by Karen Quinn
7. Fallout
The Baby Face affair could not have come at a worse time. With only a few weeks until schools decided who was in and who was out, the private-school-admissions process was turned on its head. As a special prosecutor investigated former FDA chairman Lyndon Pratt, the attorney general announced his intention to probe into the circumstances surrounding acceptance decisions of every big shot whose child had been admitted to a New York City private school in the last five years.
Under the leadership of Dick Nanda, president of the New York Private Headmasters Organization (NYPHO), every private school participated in the placement of a full-page ad in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal denying that their admissions decisions were subject to outside interference.
Every admissions department is protected by a Chinese wall to ensure that each determination made regarding an applicant is beyond reproach. There are checks and balances in place to remove even the possibility that one individual could ever make the ultimate difference in any final admissions decision. To suggest that schools are subject to undue influence in their selection of students is to unfairly blemish the reputations of the hardworking, honorable, law-abiding admissions directors throughout NYC who are dedicated to the principle that all applicants are created equal.
Parents all over the city blew coffee out their noses when they read this.
The audacity of NYPHO’s protest was highlighted by a regrettable typesetting error when their logo was printed across the bottom of the ad. Someone forgot to press the space bar: NYPHONYNYPHONY-NYPHONY.
Dick Nanda resigned his position as president of NYPHO. He’d finally had enough when political satirist Arthur King referred to him as “Wrinkly Dick” in an editorial cartoon encapsulating the whole ugly affair. The scandal was the subject of nightly jokes, skits, and lists on Jay Leno and David Letterman. The highfalutin world of private schools had become a national laughingstock. The reputations of New York City’s most elite schools were so battered and bruised that it would take some of America’s most talented spin doctors (who were, coincidentally, private-school parents ready to volunteer for this very cause) to rehabilitate the lot of them.
This was bad for my business.
Omar’s contacts told him that every trustee in town had been warned that any child they recommended would be automatically denied admission because of the mere appearance of impropriety—new NYPHO policy.
Gee, thanks, Mrs. Radmore-Stein. We had a good thing going and you ruined it for everybody.
At least Lilith got hers. She was indicted for bribery, conspiracy, and obstruction of justice. The stock in her company plummeted 70 percent, reducing her net worth by over a billion dollars. The board made her give up the corporate jet and fly commercial coach. Stockholders were calling for her head. The public lapped up every juicy detail of this arrogant woman’s fall from grace as gleefully reported by her rival papers. Johnny walked out on her because, as he said, “I don’t need this kind of shit.” Soon after, he was taken into custody for shorting stock in his wife’s company just before the story hit the papers. Johnny would have to disgorge the millions he’d made on insider trading. Like Lilith, he had taken a nasty fall from his high horse.
With his mother and his father fighting charges, Ransom was neglected even more than usual. Finally, Lilith’s second cousin, Rowena Ratfinklestein, a yoga instructor from Niagara Falls, agreed to take the boy in. Ransom would be one of four children being raised in Rowena’s modest clapboard house with a garden and clothesline in the back and an American flag in the front. He would attend the local public school. It was probably the best thing that ever happened to him.
Lilith wigged out when she realized that this was all the doing of her ignorant maid, Ollie, and could have been avoided if she’d paid her the damn $100. For want of a nail, the kingdom was lost.
8. Tipper Tells All
Tipper chose to meet me on a Sunday evening in the back booth of a Scandinavian diner on Bayside Avenue in Queens. She came incognito, wearing a floppy straw hat and Jackie O sunglasses.
“Sorry I’m late,” I said. “I took the wrong subway and had to walk about ten blocks.” I sat down across from her in the booth.
“Ivy, come sit next to me,” she said.
I switched sides and scooted in. She reached over and patted my stomach, then my chest.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I have to be sure you’re not wearing a wire,” she whispered.
“Of course I’m not wearing a wire. I would never do that.”
“I’m sure you wouldn’t,” she said, patting my body until she was satisfied that I was clean.
