Saving Miss Oliver's

by Stephen Davenport

  “Is this a quiz, Mr. Plummer? I thought it was going to be an idea.”

  That was it for Francis. He jumped to his feet “If you don’t want this idea, I’ll take it to the board and they’ll tell you to do it. How’s that? You want it that way or this way?”

  Kindler leaned back in his chair, put his hands behind his head, and stared at Francis. “Isn’t there something I should do first? Before I tell you which way I want it—as you so gracefully put it? I mean, shouldn’t I be running to the auditorium now?”

  “What?”

  “To see who’s starting a riot this time.”

  Francis was about to explain that he hadn’t known any more than Kindler did that Sandra Petrie had been on campus. But once again he found that he couldn’t. Who was he, Richard Nixon, that he had to explain he was not a crook? So instead he accused, “You actually believe that I would do that, don’t you? You think I’m low enough that I could set you up.”

  “Can you give me some reasons why I shouldn’t?”

  “Yeah, I can. But I won’t. You can believe whatever you want.”

  “That’s right,” Kindler said. “I can.”

  “And so can I. But I have an idea that will work, and you are the headmaster.”

  “All right, I’ll listen to it,” Fred relented. He was feeling just a little chagrined now, unprofessional, to have been so ruled by his feelings that he could accuse without any facts. Every time he even got near this guy, he screwed up!

  Francis sat down again. “Obviously, if we could recruit enough girls to make budget, we wouldn’t have to admit boys,” he began—a neutral remark to cool things off.

  “Mr. Plummer, please! That’s what we’ve been trying to do,” Fred said, exasperated all over again.

  “Yes, and it hasn’t worked.”

  “Your point, Mr. Plummer? Today! Please.”

  “It hasn’t worked because we haven’t given the problem to the alumnae and the parents.”

  “What do you think I’ve been trying to do?” Fred was surprised by how defensive he felt. “I’d give my eyeteeth to find a way to explain why we have to have boys.”

  “You didn’t hear me,” Francis said.

  After a little pause, Fred murmured: “No, I guess I didn’t,” because now, with just this little hint, he was beginning to get the drift of this idea—and, like Francis, wondered why in the world he hadn’t think of it months ago.

  “You’ve told them what the options are: One, admit boys; two, close the school. You’ve announced to them that you’ve chosen the first option. They’ve rejected both of them.”

  “No. They’ve chosen the second option, Mr. Plummer.” Though he’d caught Plummer’s drift and knew it was right, Fred couldn’t resist arguing and wanting Plummer to be wrong. “The alumnae have withdrawn their pledges, and the parents have supported the Declaration and refused to enroll their daughters. They’ve chosen to close the school.”

  “No, they haven’t. That’s just how it looks. They can’t even imagine this school’s not existing anymore.” Francis paused, studied Kindler’s face. He could tell: Kindler was taking it in. “They could imagine it if it were their problem. But you’re still holding on to it, you haven’t given it to them. So it’s still your job to contemplate a world without Miss Oliver’s, not theirs.” Now Francis was in his accustomed role again, giving advice to the head. He felt the rightness of it and knew too—a more pressing feeling—a huge regret. That he’d given this up!

  “All right, I get your drift, Mr. Plummer,” Fred began.

  But Francis wanted to make sure—after all, there was a lot this guy didn’t get—so he explained some more. “You go to the alumnae and the parents, and you tell the girls too, just how many girls we have to have enrolled next year and the year after that, and how much money we have to raise by what time if they want to save the school as a school for girls only. You give them very precise goals: how many girls we have to enroll, how many dollars we have to raise by a specific date each year, and challenge them to go out and raise the money and recruit the students within that time.” Francis rushed on, explaining. The strategy was so powerful and encouraged him so much that he failed to realize how much easier this would go down with Fred Kindler, and how much it would help his and Peggy’s marriage if he gave this idea to her and had her take it as her own to the headmaster—who wasn’t listening anymore because he’d understood the strategy from the first minute that Francis Plummer had begun to talk and knew it was perfect and wished he could focus on the joy of it, this gift that would bring him everything he wanted, instead of his resentment that he was not being given it by Alan Travelers, or Peggy Plummer, or Rachel Bickham, or even one of the kids—Lila Smythe, for instance—let alone thinking of it himself. Instead he had to sit here and get it from Francis Plummer.

