Saving Miss Oliver's

by Stephen Davenport

  “I’d like to meet your dad someday.”

  “You will,” she promised. “You guys would like each other. But not till graduation, okay? This is my turf, not his.” Then she was out the door.

  “WE’VE BEEN WAITING for hours!” Melissa Andersen, the French teacher, complained, plopping her tall, thin body down in the chair Karen Benjamin had just been sitting in. Melissa’s face was pale, drawn, and there were strands of gray in her blond hair. Fredericka Walters, her hair as red as Fred’s, stood behind Melissa’s chair, a tall, bulky woman wearing dark glasses, which obscured a lot of her face. Neither Melissa nor Fredericka made any gesture to shake Fred’s hand.

  “Take it easy, hon,” Sam Andersen murmured. He was a burly man in his early thirties, with huge arms and bald already. He wore a red T-shirt and khaki pants. Turning to Fred, he put his hand out. “Welcome to our little world,” he said. “How’s it goin’?”

  “Fine. Thanks.”

  Sam and Fredericka sat down on either side of Melissa, while Fred pulled his desk chair out from behind his desk so he could sit with them.

  “We’ve come to find out what your agenda is,” Melissa said.

  “Hey hon, slow down,” Sam said.

  “Well?” Melissa asked.

  “My agenda?” said Fred. “Maybe you could clarify—”

  “Melissa believes in conspiracies,” Sam said. “The Gulf War was started by Chevron. Seventeen reincarnated members of the Gestapo killed Kennedy.” He was leaning back in his chair, grinning.

  Melissa turned on her husband. “If you can’t take this seriously, why don’t you go home?”

  Sam looked directly at Fred, arching his eyebrows so that the skin of his bald pate moved up and down. “We take things very seriously around here,” he said. “Everybody knows this is the center of the universe.”

  Melissa was still staring at Sam. “I already asked once: If everything’s such a big joke, why are you here with us?”

  “To find out if he plays tennis. Isn’t that why you came? It’s summer vacation, hon, for crying out loud!” Then turning to Fred: “I hope you do!”

  “I do. I love to play tennis.”

  “That’s a relief! I’m tired of playing with all these females! I need some competition.” Sam’s grin was bigger than ever. Fredericka took off her dark glasses and glowered at him.

  Melissa ignored her husband’s remark. She stared straight at Fred, leaning slightly forward, her body very tense. “Are you going to let boys in here?”

  Fred felt his face flush.

  “Whoops, that’s a biggie!” said Sam. Fredericka put her dark glasses on again.

  “Because it’s better to let the school die than to have it be what it isn’t,” Melissa added, and Fred still didn’t answer.

  “Well, are you or aren’t you?” Melissa insisted.

  “I didn’t come here to do that,” Fred said.

  Nobody responded. All three, even Sam, stared at Fred. “It’s not my plan,” Fred offered.

  “You haven’t answered the question,” Melissa said.

  “You know how to make God laugh?” Sam asked. “Tell Him your plans.” When nobody even smiled, he shrugged his shoulders.

  “I fervently believe in single-sex education for girls,” Fred said.

  “That’s not my question,” Melissa said.

  “I think I’ve probably done as much research as anybody,” Fred persisted, “more than anybody I know, as a matter of fact. I’ve read everything there is to read on the subject.” Melissa started to say something, but he put his hand up. “How teachers call on boys more, how boys get in trouble more, disrupt more, disagree more so they get the attention. How most schools support the stereotype that girls can’t do math or science and always try to think the way the teacher thinks. How in English curricula most of the authors are men and how history departments obsess over kings and generals. I could go on and on. Because I’ve worked in coed schools, you know, all my life.”

  “That’s exactly my point,” Melissa said.

  “Well, it’s not mine,” he said, feeling the anger coming. “I’m the one who’s seen how people show up to watch the boys play football and stay away in droves when the girls play softball, and I’ve watched the girls grow up much faster than the boys.” Fred stopped suddenly, sensing he was talking too much. For an instant he saw the image of his daughter in his head and felt the old despair.

