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  Hoping there might still be time to talk Maeve’s parents out of their decision, Karen quickly crafted a response, the goal of which was to strike a seemingly supportive tone that simultaneously challenged Laura’s assumptions and transferred Karen’s shame at her own census-taking onto the other woman. It read as follows:

  L, I cannot believe what you have all been through! What a nightmare. Poor you. And poor Maeve. I hope she makes a speedy recovery…As for school stuff, I totally understand where you’re coming from. You must have been beyond freaked when you got that call from school yesterday morning—I know I would have been. But I have to admit I’m sad at the prospect of losing you guys and wonder if it’s too late to talk you out of it. I ask selfishly, of course. But R is going to miss M so much—and Matt and I will miss you guys too!

  I also think you are going to find there are problem kids at every school—no matter the student body’s color or creed—and that the diversity at Betts is not easily replicated. Plus, in a country with almost no gun-control laws, it’s true that no one person can actually guarantee the safety of anyone else. Maybe that was all Principal Chambers meant in her tone-deaf way? At the same time, I understand you need to do what’s best for your family. And I totally respect that. I just thought I’d put my two cents in. I’m also more than happy to chat about any of this any time you want to, though no pressure.

  In any case, when Maeve is up to it, let’s definitely schedule another playdate for the girls…

  xx Karen

  It took Karen a full hour to compose the e-mail. In an earlier draft, she’d ended with Let’s schedule a playdate when Maeve is back in fighting shape. But she’d been concerned that Laura would think she was implying that Maeve was the one who’d started up with Jayyden. The e-mail left Karen’s computer at quarter to ten that evening. There was no immediate reply.

  There was no response from Laura the next morning either, or the next afternoon, which Karen found surprising. To her knowledge, Laura was a compulsive texter and e-mailer and rarely if ever went off the grid.

  That same afternoon, there was a staff outing to one of Hungry Kids’ contracted food pantries that included a photo op with the deputy mayor. Karen smiled for the cameras, shook hands with various low-level politicians, and made small talk with the pantry employees and volunteers. But her head was elsewhere—namely, on the Collier-Shaw clan. And it stayed there throughout the evening too. She couldn’t entirely explain why Maeve’s disappearance from Betts bothered her as much as it did, but something about it felt like a repudiation of Karen’s own choices.

  What’s more, at the dinner table that evening, Ruby reported that, while Maeve still wasn’t back, there was a new student in her class—a girl from Egypt named Fatima. A few days ago, Karen might have found this an interesting and potentially enriching development for Ruby and for Room 303. Now, Karen calculated in her head that, with Maeve gone and Fatima having just arrived, the percentage of Caucasian students in the class had suddenly fallen below the critical 20 percent mark.

  Or, at least, it felt critical to Karen. As she stood at the sink loading the dishwasher, she felt resentful of both the Collier-Shaw family for abandoning ship and Jayyden Price and his absentee parents for driving them away. But she was also utterly disgusted with herself for having made such a crude numerical calculation. Why couldn’t she simply be proud of the fact that her daughter went to the rare integrated (or semi-integrated) public school where white people were the minority? Besides, wasn’t that the future of America?

  To Karen’s surprise, Ruby seemed more or less Zen about Maeve’s absence. It was a girl named Mia Hernandez whom she suddenly wanted to have playdates with anyway—Ruby came home the next afternoon calling Mia her NBF. While Karen was still unsettled by the loss of Maeve, she was also proud and surprised to hear that her daughter had apparently reached out across what Karen imagined to be both cultural and economic divides to befriend the girl, though maybe the latter presumption was presumptuous. All Karen really knew was that Mia’s family hailed from Puerto Rico, a fact that Ruby had learned during Room 303’s immigration unit the previous month and relayed in passing to Karen. But in Karen’s experience, the children of native-born, college-educated parents tended to find one another and then stick together, somehow sniffing out the other adults’ class credentials before they even knew the right questions to ask. To Karen’s amazement, the first friend Ruby ever made at Betts—a boy who had subsequently moved out of the city—just happened to be the son of a guy Matt had briefly roomed with at law school. And it didn’t seem like an accident that, at least until the week before, Ruby’s best friend at the school was one of the other four white girls in her class.

