by Sarah S.
Those afternoons with her grandfather were filled with peppermint tea and chocolate chip cookies on the estate’s enormous back porch. They watched the swans in the pond, which were probably the grandparents or great-grandparents of the swans that lived there now. They sat at the Steinway baby grand piano that is still in the music room. He played Chopin for her, his fingers kissing the keys.
When Sylvie saw her mother’s car wending up the driveway, her heart would plummet. Her own house was dark, the blinds pulled tight. Doors in different wings eased quietly shut; her parents rarely spent any time together except for meals. Sylvie hated eating with her parents most of all—they never spoke during those taut dinners, the only sounds were of the clinking forks, the scraping plates, and the chewing. When Sylvie couldn’t stand another second of silence, she’d burst out with something her grandfather told her that day, even though her parents had heard the stories plenty of times before. “Did you know Charlie Roderick let some of the people who worked on Swithin stay at his house?” she’d crow. “Did you know he worked even on his birthday?” But this just angered her mother, Clara, even more, and she often wearily snapped, “Your grandfather isn’t the messiah you think he is. Those people who rebuilt the school? The ones he let stay at his house? Fat chance he let their children go to Swithin. Even if they’d scrimped and saved all their money, he would never let them in.”
And then Clara would glance at Sylvie’s father, Theodore, as if daring him to scold her for saying such things about his family. But Sylvie’s father never took the bait, his eyes remained fixed on his Wall Street Journal, his jaw working his food.
Sylvie didn’t understand what her mother meant by those comments. It wasn’t until she was in middle school and heard similar rumors that she finally worked out what her mother was implying. But by then she refused to believe it. Everyone was jealous of the Bates family, including Sylvie’s mother, who had come from a good family, but not as good. And anyway, her mother was bitter and mean-spirited about everything and everyone. It was obvious why Sylvie’s father was around less and less, conducting most of his business out of New York. Sylvie would have escaped to New York, too, forever avoiding those crypt-quiet dinners, her mother’s inimical remarks, and those heaving sighs through her nose. Her mother had once been involved in Sylvie’s life. Sylvie still remembered the dollhouse she’d gotten for Christmas when she was six. Clara had even helped Sylvie to select furniture for it from a big, glossy dollhouse catalog. And Sylvie used to slip her hand into her mother’s when they walked through the revolving doors at the Strawbridge & Clothier department store in Philadelphia, snug and secure in her mother’s grip. But something had happened to her mother in the years between, something that seemingly couldn’t be reversed.
When she was thirteen, Sylvie called her father at the hotel he usually stayed at in New York, wanting to know if she could take the train up and visit him. She thought that once outside their dour house, her father would be more like his father, the great Charlie Roderick Bates. The hotel concierge connected Sylvie to her father’s room and a woman answered. Sylvie said she must have dialed the wrong room and went to hang up. “Are you looking for Teddy?” the woman asked. “Who?” Sylvie said. “Theodore,” the woman corrected. “He’s in the shower.”
Sylvie slammed the phone back into its cradle, her heart beating fast. Teddy. She couldn’t imagine her father being called that. It seemed childish, a stuffed bear flung on a bed.
After that, Sylvie drifted away from both her parents. Whenever anyone teased her at school, she sobbed into her grandfather’s lap, feeling like he was the only person in the world who loved her, who made time for her. “Don’t worry about any of them,” he said softly. “You’re different than everyone. You’re better. Someday, all this will be yours.”
“All what?” Sylvie had asked. But he hadn’t elaborated. Perhaps he meant the house, knowing even then that he would bequeath it to her, skipping right over his only son. Or maybe Charlie meant the school. Maybe he meant the whole world.