  “We tell them we can’t do this by ourselves,” he heard Francis finishing. “We need you. It’s your school, and if you love it as you say you do, then get out there and tell everybody you know to send their daughters here, raise the money, do it. And they will, you know,” he added. “They will, and we’ll have Miss Oliver’s School for Girls forever. Because they’ll never stand for letting boys in here.”

  Yes, Fred said to himself, and if they don’t get it done by the deadline, we’ll have no other option than to let boys in and they’ll just have to shut up about it. And it won’t be my fault, I’ll still be able to lead! “All right,” he said aloud. “It’s a good idea. We’ll do it.”

  “Fine, I thought you’d like it,” Francis said, not sure whether he meant to be sarcastic or not. He started to get up.

  Kindler motioned with his hand in front of his face in the gesture that Francis hated so much. “Sit down, please, Mr. Plummer,” he said, and Francis sat down again. “Why did you wait so long to come to me with this?”

  Because you’re the wrong head, Francis longed to say. Completely the wrong style for us. But he held his tongue and told the truth instead. “I just thought of it half an hour ago.” Later he would wonder if he would have thought of this months earlier at the beginning of the summer if he hadn’t gone west instead.

  Fred sat very still, his eyes full on Plummer’s face. “All right,” he murmured, “since I didn’t think of it at all.”

  Francis shrugged to show he didn’t care whether the headmaster believed him or not.

  “I’ll call the board chair this afternoon and tell him your idea,” Fred Kindler said.

  “Don’t make it my idea.” Francis corrected. “You’re the head. The alumnae and the parents will need to think it comes from you. They need a strong headmaster.”

  “Which in your opinion they don’t have?”

  Francis didn’t answer.

  “All right, Mr. Plummer, we won’t go there.”

  Francis still didn’t answer.

  “But I will act on your idea.”

  “Good,” Francis said and stood up. He started to reach across the desk to shake Kindler’s hand, but then decided he wouldn’t. He didn’t want to watch Kindler force himself to accept the gesture. So he turned and headed for the door.

  “Mr. Plummer?”

  Francis faced back. He saw that Kindler had caught him deciding not to shake hands. This is what Kindler will remember about this, Francis thought. That I wouldn’t shake his hand.

  “Thanks,” Kindler said. “It’s a good strategy. It will work.”

  “Yes it will,” Francis answered, “thank you for listening,” and moved to the door.

  “Close the door after you, please,” Fred Kindler said. “I have a phone call to make.”

  IT WASN’T UNTIL he got home that Francis realized that not only would the strategy he’d invented save Miss Oliver’s School and its single-sex mission, but it would most probably also save Fred Kindler’s headship. In the first place, it will work, he said to himself, and even if it doesn’t, it will be the alumnae who have failed, and they won’t be able to blame it on him. At first he was st
unned by this realization; and then he was surprised to be not more disturbed by it than he was, and then it came to him that if he was right and Kindler was the wrong person for the school—which Francis was sure he was—then he’d figure it out for himself and go away on his own. The guy was not a phony, there was not a dishonest bone in his body—and then for the second time this day, Francis wondered why he’d been so slow to understand the obvious. Oh, well, he said to himself, if Peggy knew what we’ve just done, she’d say I was growing up.

  But Peggy was not going to know. Or anyone else. It was his and Kindler’s secret.

  TWENTY-TWO

  One week after Francis brought his idea for saving the school to Fred Kindler, Marjorie Boyd’s tour of Europe came to an end. She was surprised to be so disappointed to be home again.

  Marjorie had been looking forward to establishing her life in the Hartford apartment she had rented soon after she was fired and knew she would have to move off campus. It was a fine apartment: new, painted in colors she’d chosen herself, with a view of the river, and far enough away from Miss Oliver’s for her to be out of Fred Kindler’s hair while close enough to feel at home. But as she unpacked her bags, she knew she didn’t want to live there.

