My Latest Grievance (21 page)

"When did you find this out?" I asked.

"This morning. Twenty minutes before the assembly," my mother said.

"Why didn't you call me?" I whined.

"How? Page you in school? Wouldn't you have thought the worst?"

"This is pretty bad," I said.

"Tell us what the bad part is," said my father.

I was too old to admit that I would like my mother to stay put. "Won't people think you got divorced?"

They looked relieved. I'd come up with a conventional concern, easily refuted by the family who didn't care what the neighbors thought.

"This was conscription," said my mother. "Hatches don't volunteer to live apart."

"And let me point something out," said my father. "This is not permanent. We are talking about eight to ten weeks. The plan is, allegedly, to hire a replacement for Laura Lee's dorm as soon as Personnel posts the job. And you know what eight weeks represent?"

I said no, I didn't.

He smiled. "It's the duration of a summer at sleepover camp! But instead of your being up on some cold lake in New Hampshire, your whole family unit is within a stone's throw of one another."

I grumbled, "I'm not a baby. I hardly ever see you anyway. I'm objecting on principle."

"Such as?" my mother asked.

"They're taking advantage of us. They know you won't quit in the middle of a school year, and you'd have to buy a house, and we can't afford Brookline so you'd have to commute, and we don't have a car, and I'd have to change schools." I sat back and folded my arms, pleased with my on-the-spot summary to the jury. For further effect I added, "You should be getting two stipends if you're running two different dorms."

They said
of course
they'd thought of that. And amazingly enough, so had the administration.

"How much?" I asked.

"Month to month, on a prorated basis: effectively double," my mother answered.

We three sat in silence, most likely imagining, respectively, a car, fieldwork on a warm island, and a certificate of deposit. My father asked my mother if she'd like a Dubonnet on the rocks.

I said, "You're not toasting this thing, are you?"

My mother lowered her voice. "We think we can confide in you. First of all, the temporary assignment is a tribute to your father's character and his perfect track record as a houseparent. Secondly, we are looking ahead, past this bump in the road, to something we all want. We think this will bring the matter to a head. We think it will call attention to the affair, and that President Woodbury cannot survive as president if he ensconces his mistress under his roof. We think that this will be his Waterloo."

"What about Laura Lee's?" I asked.

"We can think of several scenarios," my mother said. "He goes, she follows. Or he blames her for everything and gets her fired—"

"Like Bibi said"

"Correct," said my father. "He'll prostrate himself in front of the trustees: 'There's a cancer growing on the presidency that I was too
innocent to diagnose. This woman set her cap for me, and I didn't recognize what was going on until tragedy struck.' He'll come away with a slap on the wrist and a renewed contract."

"Unless they run off together," I said.

"He wouldn't leave an invalid wife," protested my father, so reflexively that my mother smiled.

"Can she still die?" I asked.

My father said, "I believe she's out of the woods."

"Albeit cortically impaired," said my mother.

I said, "How's this for a scenario: Laura Lee puts arsenic in Mrs. Woodbury's tea."

My father reached around me to touch Aviva's knee. "Frederica and I have discussed Laura Lee's sociopathic inclinations," he explained. "I should have labeled it narcissism." He turned back to me. "No one thinks Laura Lee is capable of cold-blooded murder, honey."

"Doesn't the whole thing look unbelievably fishy to every single person on campus?" I asked.

"Which facet of it?" asked my father.

"O'Rourke announcing that Laura Lee would now be the official emergency girlfriend of the president."

My mother said, "There was definitely a reaction."

"Positive or negative?"

"Booing," said my father, "which Russell handled by pretending it was the splitting up of the Hatch team rather than the reassignment of Laura Lee. He said, 'I know. I understand. You Griggs girls can't imagine Mrs. Professor Hatch not under your own roof, but don't forget she'll be right next door. And no doubt she'll be spending her free weekends at Griggs,' which
of course
turned into a lot of hooting and whistling," said my father. "Because the students were reacting as if it implied conjugal visits."

"Dad," I said. "Please."

"Russell doesn't get thrown by that," said my mother. "He just droned in that dry, sardonic voice of his, 'Peo-ple. Okay. Enough.' And moved on to the particulars."

