Class
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Rather than sacrificing the next generation to a failing school that lacks the commitment to education that has long defined Edward G. Mather, we are proposing that Mather instead transfer its two special-education classes to a facility that is better equipped to deal with high-needs children. This would free up at least two classrooms, where additional kindergarten and first-grade classes could be placed.
If you support this alternate proposal, please attend a community forum in the Millicent Grover school auditorium this Monday night at seven. Your voice is urgently needed! The meeting is open to the public, but representatives from the board of education will be in attendance.
Thank you,
Concerned Parents and Citizens of Cortland Hill
Karen felt newly unsettled. On the surface of it, the letter’s call to arms sounded reasonable enough. But it seemed to Karen as if there were another letter hiding behind the one she’d just read, and the former was filled with quiet hate. She found the suggestion that Mather’s special-ed children be kicked out of the building to make way for the regular ones especially galling. At the same time, she was aware that Ruby’s matriculation at the school was at least partly to blame for the overcrowding that had led to the board of education’s proposal. Also, would Karen have willingly enrolled her own daughter at a school that had posted as low scores on the state tests as Millicent Grover apparently had? Above all, she feared that the fracas over the possible rezoning might lead to a witch-hunt of the kind that had been suggested by the volunteer coordinator at the PTA executive board meeting, in which those families who were found not to be living in the correct catchment area were outed as interlopers, their children expelled from the school. Making a note of the meeting time, Karen closed out of the e-mail.
Meanwhile, to the great joy of the Mather PTA and to Karen’s commingled pride and disgust, Fund in the Sun raised far more than anyone had expected—close to forty thousand dollars in one afternoon. Yet again, Karen was on the receiving end of multiple accolades. In the aftermath of such success, and even despite the upset that her run-in with Laura Collier had caused her—or maybe because of it; maybe because it secretly pained her to think she was enhancing the education of a certain small blond child with a hyphenated name—Karen felt newly emboldened.
But it wasn’t just about punishing Maeve. It seemed so unjust that the quality of a child’s education should be predicated on how much money his or her parents made. Why should rich kids get to attend fancy private schools with swimming pools and small classes and no one interrupting—or public schools that had the same amenities, thanks to property taxes and/or the prohibitive price of the real estate in their catchments—while the poor were left to fester in overcrowded, chaotic classrooms with not enough books and too many problem kids? Shouldn’t it have been the other way around? And didn’t underprivileged children stand to benefit the most from the extra attention? Moreover, who had decided that, with a few exceptions, the light-skinned people of the planet should rule over the dark ones? Racism was so random, really, when you thought about it. It was as if people one day had decided that attached earlobes were superior to unattached ones, and those with the former should reap the riches of this world.
Or maybe race was only part of the equation. Maybe it was class that mattered the most, Karen thought as she unlocked the door to the PTA office on Monday morning—class and the lifestyle preferences that went with it. That is, the taste for Pellegrino over Pepsi, clapboard over aluminum siding, community-supported agriculture over community college, imported Parmigiano-Reggiano over Kraft Reduced-Fat Parmesan-Style Grated Topping, and beach yoga at an eco-resort in Tulum over daiquiris in the wet bar at the Grand Bahía Príncipe Coba with a crowd of two hundred overweight, sun-poisoned binge drinkers, at least one of whom could be heard yelling, “Is my wife built or what?” (Also, in a certain echelon of society, you had to know how to nod slowly and say, “Wow, that’s so funny,” without seeming to find it even remotely amusing after the person seated to your left at some boring dinner party said, “My roommate at Choate was her best friend on the Vineyard.”)
But if the government wasn’t prepared to divide the riches up more equitably, why shouldn’t Karen try to do her part? And was it even stealing if you didn’t pocket the money yourself? Besides, by organizing the picnic, she’d more or less earned the dough herself; hadn’t she therefore earned the right to decide how to spend it? These questions in mind, Karen wrote another check to herself in the amount of four thousand dollars, then recorded the deduction in the ledger as Portfolio Expenses. It was a phrase she’d learned from her father. She never entirely understood what it meant—she’d always envisioned oversize black-fronted albums filled with modeling shots from glossy magazines—but to her ear, it had the ring of a well-run business.
Just as before, Karen cashed the check on her lunch hour, then placed the bills in an envelope that she sent to the Parent Teacher Association of the Constance C. Betts School, again with no explanation or return address. The only difference was that, this time, as the envelope tumbled down the chute, she felt determination, not trepidation.
That evening, Karen asked Matt to put Ruby to bed so she could attend the community meeting about the proposed rezoning of the western portion of Cortland Hill. Although doubtful that Ruby would be personally affected if the rezoning went through, Karen wanted to be prepared. She was curious too. Car keys in hand, she set off in a light drizzle.
