The Very Principled Maggie Mayfield

by Kathy Cooperman

  The children nodded again, pleased that their role in the Great Snake Drama had not yet come to an end—and also pleased that their next job was to tell people. Telling had become an urgent, almost physical need. Maggie squinted at them, pretending to size them up. “Good. Now go tell Mrs. Porter about the snake while I shut the gate.”

  The children turned and ran for the office, big kids in front and little Connor behind, struggling under the weight of his ridiculously oversize backpack. Once they were out of earshot, Maggie removed her walkie-talkie from her side pocket and clicked through to Diane. “Diane, you there?”

  Diane answered, “Yes, Fearless Leader, I’m here.”

  “Tell the teachers up front to send kids straight to class, no playground. There’s a rattler out here. And call Animal Control.” As she spoke, Maggie closed the playground’s chain-link gate.

  Diane sighed. “A rattler on the first day of school. That’s like starting a pool party with somebody taking a dump in the deep end.”

  “I sent the kids who found it over to you to break the news. So act surprised when they tell you.”

  Diane said tartly, “I’m never surprised by bad news.” This was true. Diane lived on a diet of disaster movies, apocalyptic zombie novels, and cable news.

  “Do me a favor and fake it, Diane. And keep those kids with you as long as you can so they don’t go off and scare the others. I want to break the news about the snake to the rest of the school in my own calm, boring way.”

  “Time for Monotone Maggie.” Diane imitated the “mwah-mwah-mwah” trombone patter adults used in the old Charlie Brown TV specials.

  Maggie smiled and clicked off her walkie-talkie. Just then, a prop plane flew noisily overhead, sending the snake slithering off the sunbaked dirt onto a patch of grass. Maggie glared up at the plane. It flew low, trailing out an ad banner behind it. The banner read: “BIRACHI’S TOYS—EVERY KID NEEDS ONE!” Maggie hated those ad planes. The kids always read them and then begged their parents accordingly. Parents then whined to Maggie about it, as if she were an air traffic controller.

  Careful not to lose sight of the snake, Maggie checked where it was and then walked along the playground’s perimeter fence till she found what she was looking for—the holes. Back when the school district had been flush with cash, it had installed low, wire-mesh fencing to keep out the rattlers. That had been eons ago, when the district could afford luxuries like infrastructure upgrades, teacher aides, and Spanish classes. Now, after years of neglect, the wire mesh had sprouted more holes than a doily. And like a doily, it served no real purpose, just decoration.

  Maggie had complained about the fencing to Arlene, but Arlene had ignored her. Maggie’d have to drag the parents in on this one. Sighing, she removed a chocolate Hershey’s Kiss from her skirt pocket, unwrapped it, and popped it into her mouth. Not even 8:00 a.m., and she had already cheated on her diet. Oh well, she would be perfect tomorrow. She would commit herself to Paleo or Atkins or some other grim slog, and this time, she’d stick to it. Through sheer force of will, she would transform herself into a thin, buff, proudly sexual woman—the sort of creature who could dance seductively in a nightclub or saunter down the beach in a bikini, a woman who would not experience Nike’s “Just Do It” slogan as a personal rebuke. As Maggie envisioned her future, perfect self, pride swelled within her, so she celebrated with another chocolate.

  The chocolates quickly worked their magic, and a tiny surge of well-being suffused her. Then Maggie looked back down at the dilapidated snake fence and braced herself for another battle.

  3

  THE PEOPLE IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD

  After checking the snake fence, Maggie raced over to the front office. Sure enough, the kids from the playground were telling Diane about the rattler. As always, Diane was a gratifying audience. She nodded eagerly at this, widened her gray eyes at that. Diane had earned her status as a favorite with the students. A tall, slightly weathered thirty-seven-year-old with a stringy figure, Diane kept her desk stuffed with snacks she shared freely with all comers. She laughed loudly and often at the kids’ jokes. And though she always wore her light-blond hair in a long braid down her back, its color changed more often than a mood ring. This week, it was dyed a vibrant Smurf blue.

  Keeping her gaze on the kids, Diane pulled a traffic vest from its hook on the wall and handed it off to Maggie—a smooth baton pass in the morning relay race. Maggie murmured her thanks and pivoted back toward the door, hearing Diane say squeamishly, “Ewwww. Did it really hiss at you?” This from a woman who feeds live mice to her five-foot-long Burmese python, Snookums.