Now, Sylvie parked her car and turned off the engine. Her heels clicked across the parking lot. The flag in the middle of the lot was at half-staff, and there was a small, red ribbon tied around the pole, although she wasn’t sure what it signified. She looked around for other evidence of the boy’s death—a picture on one of the glass-paned doors that led to the lobby, for instance, or a collection plate in his memory on the arched, wooden sign-in desk. But there was nothing. Photographs of the class officers hung next to the flag. A large stuffed hawk, the school mascot, sat on top of the secretary’s desk. There was a big poster for an upcoming school play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Inside the auditorium, she heard a piano, then someone singing, probably a late choir practice. The song in the auditorium didn’t sound somber, either, but something Sylvie vaguely recognized from a Rogers and Hammerstein musical.
The others were already in the library. They were sitting on the leather couches, a pot of tea on the large, low coffee table. When they saw her, they stood.
“Sylvie.” Daniel Girard held out his arms. He was good-looking, tall with silver hair. He had come from work, presumably, still in his suit. Geoff Whitney stood, too, jowly and blustering, smelling a little like cigars. The other two stood as well. Jonathan Clyde, bookish and nervous-fingered, and Martha Wittig, plump and matronly, always wearing a different colored pair of glasses. Today’s frames were a warm pumpkin shade.
Sylvie kissed them all on the cheeks. She knew intricate details about each of their lives—Jonathan had bought an eighteenth-century historic Quaker meeting house that had allegedly once belonged to William Penn. He and Stewart, a man he always referred to as his friend, restored it themselves. The house had been featured in a splashy magazine, featuring just one photo of Jonathan sitting on the couch, his hand clenched nervously in his lap. Last year, Dan’s father had unexpectedly willed all his money to charity, forcing Dan to find his first job at forty-four. Geoff and his wife had divorced, and he’d married a much younger woman named Melinda two months later.
Of course they knew about Sylvie, too. That her children had gone to school here, that Charles had attended Cornell, that he’d married Joanna, and that Joanna … well, Sylvie knew that Joanna had held some sort of job before they moved out to the suburbs a few weeks ago, but she could never remember what that job had been, nor did she know what Joanna was planning to do with herself now.
They knew about Scott, too, though they never asked about him, as if it would be intrusive to do so. And they were around for James’s death. They’d paid their respects at his funeral and gone to the luncheon afterward.
They had all attended Swithin and so had their children. They’d worked together for years now, planning and debating and deciding. When they considered adding an extra member to the board, they pored over each potential candidate as if they were running for political office, examining tax records, properties owned, and extramarital affairs. They didn’t help vote for teachers or staff—which meant, thankfully, they hadn’t had to discuss Scott’s position as an assistant coach—although they did help to choose Michael Tayson as headmaster two months ago after Jerome announced his retirement. That meeting had been only one week after James had died, and Sylvie had felt too shell-shocked to come. Now, she wished she had.
They sat down and Martha pressed play on the mini-recorder. It taped the meetings from start to finish, and afterward Martha’s husband, who was adept at all things technological, would plug the recorder into his computer, press a few buttons to launch the software that could translate the contents of the audio file into a Word document, and voila, they had minutes without any of them having to feverishly write or transcribe.
Martha started talking about the numbers and research on the school-wide laptop program, which issued laptops to every student to use to take notes and do homework. “The thing is, they’re all using them to do non-school-related activities,” she said. “Apparently, the netw
ork goes down at least once a week because everyone’s on their laptops, using all those Facebook sites. And they’re not very careful with them. Seventeen machines have gone in for repairs just this month.”
“Are they encouraging the kids to learn?” Dan asked.
“It’s hard to say,” Martha flipped a page. “The way kids learn isn’t the same anymore. But the teachers are also a problem. A lot of them aren’t nearly as technologically savvy. They’re still making their students write their papers in longhand.”
“Oh, God, especially that Agnes,” Geoff said, rolling his eyes. “How old is she now, eighty?”
Martha pressed pause on the tape recorder. “And still spry as a fox,” she whispered giddily. “There are rumors that she’s dating Harold.” Harold was one of the guidance counselors. He was quite a bit younger than Agnes, the doyenne of the English teachers.