  That said, Karen had come to believe that the parents played a role in the children’s self-segregation. Every year, she threw Ruby a birthday party, and every year she was puzzled to find that, with a few exceptions, the white, Asian, and interracial children whom Ruby invited showed up, while the black and Hispanic children with parents of lesser means didn’t. Their mothers either sent their regrets or simply didn’t respond. In a few cases, they never opened the invitation at all. Was it because they didn’t recognize the Evite format? Lived too far away? Didn’t feel comfortable? Had complicated work schedules and child-care arrangements that made dropping off and picking up a child in the middle of a Saturday afternoon too difficult? Karen knew there were a million possible explanations, all of them valid. But she always felt the tiniest bit hurt that her attempts at a magnanimous gesture toward One World–ness were met with silence—even when she’d used extra Evite “coins” to send the invitations again.

  At work the next day, there was a planning meeting to discuss Hungry Kids’ annual spring gala/benefit. Naturally, Karen had already added Clay’s name to the guest list. She’d also mailed him an old-fashioned note on thick card stock, thanking him for his generous contribution. She didn’t expect to hear back, since no one really replied to paper letters anymore, much less wrote them. But for murky reasons—the desire to be complimented on her appearance again? Excitement at the prospect of a luxury mini-vacation at the beach next summer?—she found herself wishing he’d get back in touch and scanning her in-box in search of his name.

  She also found herself scanning it for Laura’s. It had been three days since Karen had written her an e-mail, and Laura still hadn’t responded, which Karen found both curious and pointed. Meanwhile, at school drop-off on Friday—a week to the day since Jayyden had pummeled Maeve—Karen spotted the culprit shuffling down the hall. He’d had the outline of a race car shaved into his buzz cut. And his backpack was falling so low on his shoulders that it bounced against the back of his legs.

  Recalling their embraces from the year before and possessed for a moment by the self-aggrandizing notion that the extension of friendship by a nice lady like herself could somehow benefit him in life, Karen called out, “Hi, Jayyden!” in a buoyant voice.

  At the sound of his name, he quickly turned around. But seeing it was Karen, he immediately lost interest. “Hey, Ruby’s mom,” he mumbled before he turned back around and continued shuffling down the hall.

  Karen finally received a reply from Laura that evening. It read as follows:

  Hey, Karen,

  Thanks for your note. I, too, wish there was a way for us to stay. But Maeve literally begged us not to make her go to school on Monday. And neither Evan nor I had the heart to force her. Also, to be completely honest, we really don’t feel comfortable sending her there anymore.

  We’ve enjoyed getting to know your family over the past few years. And Maeve is going to miss Ruby, for sure. We’ll have to keep in touch.

  Best, Laura

  Karen had to admit that, at least on the surface, Laura’s e-mail was perfectly nice and certainly polite. But considering Maeve and Ruby were best friends, it also struck Karen as insultingly laconic in addition to being dismissive. Laura seemed barely to have considered Karen’s arguments. As a result, Kare
n couldn’t help but feel as if she’d been blown off like so many pencil shavings after a standardized math test. Nonetheless, she couldn’t stop herself from writing back to ask where Maeve would be attending third grade instead.

  The next morning, Laura relayed the answer in one word, which she didn’t bother to capitalize, as if the leap were that insignificant. She wrote, simply,

  mather

  Karen did realize there were atrocities being committed around the globe at that very moment that were far worse than the one of which Laura Collier and Evan Shaw now appeared to be guilty. Even so, Laura’s answer made Karen feel almost physically ill. The school known as Mather—official name: Edward G. Mather Elementary—was the esteemed public elementary five blocks east of Betts where the majority of Ruby’s friends from pre-K at Elm Tree, with their heirloom names, sparkly headbands, Mini Boden anoraks, and seaweed snacks, had matriculated. Karen had heard of families lying about their addresses or cramming their families into tiny apartments in order to gain entry into the school, but this was the first time she’d heard about anyone seeking a safety transfer as a way in. Suddenly, Laura and Evan’s response to Jayyden’s punch seemed less like a defensive posture or overreaction than a cynical ploy to game the system.

