The Very Principled Maggie Mayfield

by Kathy Cooperman

  “You’re a prepper.”

  Diane balked. “I am not a prepper. I write a blog for preppers. There’s a big difference. For me, it’s all talk, an intellectual exercise—how to survive the big one. It’s like planning for some fantasy trip. But for Hank, it’s different. He’s down with some serious shit.”

  Maggie frowned. “You think he’ll join Walter in the bunker?”

  “Hell no. Don’t get me wrong, Hank was happy to get paid for building it. I mean, the man’s got to eat. Plus, it was big fun working out all those engineering problems. But no, Hank says there’s no way he’s living down there.” Diane added darkly, “And all that that entails.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What do you think all those guns are for? To keep people out. Hank’s playing along for now, but if the bomb drops and women and babies are begging to be let in, there’s no way he’s gonna shoot ’em down just so King Asshole doesn’t have to share his hidey-hole. Hank says he’s not built for that.”

  “So what’s his doomsday plan? He has to have one.”

  “He’s gonna bug outta harm’s way. I don’t know all the details, but near as I can figure, he’s connected to some shady characters. If things get dodgy, they’ve promised to fly him to some compound he’s got tucked away somewhere in South America.”

  “Sounds like a very solid individual.”

  Diane smiled. “Yeah, he is.”

  Maggie pressed, “Then why not go see him?” Having found salvation in a romantic relationship, Maggie was eager for Diane to find her personal Jesus.

  Diane sighed. “There’s no point. Hank’s under contract. Tilmore’s got him locked down in Rabbaclaw for the next three years. I can’t see doing the long-distance thing, and there’s no way I’m moving out there. I got too much here: my job, you, and Dad. I don’t know how long Dad’s got, but I’m not gonna bail on him.”

  Maggie frowned. It had never occurred to her that a Hank-Diane relationship might make her lose Diane. But she plunged forward, “It’s not like Lars is all alone. I mean, your sister drops in sometimes, right? Plus, he and Jeannie are seeing each other now.”

  Diane rolled her eyes. “They play Scrabble once a week. That’s hardly a grand love affair. And my sister . . .”

  Just then, Diane’s phone rang. It was the hospital calling to report that Lars had just been admitted to the ER. They needed her there right away.

  Diane peeled out of the parking lot.

  She never got to see the dozens of “broken” women trudge out of the Marriott to find pink notes on their windshields. Their expressions weren’t discernible under the street lamps. But most of them skipped Day Two.

  35

  SOME ENCHANTED EVENING

  Maggie parked the car while Diane ran into the hospital to see her father. When Diane burst into Lars’s hospital room, he wheezed. “I’m fine.”

  Diane kissed his forehead. “You’re a bullshitter.” She studied him carefully. “You don’t look so bad, no worse than usual.” Lars had been tap-dancing on the precipice of death for years, so the bar for his appearance was set low.

  Jeannie sat by his bedside, and her eyes were puffy from crying. Diane said, not unkindly, “Damn, Jeannie. You look like a wreck. Should I tell Daddy to scoot over and make room for you?”

  Jeannie shook her head and smiled weakly.

  Diane asked, “What happened, Daddy? Did you try rock climbing or was it ski jumping this time?”

  Jeannie answered, “He had some kind of attack. One minute he was fine—he really was—but then he got overexcited, and—”

  Lars cut in, “Jeannie’s the one who got overexcited. She called the ambulance over nothing.”

  Diane put her hand on his arm. “You hush now. Jeannie’s talking.”

  Jeannie’s lower lip trembled. “His breathing got erratic, and his heart was racing. We were . . .”

  Lars said, “We were playing Scrabble.”

  Jeannie went on, “I didn’t know he was getting worked up. He . . . I didn’t mean to . . .” She cried some more.

  Lars reached out and touched Jeannie’s bent head, murmuring, “It wasn’t your fault, Jeannie.” But Jeannie kept on crying. So then Lars gave Diane one of those “don’t-just-stand-there-say-something” looks.

  Diane told Jeannie, “It’s not your fault. If Daddy here could just lose at Scrabble like a gentleman . . .”