  Sam turned to Melissa. “Honey, isn’t that enough?”

  “No, it isn’t enough,” Melissa said, and Sam turned his face away from her. He raised his eyebrows again to Fred.

  “No, it isn’t,” Melissa repeated. “He’s said what he believes in, not what he’s going to do.”

  “Not fair,” Sam murmured.

  “Why isn’t it fair?” Melissa persisted. “It’s the question everybody is asking. It’s the ultimate question: What will the new headmaster do if he thinks the only way to save the school is to let boys in? Why isn’t that a fair question—since it’s the one that everyone wants to know the answer to?”

  “And you?” Fred said. “What would you do if you thought the only way to keep the school from closing down was to make it into a coed school?”

  “I’d never think that,” Melissa said. “I’d refuse to think that.”

  “Hon, now you’re ducking the question,” Sam said softly.

  “I’m telling you, I’d never think that! How could anyone who’s been here more than twenty minutes?” Melissa was close to yelling now. “The only point, the whole point, the only reason for Miss Oliver’s, is that it is for girls. That’s what the school is!”

  “Let me tell you something,” Fred blurted. “The one thing I’m not going to do is let this school be closed down!” He leaned way forward. He could feel the veins throbbing in his neck.

  There was a silence. Sam and Melissa glanced at each other; Fred was sure he caught a told-you-so look on Melissa’s face. Fredericka leaned forward, her face still inscrutable behind her dark glasses. “Well,” said Melissa, standing up. “I’ve finally got my answer!” She moved toward the door. Sam stood but stayed near his chair, and Fredericka was motionless.

  Near the door, Melissa turned and stared at Fred. “Don’t you dare!” she said. “Don’t you fucking dare let boys in here.” Then she opened the door and disappeared, and Fred could hear her footsteps, almost running, as she crossed Ms. Rice’s room to leave the building.

  “Like I said, welcome to our little world,” Sam said after a long pause. “Hang in there. I’ll call you Sunday to see about tennis.”

  “Thanks,” said Fred.

  “Coming, Fredericka?” asked Sam.

  “No,” Fredericka replied, taking off her dark glasses. “I have one more question to ask.”

  Fred already knew what that question was.

  “Hello,” Fred said to Fredericka after Sam had left. As always, his anger had disappeared as fast as it arrived. “You didn’t say a word.”

  “It wasn’t necessary,” Fredericka said. “It never is when Melissa’s part of the conversation.”

  She was fidgety, clearly nervous, so he got right to the point. “I think I know what’s on your mind.”

  “I’m sure you do.”

  “I really was going to address it, you know. I wasn’t going to keep you on the hook. It just seemed a bit abrupt on my first day.”

  She looked as if she might start to cry.

  “I thought we should get to know each other a little first.”

  She shook her head.

  “And I wanted to see if we could find something else for you to do.”

  “Something else! Do you know how humiliating that would be?”

  “Not necessarily,” he urged.

  “I’m a German teacher! Twenty-seven years I’ve been here.”

  “Yes. And a good one, too. I know your reputation,” he said. For all she had after all those years was that good reputation. She certainly hadn’t gotten rich.

&
nbsp; “Marjorie promised me that I could stay until I retired. That’s what she told me when everybody started taking Spanish instead of German. She promised.”

  “We have a huge deficit—”

  “That’s not my fault.”

  “No. It’s not your fault,” he said. Not mine either, he thought. Out loud, he said, speaking as gently as he knew how, “There are only nineteen students in the whole German program—all four levels—a full-time teacher with one of the biggest salaries, and a huge deficit. We have to make some changes. Maybe you can be a dorm parent.”

  “I did that when I started! I’m not going to do that. I’m sixty years old.”

  “All right,” he said, nodding his head, and the room went quiet while she looked at him, waiting for him to say something more. But he knew if he did, this would go on and on and make it worse for her. So he steeled himself and said nothing, and then she started to cry.

  “I’m sorry,” he murmured. She had her head bent down and waved her hand in front, as if to establish privacy. “I wish there were—”

  “How old are you?” she interrupted, abruptly looking up at him.

