Class Page 11

  To Karen’s delight, Lou immediately wrote back:

  She is such a shrew. How does her husband stand her? And those poor kids. Also, who knew she was responsible for the Indian independence movement? Not I. hahaha

  Karen wrote back:

  If Gandhi were a parent at Betts, do you think she’d even let him run his own bake sale?

  Lou wrote back:

  Not a chance.

  Karen was still giggling to herself as she replied to April:

  That’s fine. How’s tomorrow morning at Laundry at 8:30?

  April replied:

  At 8:25 would be better, as I’m conducting an important Education Partners workshop at 8:50.

  April’s e-mail was followed by yet another one from Clay:

  But when will I get lucky with you?

  Karen felt as if a sticky mass had spontaneously formed in the back of her throat, preventing her from swallowing. Did he mean what she thought he meant? Or was he only joking around? And wasn’t he married? Karen’s heart pounded with confusion and excitement as she typed out the words:

  We shall see.

  To Karen’s mind, her response was noncommittal enough to be safe, but open-ended enough not to discourage his efforts. Because the truth was that it felt good to be flirted with—better than good. It felt as if the shapes in the room were just coming into focus, revealing their angles and contours after a long, deep sleep…

  The next morning, after dropping Ruby off at school—only five minutes late, which was earlier than usual—Karen set out for her first fund-raising meeting with April. It was already a few days into the month (of April), but there weren’t many visible signs of spring. The trees were still bare, the crocus buds shut tight, the chill formidable. Spring had not sprung.

  En route to Laundry, Karen found herself hunching her shoulders against the wind, pulling her jacket collar tight around her neck, and secretly wishing that global warming, or climate change, or whatever you were supposed to call it now, would happen sooner rather than later so she would no longer have to suffer through the winter. Was that selfish of her? Probably, yes; if she really cared about the planet, she would just bundle up and deal with it, the way her daughter seemed to do. In fact, Ruby seemed completely oblivious to the elements, putting on T-shirts, shorts, and sundresses in winter and failing ever to see the point of wearing a hat.

  The same Tattoo Guy with the man-bun from last time was behind the counter, but Karen actually managed to get a “Hey” and a half smile out of him before she ordered. Seconds later, April appeared at her side, clipboard in one hand, masala chai tea in the other. “Morning, Cochair!” she said brightly to Karen.

  “Hey,” said Karen, already regretting her offer from the night before. “I’m just ordering.”

  “I’m at the table in back.”

  “Be right there,” said Karen.

  But her slow-pour coffee took even longer than usual to pour, and April looked irritable by the time Karen finally joined her. “Sorry about that,” she said. “My coffee took forever.”

  “It’s fine. I’m used to having my time wasted,” snapped April.

  “April—how about cutting me some slack this morning?” said Karen, sighing. “It’s still early.”

  “Fine, but only if you answer my question.” She leaned in, her gaze laserlike, her giant forehead gleaming beneath the dangling Edison bulbs. “Have you been in touch with Maeve’s parents?”

  “Not really…” said Karen, who couldn’t bear to get into it with April but didn’t want her to think she’d lost any social capital. “I mean, just some e-mails,” she added, shrugging. “Why?”

  “I understand they’ve switched her to the private public school known as Edward G. Mather.”

  “Yeah, I heard the same,” said Karen, surprised to learn that April, too, cared about and must have been irked by Maeve’s transfer. They had that in common as well.

  “I have to say, I was slightly appalled by the way the family handled it,” April went on. “Sending out that group e-mail reproducing their conversation with Principal Chambers? I thought it was very insensitive to Jayyden’s situation and also a violation of all parties’ privacy, including Principal Chambers’s.”

  Karen secretly agreed with April, but under no circumstances was she willing to admit that. “Yeah, well, I guess they were pretty upset,” she said, attempting a tone of neutrality.

  “That’s no excuse,” said April.

