He saw that Karen was trying not to cry and wanted to soothe her. It’s all right, this is just what happens, he would have liked to say. But he couldn’t say that either in front of all those people. He went down the steps and took his seat.
Fred was right. Karen was so furious she could cry. She stayed onstage. She was not about to let it end this way! She thought back to the riot that the hysterical Petrie woman had started that day in September—it seemed like years ago—and how the next day Fred Kindler had walked across this stage in his funny suit and disappeared behind the podium because he was too short while everybody mocked and laughed. And then he’d stepped out front, red mustache flaming on his face. He just stuck his face out there! Braving them. And they shut up. He took the weight. She wanted to be like that.
“You people need to grow up,” she said. “This whole school needs to grow up. You don’t have the foggiest idea what’s going on. But he knows.” She was pointing to Fred Kindler. “That’s why we blame everything on him.” And then the example she would use to prove her point came to her. “Take that article I wrote,” she said. “Remember that? You thought he was the one who banned it. Well, just to show how dumb you are, he wasn’t. I was the one who decided not to publish it.” It’s not a lie, she told herself. Just doing this makes it true. She saw Mr. van Buren three rows from the front. He was staring at her. In the front row, the headmaster was staring at her too. She thought she saw him start to stand up, then change his mind. Sit down, she wanted to tell him. I can do this. Let me honor you just this much. Let me show how right you were that even I could understand. Then she watched the headmaster turn his head to rove over the audience. He was looking for Mr. van Buren. This is complicated, she thought. This is really complicated!
“It was my decision not to print the article about our sex lives,” she told all those faces out there staring at her. “So if you want to be mad about it, be mad at me,” she added, raising her voice. “Or at yourselves for being dumb enough to think an article like that should be in the Clarion. But not at Mr. Kindler. Why be mad at him? He’s the best thing that ever happened to our school.”
Gregory van Buren put his hand up, but she ignored him. “It would have been bad for the school, so I killed it,” she said. “And I threw it away,” she added, thinking, Now I am lying. “I should have told you then. It would have stopped your bitching and moaning.”
Gregory van Buren was standing up. “What?” she said.
But Gregory wasn’t talking to Karen; he was talking to the students. “It was the right decision,” he announced. “If Karen hadn’t made it on her own, I would have made it for her,” he told the students. No one said a thing. No one dared. Because he was staring them down. He’d got his face right out there in front of them, just like Kindler did. And he was staring them down.
And Fred Kindler was watching—watching and smiling.
ON FRIDAY MORNING the calls from the alumnae started to come in to Nan White’s office. Yes, they said, we’d be delighted to come to the meetings, you can count on us to recruit for the school, we’ll never let it die. For now, with the right person at the helm, and two million dollars to give us the time we need, how can we possibly fail? In Friday afternoon’s mail, the reenrollment contracts started to arrive.
It took Nan White a long time to find the heart to take this news to Fred.
THIRTY-THREE
In the splendor of the noontime sun, Fred Kindler walked across the dais to the microphone to begin the graduation ceremony. The graduating class sat in the honored position to the left of the dais, their white dresses glistening in the sunshine. And in the faculty section, Francis and Peggy Plummer sat next to each other, their sides almost touching. To sit apart at such a time would be an affront to tradition. Three seats away in the same row, Eudora watched them and was encouraged. “We save the school, we save everything,” she remembered telling Peggy. It seemed like years ago. Soon she’d know whether she was right.
As Fred Kindler began to speak, Francis reached for Peggy’s hand, as he had done for thirty-four years at this point in this occasion. She let him hold it but didn’t squeeze back, a tentative grasping to match her indecision. She was not weeping now as she had a year ago, sobbing all through Marjorie’s final speech; she was wondering what it would be like to follow Fred Kindler, to work for him at whatever school was lucky enough to land him as its head. It was only when she realized how far these imaginings could take her away from Francis—who she thought wouldn’t even consider teaching anywhere else but Miss Oliver’s—that she began to weep.
And Francis had none of the anger that last year had made him squeeze Peggy’s hand so hard it made her wince. He could only feel regret that he hadn’t done better for Fred Kindler and sadness that he couldn’t weep with Peggy for his parting. It didn’t occur to him that that was not what she was crying about, nor did it occur to him to tell her that he was the one who had saved the school with his idea to give the responsibility to the alumnae and parents. He wouldn’t do that to Fred Kindler—or to Peggy’s opinion of him. He had accomplished that much at least. So now he was free to try to save his marriage.
Fred’s graduation speech was even briefer than Marjorie’s used to be. He had no desire for the last word. When it was over, he sat down to mild applause.
For the next two hours the faculty conferred the diplomas in the sacred way. Karen Benjamin was the first in the order, her name having been the first to be pulled last night from Daniel Webster’s hat. Gregory van Buren called her name, and she bounced across the grass to stand while Gregory said the memorized words. They boomed through the mike:
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For Heaven and the future’s sakes.
And then Gregory handed Karen a scrapbook. It contained every article she ever wrote, pasted in order of their appearance in the Clarion—and also the one that was never printed. Karen hugged Gregory long and close, then trooped back to her seat, holding the scrapbook up like a sports trophy for her parents to see.