Millicent Grover turned out to be only a five-minute drive from Karen’s home. But somehow she’d never noticed it before, even though the building looked uncannily like Mather, at least from the outside and at night; it was another story inside the school auditorium. To Karen’s surprise, the crowd in the audience was roughly three-quarters African American and about one-quarter white and Asian. Was this because the latter had already decided they wouldn’t be caught dead sending their children there, so there was nothing to discuss? Or maybe the white families had been too frightened—both of entering the school and of being shouted down—to show up. If and when the next meeting was held in Mather’s own auditorium, they would no doubt come out in droves. In the meantime, a reverse ratio was visible on the stage, where a handful of beleaguered-looking city officials were seated at a metal table dotted with plastic water bottles. Her head bowed with the hope of not being recognized, Karen took a seat in the back row. The meeting was already under way.
“Mr. Erun Dasgupta,” one of the female bureaucrats read off a note card, “please come to the podium.”
An expensively suited thirty-five-ish man with a complexion the color of caramelized sugar approached the microphone. “Good evening,” he began. “I am a resident of Cortland Hill. And I would like to say this: I would never have purchased our condominium were it not for the expectation that we would be able to send our son to Edward Mather. Now all our plans are up in the air. But one thing we will definitely not be doing is sending our child to a failing school where the students are more interested in rap music than arithmetic.”
There were hisses and boos from the audience, along with a lone cry of “Racist.”
“Peeeeeople! Please,” bellowed another of the city officials, this one a balding white man in a brown suit, “we ask that you refrain from expressing your opinion of the speakers. This is a community forum, and everyone has the right to speak here. Please be respectful.”
“He’s the one who needs to show some respect,” a woman yelled from the audience. Eventually, the boos and cries died down. But at the sight of the next speaker—a certain Reverend Jeremiah Reed—the crowd again erupted, this time in whoops and cheers. Reverend Jeremiah, for his part, appeared to have been lifted from a time-travel machine that had stopped for gas in the 1970s. A feathered fedora sat on his tightly curled hair, a handlebar mustache framed his lips, and an ascot decorated with fleurs-de-lis filled the triangle at the top of his wide-collared maroon polyester button-down. “My name is Reverend Jeremiah,” he began. “Some
know me from my God job at the Church of Our Lord the Savior, others from my day job as the parent-teacher coordinator of Millicent Grover.” There were more cheers. “Some from outside the community may believe it is their duty to show up here and accuse our school of being in poor shape.” He paused. “We know we are poor. But we believe our shape is beautiful already. And so is the color of our skin.”
“Amen” came a voice from the front of the audience.
“It took our people three hundred years to achieve emancipation in this country. Make no mistake, Board of Education,” Reverend Jeremiah continued, turning to the seated bureaucrats with a raised index finger. “We do not intend to relinquish that freedom any more than we intend to relinquish the leadership of Millicent Grover. This is our school, and if the rich white folks of Cortland Hill send their children here, they need to understand that and play by our rules, not theirs.” Thunderous applause followed.
Karen was sympathetic to Reverend Jeremiah’s argument. She was also disheartened by the divisive rhetoric on display.
Next up was a Grover parent named Lashondra Green who expressed the fear that an influx of wealthy families from Cortland Hill would cause the school to eventually lose its federal Title I funding, which currently enabled it to offer a wide array of enrichment programs, including Mandarin language, playwriting, and African dance. Did poor minority schools actually stand to suffer from the influx of wealthy whites? Karen was thrown off balance by the woman’s remarks, which seemed to echo what Susan Bordwell had complained about. Then again, if Susan and Lashondra were both right, why was the blue wall paint in Millicent Grover’s auditorium peeling off in giant trapezoid-shaped flakes while Mather’s walls were smooth and pristine? Whatever the case, Karen felt she’d heard enough. She also felt uncomfortable. When the next speaker finished, she slipped out of the auditorium as quietly as she’d slipped in.
On Wednesday morning after school drop-off, Karen was waiting in line at Dunkin’ Donuts—Karen assumed there was less chance of running into anyone she knew there, plus the coffee turned out not to be bad—when to her amazement April Fishbach suddenly appeared. She had a copy of Karl Marx’s Capital in one hand and a raisin bagel in the other. “I didn’t realize this was where the ruling-class moms hung out” was the first thing out of her mouth.
“Hi, April,” said Karen, embarrassed but also strangely excited by the sight of her. With any luck, April might supply Karen with the information she so desperately wanted.
“How’s the new school? Enjoying hobnobbing with the elite?” April went on. “Also, thanks for all the fund-raising help. Not!”
“You’re right—I suck,” replied Karen, who realized she’d become a legitimate target for April’s fusillades. “How’s Ezra?”
“Very well! You know, busy living the multicultural dream while others retreat into their velvet cages.”
“Fair enough,” said Karen. “Hey, I actually have a question for you. Is it true that the Winners Circle charter school is moving into Betts in September?”
“I prefer the term hostile takeover,” she replied. “But yes, and my comrades and I on the front lines are already planning our first guerrilla attack.”
“Cool,” said Karen, wondering precisely who these comrades were. Had April Fishbach finally made mom-friends at school? “But I thought you were into the whole nonviolent-slash-civil-disobedience approach to warfare.”
April cleared her throat. “I was, but I changed my mind. Sometimes a nation or a group of people is called upon to defend itself.”