“We’re not doing anything illegal. We’re two friends having a few laughs over pickled herring. Don’t be so paranoid,” I said, moving back to the other side of the booth. “I think someone’s been watching too much Sopranos.”
“Are you kidding? In this environment? The feds would like nothing better than to catch you offering me a bribe.”
“Tipper, I’m not going to offer you a bribe. I just want to get a sense of where my clients stand with you. Let’s decide what to eat, then we’ll talk.” We silently examined our menus, which listed various sizes of Swedish meatballs and forty varieties of herring. We both ordered the special, escolar fish Baltic-style with horseradish mirror, whatever that was.
“How are you surviving the Radmore-Stein scandal?” I asked after the waiter left.
“Ivy, don’t get me started. First Cubby, now this. It’s a blessing Cubby didn’t live to see this day. It would have broken her heart.”
“Will you be able to put together a decent class?”
“Not really. We can’t do our standard investigating into family finances. There’s no way to get the real dirt on applicants from nursery-school directors—you know, the stuff they don’t write in the reports but tell you confidentially over the phone? No one’s talking. They’ve changed the rules in the middle of the game, and Mr. Van Dyke still expects me to deliver a ‘Who’s Who’ of kindergartners. It’s impossible.”
“I hear you. I have no idea how to help my clients right now. But what can you do?” I said. “Who would have thought that someone as rich and influential as Lilith would feel the need to break the law just to get her kid into school?”
“I know,” Tipper said. “That snot-nosed brat of hers would have had five offers just for being her son.”
“Let me ask you about some of my families,” I said, lowering my voice. “What do you think of WaShaunté Washington?”
“WaShaunté Washington. Is that the little black girl?”
“Yes.”
Tipper started wagging her finger at me. “There’s something fishy about that child. She told my evaluators that her mom had changed her skin color. First of all, she doesn’t have a mom. Second, well, we don’t know what to think about her skin-color comment. Do you have any idea what she was talking about?”
“Not a clue. As far as I know, Archie Washington’s the father, there’s no mom in the picture, and the child is black. Archie did tell me that WaShaunté has a very active imagination,” I said. Dammit, I knew we couldn’t trust that kid to lie. I changed the subject. “What about Maria Kutcher? Isn’t she a pistol?”
Tipper gave me an incredulous look. “Omar Kutcher’s your client? He propositioned me. He intimated that if I don’t offer his daughter a place, he would hurt me.”
“Soooooo . . . you’ll offer him a place?” I ventured.
“I don’t know. On the one hand, Omar’s incredibly low-class. He’d never fit into the Harvard Day community. On the other hand, I don’t want him to kill me. You don’t think he would, do you?”
How to answer . . . how to answer, I wondered. If I suggested he might whack her, Tipper would probably take Maria. If I said he wouldn’t, her acceptance was doubtful. I did the only fair thing, which was to let Tipper come to her own conclusion. “Supposedly he killed his own wife, so who knows what he’
s capable of.” That was all I said.
Tipper gulped. The waiter brought our food. It was some manner of fish indigenous to the Baltic Sea.
“How about Veronica Needleman? You interested in her?” I asked.
“I’ll give you four reasons why we’d never take that kid. First, the family’s essays were incoherent. Second, the parents broke up with each other during our interview. Third, the kid spilled her juice at snack. And fourth, she cheated on her ERB. We have a maniacal focus on ethics at Harvard Day. It’s our number-one core value. There’s no way we could offer her a place.”
“Right,” I said.
“Nothing personal, Ivy, but so far I’m not impressed with your client roster.”
“How about Greg McCall’s son, Moses? Were you impressed with him?”
“Oh, now him we love. The boy’s grandparents are very, very wealthy. I can practically guarantee we’ll make him an offer. What do you think of the fish?”
“It’s okay. I’ve never been a big fan of Scandinavian food. You?”
“Usually I love it, but this is kind of bland. Try it with ketchup,” she suggested.
“How about Willow Bliss and Tiny Herrera,” I said, reaching for the bottle.