  The question caught him by surprise. “I’m thirty-seven. Why?”

  “You were ten years old when I started here! A little boy! How do you think that makes me feel?” She turned her face away from him.

  “Look,” he said, standing up. “You need a chance to be alone. I won’t need my office for a while. You stay as long as you need.”

  She waved her hand again and turned her shoulders so that her face was turned even further away, so that she would be facing completely away from him if the chair back would allow. Her shoulders were shaking very hard. He left her, closing the door of his office behind himself as quietly as he could.

  HE USED THE time away from his office to consult with Nan White, the director of Admissions. He was sure there must be some way to recruit more students over the summer.

  Nan greeted him warmly. They sat across from each other at a small table in the center of her office. She was a small woman, the single mother of three Oliver alumnae, in her late forties, brown hair gone slightly gray. He thought of her as calm, solid, honest. He had trusted her since his first interviews.

  “Maybe we can get four or five new students before the end of summer,” Nan told him.

  “Four or five’s nowhere near enough.”

  “The ones we get in the summer are the ones we tend to have to let go,” she said.

  “I know. It was the same at Mt. Gilead.”

  “Of course you know! You really are a risk taker, aren’t you?” she said, thinking, First he took on Mt. Gilead. Now here too.

  “That’s what my wife says.”

  “Well, I’m glad.”

  “Thanks.”

  “But…” She hesitated. “These numbers aren’t very accurate.”

  “Not accurate? Don’t tell me they’re worse! We’re already nineteen fewer that I was told we’d be”

  “They’re worse, all right. Much worse.”

  “Jesus! Sorry.”

  Nan smiled. “You should hear some of the language I use when I look at these numbers.”

  “How much worse?”

  “Maybe twice as many fewer than predicted. These are Marjorie’s numbers, not mine.”

  “Vincent’s,” he corrected.

  “Marjorie was the head,” she replied softly.

  He didn’t respond to that.

  “The truth is we’ll be anywhere from thirty to forty kids down when we open in September. Guaranteed.”

  “Forty!”

  “Fred,” she said, “some of the board blames this on me. They think I must not be working hard enough. If having me around gives you a problem—”

  “No way. Let’s just figure out—”

  “I don’t have the slightest suspicion that it’s my fault,” she said. “That’s not the point. The point is that if the board doesn’t trust me, and you don’t make me go away, they stop trusting you.”

  “I’m not about to start firing the good people,” he said. “Let’s just look together at your whole plan, all the ideas, where we can recruit, what alumnae are helping us, let’s do that, and maybe we can come up with some ideas.”

  “God, I’d love to! When?”

  “Right now.”

  “Wonderful! Somebody else besides me looking at this stuff.”

  “BOSTON, NEW YORK, Philadelphia, the D.C. area, Baltimore,” Nan said, taking several folders out of a file. Neither of them was aware they’d skipped lunch. “That’s one sector. In both New York and Baltimore, I have families lined up who have promised to host receptions for potential students.”

  “Great!” said Fred. “So you and I go down there, we get a few current students and their parents to attend, and we talk about the school.”

  “Exactly. I’ve got some dates ready.”

  “What about the other cities—Boston, Philly, and D.C.?”

  “I had offers in each, but they reneged. Maybe if—”

  “When?” he interrupted.

  Nan hesitated.

  “When they learned the new head wasn’t a woman?”

  “I’m afraid so,” Nan murmured, and he liked her even more for not letting her eyes slide away. “But,” she added, brightening, “maybe they just need some time to adjust. If you call them, I bet they’ll change their mind.”

  “I’ll call them. You bet I will!”

  “And in the Southern sector, we have Richmond, Charleston, Atlanta, Fort Lauderdale. In the Midwestern, we have Cleveland. We’ve already got one family there, the Maynards, who’ve agreed to host a gathering, and then we have Chicago and Detroit. In the West we have Denver and San Francisco.”

  “San Francisco!” Fred interrupted. “Francis Plummer’s out that way for the summer. Maybe he could join us—or maybe even save us the travel expense by speaking for us.”