  Almost as soon as she had arrived, her phone began to ring. Old friends welcoming her back. She wished they’d wait a bit. She needed time to think, to discover why she was disappointed.

  “Marjorie, welcome back,” a voice on the line said. “This is Sandra Petrie.”

  For an instant Marjorie couldn’t remember who Sandra Petrie was. She’d been expecting Francis and Peggy Plummer.

  “Marjorie, are you there?” The anxious voice jogged Marjorie’s memory.

  “Yes, I’m here, Sandra.”

  “Oh, it’s so good to have you home!” Sandra gushed.

  “Thanks, it’s good to be home.” Now Marjorie was on her guard.

  Sandra understood Marjorie’s tone. The old headmistress had so much integrity she wouldn’t come to a meeting to hear complaints about Fred Kindler. But she’d come to a lunch with loyal friends. Once there, she’d hear what was happening and understand that she was the one who had to save the school. “I’d love you to come to lunch tomorrow at my house,” Sandra said. “I’ll gather Barbara Tuckerman and Harriet Richardson. We’ll have a nice intimate lunch, just the four of us. We’re dying to see you again and hear about your trip.”

  Marjorie hesitated. Just thinking about being with these people depressed her. She remembered Sandra and Barbara as students. She educated their daughters. Harriet Richardson had been a friend for years and a dutiful trustee. But now she didn’t want to see them.

  “Please come. We’ve missed you so much,” Sandra said, speaking the truth.

  Marjorie had no desire to offend and didn’t want to lie that she had another appointment. She hadn’t had to bend the truth for anyone for months. “Well, thank you very much, I’d love to come,” she said.

  “Oh, wonderful!” Sandra said. “It’ll be such fun!”

  EARLY IN THE morning of the next day, the last full day of winter term, Fred Kindler, Milton Perkins, and Alan Travelers bounced across Long Island Sound to East Hampton on a little commuter plane to visit Mrs. Jamie Carrington, president of the Alumnae Association. She would be the first to hear of the new strategy.

  Jamie Carrington sent a chauffeur to meet them at the airport in a dirty, beat-up 1960 Plymouth convertible, and though it was a cold March day, she sent it with the top down. The chauffeur, who introduced himself merely as “Jack,” didn’t shake hands. He wore jeans, moccasins with no socks, and a cracked leather jacket.

  “This is what we get for saying we’re going to let boys in,” Perkins said, grinning at Travelers as they got in the backseat, and Fred sat up front next to Jack. “But it ain’t too bad. I was expecting a hitman.” And just before Jack started the car, Perkins leaned forward. “Jack,” he said to the back of Jack’s head, “it’s kinda cold. Maybe you could put the top up.”

  “I can’t; it’s broken,” Jack announced to the rearview mirror.

  “No, it isn’t,” Perkins said mildly. “It’s just your boss dicking around with us.”

  “Hey, it’s broken!” said Jack. Then, apparently losing his resolve, he softened his voice. “I’m sorry, sir. It really is broken. I was going to come in the Mercedes like always, but Mrs. Carrington, she told me no, take the little one and stay in my old clothes from changing the oil—so I did.”

  “Yeah, well maybe after she hears our plan she’ll send us back in a hot tub,” Perkins said.

  “It happened once before,” said Jack.

  “Oh, yeah?” said Perkins.

  “She didn’t trust the guy her daughter was dating,” said Jack.

  “Well, nobody said she was dumb,” said Perkins.

  “And I was going to meet him at the station. He was coming from New York.”

  “We going to get a punch line, Jack?” Perkins asked. “We’re freezin’ our balls off here.”

  “She told me to tell him to hitchhike. So that’s what I did. I drove to the station just so I could tell him to hitchhike. The guy thought I was joking. But when he tried to get in the car, I just drove away.” Jack was laughing now at the memory. “You shoulda seen his face!” he said.

  “Really?” Perkins said. “So we’re not doing too bad here.” He put his hand on Jack’s leather-clad shoulder. “Drive on, Jack. We’ll just sit back and pretend we’re Eskimos.”

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER they stood on Mrs. Carrington’s big front porch, shivering from their ride. Travelers rang the doorbell. “Remember, you speak first,” he said to Perkins. “You can let her figure out you never were for letting boys in, you got outvoted. That’ll warm her up. We save Fred here for last.”