“The lesbians?”
“Yes, well, their son, Jack Henry. His ERB scores indicate gifted intellect; he’s reading; he plays flute; he’s black.”
“We’ll never take him,” she said. “He’s in a wheelchair.”
“You won’t accept him because of his disability?”
“Ivy, no teacher wants a kid in a wheelchair. How do you schlep him along on field trips? Where do you park him during PE? The logistics are too complicated. Plus, it’s so depressing to be around crippled people, don’t you think?”
“No, I find Jack Henry inspiring to be around. I thought you’d be excited about all the diversity he represented.”
Tipper lowered her voice. “Ivy, of course we want diversity, but it has to be appropriate diversity.” Tipper made those quotation marks with her fingers. “It’s fine to accept handicapped kids as long as they don’t slow down the rest of the class. We’re always looking for qualified black children, as long as they’re right for our community. You know what I mean. Colin Powell’s kid would be perfect; a maid’s kid would not. And get this—we actually had a maid apply this year! Now, how comfortable would our Harvard Day parents be talking to her at a PTA potluck?” Tipper chuckled at the very idea.
“Tipper,” I said evenly, “her name is Ollie Pou and she’s also my client. And you know what? She’s a fine person. She’s working to give her son a better life. And correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t you once tell me that your mother was a maid?”
“That’s right, my mother was a maid. And guess what? She could never have held her own with the Harvard Day parents. The only reason I can is because I managed to pull myself up. I went to college, got an MBA.”
“Yeah, because your mother worked two jobs to pay for your education.”
Tipper ignored my valid point. “Was your business a nonprofit? Is that why you took blacks and gays?” she asked.
“No, these are all paying clients. And they’re good, hardworking people. Tiny’s an Academy Award-winning director. She’d be an asset to any parent body.”
“Yeah, but she’s too gay for us. Don’t get me wrong. We’d love to have a lesbian family, but give me one that isn’t so obvious. I mean, what’s with that hot-pink hair?”
“I suppose your parents wouldn’t be comfortable talking to Tiny at a PTA potluck?”
“Not a chance.”
“Tipper, help me here. You promote your school’s commitment to en-rolling minorities. You even lead the diversity council. Is it all for show?”
“No, it’s real. We’re always looking for qualified candidates of color. Of course our regular families prefer to be with their own, but they don’t want to feel like elitists, either. My job is to find diverse families who are just like our white families, except for their color or sexual preference. That’s not easy.”
“I’m sure it isn’t,” I said.
“Ivy, Harvard Day’s a private club. We’re very discriminating about the people we let in. Why would we take families who aren’t like us? It’s not just minorities who are square pegs here. Most white parents are out of our league, too. Anyone who makes it to Harvard Day is king of the hill, top of the heap, A-number-one.”
“Right. And if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere,” I said.
“Laugh if you want, but it’s true.”
I looked at Tipper sadly. I’d fallen hook, line, and sinker for the official story—that schools were looking to admit kids with genuine differences, like Jack Henry. I shook my head. “Tipper, do you hear yourself? Publicly, you say all the right things. But privately you’re selling out your own people. For what? Money? A job?”
“Ivy, the Tiny Herreras and Ollie Pous of the world are not my people,” Tipper said with disdain. “The families of Harvard Day, those are my people. That’s where I belong. If the rest of the world can’t pull themselves up like Tipper Bouquet did, well, what can I say?”
“Let them eat cake?” I suggested.
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
“Tipper,” I said, “are you so insecure that you think you have to pretend to be someone you’re not? Your name is Tipper Bucket. Bucket! You’re a black woman, daughter of a maid. You work for the people of Harvard Day. If you think they see you as one of them, well, girl, you are sadly mistaken.”
Without waiting for Tipper to reply, I scooted out of the booth and put $30 on the table. “Thanks for the insights,” I said, walking away. Just as I reached the door, the waiter came running after me.
“Excuse me, you forgot this.” He held up my Barneys bag, which I had left by my seat.