  It also seemed clear to Karen that Laura and Evan, whom she’d once taken for art-school types who’d sold out only because there were bills that needed to be paid, were actually shameless and conniving opportunists, no better than Clay Phipps, if significantly less wealthy. But at least he was up-front about his motives. Drunk on a heady brew of jealousy and resentment, Karen wrote back:

  Wow—lucky you guys! And nice way to work the system. ☺

  Had her response been that nakedly passive aggressive? Whatever the case, Laura didn’t reply. This time, Karen wasn’t entirely surprised.

  It happened that Karen’s closest mom-friend at Betts, Lou, was also dark-skinned. Second-generation Jamaican, she’d been raised in New Hampshire, of all unlikely places, and was now married to an Icelandic guy who worked in graphic design. Karen prized Lou for being warm and witty. But she was also aware of taking an inordinate amount of pride in the existence of their friendship, which seemed to prove that she was the kind of person she liked to think of herself as—that is, a person with friends from all walks of life. Because of this, she was aware of putting more effort into the relationship’s maintenance than she put into friendships with her old (mainly white) friends, whose e-mails she often didn’t answer for days and on whom she canceled dinners, coffees, and drinks as frequently as she scheduled them.

  But it was also true that, in that particular moment, Karen felt more comfortable with Lou than she did with many of the old gang from her twenties and early thirties, all of whom had subsequently paired up and produced two children per couple, spaced two years and ten months apart. Because the majority of these old friends sent their children to segregated schools that were populated entirely by professional-class families like themselves, Karen felt she could no longer entirely relate to them, whereas she and Lou, despite the difference in their skin colors and backgrounds, were in it together.

  Except never entirely.

  The one thing Karen struggled to talk about with Lou was the racial composition of Betts. To Karen, Lou’s children, with their caramel-colored skin, frizzy gold hair, and hazel eyes, reminded her of nothing so much as beautiful glowing lanterns. At the same time, Karen recognized that, according to the peculiar logic of the country in which they both lived, Lou and her kids, though not her husband, were understood to be black. Therefore, Karen was constantly on guard about saying the wrong thing and broached the race issue carefully, if at all. Though it felt equally weird to pretend there wasn’t one. “So, could you believe that e-mail from Maeve’s mom last night?” Karen began at pickup late the next day as she and Lou walked out of the building together, their children three paces ahead.

  “Yeah, well, I can’t say I’m surprised by any of it,” said Lou, shrugging and sounding unbothered. Or was that just an act? “They were never a good fit at this school.”

  “I agree. Though Ruby is really upset about Maeve leaving,” Karen found herself lying—maybe as cover for her own distress. “And I kind of think Principal Chambers could have handled the whole thing better too.” What Karen didn’t say was that it was a common point of agreement among the white parents at the school that Regina Chambers always prioritized the needs of the parents of color over those of their paler counterparts. Though Karen had no factual evidence of this, being too timid ever to have approached the woman with concerns of her own.

  “She can be inflexible,” agreed Lou. “But in the case of Jayyden, there’s nothing she can do. You can’t suspend kids till fourth grade. And as far as I know, they don’t have reform schools for kids Jayyden’s age anymore. The last administration phased them out. They were seen as ‘pipelines to prison.’” Lou made quotes in the air. “And Jayyden is plenty smart, so they can’t put him in special ed. Maybe Regina didn’t properly explain all that to Maeve’s parents.” Lou was one of a few parents who was on first-name terms with the principal, a fact that filled Karen with quiet awe.

  “Or maybe they didn’t want to hear it,” said Karen, hesitating before she spoke again. “To be honest, I think Laura and Evan are racists, and they’re just using this incident as an excuse to take Maeve out of the school.”

