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