“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