  “Karen, honey,” Lou said, half laughing, as she touched Karen’s arm. “All white people are racists.”

  “Ugh, is that true?” said Karen, squinching up her face and somehow hurt at the suggestion. She’d always assumed that Lou didn’t think she was like that—and, moreover, that her friendship with Lou meant she wasn’t like that.

  “My husband is the worst,” Lou went on.

  “Oh, stop! That can’t be true,” Karen said, shocked at the very suggestion. Or was Lou joking?

  “Of course it is,” she said. “But I don’t care. I’m his wife. He has no choice but to love me. I’ll kill him if he doesn’t.”

  Both of them had started laughing—maybe to take the pressure off. “You’re so hard on Gunnar,” said Karen.

  When Matt got home that evening, neither early nor late, Karen told him that Ruby’s friend Maeve was transferring to Mather—and that, as ridiculous as it might sound, the whole thing had put her in a bad mood all day.

  “Wait—which school is that again?” he asked as he leafed through the pile of bills that Karen had conspicuously left on the kitchen counter, secretly hoping it would inspire him to go back to a paying job.

  Karen squinted at her husband. “You just don’t care about this stuff,” she said. “Do you?”

  “I do care. I just think you’re getting overinvolved in the whole thing.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Also, you said the parents were total douche bags, so what do you care what they do?”

  “They are, but Maeve was Ruby’s best friend.”

  “So she’ll make a new best friend. Besides, it’s elementary school. They don’t actually learn anything.”

  “Except reading, writing, math, how to speak in complete sentences, and how to get along with other kids.”

  “Karen,” said Matt, lowering his chin and making eye contact for the first time. “Rubes comes from a middle-class home. Or, really, let’s be honest, upper middle class. We may not make very much salary-wise, but we own a valuable piece of real estate, we’ve got some money in the bank, both of us have degrees from elite colleges. Which means that Ruby will probably end up at some elite college too. Did you know the major determinant of a child’s future position on the socioeconomic ladder is the education level attained by the mother? They’ve done studies. And since you have two degrees, one of which is from a frigging Ivy League university, I’m really not that worried! Plus, I think it’s good for her to be interacting with poor kids. Maybe she’ll gain some perspective on how privileged she is.”

  “I guess,” said Karen, glancing a
t their galley kitchen with its off-the-shelf Home Depot cabinetry and secretly wishing she and Matt were a little bit more privileged.

  “Plus, the way the world works,” Matt went on, “it’s unlikely she’ll ever again end up in such close proximity to the kind of kids she’s meeting now. They start tracking them by middle school.”

  “If she gets into a decent middle school,” Karen said ruefully. “Anyway, in case you were curious, Mather is the school where all of Ruby’s friends from Elm Tree went.”

  “Oh—right,” he said as he made his way over to the fridge and pulled out a locally brewed ale. Once, Matt had drunk Corona Extra. But Karen had seen an article on the Internet about how it contained corn syrup, a foodstuff that she’d come to understand was a thousand times worse than sugar. Though she wasn’t entirely sure why, as corn itself had never struck her as a particularly venal product. In any case, Karen had urged him to stop buying it, and eventually, begrudgingly, he’d complied.

  Bread had been subjected to a similar pressurized winnowing in the Kipple-McClelland household. Once, Arnold’s multigrain had been good enough for lunch. Now Karen shopped at the bakery with the French name up the street, frequently splurging on the blended rye and wheat miche that, according to its museum label, had been subjected to sixty-eight hours of fermentation. In a different life, Karen would have heard the word fermentation and run in the other direction. But that was then. Even Ruby thought the miche was delicious. But was it five-dollars-a-loaf better than Arnold’s? “Is that all you have to say?” she asked him.

  “Look, Karen,” Matt replied in a weary tone. “Rubes is happy. That’s all that matters.”

  “How do you know she’s happy?” Karen shot back. The moment she said it, she knew she shouldn’t have. But it was too late.