  “Maybe not—anyway.” Karen cleared her throat in a way that was meant to signal their mutual need to get on with it and then out of there. “Since we don’t have much time, here are my thoughts on fund-raising for Betts. In the bigger picture, I think we need to raise the profile of the school so it attracts more families with money from the neighborhood. That’s a long-term goal. More immediately, I think we should do a direct appeal to the families we already have. The postage will probably cost a few hundred bucks. But assuming we can get all the home addresses of our families from the main office, I think it’ll be worth it. I’m happy to attempt a letter explaining that the school is basically under siege—not just from the statehouse, which cuts the public education budget every year, but from private entities like Winners Circle, who now want our classrooms too.

  “I thought I could do a bullet-style list of all the extras that PTA money could be paying for if everyone got together and gave something. I have a feeling that we have quite a few families at the school, especially in kindergarten, who are actually in a position to give real money but who haven’t done so because, essentially, no one has ever pressured them into giving. Honestly, in all my years at Betts, I’ve never gotten a single letter asking for money, whereas my understanding is that other schools in the area basically bombard the parents with requests. I’ve heard that at Mather they send incoming kindergartners’ parents a letter in July, before their kids even arrive, demanding a thousand bucks from each family. Obviously, we’re not going to get anything close to that kind of money out of the average Betts household. But I don’t see why we can’t ask for something.”

  For a few beats after Karen finished, April sat glaring at her and saying nothing. Then, overenunciating every syllable, her delivery glacial, she asked, “You want to send a letter by regular mail to our students’ homes asking their parents to give us money?”

  “Yes,” said Karen, ignoring whatever point April was trying to make. “Direct appeals are really the beginning for every campaign. And as I said, since I’m under no illusions that we have a particularly wealthy student body, I’ll mention in my letter that no amount is too small. The important part is that everyone give what they can, whether it’s ten dollars, a hundred, or—hard to imagine, but you never know—a thousand. Participation is key. Later in the spring or early next fall, maybe we can start looking outside the school for matching grants and whatnot.”

  April pursed her lips and looked away, her eyes appearing to home in on an etching of a donkey. Finally, she turned back to Karen and declared in a rapid clip, “I’m sorry, but I think it’s aggressive, and it’s not who we are as a school.”

  “You think asking for money is aggressive?” asked Karen, incredulous.

  “Yes. I do,” said April.

  Karen leaned forward. “But April, how are we going to raise money if we don’t ask for it?”

  “Our families contribute in other ways.”

  “Yes, some contribute in other ways. And a few have devoted their lives to bettering the school, like you have. And I really admire you for it. But many families at the school basically use the place as a free daycare center and can’t even be bothered to walk their children into the building, let alone attend any events in the classroom, because they don’t give a fuck, or they’re overwhelmed and can’t deal, or it’s a cultural difference, or whatever. So let’s not mythologize-slash-romanticize poverty here. But I’m fairly sure there are a bunch of families in the lower grades who are pretty financially comfortable, like those women who
are always complaining about the hormones in the milk in the cafeteria. And obviously those are the people we’d be targeting. Because I’m sure their kids all went to private preschools and now these children are attending kindergarten for free. So their families probably have some money to spare.”

  “I don’t care if they eat gold bricks for breakfast,” April shot back. “I think it’s invasive, and I think it’s alienating for those families who aren’t in a position to give. If you want to do a penny or nickel or even dime harvest in the school lobby and encourage everyone to drop their spare change into a giant jar, that’s one thing. But sending personal letters? I’m sorry, I’m just not comfortable with that at all.” She shook her head.

  “Okay, so we can put the letters in their backpack folders,” said Karen. “Or, if the main office is willing to share the e-mail addresses they have on file, we can do it that way.”

  “However you send it, we’re still fostering an inequitable system in which schools with wealthier student bodies have more perks than those without,” countered April. “This is supposed to be a public school, not a private one.”

