The Very Principled Maggie Mayfield

by Kathy Cooperman

“If that fails, what?”

  “Tell him he shouldn’t lie because he’s lousy at it. He’s not as smart as he thinks he is. I mean, what kind of idiot destroys twelve boxes of damaging documents, but keeps the damn receipt?”

  Maggie felt her lower lip tremble as she teared up again. She’d fallen for a con artist, and not a very clever one.

  43

  OPPORTUNITY COSTS

  Law & Order had lied. It had conditioned Maggie to believe that when you confront an evildoer with his crimes, he will deny it. The erstwhile cop always has to peel away the layers of denial so that the perp’s “I have no idea what you’re talking about” becomes “yes, I knew about it, but I had nothing to do with it,” which then morphs into “I just helped a teensy bit,” until finally you get “Yes! Yes! It was me, and I’d do it again if I could!” Cue sinister, slightly deranged cackle. Chunk-chunk.

  But Danny did not follow that script. When Maggie confronted him in his apartment with the receipt and demanded to know whether he’d had the kids’ old quizzes destroyed, he hadn’t denied it. He had the good grace to wince, but that was all the remorse he could summon.

  He studied the receipt, then shook his head. “I should have destroyed this.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  He shrugged. “Reflex. I always keep my receipts so the company will reimburse me. Pretty stupid, eh?”

  Maggie nodded. “Diane says you’re lousy at being a con artist.”

  “So Diane knows too? What am I saying? Of course, Diane knows. She’s your diary.”

  Maggie felt a tear well up in her eye. She blinked it away. “So that’s it? You’re not going to deny any of it?”

  He reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Not unless you want me to.”

  Maggie plopped down onto his couch, emotionally winded. Without saying a word, Danny walked over to the coffee table, slid open a drawer, and pulled out a Hershey’s Kiss. He handed it to her. “Here, eat this, it’ll calm you down.”

  Maggie unwrapped the candy slowly, as if she wanted to keep the wrapper for later use. She popped the chocolate into her mouth, and—dammit—it did calm her down. She looked up at Danny. “What made you give me that?”

  He grinned down at her, the white of his shirt contrasting gorgeously with his brown eyes and fiery red hair. Oh, how she’d miss running her fingers through that hair! Danny said, “Maggie, I’ve been with you since November, long enough to know about your chocolate habit. I kept a pack here in case of emergency. And this looks like an emergency to me.”

  Maggie nodded. She studied the carpet, her cheeks reddening. Her chocolate habit—her fixation on sweets—embarrassed her. She’d taken heroic measures to hide it from Richard, knowing how disgusted he was by weakness, specifically her weakness. She’d tried to conceal it from Danny too, but he’d figured it out. Her voice suddenly small, she asked, “You’re not turned off by this?”

  “No. It’s cute. It’s not like you’re mainlining heroin.”

  Sniffling (crying always made her congested), Maggie said, “I can’t believe you did this. You lied to the whole world about the MathPal.”

  “I didn’t exactly lie. Haven’t you ever heard of puffery?”

  “Puffery?” asked Maggie.

  “Yeah, people do it all the time to sell their products. You know—some instant crap calls itself ‘The World’s Best Coffee.’ Bleach toothpaste promises ‘Whiter Teeth in a Flash.’ Or my favorite—‘I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter!’ Now that one took balls the size of Montana.”

  Maggie considered this, then shook her head. “No, those are just slogans. People know to block that stuff out, like background noise. What you did was different. You didn’t hook people with a jingle or a slogan. You gave them a bigger lie, a more specific one.”

  Danny sighed. “Oh, c’mon. You’re making too big a thing out of this. It’s not like I’m peddling poison. I mean the MathPal didn’t slow your kids down, did it?”

  “No, but . . . that’s only because I have great teachers on my staff. They were able to blow ten minutes a day on the MathPal and still cover our math curriculum. Other schools might not be so lucky. They might . . .”

  Danny brightened. “Or maybe—and this could happen—maybe kids at other schools will find the MathPal way more helpful than your students did. Maybe the MathPal’s slow pace and fun graphics will make all the difference for kids with lousy teachers. You can’t rule that out. Neither can I.”

