He couldn’t keep his eye off the bottom line anymore, which he had already figured would show a deficit of $675,400 instead of only $245,000. He was right. If this rate of drain continued, the bank would surely call the loans, and there simply wouldn’t be enough cash to run the school. He’d thought he had four years to turn things around. Now, on his very first day in office, he discovered he would be lucky to have two.
When Fred had accepted the board’s offer, he did so on the basis of a very straightforward strategy that the board accepted: He would create an aggressive marketing campaign by which to rebuild the girls-only enrollment. He’d provided a schedule showing the targets for the addition of students each year. The board understood that failure to reach these targets even as soon as the first year was the signal to consider becoming coed, a strategy that some other singlesex schools and colleges were adopting. But it was best not to talk about this possibility, certainly not to write it into the formal plan. This specter looming in the background would enrage the alumnae, many of whom would rather the school close down than admit boys. In his own mind, though, Fred wouldn’t even think about the possibility of closing the school. He’d admit boys before he did that. He knew something about the grief that follows a school’s dying. That wasn’t going to happen to Miss Oliver’s. Not ever!
Fred spent the next half hour reviewing budgets for the previous five years, noting once again the consistent gap between the optimistic predictions and the disappointing results, and a few more minutes thinking very carefully about how he was going to handle his conversation with Carl Vincent. Then he remembered that Vincent had left for vacation. That was the reason for his timing in presenting the corrected budget: He didn’t want to be around when everyone got the bad news and learned how inaccurate his projections had been. Fred felt sad for the old man.
All right, so the next thing to do was to talk with Nan White, the admissions director, to see what the chances were of making up some of the lost enrollment over the summer. So, at exactly nine o’clock he was about to get up from his desk and walk down the hall to Nan’s office when Margaret Rice opened his office door (without knocking, he observed), stepped a very small distance into his office, and announced that his eight-thirty appointment had arrived.
“Eight-thirty? It’s already nine!”
“Hey, it’s summertime,” she said.
“From now on, Mrs. Rice—”
“Ms. Rice.”
“Ms. Rice. Right. Sorry. From now on, I need you to keep me informed about the appointments you’ve made for me. I’d like to know a day ahead of time if it’s possible.”
“All right,” she said. “Fine. From now on.”
“Who?” he asked.
“Who what?”
“Who is my appointment with? Whom, I mean.” “
Three teachers.”
“Mrs. Rice, please, who are the teachers? Ms. Rice, I mean.”
“I bet they’ll let you know when they get in here,” she said, flushing.
He felt his face get hot too. She looked surprised, maybe even a little chagrined. “We’re going to have to talk,” he said, very quietly, very slowly. His sudden anger, always surprising to him, was a relief.
“There’s just a way we do things around here, that’s all.” Ms. Rice’s voice was almost conciliatory now, embarrassed. “Marjorie Boyd—”
“All right, Ms. Rice,” he interrupted. “Later we’ll talk. Right now, who are they?”
“Melissa and Samuel Andersen; she teaches French, he teaches history.”
“I know what they teach,” he said. “
They just got married last Christmas.” “
Yes.”
“Marjorie married them.”
“Marjorie! Mrs. Boyd? Married them?”
“She performed the ceremony. It made some of the new trustees mad.”
“Well, that’s interesting. Who’s the third teacher I’m about to see?”
But Ms. Rice went right on, her tone of voice almost friendly now: “Marjorie got one of those Universalist Church preacher’s licenses that were created for COs in the Vietnam War. Since the alumnae learned about it, Marjorie’s been asked to perform quite a few marriages.”
“The third person?” he interrupted.
“Oh. The third person. That’s Fredericka Walters. She teaches German.”
“I know,” he replied, feeling a further surge of worry. He’d made it a point, during his earlier study of the school, to know how many students each teacher instructed. Fredericka Walters was one of the highest-paid teachers on the faculty—with the fewest students. He was going to have to do something about that.
“Oh, that’s right, you know what people teach,” Ms. Rice said, and he immediately regretted cutting her off. It dawned on him that before doing anything else he should have had a long, relaxed talk with her.
“Some people call her Sam,” Ms. Rice went on. “She likes men’s names; and others call her Fred, of course.” Then after a pause: “But don’t worry. It won’t be confusing. It will be a while before anybody’s going to call you by your first name.” Her face flooded with red again.
He forced himself to let that go, trying to believe she didn’t even know that she was insulting him; she was just describing his situation. “Show them in please, Ms. Rice,” he said as gently as he could.
Margaret Rice went out the door. In an instant, she returned. “They’re not there.”
“They’re not there!”
“Right. They must have gone over to the faculty room to get some coffee. While you and I were talking.”
“We only talked for a minute! The faculty room’s clear on the other side of the campus.”
Ms. Rice shrugged her shoulders again. “They’ll be back.”
“When’s my next appointment?”
“Nine-fifteen. Mavis Ericksen and Charlotte Reynolds. Two of the new board members,” she added, rolling her eyes.
I know; I met them during the hiring process, remember? Fred almost said. So did my wife. But he remembered what happened last time he told her he knew something.
“It’s already five after nine,” he said instead. “That only leaves ten minutes. So when the teachers get back from the faculty room, tell them I can’t see them now. They can come back later.”
Margaret Rice stood stock-still, staring at Fred for what seemed a very long moment. “You’re joking!”
“No, I’m not joking. Tell them.”
“You can’t just cancel an appointment like that. They’re teachers!”
“Yes, I can.”
“They’re going to be mad!”
Now it was his turn to shrug. As Ms. Rice started to leave, he said, “Let’s leave the door open. I don’t want anybody to think I’m hiding in here.”
“WE HEARD THAT about making the teachers wait,” Mavis Ericksen said. An alumna, she was a tall brunette, very pretty, in a red dress, stockings, high heels. She turned to Charlotte Reynolds for affirmation. Charlotte, also an alumna, and mother of an eighth, ninth, and