  “Yeah,” Perkins said. “Good.”

  They heard footsteps approaching the other side of the door. Travelers put his hand to his left to touch Perkins’s elbow; to his right he touched Fred’s elbow too. Fred had a sharp sensation of the three of them joined. “Here goes,” Travelers whispered. The door opened.

  Mrs. Jamie Carrington wasn’t anything like what Fred had expected. He had expected “cute.” Why else have a name like Jamie? What he discovered was anything but cute. In her mid-forties, the woman frowning at them was tall and stiff-backed. She was dressed in a blue silk shirt, tight jeans, and high heels, her dark hair streaked with gray.

  “Good morning,” Alan Travelers said, putting out his hand. “This is—”

  “I know who you are,” Jamie Carrington said, refusing Travelers’s handshake. Her voice was a surprise: dark and low, like an angry man’s. Without another word, she turned her back to them and started to walk away. They followed her down a long hall to an office where she sat down behind a desk.

  There were only two chairs next to the desk. There was a long, silent moment in which Jamie Carrington watched with apparent scientific interest her three visitors make the discovery that one of them was going to have to stand up. Fred started to point this out; she shrugged, and then he saw a big armchair way across the room in a corner. He crossed the room, picked up the chair, hugging it to his chest, and wrestled it across the room. He put it down next to the other two chairs and sat down in it. Travelers and Perkins sat too, pretending to ignore the insult.

  “I have fifteen minutes,” Mrs. Carrington announced.

  “You owe us more than that,” Milton Perkins said.

  “Fifteen minutes,” she repeated.

  “All right, Jamie,” Perkins’s voice was soft. “You owe me.”

  “You!”

  Perkins nodded. “Me!” he repeated.

  She looked away from him.

  “We’ve been down a long, long road,” Perkins said very quietly. “We’ve given lots and lots of bucks. Both of us. Me even more than you.” She started to say something. He put his hand up. “I’m the only one who’s given more than you.”

  “Yes!” she blurted. “Precisely! The only
one. You matched me every time and then some. Precisely.”

  Perkins hesitated, frowning, trying to understand. Then a dawning: “Oh,” he exclaimed. “That’s what you thought!”

  “That’s what I knew! The minute I heard what you had done, I knew. Why else?”

  Perkins shook his head back and forth. “Not for that reason,” he murmured as if only to himself.

  “You traitor!” she said. “You sneaky old crook!”

  “Just a minute,” Travelers said. “I can’t tolerate—”

  Perkins put his hand out, placed it on Traveler’s shoulder. “Hold it, Alan. We’re about to get to the bottom of something.”

  Carrington turned on Travelers. “Yes, hold it. I don’t have the slightest intention of conversing with you.”

  Alan stood up. He’d had enough. “Well, then, we’re leaving,” he said. “This meeting isn’t going to get anyone anywhere. Fred, Milton, let’s go.”

  “Sit down, sit down, you’re rocking the boat,” Perkins said.

  “All right,” said Travelers, still standing. “You tell me why.”

  “Yes, why?” Fred asked, standing too, already thinking of other alumnae to approach.

  “ ’Cause now we know,” Perkins said. “This lady thinks I gave more money than she gave so I could win, so we could get away with—”

  “Well, didn’t you?” asked Carrington. “Didn’t you? Well, it’s not going to happen. No boys! Do you hear? You bastard!”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Jamie, shut up,” said Perkins very quietly as if he were asking for a cup of coffee. “Close your mouth and open your brain.”

  She just stared.

  “The way it usually is,” Perkins said, “when you’re not so excited.” Then after a little pause: “ ’Cause we’re here to tell you were not going to let boys in the old place. You’re the first to know. We’ve got a plan, and you’re it, Jamie; that’s why we’re here.”

  “A plan?” she said. “That’s why you’re here?”

  “And don’t try to tell me you can’t give any more. You’ve got lots more, and you’re going to be giving it, just like me. You could sell this castle you’ve been getting lost in since you were born, and the house in Baja, and the one in Vermont. People like us only give what’s left over.”