  Maggie felt rage well up inside her. “Is that how you think we build curriculum? Do you think we just throw random shit at kids and hope some larnin’ will stick?”

  “Uh, no. I . . .”

  “Every piece of my students’ day has been thought through in advance. You know why?”

  “Why?” Danny asked this with all the zest of a man opening the lid on a garbage bin.

  “Because—for a good teacher, a good school—building curriculum is painful. For everything we choose to show our students, we have to choose against something else. Doing the poetry slam means there’s not as much time for writing prose. Spending more time on dioramas means less time with maps. Time is limited, so everything costs something. You tell teachers nationwide that they have to make room for the MathPal—that it’s the gold standard for K through third, and teachers are going to have to cut something—something essential—to fit your program in.”

  Danny exhaled loudly. “Look, you don’t need to tell me about opportunity costs because I know all about ’em.”

  “What?”

  “Sorry, sometimes I forget you didn’t go to business school. Opportunity costs are what you were talking about. If you choose to do X, then it costs you the opportunity to do Y.”

  Maggie echoed, “Opportunity costs.” She pulled a tissue out of a box on the coffee table. “Great, I learn something new every day.”

  Danny put an arm around her. “Maggie, c’mon, I’m not asking for a giant chunk of the day. It’s a few minutes, that’s all. The MathPal’s harmless, like a placebo. If I stood on the corner handing out sugar pills, I wouldn’t be doing any harm. A lot of people would take them and go away happy, feeling like they’d done something to take care of themselves.”

  “But you’re not giving away anything, are you?”

  “No, I’m charging money, but not an outrageous amount. Just fifty bucks per user. That’s way less than a lot of ed software.”

  “But your program doesn’t do anything. Every dollar schools spend on it will be wasted. And schools can’t afford to waste money. We’re strapped already. I can’t afford science for Chrissake. Science! I can’t even give my kids a snake-proof fence.”

  “You can now,” said Danny with a smile.

  “What are you saying?”

  “We gave you guys a huge chunk of stock. So long as our stock price goes up, your district will have plenty of cash. Your kids’ll get all the STEAM programs you want, and then some. It’ll be snake-proof fences all around.”

  Maggie squirmed in her seat, discomfited. She had been so busy pointing out Danny’s conflicted state that she hadn’t noticed her own. Her kids versus everyone else’s. Maggie believed in justice in the abstract, but her kids—their faces—were so tangible.

  Danny leaned in, saying, “Sweetie, you just don’t understand the software business.”

  “I do too,” said Maggie petulantly. Even she knew how absurd this sounded.

  Danny said patiently, “If I wait to develop my ideal product, a product that can teach kids math in minutes a day without them experiencing a millisecond of boredom, I’ll never get it launched. It’s like the iPhone.”

  Maggie frowned. “But my iPhone works.”

  Danny waved this off. “Yes. This version works. But do you remember the first iPhone? How it froze up constantly? How the touch screen kept glitching? How slow it was?”

  Maggie huffed, “I couldn’t afford the first iPhone.”

  Danny bowed slightly. “I genuflect at your nob
le poverty. But I bought it. So did a lot of people. It had problems, but Apple released it because it couldn’t wait to develop a perfect product. So it went with its MVP.”

  “Most valuable player?”

  “No, minimum viable product. It’s the product you put out when you don’t have anything better. It’s passable, not perfect. You sell it so you can stay in business long enough to release the next version, the better version that you wanted to release all along.”

  Maggie frowned. Danny went on, “That’s why Apple keeps releasing new iPhones. It’s why every piece of software you ever buy will nag you with constant upgrades. In Silicon Valley, you don’t wait for perfect. You do the best you can, sell it, then move on. In Silicon Valley . . .” Maggie tuned out for a moment here, repulsed by the reverent way Danny invoked Silicon Valley. If people in Silicon Valley did a thing, it must be the smart—the right—thing to do. As he babbled on, Maggie felt as if a heavy weight had been laid on her chest. Danny was a good man, but nowhere near as good as she’d thought he was. And finding that out wasn’t just disappointing. It hurt.