  Maggie pulled on the battered fluorescent yellow vest as she rushed over to the school parking lot. Wearing the vest made her feel like a Walmart greeter, but the sight of it slowed down the parents. And that was a minor miracle. Maggie would never understand why, but Californians’ “hey dude” mellowness dissolved as soon as they got behind the wheel.

  Most of the students’ families lived within a two-mile radius of the school, but just a few dozen moms bothered to make the morning trek on foot. This merry band included alpha, fortysomething moms sporting skintight lululemon yoga pants, sculpted upper arms, and sanctimonious “I’m saving the planet and getting in shape!” smirks. Then came the slightly younger, slovenly moms pushing strollers. The stroller moms were invariably slowed down by exhaustion and dawdling kindergartners who stopped to fuss over every dandelion “wish” spared by the neighborhood’s gardening crews. At the end of the procession came the caramel-colored Chicana nannies holding hands with their lily-white charges.

  The rest of the parents, the majority, drove their kids up alongside the school’s front gate. These car parents formed a half-mile-long, colorfully mismatched motorcade. There were the usual suspects you’d find in any American suburb: the harried soccer moms, the power-suited working moms, and the rare dad auditioning for sainthood by actually taking his kids to school himself.

  But affluent, suburban Carmel Valley had a few added touches of its own. Firstly, all the cars were immaculate—from the outside at least, and in California, the outside was what mattered most. The dent-free, newly washed cars glittered in the morning sunlight. In Carmel Valley, the slightest film of dust would invite teenagers to scrawl “WASH ME” across the rear windshield, a badge of shame. The cars were also dizzyingly expensive: Mercedes GLSs, Lexus SUVs, Cadillac Escalades, BMWs, Porsches, Teslas, and so on. The occasional Toyota Camry stuck out like Bernie Sanders in a Vanity Fair spread.

  People from Carmel Valley describe themselves as middle class. They are, in fact, comfortably upper middle class. But who’s counting? The place is packed with earnest, hardworking professionals, recently arrived Asian engineers, and other strivers. The fathers drive on the expressway to middle-management jobs and check their iPhones constantly. The mothers either work in offices or stay home, depending on their inclinations and finances. And the kids attend public school and spend their afternoons darting between soccer, piano, ballet, and other ambitious activities. Carmel Valley people live in row upon row of cookie-cutter, stucco houses. Each house comes with a small rectangle of carefully tended lawn and a million-dollar mortgage. That million-dollar debt does not get you an ocean view. Carmel Valley is too far inland for that, but people flock here because it offers big, new houses, a quick commute to downtown San Diego, and—for the time being—decent schools. Everything the rich in utero need to keep “movin’ on up,” Jeffersons’ style.

  With so much wealth on display, finding signs of money trouble required a practiced eye. And—after more than a decade in Carmel Valley—Maggie was a reluctant maestro at the Where’s Waldo? of financial misery. Over the summer, San Diego’s biggest employer, tech behemoth Gallcomm, had laid off nine thousand people: engineers, researchers, project managers on down. Some of the fallen rebounded quickly, picking up new jobs with the grace of a figure skater retrieving fans’ flowers from the ice. Others faltered. They kept up appearances as long as poss
ible. They fired the maid, not the gardeners. Little Isabelle quit piano lessons. Young Bryce dropped tennis. The country club membership was used to the hilt until it suddenly lapsed. Mom gave up her pricey Brazilian blowout and started hiding her now-frizzy hair under a cap. Dad sported a bandage on his right hand, a souvenir from botched home repairs that had looked deceptively easy on YouTube. Slowly but relentlessly, the thin topsoil of gentility eroded.

  Standing before the school’s front gate, Maggie greeted the returning students and their parents by name. She had studied the names over the summer from a yearbook on her nightstand. Knowing the kids’ names helped build trust. It’s hard for a weepy, bruised kid to ID his bully if the principal starts the conversation asking, “And your name is?” Knowing the kids’ names made them feel seen and valued. And Maggie did value the kids, her kids. She wanted things for them—more than she could ever actually deliver.

  This morning, though, she’d settle for a snake-proof fence, so she put on a big smile and headed over to greet the school’s unofficial minister of disaster and finance: PTA president Felicia Manis. A former model turned part-time Pilates instructor, Felicia was a tall, lithe blonde with a breathy voice. She was also the lucky owner of softball-size, fake boobs that had been installed and periodically upgraded—like an iPhone—by her plastic surgeon husband. A full-on MILF-asaurus, Felicia guest starred in the masturbatory fantasies of every teenage boy in her zip code. Maggie—a vertically challenged (sounds kinder than “stunted”), zaftig brunette trapped in an endless battle with her bathroom scale—should have disliked Felicia, but she couldn’t. No one could. Felicia was unrelentingly friendly and anxious, a golden retriever in need of Xanax.

