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.
“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.