  Perhaps sensing Maggie’s distance, Danny launched his final attack. “If you won’t let this one go for your school, will you at least let it go for me?”

  “What?”

  “I need a win, Maggie. You heard Walter, I’ve already had two strikes. I get a third, and I’m out.”

  “Is that so terrible?” asked Maggie.

  “For me, it is. Yeah. I’ve spent my entire professional life in Silicon Valley, and it’s been one failed launch after another. I can’t have another dud, okay?”

  “That’s just Walter talking. Don’t let him in your head. You’re young. You’re talented. There’ll be other . . .”

  Danny shook his head. “Young? Maggie, I told you, by Silicon Valley standards, I’m a dinosaur. Forty-four years old without a single hit. If I blow this one, nobody’s gonna invest in me again. I doubt anyone would even hire me.”

  “That’s ludicrous. Someone would give you a shot. I mean . . .” Maggie petered out, aware of how naïve she must sound.

  “Silicon Valley doesn’t work that way, Maggie. Trust me, I’ve busted my ass there for two decades, and it’s been nothing but flubbed projects and bad timing. I need this. We need this.”

  Maggie frowned. “We?”

  “Yeah, we. If Edutek hits it big, everybody wins. Your school gets all the money it needs. Edutek finally gets on solid footing. We get married. It’s happily-ever-afters all around.”

  Maggie recoiled. “This is how you propose?”

  Danny smiled sheepishly. “I didn’t plan it this way. You kind of forced my hand. I was hoping to make some kind of grand gesture. Light up the jumbotron at Gallcomm stadium. Or maybe, have one of those ad planes fly over the school with a ‘WILL YOU MARRY ME, MAGGIE?’ banner.”

  Maggie wiped her nose again. “A banner in the sky would have been lovely.”

  “I can still do it, Maggie. Mr. and Mrs. Zelinsky—it’s got a nice ring to it, right?”

  Maggie nodded. “It does, but . . .”

  “But what?”

  “I can’t . . . We can’t build a marriage on a lie.”

  “What? There’s no lie. We love each other. The MathPal’s a side issue.”

  “If it’s a side issue, then why tie the proposal together with me keeping silent on the MathPal?”

  Danny pulled at his shirttail, exasperated. “Because I can’t see marrying you if you force me to tank my company because of some prissy moral standard.”

  Maggie pressed, “So there’s no way you’ll go public about the MathPal being a dud?”

  “No, I can’t do that.”

  Maggie nodded, finally understanding. “But what if I don’t go along? What if I can’t go along?”

  “You mean . . .”

  “What if I go to the press about the MathPal?” Maggie said this in a great rush, scared she’d lose her nerve.

  Danny sighed. “Well, that’d be the end of everything, wouldn’t it?” He balled up the shredder invoice and tossed it in the wastebasket. Then he looked into her eyes. “But I don’t think you’ll do that.”

  He leaned forward and kissed her. Maggie kissed him back, as salty tears ran down her face. Soon they were making love. And Maggie had to admit—it was the best closing argument she’d ever heard.

  The white Xerox copy of the receipt lay forgotten at the bottom of Danny’s wastebasket, but the pink original was tucked away safe inside her purse.

  44

  HOSTAGES

  Maggie told Diane all about her conversation with Danny, omitting only the sex at the end as irrelevant and unseemly. Diane heard her out, then said, “Sounds awful. Did you at least get to sleep with him? You know, one for the road?”

  Maggie pursed her lips primly.

  Diane said, “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  “Can we move on, please?” asked Maggie.

  “Sorry. This is a conundrum. If we stay quiet, our kids can pig out on science, PE, and whatnot, and other schools’ll cough up a ton of money for a dud program. But if we tattle, our kids go without. We’ve got ourselves a Sophie’s Choice: our kids versus all the other kids in the world.”

  Maggie shook her head. “Sophie wasn’t choosing between her kids and someone else’s. She was choosing between her own two kids.”

  “Now, that was a shit deal.”

  “True. But it’s not just Carmel Knolls versus everybody else. It’s Carmel Knolls and Daniel versus everybody else.”