“It’s garbage. Do you mind tossing it?”
9. Buying Ivy
To my surprise, an elegant Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud was waiting for me outside the Scandinavian diner. Buck McCall. How did he do that? He always seemed to know where I’d be before I did. Was he intuitive, or had a team of CIA doctors implanted a chip in my brain while I was sleeping? Was he reading my mind or controlling it? Oh, Ivy, you are being so overly dramatic. He’s probably just following you.
His bodyguard-chauffeur opened the door and I got in. Did I have a choice? Arriving right after the Four Seasons had made its evening delivery, I asked Buck if I could have some fruit from the elegantly appointed dinner tray to his side. “By all means,” he said.
I made a plate of grapes and strawberries for myself.
“May I pour you some Chardonnay?” he offered.
“No, thanks.”
“Burger?” he suggested.
“Vegetarian?” I inquired.
“No. Beef,” he said.
“Then no, thanks. I’m watching my weight.”
“You should try Atkins,” he recommended. “They let you eat as much meat as you want.”
“Thanks for the tip, Mr. McCall, but I’m sure you’re not here to talk diets.”
“You’re right, Ms. Ames. I’m not. I’m here to thank you personally for taking care of that little favor I asked of you.” He handed me an envelope stuffed with $100 bills. I was torn between the excitement of having extra money for a change and the humiliation of knowing I was doing exactly what I’d just condemned Tipper for. Irony can be so annoying. I stuffed the bills into my purse.
“Mr. McCall,” I said, “your spying game is getting tiresome. The gifts are nice, and I thank you for them, but I could really do without being watched twenty-four hours a day.”
“Oh, I’m not spying on you, Ms. Ames. I don’t need to see you to know you’re doing my bidding. I’m sure you’re doing everything short of parting the Red Sea to keep Moses out of the Jewish schools.”
I winced. “Mr. McCall, do you mind? This has not been my finest hour.”
“Ah, yes, but the money wins out, doesn’t it? It always do
es with you people.”
“You people?”
“Jews, of course.”
“What, have you made a study of this?”
He laughed, even though I hadn’t meant it as a joke. “Nothing personal, Ms. Ames, I know you’re Jewish. But I’ve seen it with my own eyes. When Dee Dee married Greg, I offered her family a million dollars to cut her off and never speak to her or us again. Guess what? They took the money so fast, I didn’t even suggest the vacation to Hawaii I’d planned to throw in to seal the deal. They’ve never spoken to her since.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “You mean you’re responsible for her family sitting shiva, treating her as dead? How could you? You’re denying Moses his grandparents and Dee Dee her family.”
“Better that than being related to more Jews, even by marriage. The point is, Ms. Ames, I knew you would take the money. I thank you for what you’ve done. And just to be sure you accomplish our objective here, I’d like to sweeten my offer.”
Ooooh, a bonus. This was exciting. Maybe he’ll offer me a trip to Hawaii. God knows I could use a vacation. Just hold your nose and close your eyes, I thought, this will all be worth it in the end . . . Wait, Ivy, look at yourself. You’re doing business with a racist! You’re betraying your own people! Remember Abraham, Ruth, the Maccabees, Queen Esther, the Ten Commandments, and so on and so forth? I stared at Buck, secretly wrestling with my conscience, which had temporarily gone haywire.
Buck pulled a letter out of his jacket pocket and handed it to me. It was from Lorna Reed, head of admissions at The Balmoral School:
Dear Mr. McCall,
It was delightful meeting with you last week. As discussed, Skyler and Kate Ames will be readmitted to The Balmoral School next September based on your pledge to pay their tuition through twelfth grade. Mr. Stanton Giles from our business office will be in touch with you shortly regarding the escrow accounts you agreed to set up.
Further, we appreciate your interest in supporting girls’ basketball at The Balmoral School. Mr. Rupert Stoddard, from our development office, and Mr. Samuel Pollock, head of our architectural committee, will contact you next week to begin discussions regarding construction of the new McCall Gymnasium you are proposing.