“I see. So where and when will this insurrection take place? For the record, I’m happy to do anything I can to help.”
“Unfortunately, I’m not at liberty to go into any more details about the operation. But I will say it’s motivated a lot of people who were previously apathetic to get behind the school.”
“Well, that’s something.”
“We’ve even gained a secret financial backer. Last week, the PTA received an envelope stuffed with a large amount of cash, if you can believe it. Or, actually, we received two envelopes. Two in ten days.”
“Wow, really?” said Karen, her heart dancing in her chest. “How strange.”
“As you well know, I don’t believe in asking for money,” said April. “But when it appears in one’s lap to finance one’s campaigns, one can hardly be expected to refuse it.”
“Of course not,” said Karen, marveling at the thought that she’d finally won April’s approval, albeit without April knowing it, which somehow made it all the sweeter.
“So, that’s the update. Meanwhile, how are all the Mather moms in their fauxhemian Indian apparel and fair-trade frocks?”
“Well!” said Karen, smiling despite herself. It seemed she was not the only one who’d noticed the dress code at Ruby’s new school. And was it possible that, after all these years, she was starting to like April Fishbach? “Anyway, it was nice running into you. I know you probably won’t believe me, but I actually miss Betts.”
“So why’d you leave?”
Karen sighed. “It’s a long story. And I can’t say I’ve made peace with it. I’ll tell you some time if you’re really interested.”
“I have all the time in the world,” said April. “In case you didn’t know, I’m a middle-aged perpetual graduate student. We don’t have deadlines.”
“Fair enough.”
“Also, for the record, and although we never got along, I was sorry to see you go.”
“Well, that’s nice of you to say,” said Karen. “Maybe we can meet for coffee next month, and I can fill you in.”
“Sure.”
“In the meantime, can I ask you one more question before you go?”
“What’s the question?”
“I heard Jayyden left Betts. Is that true?”
April sighed. “He didn’t leave just the school—he left the city. Apparently, there was a fire in his aunt’s apartment, and Jayyden was blamed. Since he’d just turned ten, there was legal justification for shipping him off to some kind of juvenile detention facility a few hours north of here.”
“You’re kidding,” said Karen, shocked and horrified by the news. “But how do they know it wasn’t an accident? What if he was just trying to light the stove or something?”
“I told you all I know,” said April. “In any case, I’m probably alone among the parents in Miss Tammy’s class in saying that I was actually sorry to see him go too. Maybe I’d feel differently if he’d ever bothered Ezra, but I always had a soft spot for Jayyden. He’s had a shitty life, which appears to be getting even shittier. And for the record, I thought he was more or less justified in punching out that little bitch Maeve.”
“I secretly did too,” mumbled Karen. “But please don’t tell anyone.”
“My lips are sealed.”
And that was how the two parted—Karen feeling unexpectedly well disposed to her former foe and, what’s more, tickled by the news that her donation had apparently meant so much. At the same time, she despaired to think of Jayyden, whether or not he was guilty of arson, being pushed to the even more distant margins of society. She imagined him in a tiny gray room with no windows and a metal bed that had been nailed to the ground so there was no chance of using any part of it as a weapon. She wondered if he ever thought about Ruby—and if she or Ruby would ever see him again.
She also felt newly angered about Winners Circle’s upcoming co-location and couldn’t resist sending a quick message to Clay.
FYI—Ruby’s school planning guerrilla attack on Winners Circle co-locators. Needless to say, I’ve volunteered my services!
Clay immediately wrote back:
So if a stink bomb is found in the robotics room, I will blame you. Greetings from Malaysia. xoxoxo
That he was so consistently good-natured about Karen’s disapproval of the main charity he supported was almost unnerving to Karen. She wrote back,
I beg to differ! You will have only yourself to blame.
The only thing I blame myself for is not holding you hostage at the Mandarin.
Karen felt her knees buckling beneath his imagined weight. How would she ever make the feeling go away? Was she really disappearing with him for the weekend? And how long could she keep it all a secret from Matt?
That evening, Ruby announced that Charlotte Bordwell hadn’t invited her to her ninth birthday party. Ruby had learned about the snub when she heard other girls in her class talking about how excited they were to be going to the American Girl Place Café to celebrate.
“I’m sorry, sweetie,” said Karen, trying to sound stolid. “That’s disappointing. But it’s almost the end of third grade. You’ll have all new kids in your class next year—and new friends too, I’m sure.”
But she was no longer sure of anything. Having temporarily relinquished any hostile feelings toward the Bordwells in favor of sympathy for Nathaniel’s disability, Karen once again felt mounting fury at the family. Even if Charlotte didn’t consider Ruby among her nearest and dearest, Susan could have insisted that her daughter invite Ruby anyway, if only as a courtesy to Karen and because Ruby was the new girl. But Susan had apparently insisted on nothing of the kind.
“I hate my new school,” said Ruby. “I want to go back to Betts.”
“Oh, sweetie,” said Karen, as a tiny sliver of her heart broke off and fell to the ground. At least, that was how it felt.