the one to do this.”
“All right,” Sara said, and began. “There were twenty-six villages along the Connecticut and Rhode Island shore and up and down the river. In 1630 the captain of a white man’s merchant ship kidnapped the chief and demanded six thousand feet of wampumpeag for ransom, and when they got it, they killed him and put his body into a canoe and floated it into the harbor where now New London is.” Sara spoke with more assurance now as she recited this history she knew so well and that enraged her. “They killed the warriors and burned the villages and murdered the mothers and the children, and then they stole the land.”
Some of the older students were restless in their seats. They resented this talk. They had studied this history, and they felt guilty and had no power to undo the injustice. If it had been the other way around, you would have done it too, they wanted to say.
“And you shouldn’t act like them,” Sara said, and immediately understood she’d made a mistake, and paused. She was flustered now. She knew these kids didn’t murder people, didn’t invade and kill women and children. “I didn’t mean it like that,” she said. “I didn’t mean that you would do it.” She tried to find the words to say what she did mean. But her mind was all a jumble now, and she couldn’t find the words, because she was only fourteen and she was up there all alone with all these people looking at her, and she’d never made a speech before.
Then she saw the headmaster standing in the back of the room. He was the one who should be doing this. And he was the one who could help her. The students turned to see where Sara was looking. There was a lot of silence. Everyone in the auditorium could see that Sara wanted Fred Kindler to say something so she could be a ninth grader, not a prophet, and everybody was waiting to see how he’d respond. But he’d already decided he wouldn’t take sides. He restrained himself, and the moment passed. Sara, even more alone and disillusioned, tried to speak.
She was supposed to make the proposal. Then she could sit down. She drew a breath. “We should give it back,” she said, not the words she had been going to say, the elaborate ones Lila had helped her with. She soldiered on. “It’
s not right to put the things of people who your ancestors murdered in a case just so you can study them. And pieces of a person’s body in a case too so you can stare and stare and stare.” Then she remembered what Lila had said. “That’s sacrilege,” she said. “That’s blasphemous.”
Now Peggy was on her feet. Sara looked her way and stopped talking.
“I think you misunderstand,” Peggy said. “Let’s talk, Sara. Please. Later.”
Sara stared at her, and Sam Andersen turned around in his seat in front of Peggy. He found her eyes, and shook his head, a gesture he hoped only she could notice. She understood and wished she could have the last ten seconds back. “I’m sorry, Sara,” she murmured, and sat down, even more furious now at Francis for what she thought was his part in putting Sara onstage.
Sara was crying. How could she not be? First her fear of public speaking, then her outrage, and then the headmaster not pitching in for her, and finally this woman challenging her. This woman who pretended to be a mother in the dorm and was the guardian of the bones, standing up in front of everybody and saying Sara didn’t understand. What was there not to understand?
Lila came downstage and put an arm around Sara, kissed her cheek. That’s all the signal that was needed: The students stood and clapped for Sara’s bravery, her fierce conviction. Shaken, Sara left the stage and took a seat in the audience.
Then Lila made the announcement that Sara had been going to make. “On your behalf, the student council will petition the headmaster and the board of trustees for the immediate return of the Collection to the rightful owners, the Pequot people,” she said. “We’ll make the petition in our next meeting and send it around. You can decide for yourselves whether to sign it. I hope you will.”
There was a long silence then in the audience. Everyone’s eyes moved up front and went back and forth between Peggy in the second row and Francis up on the stage. Everyone was waiting for Peggy to speak. But she would not. She was not going to say anything about her opinion that there were two sides to this issue, or mention the paradox she named yesterday in Fred Kindler’s office. She wouldn’t even defend the Collection from the accusation of sacrilege and blasphemy. Not with Sara in the room. Because Sara was the one who uttered those words, and she was the one who needed protection.
Saving Miss Oliver's Page 23