  Jeannie started sobbing even harder. Just then, Maggie came in. She looked at Lars and asked, “You alive?”

  “And I vote,” said Lars. He winked at Maggie, and she gave him a prim smile.

  Jeannie was still blubbering, so Diane asked, “Maggie, can you take Jeannie outta here for a second? I think she needs some air.”

  Maggie nodded and quickly guided Jeannie out of the room. Then Diane sat on the edge of her father’s bed. “How bad was it, Dad?”

  “Not bad at all, gorgeous. Scout’s honor.”

  Diane said, “It musta been pretty scary for Jeannie to jump up from a Scrabble game and call an ambulance.”

  “We weren’t playing Scrabble,” said Lars. He was looking at the wall behind Diane as he said this.

  “What were you . . .” Diane faltered. Then she leaned forward, whispering, “You and Jeannie did it?”

  Lars nodded sheepishly.

  Diane blundered on, “I can’t believe you’d take a risk like that. What were you thinking? You know what the doctor says. You take it easy, and you can expect another good five, maybe ten, years. But you go tomcatting around, and . . .”

  Lars finally looked his daughter in the eye. “I wasn’t tomcatting around. I was with Jeannie. I wanted to . . .”

  “To what? To literally go out with a bang? Daddy, you can barely walk up a flight of stairs. What makes you think you can survive sex with Jeannie?”

  “I’ve survived it plenty.”

  Diane balked. “You’ve done this before? Since when?”

  Lars answered grumpily, “Since Christmas, when you went to Wyoming.”

  “Christmas?! You two didn’t waste any time, did you?”

  Lars shot back, “I’m seventy-four and carry an oxygen tank. I’m on a tight schedule.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” asked Diane.

  “You’re my daughter. I don’t talk about stuff like that with my daughter.” Lars said this with the prissy indignity of a matron from a Jane Austen novel.

  Diane replied, “Yes, I’m your daughter. I’m the one who’ll have to rush out to the hospital to claim your body some awful day. And I want to brace myself if that day is coming up soon.” She got worked up as she said this, and her face reddened. “I don’t want you to die on me.”

  Lars took her hand, and the two of them sat in silence for a while. Then Lars said, more calmly, “I don’t want to die on you, sweetie. But Jeannie’s the best thing to come along in my life in a long while. I’m going to spend as much time with her as I can . . . and all that that entails.”

  Diane nodded. “Yeah, well, don’t die on Jeannie either, Dad. Did you see how freaked out she was?”

  Lars blushed a little. “She’ll be all right. Jeannie’s tough.”

  “You sure you didn’t scare her off?”

  Lars laughed. “One minute you want to break us up. Next minute, you’re terrified we won’t stay together. Pick a lane, sweetie.”

  Diane shrugged. “Consistency’s never been my strong suit.”

  “Don’t worry. Jeannie won’t scare off.” Lars grinned. “That woman can’t resist me.”

  36

  TRAPS EVERYWHERE

  Miffed that her seventysomething father had been getting more action than she did, Diane reversed her decision and used Hank’s plane ticket after all. Evidently, the trip went well because when Maggie asked, “How was Wyoming?,” Diane had simpered, “How would I know? I barely stepped outta bed.”

  As spring rolled around, Diane was still in “the throes.” And her grand affair made her more expansive and pushy tha
n ever. Her new live!-live!-live! ethos could be grating at times, but Maggie played along with it as much as she could.

  But not now. Now Maggie shook her head, telling Diane, “This is going too far.”

  Diane was relentless. “Oh, c’mon. It’ll be fun. I asked around, and most of the teachers are on board. Even Jeannie was up for it.”

  “Of course Jeannie’s up for it. She’d flash the pope if you suggested it.” Since Lars’s close call at the ER, the formerly contrarian Jeannie had morphed into Diane’s toady. Maggie couldn’t suss out all Jeannie’s motivations, but they appeared to be a bouillabaisse of affection, gratitude (for having brought Jeannie and Lars together in the first place), and genuine contrition for having almost literally loved Lars to death.

  Diane shrugged. “Look, the point is the kids’ll love it.”