“Speaking of Harold,” Dan said while raising a finger. “That daughter of his is back at home. I heard somewhere that she was kicked out of Brown.”
Martha’s eyes widened. “Another one?”
“She’s all out of Ivies,” Geoff said.
“Cheating again?” Jonathan asked, shaking his head.
“I thought she was kicked out of school because of prescription drugs.” Martha blew her bangs into the air. “Poor Harold.”
Sylvie stared at her fingernails. Nothing seemed amiss. None of them were looking at her pointedly, indicating they had heard about Scott. Maybe Michael Tayson had kept his word, not telling them about the rumors or Scott’s upcoming meeting.
Martha pressed play on the recorder again. “Anyway. Back to the laptops. Should we take them away?”
“Laptops do look good, though,” Dan said. “Parents are impressed by that kind of stuff.”
Geoff stroked his chin. “But it’s a big expense. I’ve heard some complaints from the art department. Their supplies are getting more and more expensive, and they can’t buy what they need with what they’ve been allotted. A few of the sports coaches have also come to me, talking about replacing old uniforms and equipment.”
“Which teams?” Martha straightened her papers.
Geoff shrugged. “It was the basketball coach who spoke to me. And Carla from gymnastics registered a request in the office.”
“We still have a gymnastics team?” Martha sniffed. The others snickered, and just like that, the suggestion was dropped. Basketball and gymnastics weren’t steeped in history and scholarship money the way, say, girls’ soccer was—the team was top in the state, and many girls were recruited by Division I schools—or the way the boys’ crew was. It was Swithin’s first official sport, and the school had sent several boys on to row for Yale and Penn, and from there on to the Olympics. Those were the teams that got the money.
Sylvie often wondered why her fellow board members invested so much of their time in Swithin. What made them come back, year after year, budget after budget, graduating class after graduating class? Did they feel they were part of something? Did it define them, as it did her, or did they simply do it because, as people of means, it was their obligation? Take Martha, for example, Sylvie remembered Martha from when they were in school together, though Martha had been a few grades behind her. Back then, Martha had been a bossy, controlling field hockey player, always preening herself, always surrounded by a group of cackling girls. When a representative from the New York Public Library Conservator’s office spoke at an assembly about Swithin’s rare book collection, Martha whispered with the girl next to her the whole time, completely uninterested.
But as a board member, Martha had gotten involved in just as many school projects as Sylvie had. There had been some discussion that Martha had become so involved because of trouble at home—she and her husband had wanted another baby, but then she unexpectedly started her menopause. “Maybe their marriage is falling apart,” Sylvie once whispered to James only a few months before he died, after she’d found everything out about him, “Maybe the school is Martha’s oasis.” “So the only possible reason Martha could be so heavily involved at the school is because she’s miserable at home?” James had replied, raising an eyebrow. “Of course not!” Sylvie said quickly. “I mean, I’m involved. I’m not miserable.” James looked at her challengingly. Sylvie looked back. Neither said anything.
“Next up?” Jonathan said. He leaned over the table and glanced at the list. “Hmm. This.”
Martha tipped forward, now curious. “The boy’s death.”
Sylvie’s heart started to pound. She glanced at the recorder, thinking that Martha might hit pause again. She didn’t.
Geoff leaned back in his chair, the springs squeaking. Dan riffled through a few papers on the desk and found a photo of the dead boy, Christian Givens. Sylvie leaned forward. He had elfin features and freckles across his cheeks. His hair was bright green. Acid green, really, a color not found in nature.
Sylvie’s stomach fluttered. She recognized him.
“What do you suppose they call that color? Antifreeze?” Martha murmured. She covered her mouth. “Goodness. Sorry.”
“What happened?” Dan asked.
“We don’t know.” Martha admitted. “They’re doing an autopsy. That’s all Michael Tayson would tell me. The boy’s father has been very private about everything.”
Jonathan glanced at his watch. “I wonder where Michael is. He said he would come to this.”