Fred’s being chosen by Lila Smythe for this special moment in her life would be among the warmest of the memories he’d take from his time at Miss Oliver’s School for Girls. When he called her, the last in the order, he introduced her as the “author of the Declaration, the staunchest one of us all,” and handed her a photograph of Gail, himself, and their daughter, who was identified by the note appended. “So that you know us,” the note went on. “So you’ll stay in touch.” Lila stood in the sunlight looking at the picture of the girl, two years younger than she was. Tonight when she would be alone, she’d cry for Fred Kindler. Right then, she smiled and stepped into his hug. “Always,” she said. “Wherever we go.”
Near the end, Milton Perkins went to the mike and asked Fred to stand next to him. Fred felt a huge reluctance and hesitated. When he finally stood, the sun seemed piercingly bright, the faces in the audience were hard to see. So he didn’t know that all alone in the audience, Myron and Rachel Benjamin, Karen’s parents, were standing up to show their respect. And though he felt Perkins’s hand on his shoulder and knew that Perkins must be praising him and thanking him—and God knows, praise from Milton Perkins was praise he treasured!—the words didn’t register. They would later, after he was gone and had time to reflect. That’s the way it always was. All he was aware of then was how eager he was for the end.
Perkins finished to polite applause. When Fred sat down again, he felt a sudden relief. It was over. The line that marked the end had been crossed.
FATHER MICHAEL WOODWARD was sitting on the steps of his front porch when Francis got back to the rectory.
“Oh!” Francis said. “You’re not at the church.”
Father Woodward raised his eyebrows. “And you’re not at the graduation luncheon.”
“No. I’m not,” Francis said.
“Well, that’s a first,”
“I came to get my things.”
Father Woodward flushed. “Oops!” he said. “I made my move too early.” Then Francis saw his suitcase and his backpack behind Woodward, on the porch by the door. “Eudora helped me pack them,” Woodward said. “She knows I’m as much a slob as you are.” Then he stood up, crossed the porch, picked up the suitcase and the backpack before Francis even took a step, and handed them to Francis. “Find out why she loved your father so,” he said, breaking his dictum to let people figure things out for themselves.
Francis put his things in the same dented yellow car he took out West and drove across the town to Peggy’s house. He was too realistic to think of it any other way. She’d still be at the graduation luncheon when he got there. He’d put his things in Siddy’s room instead of theirs—as if for this beginning to come only halfway home—and wait for her. When she found him there, she’d be glad.
But neither of them could know whether they would heal their marriage.
He only knew how he would try: He’d confess he didn’t need a parent anymore and try to learn why she had loved his father so, and then he’d beg her to broaden her vision enough to include his pagan spirituality, his totemic connection. He’d try again—a thousand times if he had to—to tell her his turtle story. For she needed to earn a broader view, having spent her life at Miss Oliver’s, a hermetic, tiny scene. Maybe he could help them both broaden their views. After all, he was the one who’d been on a vision quest.
“LET’S GO DOWN to the shore tonight,” Gail said in the afternoon sunlight of the back lawn of the head’s house, surrounded by the empty tables. Just seconds ago the last guests of the graduation luncheon had departed. Yellowjackets buzzed around the little mounds of strawberry shortcake left on the plates, and the wind picked up some paper napkins, strewed them across the lawn. She wanted to be alone, with him, in some other place than this.
They left in the early evening. They took the smallest, most rural roads they could find. “Let’s imagine we’ve already left,” Gail said. “We’re in a new place.” During dinner, which they ate outdoors on the deck of a restaurant that looked out on the mouth of the river, that was just what they did. Over martinis, they located the fantasized new school in Italy, on the shore of the Mediterranean, to which Fred had been called with much fanfare to found a brand-new international school. By the time the lobsters and the bottle of white wine were gone, they had described the head’s salary as beginning at three hundred thousand dollars with mandatory two-month summer vacations and a huge travel allowance. All the students were brilliant and charming, and there were no pathological geniuses on the faculty. “Like you-know-who,” said Gail. By dessert they were speaking in broad Italian accents and calling the waiter Mario.
After dinner, driving back to the bed-and-breakfast, Fred said to Gail, “I think Maine would be more reasonable. Or North Carolina. Maybe Rhode Island?” He was trying to say, as humorously as possible, that his spirits had suddenly descended, the buzz of the wine faded. Next to him, Gail patted his knee. “Let’s take a walk on the beach,” she said. “A nice, long walk in the dark with my very resilient husband.”
A little while later, in the empty parking lot of a state beach, they stepped out of the car into the smell of the sea. The sand blown off the dunes onto the macadam was gritty underfoot. They shivered, took each other’s hand, and walked toward the dunes, pale hills in the dark.
When they reached the crest of the dunes they were a little out of breath. Below them the beach was a wan ribbon, and beyond that the little waves coming out of the dark made a rhythmic hissing. The moon made a river of light along the black water. “Beautiful!” Gail whispered. She put her arm around his waist.