  “I think not.”

  “Why not? Surely he’d be a draw for the alumnae.”

  “I just don’t think we should,” Nan said firmly.

  “He’s one of the ones who haven’t adjusted yet?” he asked, remembering Plummer’s little joke about not changing anything. He’d sensed the senior teacher’s discomfort when they had interviewed each other during the search process and had received some subtle warnings from others about his resentment over Marjorie’s dismissal. But he’d assumed that so intelligent a man, so celebrated a teacher, would have placed no blame for this on her successor.

  “One of the ones,” Nan answered.

  “All right. I understand. When he gets back, though, and we get going in the new academic year—”

  “I hope so,” Nan said. “It’s harder for some than for others.”

  They spent the rest of the day working on the plan and thinking of everything else they could do to improve the enrollment before school started again in September. When they were through, they figured that if everything went right, they could pick up ten or eleven new students instead of the five Nan had predicted. “That’s all there is, there ain’t no more,” he announced. “But it’s better than nothing.”

  “That’s right,” Nan agreed. “Better than nothing.”

  WHEN FRED GOT back to his office at five minutes to six, Ms. Rice was gone. Five minutes later, right at six o’clock as planned, Alan Travelers, the board chair, showed up. He was in his fifties, slightly taller than Fred, spare in body, pale skinned, with short, gray hair. He wore a dark business suit that even now, at the end of the day, was unwrinkled, as if he’d just put it on.

  He didn’t let Fred begin until he’d had his say. “Fred, I was about to call you this morning until my secretary reminded me we were going to meet instead. Just to welcome you. On your first day. No agenda. Just to say once again that I am delighted that you are our new head. Well, this is much better, face to face.”

  “Alan, thanks,” Fred said, already feeling better.

  “You’re the kind of guy who will give
it all he’s got. That’s why we’re so delighted.”

  “Thanks. You can count on that.” Fred pointed to the chair where Karen Benjamin had sat that morning—it seemed like days ago!—and took the chair facing Alan.

  “By the way, Fred, Mavis Ericksen dropped in today,” Alan began.

  “She did?”

  “She’s really concerned about that Saffire woman, you know.”

  “I know. She dropped in to my office too.”

  “I know she did. What did you tell her?”

  “I told her I’d look into it.”

  Alan nodded his head.

  “This is my call, Alan.”

  “I know it is. I just wanted you to know there’s a lot of heat involved in this one.”

  “There’s a lot more in what I’m about to tell you,” Fred said. Then he gave Alan the news.

  After Fred finished, Alan sat very still, his face even paler. “Six hundred and seventy-five?” he asked at last. “You’re absolutely sure?”

  “Positive.” Fred started to hand Alan the papers, Vincent’s numbers and his own.

  Alan put his hands up, shook his head. He didn’t need to read them. “How in the world could we have fouled up so badly?” he murmured. He wasn’t asking Fred; he was looking at the ceiling.

  “He was the business manager,” Fred offered, but Alan shook his head, refusing the excuse. Now Fred liked him even more. “I believed him too,” Fred went on.

  “Of course you did! Why wouldn’t you? You weren’t even here yet,” Alan exclaimed. Then after a pause he added, “The deal’s off if you want it to be.”

  “I don’t understand,” Fred said. Alan was looking hard at him, searching his face, and then it dawned on him what his board chair was getting at.

  “You signed a contract thinking the situation was very different from what it is,” Alan said mildly. “I’m not dishonorable enough to hold you to it.”

  “But I want this!” Fred blurted.

  “Think about it,” Alan insisted. “You owe it to yourself. You can tell me in the morning,” and Fred was taken by surprise. Out of nowhere came this turning point! Now he was suddenly imagining himself backing out the door of this office, Alan’s eyes still on him. He could feel the relief; he was floating, breathing easy in an enormous space. But the feeling only lasted an instant, and then he was overwhelmed by huge regret at throwing away his treasure. He imagined begging to be allowed to change his mind and come back.