  Exasperated, Karen felt her eyelids beginning to droop. “April, I agree with everything you’re saying,” she said slowly. “But for the moment, the system is what it is. And if you don’t believe in fund-raising, why be cochair of the fund-raising committee? For that matter, why do we even have a fund-raising committee? Also, do you ever stop to wonder why you feel compelled to argue with everything everyone says? What if, for once, just as an experiment, you tried agreeing with someone? You might find that people would actually be willing to join some of the committees you ran and even become active members of the PTA. Or do you prefer to reign over a kingdom of one?”

  April apparently could think of no answers to any of Karen’s questions—at least, not ones she was willing to share. For a good half a minute, the two of them sat in silence, avoiding each other’s gazes, April flaring her nostrils and Karen grimacing. Finally, April pushed back her chair, stood up, and said, “Fine—do what you want. I have an important Education Partners workshop to run.”

  “Thank you,” said Karen.

  “There’s no need to thank me—I just do what I can to help,” said April. Chin raised and in full martyr mode, she stomped off.

  That year, HK’s annual gala was being held in the banquet hall of a beaux arts building downtown. As in the past, the organization had hired a hyperorganized, headset-wearing event planner named Barbara to mastermind the festivities, so Karen was free to come as just one of the guests. Wearing her only decent black dress—the same knee-length shift she wore to all work-related parties—she arrived at seven sharp and made her way to the bar. At seven fifteen, there was no one there, which seemed slightly ominous. Then, suddenly, at seven thirty, a mass of people showed up, and a mob scene ensued.

  Guests crowded into an anteroom, where silent auction items had been laid out on long rental tables covered with white cloths. As Karen sipped from a glass of pinot grigio, she did a cursory review of the offerings. There were cashmere baby hats, private tours of art museums, front-row tickets to Broadway shows, interior-decorating consultations, seven-night luxury beachfront resort accommodations in the Turks and Caicos Islands, spa services involving heated rocks, and giant baskets of beauty products wrapped in crinkly cellophane and tied with giant bows. The finest South American botanical ingredients, read one description, combine with cutting-edge science to boost the skin’s inner strength and revitalize its outer beauty. This his-and-hers gift basket even comes with a handy red carrying case—value $450.

  Gazing out at the crowd, Karen saw a mass of wraithlike women bedecked in sparkly jewelry interspersed with pasty fat men with bald pates who understood that thinness was ultimately aspirational and that they required no such leverage. First among them was Lew Cantor, a private-equity honcho who sat on the board of directors of Hungry Kids. Lew had given a hundred grand last year. Karen had inherited him from the previous development director, Deb Lennon, which made it all the more essential that Karen go over and greet him. “Lew! It’s wonderful to see you!” she said.

  “Hello there,” he said. “It’s Carol. Right?”

  “Karen, but don’t worry about it! You’re looking very festive tonight.”

  “Eh? You like the bow tie?”

  “I do like bow ties. How is your lovely wife?”

  “She’s vanished to Aspen. I haven’t seen her in weeks!” He chuckled.

  “Oh, well, when you next see her, give her my regards. You know, this organization couldn’t do its work without you two…”

  Karen was still pissed at Matt for blowing off the event, but mostly in principle. In truth, his absence gave her the freedom to conduct the necessary business of glad-handing the guests without feeling self-conscious or judged. It also gave her the freedom to socialize as she pleased. Although Karen had no close friends in the office, she got along with most everyone there, from Letitia Gutierrez, the sultry benefits associate, to Cary Ann Kreamer, the Southern sorority-sister-ish nutrition coordinator. But she was most fond of the outreach director, Troy Gafferty, whom she wished she saw more of; unfortunately for Karen, he was usually busy “reaching out” in a remote part of the city.

  The estranged son of Jehovah’s Witnesses, Troy, who was now in his forties, had lost his lover to AIDS fifteen years before. Miraculously, he himself hadn’t contracted the virus. But for unclear reasons, he hadn’t had a real relationship since. At present, he lived alone in a bare-bones studio over a deli and liked to joke that the families he assisted sometimes had nicer apartments than he did. That evening, Karen and Troy made the rounds together, shaking donors’ hands (Karen would introduce him as “our heroic man in the field, Troy”) and whispering about who had and hadn’t shown up.