They descended to the beach and stood with a dune just behind them. The waves hissed louder, the sea smell was even stronger, and the moonlight touched the phosphorescence stirred by a school of minnows in the thin water at the beach’s edge. “Oh, the glory of it!” Fred murmured, “the glory!” and felt a lightness. The leadership of the school had just lifted away and opened his eyes to the world.
Gail pulled him closer. “This is as good a place as we’ll find,” she said.
He knew what she meant and turned to her. Yes! this is it, he thought. He could already imagine the new life springing in her, and they lay down together, like impassioned teenagers, with no other place to go.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am grateful to:
The Graphic Arts Books team for their belief in the Miss O’s saga and their professionalism.
Tom Jenks for his brilliant guidance.
George Eckel and Dick Bradford for reading draft after draft—and sending me back to do another.
Peter Tacy, Rick Childs, Diane Sampson, Rachel Belash, Jessie-Lea Abbott, Rod Napier, David Mallery, Jim and Cindy Ware, Joanna Lennon, Steve Weiner, Joanna, Wendy, John and Sally Davenport, and all the others who dared to read and comment on the manuscript: What would you have said if you had hated it?
Peter Buttenheim, the king of loyalty, for keeping my spirits up.
And finally, all those who work in schools, for spending their lives the way they do.
WestWinds Press Book Club Guide
SAVING MISS OLIVER’S
STEPHEN DAVENPORT
Discussion questions for Saving Miss Oliver’s:
1. What is the culture of Miss Oliver’s School for Girls that brings the alumnae and students to love their school? How does their love of school enhance the students’ growth and learning? If you presently attend, or are a graduate of a school or college that you love, what are the reasons for your feelings?
2. Most of the characters in the book were upset or even angry when threatened with the possibility of the school going coed; why do you think they reacted this way? What is your opinion of the value of single-sex education for girls, whether it is for elementary school, high school, or college?
3. Marjorie Boyd is seen in only a few scenes in the book, but it seemed like her presence loomed everywhere. What did Marjorie Boyd leave behind after thirty-five years as headmistress? What aspects of her leadership style brought positive results, and what aspects negative?
4. What should the board have done to prepare the school for new leadership after they dismissed Marjorie Boyd?
5. Four teachers are featured in Saving Miss Oliver’s: Francis Plummer, Eudora Easter, Gregory van Buren, and Rachel Bickham. What do they have in common? What made Francis Plummer especially powerful in the school?
6. The last sentence of the scene in which Francis Plummer teaches Robert Frost’s “Home Burial” to a class is: No one in this class will ever be the same again. How are those students different after the class? What makes Francis so effective in this class? What personal characteristics? What strategies?
7. What are Fred Kindler’s strengths and weaknesses as a leader? Given what you know, having read the novel, would you advise him not to take the job? What leadership skills are needed to succeed as head of school following Marjorie?
8. Imagine that you are a more experienced leader than Fred Kindler and that he thinks of you as a mentor. He calls you asking for advice after his first day in office when he gets all that bad news. What are three or four steps you would advise him to take?
9. If you were on the board of Miss Oliver’s and were faced with having to decide whether to admit boys or close the school, which choice would you make? Why?
Q&A with Stephen Davenport
Q: You wrote Saving Miss Oliver’s after a long career in schools like Miss Oliver’s School for Girls. Why did you decide to write a novel instead of a memoir?
A: It never crossed my mind to write a memoir. I didn’t want to write about what happened to happen to me. I wanted to write about the universal—about what always happens. What happens in Saving Miss Oliver’s happens over and over again in organizations, and always will. To watch how it unfolds in a specific organization is to glimpse human nature.
Q: B
esides its universality, what is it about the natural resistance to change that fascinates you so much that you put it at the heart of the novel?
A: As I begin to answer that question, a memory returns: It’s July. I’m on the staff of a ten-day workshop designed to impart wisdom and understanding to independent school professionals who have just been made head of a school. In the middle of a discussion which I am facilitating about pace, how speedily a leader can expect an organization to adopt to new ways of operating and new goals, one of the new heads, a woman in her thirties, bursts into tears. The discussion stops. Concerned, everyone turns to her. “I’ve just learned there’s no way I can succeed,” she says. “I’ll be gone by June.” She was right. She had no more chance than Fred Kindler had.
One of the reasons she had been chosen for the job, over several more experienced candidates, is that she had sagely pointed out to the school board what they should have known before they began the search: that significant changes needed to be made for the school to thrive. This woman had been so excited by the prospect of leading the school toward those changes that she hadn’t realized they were changes in the culture of the school, traits, ways of doing things that its members rally around, not just because “this is how we’ve always done it,” but because those things expressed the nature of what they had created. But the board expected these changes to be made right away.
Q: How did the characters come to you? Are they modeled on people you know?
A: None of them are modeled on people I know. Marjorie Boyd came to me when I was trying to craft a charismatic woman, and she fully emerged when I imagined her declaring that the graduation ceremony would start exactly at noon. I saw her then and knew that she would never invite some celebrated outsider to make the graduation speech.
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