  Felicia had spearheaded the informal, but effective, whispering campaigns that had produced the school’s wrought-iron fence (to keep out gun-wielding maniacs!), freestanding Purell dispensers on the playground (germs were everywhere!), and a total ban on peanuts (allergies!). A yelly lunatic on a street corner would never have been able to push such an agenda through, but Felicia’s breathy voice and chummy manner made her exclamation-point fearfulness credible, even fun. Plus, she had an uncanny knack for fund-raising.

  As Maggie approached, Felicia beamed down at her. “So, how’s my favorite principal?”

  Maggie grumbled, “I’m your only principal.”

  “Love the one you’re with. That’s what the song says, right?”

  Maggie said ominously, “Not if the one you’re with is a snake.”

  Felicia frowned. “Ohmigod, are you talking about Russell? Did you hear something? What have you heard?” Russell was Felicia’s husband. His tomcatting was yet another source of worry to her.

  Maggie shook her head. “No, not Russell. I was talking about the snake we found on the playground this morning.”

  Relief flickered across Felicia’s face only to be shoved aside by fresh worry. “A snake? Was it poisonous?”

  Maggie nodded. “Yep. A rattler. A third grader found it.”

  “A third grader? We’re lucky no one got killed!” Felicia put her hand on Maggie’s arm and leaned in, her breathy voice even breathier than usual with alarm. “Rattlers kill at least one child a week in Southern California. I saw something about it on the news.” Felicia firmly believed in statistics, especially the ones she made up.

  “That sounds a little high to me,” said Maggie.

  “Maybe, but even one child’s death is too much.” Felicia held Maggie’s gaze, as if waiting for Maggie to argue the point.

  Maggie pursed her lips, as if Felicia had said something profound. “You’re so right.”

  Felicia nodded. “So what do we do? Is the snake still out there? Is that why the kids had to go straight to class?”

  “Yes, but I think we’ll be okay on this one. Animal Control is on the way. They’ll bag the snake and take it off somewhere. But . . .” Maggie trailed off.

  Like a Baryshnikov of Panic, Felicia made the next leap on cue. “But what about the next snake? Where there’s one, there’s got to be dozens. Maybe hundreds.” One snake and, to Felicia, the playground was now the tomb from Raiders of the Lost Ark.

  Maggie sighed. “Well, it’d be great if we could fix up the snake fence. That’s the low wire mesh along the school’s perimeter. It’s sprouted a few holes. I put in a work order, but the district’s been dragging its feet.” Maggie shrugged. “Ah well, there’s nothing we can do.” Maggie’s resignation was false, the administrative equivalent of a damsel in distress batting her eyes at Superman, asking, “But who can save us now?”

  Felicia jutted out her pretty chin. “Hmm, we’ll just see about that.”

  Maggie grinned up at her. “You look fierce.”

  This seemed to please Felicia. “I am fierce.”

  “Good, but save most of that ferocity for fund-raising. We’re going to need it.”

  Felicia wrinkled her nose in distaste. “I can’t believe it. After all Edutek’s big talk about five-year plans, they’re only funding STEAM for a year. It’s like someone gives you a kidney and then tells you it’s just a loaner.”

  Maggie said nothing. She would have loved to vent about Edutek’s stingy generosity, but she had to stay positive. As principal, she had to play cheerleader while staff and parents engaged in yet another year of Sisyphean fund-raising. Feigning optimism, Maggie said, “But, hey, I’m excited. I have some great ideas up my sleeve for this year.”

  “Like what?” asked Felicia.

  Maggie flailed her arms. “Oh, lots of ideas, really terrific stuff. I’ll need to hone them, check out some of the logistics. But you’re gonna love them.” Maggie winced at her own vagueness. She sounded like a forgetful boyfriend promising big things to come on Valentine’s Day.

  “I can’t wait,” said Felicia. There was no sarcasm in her tone. Felicia—like most of the parents at Carmel Knolls Elementary—believed in Maggie. Maggie would set everything right. That was her job, after all.