  Diane squinted at Maggie. “You love him, don’t you?” Maggie nodded wordlessly. If she talked about Danny, she’d start crying again. Diane shrugged. “Way I see it, if you want to go on loving him, you’ve got to take him out of the equation.”

  “Huh?”

  Diane said gravely, “I know what runs you, Maggie.”

  “Chocolate?”

  Diane grinned. “No. Helping kids. You’re gonna do whatever you think will help the biggest number of kids the most.”

  “So we tell the world about MathPal, then?”

  “Not necessarily. If you think the MathPal is not so bad, if you think the system can bear one more piece of crap curriculum, then maybe you let the whole thing go. Maybe, the ‘greater good’ here is to keep Edutek stock high and make sure your kids have STEAM programs for the next twenty years.”

  Maggie sighed. “I can’t do the us-versus-them thing. Every time I think about it, I vomit in my mouth a little.”

  Diane made a blech face, then leaned forward. “Wait, what if we make it so there’s no conflict?”

  “Come again.”

  “At the gala, Arlene told you that if the Edutek stock price holds steady, we could fund STEAM for the whole district for the next ten, maybe twenty, years. Right?”

  “Yeah, but . . .”

  Diane went on, “Well, what if we sell the stock now, while the price is high? The district’ll have all the money it needs for our kids. We won’t have to worry about what happens to the stock price later.”

  Maggie struggled to keep up. “Yeah, but that doesn’t fix everything. I mean, we still have to decide whether or not to expose Edutek.”

  Diane frowned. “I know. Dumping the stock doesn’t solve everything. But it solves something. Way I see it, Danny’s holding our kids hostage. He’s saying, ‘Either you let me lie about the MathPal or your kids won’t get their STEAM teachers.’”

  Maggie bristled. “He didn’t say that. He . . .”

  “No, but that’s what he was implying.”

  “No, he was just warning me that one thing—us losing the teachers—would follow another, exposing the MathPal. He was pointing something out to me.”

  Diane snorted, “Yes, he was being real helpful.”

  “Can you please get to your point?” asked Maggie.

  “My point is this. We’ve got three things at play: whether we let a bunch of other schools get suckered into buying the MathPal, whether we let Daniel lie to everyb
ody, and whether our kids get their STEAM teachers. I say we take care of our kids first, take them out of the equation. And then we can figure out what to do about your boyfriend.”

  Maggie nodded. “But how do we get the district to dump the stock?”

  Diane smirked. She mimicked Arlene’s throaty voice, “My dear, we call our new district comptroller, Sy. He’s a friend of mine, a close friend.”

  45

  TRICKING SIMON

  On Monday morning, the first weekday of summer, Maggie and Diane drove to their empty school. They had to make the call from there. The district phone system’s antiquated caller ID could not differentiate between calls from the district office—Arlene’s office—and calls from district schools. So mousy Simon Petal sitting in his district comptroller office would not be able to tell who was calling him—Arlene or Diane.

  Maggie and Diane went over their script once more. Maggie hissed, “Remember to call him ‘Sy.’”

  Diane put the call through. Mimicking Arlene, she said, “Hello, Sy. It’s Arlene.”

  Simon Petal chirped, “Hello, Arlene.”

  “Sy, I was wondering if you could get something done for me quickly.”

  Simon cooed, “Anything for you, dear. I live to serve.”

  Diane made a gagging gesture, but kept her voice Arlene-throaty. “Oh, Sy. You are too much.”

  Maggie frowned, unsure whether Diane was overplaying her role. But evidently not, because Simon simpered, “I know.” Diane scribbled out a note: “If this turns into phone sex, I’m outta here.”

  Diane continued, “I’m calling because I want you to sell off our Edutek stock, right away.”

  “Are you sure that’s wise? The stock is hot. It’s been going up-up-up.”

  “I agree with you, Sy. But the powers that be have decided we should sell it now, in case the MathPal’s launch doesn’t go well. There are some rumors out there that the MathPal’s all hype.”

  “And you’ve run this by the school board?”

  Diane plunged on, “They’re the ones who told me to call you.”

  “I see. All right, well, I’ll put the sale through right away.”