  Maggie held firm. “It’s overkill. We’re already doing the leprechaun traps. That’s half a day wasted.”

  Diane bristled. “Those traps are not a waste. The kids’ll learn about physics, engineering, strategy. Hank’s got it all lined up. He’s gonna dazzle ’em.” Diane flushed prettily as she talked about Hank. She’d recruited him to teach an hour-long workshop on building leprechaun traps during his upcoming visit to San Diego.

  Maggie hedged. “You’re right. The kids’ll get a lot out of making the traps. But still, the toilet thing—it’s too much.” Diane wanted to put green food coloring into the school’s toilet bowls on the morning of Saint Paddy’s Day. She figured the kids would get a huge kick out of finding hard evidence of leprechauns’ existence: emerald leprechaun pee.

  But Maggie was ambivalent about tricking kids like that. She wanted children to experience wonder, but not if it meant lying to them. Allowing kids to believe in leprechauns, even going so far as to help them build traps—that was one thing. But confirming magical creatures’ existence by leaving bogus evidence was too much. It was the educational equivalent of fixing a crime scene.

  Maggie and Diane continued bickering until Danny interrupted them. “Hello, ladies.” With mock formality, he said to Diane, “Mrs. Porter, may I please have a moment with Mrs. Mayfield?”

  Perhaps grateful for an exit strategy, Diane played along, “Yes, Mr. Zelinsky, you may.” She strode out of the room, carefully closing the door behind her.

  Danny clicked the lock shut and drew the blinds. Maggie objected, “Daniel, I told you. You can’t do that. You might as well hang a sign up saying—”

  He interrupted her with a long kiss, and Maggie supposed that was one way to settle an argument. Drawing back, she said, “What’s gotten into you?” She sat down in her desk chair, hoping to signal—to him and to her own libido—that she meant business. This was a school, after all.

  Danny didn’t answer right away. Instead, he perched on the side of her desk like a sexy male secretary and looked down at her. Happiness and excitement mingled on his face, and he bobbed his head slightly, as if agreeing with the universe that “yes, this was good, this was very good.” Finally, he told her, “This. Is. Big. You’re going to love this.”

  Maggie feigned astonishment. “Ohmigod, you’re pregnant?!”

  “No, better. Well, sorta better.” He paused again.

  “Tell me.”

  “The financial press got hold of our testing data, and they’re going berserk.”

  Maggie frowned. “Wait, how’d the press get . . .”

  Danny brushed this off. “I dunno. Somebody must’ve leaked it.”

  “But how did . . .”

  Danny plunged on, “Anyway, the stock shot up this morning. Fifteen bucks in three hours! Do you know how huge that is?”

  Maggie fumbled to keep up. What she knew about the stock market could fit onto the tab of a tea bag. “Wow, that’s . . . that’s great.”

  He grinned at her. “It is great. If this price holds, we’ll be able to pay out a fat dividend by the end of next quarter. Even better, CNBC says Telectronics might want to acquire us. And you know what that means.”

  Maggie gave a noncommittal “ah.” Financial jargon was a foreign language to her. She understood nothing but the speaker’s mood.

  Danny prattled on, “Of course, a lot will depend on how the launch goes. Right now, we’re set to distribute specialized hardware and software. But there could be an apportunity here.”

  “A what?”

  “An apportunity. It’s what you call it when an app—you know, like on your iPhone—can improve the user’s experience. An apportunity.”

  “I see.” Maggie tried to sound suitably impressed.

  Danny continued, “Walter wants to hold back on the app. He’s afraid people won’t buy the software package if they’ve got it. But I told him the app will make us sticky.”

  Maggie wrinkled her nose. “Being sticky is a good thing?”

  “Yes. A program is sticky if users come back to it a lot. It’s about retention.”

  “Ah, well then.” Maggie decided she wouldn’t ask any more questions. She did not want to ruin the flow of Danny’s story. So she just leaned back and nodded, making appropriate “uh-huhs” and “well thens” as needed.

  She jolted awake, however, when he said, “We’re already getting calls from school systems on the East Coast.”

  “Wait, what?” asked Maggie.