  4

  THE SPIDER AND THE FLY

  After the third bell, the kids were all snug in their classrooms, and Maggie made the morning announcements over the school’s antiquated PA system. She warmed up with the Pledge and then moved on to the snake incident, downplaying it as best she could. Yes, Animal Control had taken the snake away. But don’t worry: they won’t kill it. They’ll set it free in some faraway canyon where it can play with its snake brothers. Probably bullshit, but that was Maggie’s story, and she was sticking to it.

  Then Maggie moved on to more serious business. “I want you to take a good look at the kids sitting in your classroom. Go ahead, give each other the once-over.” All over the school, children eyed each other, giggling shyly.

  “Some of you are tall. Some are short. Some spent the summer at camp. Some stayed here. But you all have one thing in common: you’re nervous. You’re nervous about whether you’ll get to keep your old friends or have to make new ones. You’re nervous about whether your teacher will turn out to be a sweetheart or a dragon lady.” This prompted many children to eye their teachers speculatively.

  Maggie went on, “Some of you are nervous about schoolwork. Others are nervous about what the hot lunch will be and how it’ll smell. I can’t make your nervousness go away. But I can give you some advice to make it easier on everyone. Be kind. If you see a kid eating by himself, invite him to sit with you. If you see someone wandering alone at recess, ask her to play ball. And if someone asks a dumb question during class, don’t laugh or roll your eyes. People have to ask a lot of dumb questions on the way to getting smart. Just let your teacher do her job, and you do yours. Let’s start this year off right. Principal out.”

  Maggie switched off the PA and leaned back in her desk chair. She enjoyed a millisecond of self-satisfaction and then lurched toward self-doubt. She probably shouldn’t have said that stuff about dumb questions. “Dumb” was a loaded word, a verbal stink bomb. “Dumb” implied the existence of dummies. A big no-no. Maggie pulled a Hershey’s Kiss from the t
op drawer of her desk, unwrapped it, and popped it in her mouth. As the chocolate coated her tongue, she grinned—the dopey, relieved grin of a gal whose pee has just hit the water. The grin fell away when Maggie looked up to see her boss standing in the doorway of her office. Maggie blushed furiously, as if she’d been caught playing with herself.

  She stammered, “Arlene. Uh, hello.”

  Superintendent Arlene Horvath simpered, “I hope I didn’t startle you.” This was a lie. Arlene loved to sneak up on people. Maggie wished she could hang a bell around the woman’s neck.

  Maggie said, “No, of course not.” Maggie could lie too. “Please have a seat.” Maggie gestured to one of the two padded chairs opposite her desk.

  Sitting down in one chair and resting her voluminous handbag on the other, Arlene said, “That was a lovely speech, Maggie. But I’d lay off the jokes about smelly hot lunches. The Choosy Chow people are doing the best they can.” Arlene had a low, throaty voice. Diane could mimic it perfectly.

  Maggie winced. “My bad.” Arlene had hired Choosy Chow to prepare the district’s school lunches. Ergo, their slop was above reproach.

  “No matter.” Arlene literally waved the remark away, causing her clunky bracelets to jangle on her wrist. Arlene Horvath, Maggie’s personal overlord, was somewhere in her early fifties. She was a thickset brunette with a permanently pinched expression. The skin around her heavily lipsticked mouth puckered in, making it look like a bright-red anus. A fashion refugee from the 1980s, she used fistfuls of mousse to secure her feathered hairdo, and she sported oversize, plastic-framed purple eyeglasses. Arlene completed her look with pastel pantsuits. In one of her precalculated I’m-officially-bonding-with-you moments, she’d confided to Maggie that pastels make the wearer look more approachable. Maggie’s mind had flashed to the nursery rhyme: “‘Will you walk into my parlor?’ said the spider to the fly.”

  Maggie’s dislike for Arlene did not stem from any sense of sartorial superiority. Maggie hadn’t bothered to revise her own “meh” fashion statement until after her painful divorce, so she could sympathize. No, Maggie clashed with Arlene on the big stuff: the why. One imperative drove Maggie: to provide the best education she could for her kids. She wasn’t a saint. She didn’t aim to educate all humanity, or even all the kids in San Diego. No, Maggie was as tribal as any Bantu. Her circle of concern encompassed only her kids, the kids at her school. Oh sure, she played nicely with other principals whenever possible, whenever there was nothing to lose. But when resources were scarce—as they almost always were these days—Maggie would ruthlessly elbow the other principals out of the way in the desperate Black Friday scramble for the district’s best teachers, the top programs, and the newest equipment. The other principals in the district didn’t resent this. They respected it.