Sylvie’s heart rate picked up. She hadn’t considered that the new headmaster might show up. She didn’t want to see him.
“Has counseling been made available?” Geoff asked.
“They’re using Judith.” Jonathan laced his hands together. “She really helped out when those girls on the crew team died in the car accident last year. And during that school shooting at Virginia Tech. A lot of kids saw her after that.”
“Judith is so good,” Martha cooed.
“Which one’s Judith?” Geoff scratched his head.
“The one with the long hair,” Dan said.
“She’s so gentle,” Jonathan added. “But firm.”
Everyone looked again at the boy’s photo. Unnatural hair colors weren’t allowed at Swithin; teachers were required to immediately send home anyone who wasn’t adhering to the dress code. So how had Christian’s hair gone unnoticed long enough for him to sit for his picture? Maybe Christian was the type of boy who fell between the cracks, even with acid-green hair. Sylvie thought about what Michael Tayson had said on the phone: You probably wouldn’t remember him from the matches. But Sylvie did remember him, an image of him with the wrestling team flashing through her mind.
“So what about the boy’s mother?” Geoff looked at Martha. “You only mentioned the dad. Are they divorced?”
“Out of the picture for some reason or other, I guess,” Martha said. She looked at the piece of paper, presumably some kind of dossier on Christian. “He’s a scholarship boy. Was. The address we have on file has him living over at Feverview Dwellings.” She flipped a page. “It doesn’t list an employer for the father.”
“Maybe he’s unemployed,” Jonathan suggested.
“Or on disability,” Martha said.
“Do we remember admitting this boy?” Dan asked. “What’s the father’s name?”
“Warren,” Martha read.
“Warren … Givens,” Dan repeated. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”
Everyone looked around, sheepish. Sometimes they had a say in admitting students, especially those receiving scholarships. But there was a separate committee for that, people with actual credentials to judge one candidate from another.
“If we wanted to set up a scholarship in his name, what could it be for?” Geoff said quietly.
Martha picked at her cuticles. “Well, we’d do the standard scholarship, of course. Needs-based, I would imagine. How does that sound?”
“Or we could make it kind of specific,” Dan suggested. “You know, according to what he was interested in. Do we know if he liked particular su
bjects in school? Art? Music?”
“He doesn’t look like he’d be too involved in anything,” Jonathan said, holding up Christian’s photo. “I suppose we could look for his transcript …” He started to leaf through the papers.
“Good Lord, stop,” Sylvie blurted out.
They all paused, raising their heads.
“I mean, the poor boy died only days ago.” Sylvie’s voice was a tautly-held string. “We should have some respect.”
The grandfather clock in the corner bonged seven times. Sylvie had to stop them. If they looked through his transcript, they’d see that he’d wrestled. Then the conversation would turn to Scott, the tape recorder still rotating, still capturing everything. She could picture their faces. Did Scott know this boy? Funny he was on the wrestling team … he doesn’t look like the type. She had no idea what would come after that. She had no idea what she might say after that, either. She kept thinking about the look on Scott’s face when he’d tried to suffocate that mouse in the basement. And all the times he’d dressed up as slashers from horror movies for Halloween. And his aversion to children— especially babies. Once when a teenager, he had even chuckled over a news story about a pit bull mauling a toddler. Jesus, what a mess, he’d said, as though he were commenting on an unkempt room, a ramshackle house.
Geoff sat back. “Goodness, Sylvie. You’re right.”
Martha coughed quietly. “Of course.”
The others hung their heads. They don’t know, she thought. She wondered instead if they thought she was sensitive about them talking behind this boy’s back because so many people had talked behind hers. It was what Michael Tayson meant by character assassination— all those rumors about how her grandfather selectively chose who did and didn’t get to attend Swithin. All that tut-tutting that Scott was so unruly and different. And what was with that ring Sylvie had started wearing, they might have hissed more recently. What do you think that means? They probably even gossiped about how James died—on the floor soaked in urine. It had gotten out, she knew it had. So many things had gotten out.