  “Look, if the MathPal becomes the gold standard, everyone wants to be an early adopter.”

  Maggie stammered, “B-but, uh, I thought you were just going to market it to, you know, the rich bunker guys. Remember? That whole thing about niche markets and how you don’t need to sell a lot if you have the right point price . . .”

  He corrected her. “Price point.”

  “Yeah, that. What happened to that?”

  “That was always just one of our sales avenues. And anyway, that was way back.”

  “Way back? Just two months ago, you said . . .”

  Danny nodded but waved her off. “I know, I know. But that was before we got back our first batch of test results.”

  “They were good?” Maggie strained to keep the incredulity out of her voice. The past months of gossip in the teachers’ lounge had done nothing to dispel her opinion that the MathPal was a dud.

  Danny glowed. “The results were phenomenal—for the lower grades, K to third.”

  “What about grades four to six?”

  Danny shrugged. “No difference there. At least, the standardized test scores didn’t show one.” He seemed almost cheerful about the fact that his program did nothing for the older half of the school’s population. Evidently, Edutek could make plenty by targeting younger students.

  “But how can you tell the younger kids improved at all? I mean, we don’t start doing standardized tests on them until third grade. So you have no baseline.”

  He grinned. “We made a baseline. We used progress rates from previous years—years where the kids only had teachers, no MathPal. We used those years as our baseline, then extrapolated from there.”

  “But how?”

  His smile widened, then he boasted, “Okay, this part was my idea. We went back through the younger kids’ files. We looked at old homework papers and tests so we could quantify normal progress rates for K through third, and that became our baseline. Good, eh?”

  “You did all that?”

  “Yes, ma’am, and it was a lot of work. Why do you think I needed staff down here?”

  “But I don’t remember authorizing . . .”

  “You didn’t authorize it. The parents did. Remember that waiver I had them sign back in September? It gave me access to all of their kids’ old academic records and papers.”

  Maggie nodded. She couldn’t imagine Edutek wading through years’ worth of homework and performance tests. But they must have been doing something in their offices.

  Danny bragged, “Our data proves the MathPal had a huge positive impact on younger kids’ skills. With results this good, we couldn’t just limit ourselves to the high-end market. We had to pivot to
the mass market. You understand?”

  “I guess I can see that.” Maggie’s brain reeled. None of her K–3 teachers had reported an uptick in math skills, an uptick beyond that normally produced by the school’s own curriculum. But maybe they’d underestimated their students. That was possible, right?

  Danny leaned in toward her, asking, “So can we celebrate tonight?”

  “Tonight?” echoed Maggie.

  “Well, I’d celebrate with you right now, but you told me not to.” Danny wiggled his eyebrows.

  Maggie laughed. The man she loved was elated and eager to share his big moment with her. “Tonight then, it’s a date.”

  She watched him go, then sat stock-still at her desk for a few minutes. She felt vaguely disoriented, undermined somehow—as if someone had broken into her house just to rearrange the furniture. Nothing looked right, but the news was good, wasn’t it? The MathPal worked. Daniel’s testing data proved it.

  The data also proved that she, Maggie Mayfield, had been—wait for it—wrong. She should be happy to find herself in error. Danny deserved to succeed. And if the MathPal worked, it’d benefit the school. Edutek’s stock grant to the district would be worth something. It might fund STEAM programs for years to come. Everyone would live happily ever after.

  Maggie should be exhilarated. So why did it feel like she’d just been caught in one of Hank’s leprechaun traps?

  37

  SURVEY SAYS . . .

  In the days after Edutek announced the MathPal’s stellar test results, Maggie saw her own bemused astonishment mirrored on the faces of her teachers. She asked, but none of them had noticed a huge uptick in their students’ skills, just the usual slog to grade-level competence. None of the kids had Good Will Hunted her way up to the board to write out complicated math proofs. But Edutek’s “data” said otherwise. So maybe the teachers weren’t looking hard enough? Or perhaps they were measuring their students’ skills the wrong way? Edutek’s announcements shook the K–3 teachers’ confidence. When discussing the MathPal, they sounded like insecure fourteen-year-old girls—lots of singsongy sentences ending in question marks.