  To Karen’s relief, one of the Krugs, of the Krug real estate empire, was at that very moment kicking back gin and tonics beneath a gilt-framed portrait of a long-forgotten elder statesman. But to her disappointment, a certain first-generation Googler was so far a no-show. There was still no sign of Clay Phipps either. Karen found herself checking every few minutes. But since he’d not just RSVP’d but purchased an entire table, Karen was confident that he’d eventually arrive. And then he did.

  At the first glimpse of him—he was wearing a slightly rumpled white button-down and a pin-striped navy-blue suit—Karen felt as if her stomach were a pincushion pierced with hundreds of tiny holes. He was accompanied by a coterie of slightly younger, square-jawed Asian and Caucasian men (maybe his employees at Buzzard?), as well as a sleek, tawny-skinned woman of unclear age and ethnicity to whom he was walking close enough to suggest a spousal relationship. The woman was wearing a red dress with a scooped-out neck and a simple gold choker. Karen knew she shouldn’t be surprised to find that Clay was married to a woman of color. Why shouldn’t he have been? But she was surprised—surprised and impressed and somehow even more nervous. Countering fear with alacrity and leaving Troy in conversation with Cary Ann about next week’s menu, Karen bounded over to where Clay and his wife stood. “Hello there,” she chirped, addressing them both.

  “Well, hello there, Karen Kipple,” Clay replied in his endlessly cheeky way.

  “So glad you could come,” said Karen, leaning in for an air kiss. He smelled of citrus and cedarwood.

  “The pleasure is mine.”

  Since no introduction was immediately forthcoming, Karen extended a hand to the woman at his side and said, “I’m Karen, the development director of Hungry Kids.”

  “Hello,” she said, with the faintest of smiles.

  “My bad manners—this is my wife, Verdun,” said Clay, laying his hand on her shoulder.

  Was it Karen’s imagination or did she shrink slightly at the gesture? “Verdun, it’s so nice to meet you,” she said, wondering how the woman had ended up with the same name as a famous battlefield in World War I. “And what a beautiful name.”

  “Thank you,” said Verdun
. But again she offered no conversational opening.

  “Well, I’ll let you guys mingle,” said Karen. Feeling suddenly uncomfortable in her skin, she turned away and scurried back toward Troy.

  “What was that about?” he said, one eyebrow raised.

  “Don’t ask,” she answered.

  Troy never missed anything.

  At seven forty-five, Barbara the Event Planner ushered the crowd into the main hall. Beneath a coffered ceiling inlaid with intricate mosaics were scores of circular tables laid with crisp white cloths. At eight, guests began to take their seats. Karen smiled gamely as she sat down at a table with the Jesse James Foundation people—they were Hungry Kids’ largest source of funding—even as she dreaded the thought of spending the next hour and a half making small talk with them. Jesse James modeled itself after a corporation, using metrics to analyze the efficacy of the programs it sponsored, and its employees tended to have all the spontaneity of spreadsheets. “I hope you all found something to drink!” said Karen, lifting a second glass of pinot to her lips.

  “We did, thank you,” replied a man in a light blue button-down. After consulting his fitness watch, he reached for his seltzer.

  “Great,” said Karen, realizing she’d already run out of conversation.

  Every year at the gala, Karen was aware of a disconnect between the rich people who got dressed up in fancy clothes and ate salmon tartare and pumpkin soup with sage cream and the cause she and her colleagues were promoting. That evening, the divide felt especially vast. At table 1 sat the film actress Nava Gresham and at table 2, the everyman comic Dan Greene alongside TV chef Francoise Roy, who was famous for making huge messes in the kitchen and calling everything “Supreme!” Every now and then, Karen would glance over at table 12, where Clay and Verdun were seated with their entourage, but he had his back to her. And Verdun’s impassive facial expression remained unaltered.