"Which were what?" I asked.

My father said, "Russell explained how they reached the decision, how they asked for volunteers among the dorm parents, and
when no one had volunteered, they more or less appointed Laura Lee to the newly created job because she had the least seniority."

"What a coincidence," I said.

Another signature look passed between them, one I knew to mean,
Should we tell her?

"Just say it," I snapped.

My father said, "This was told to us in confidence by Woodbury himself, and later confirmed by the dean of residential life—"

"So it can't leave this room," said my mother.

I stood up, walked to the kitchen sink for no purpose, came back.

My mother continued. "There's a footnote: They're claiming that the girls of Tibbets Hall hate Laura Lee."

"Since when?"

"That's the party line," said my father. "If challenged, Woodbury can say, 'One of my deans had a staffing problem. I had a whole dorm ready to revolt. This was ostensibly about my own family emergency, but in fact it's a solution to a looming residential crisis.'"

I said, "There's no crisis. That dorm is too weird to agree on anything."

"Welcome to the private sector," said my mother.

I asked if Mrs. Woodbury knew that Laura Lee was taking her place, or was she too out of it to notice?

"We don't know," said my father. "I'm hoping Laura Lee will give me access to Mrs. Woodbury."

"Laura Lee will?" I asked sharply.

"Laura Lee is keeping house," said my mother. "Didn't we make that clear? Isn't that what 'acting hostess' implies? That when you ring the doorbell, Laura Lee answers?"

I said, "Please don't tell me that she's actually shacking up in Marietta's house."

"Of course," said my father. "Why did you think Tibbets Hall needed a replacement houseparent?"

My mother volunteered, "Russell swore that Laura Lee is sleeping in a Spartan maid's room behind the kitchen as if she were hired help. He assured us that Eric is very sensitive to the public face of this whole ordeal. And, according to Russell, Eric sincerely
believes that bringing in a housemother for a teenage daughter believed to be wild and in need of supervision won't raise any more eyebrows than the gossip has already raised."

"Did anyone consult Marietta?" I asked.

"That's the missing part of the equation," said my father.

"Wasn't she at school today?" asked my mother.

I reminded them that it was a big school, that I had no classes with her, that she'd been avoiding me since her father began sleeping with our family friend. And what do you say to someone whose mother wanted to kill herself?
Sorry? Does she have her marbles back?

"We could have helped with that," said my mother.

"We're a little disappointed that you haven't made yourself available," said my father.

"After all, who else does she have on campus?" asked my mother.

"When was I supposed to barge over there?" I asked. "Besides, Marietta and I were never bosom buddies."

"Would you care about that if one of us were gravely ill? If Marietta tried to rekindle the friendship at that point in time, wouldn't you welcome the overture?" asked my mother.

I said yes. Okay. I'd call her.

"You'll be seeing her on the bus now," said my father. "You could simply say, 'I was away over Christmas, but if there's anything I can do, please don't hesitate to call me.'"

I said okay. Hard to see how that could turn nasty.

"I think you know from all of your years living among adolescent girls that unprovoked nastiness is a defense mechanism. You have the tools to rise above that. And don't forget your new common ground," said my father.

I asked what that was.

"The disruption of your households!" said my mother.

"Temporarily," my father said firmly. "Or we file"

I asked casually, "Wouldn't it make more sense for Dad to sleep over at Tibbets, and Mom to stay here with me? Not that it applies here, but wouldn't the college think that adolescent girls need their female parent?"

"We tried that," said my mother.

"But?"

Another delicate subject at hand, her frown conveyed. "The college felt that a father and his daughter would present a safer, more paternal image to the parents, as opposed to an unchaperoned male."

"Even
Dad?
You've got to be kidding. The same people who let Laura Lee shack up with the president think Dad is going to seduce the boarders?"

"First of all, thank you," said my father. "Secondly, it's all about public relations. Woodbury is effectively saying, 'I'm rising above the rumors. I could have sent my wife to a rehab facility, but I want her with me, compromised though she is. The college thoughtfully arranged for a housemother to act as hostess and to keep an eye on my unpredictable teenage daughter.'"

I said, "I live in a certifiably crazy place."

"It's going to catch up with him," said my mother.

"Unless he's telling the truth," I said.

They both looked uncomprehending and mildly offended: Had they raised me to think that management could be trusted?

"Maybe he's letting Laura Lee live there as a way to break up with her," I explained. "Like, 'Okay, we thought we were in love, but you and I have to cool it. Otherwise, we'd be the biggest scandal in the history of Dewing College
or
Dewing Academy, and both of us will be out on our asses.'"

"We aren't counting on them cooling it," said my mother. "We're hoping that they'll be discreet for the sake of his wife, and for Marietta, and for a very vulnerable student body."

I said, "I think I have an ethical quandary."

"Which is what?" they asked eagerly.

"Marietta."

"Go on," said my father.

"Won't it be kind of phony if I go over there and offer my sympathies or whatever you call it when someone's mother doesn't die but comes close, while my parents are secretly hoping that her father gets sacked?"

"No," said my mother. "Not when your motive is a sincere offer of renewed friendship."

"And don't you think it's the right thing to do, regardless? She must be in a great deal of pain," said my father.

"Putting it off won't make it any easier," said my mother.

"Am I doing your dirty work?" I asked.

They didn't answer immediately. Eventually my father asked, "How would you define 'dirty work'?"

"Spying on Laura Lee and her boyfriend while pretending to give Marietta a shoulder to cry on."

"We think you'd be the most welcome visitor to the house as a possible source of comfort to Marietta," said my mother. "If that's spying, then we're guilty as charged."

"Children hate change," said my father. "Even those who seem so mature and capable of handling disruption without ill effects."

"Are you talking about me?"

He said, "You've always hated change. Remember when they expanded the utility closet into an actual bedroom? For weeks you wanted your bed and toys in the same square footage that you'd always lived in."

"We'll have dinner together every night," said my mother. "And Monday, Wednesday, and Sunday nights you'll do homework with me at Tibbets."

"And Tuesdays and Thursdays here with me," said my father.

"And we're really going to make an effort to go to your home games," added my mother.

"Is it still basketball season?" asked my father.

B
EFORE I COULD DROP OVER
, before I could approach Marietta at the bus stop or in the halls of Brookline High School, she moved out of the presidential manse into Ada Tibbets Hall, room 209, which had been vacated by a sophomore who transferred midyear to a school with boys.

Of course it was what any self-respecting melodramatic daughter would do in the face of adulterous activity under her own roof: run away. Conveniently, on a college campus, we boarding offspring could accomplish the sought-after effect—punish the offenders, make a statement, leave home—while remaining within our own gates. I hadn't taken the drastic step myself but had often contemplated the single life, of putting myself on a waiting list in case a spare bed opened up in a dorm not overseen by my parents.

"You don't understand," Dr. Woodbury told his daughter. "I am at the center of a hideous rumor. Laura Lee's transfer is purely professional. I cannot do my job without a hostess. The dean of residential life chose Miss French for this role, and I had to abide by that reassignment."

Did he think she was an idiot? Marietta railed. She would never live under the same roof as his slut-girlfriend, and if he didn't get
out of her way and help with her suitcases, she'd report him to ... someone.

"Who would that be?" he asked.

"Your boss," she tried, not sure if presidents of colleges answered to anyone other than an indistinguishable group of dowagers called trustees.

He asked for a compromise and for mercy: Dewing parents would be horrified to learn that the president's daughter was a runaway. Grudgingly she allowed him to call the dean of residential life, who looked at her color-coded chart and found an empty bed a few hundred yards from the presidential homestead under the experienced maternal eye of Dr. Aviva Hatch.

I could see that my mother liked this stewardship. She took in Marietta as if she were a refugee seeking asylum: found her linens, lent her shampoo and soap, invited her to unburden herself whenever the welcome sign was facing out.
The president's daughter doesn't think she'll be compatible with the girl from Emmetsburg, Iowa, who shares the double? No problem! Several corridor mates on Two East belong to the glee club and burst into song too early on Saturday? I'll speak to them about rehearsing elsewhere. That's what sociologist-housemothers excel at—the grouping of individuals who constitute the social world.