My Latest Grievance (23 page)

I said yes, they could count on me confessing in advance when I expected to have sexual relations. They'd be the first to know.

They smiled proudly. It didn't occur to them that drugstores
were invented for such purposes, that parents didn't have to be enlisted except in families like ours.

"Another thing...," said my father.

"It's about school," said my mother. "About the next two years." And from nowhere she brought forth a catalogue—shiny, green, cheerful, and preppy, even at first glance.

"No," I said. "Not a chance"

It wasn't the only one. A half dozen more boarding school catalogues and brochures bounced out of a padded envelope onto the table.

"I thought you hated private schools," I said. "I thought they were elitist institutions."

"We work at a private school," said my father. "We feel very lucky that we both have jobs in this market, and as much as we support wholeheartedly the notion of public education—"

"We don't think we have to sacrifice our only child to that principle," said my mother.

I said, "I am not switching schools in my junior year. If you send me away, I'll come back. I'll live at Patsy's."

My father laughed. "Did you read that in a book somewhere? Runaway moves down the lane? Was that
Peter Rabbit
or
Benjamin Bunny
?"

My mother splayed the brochures in front of me. "Will you at least look at them?"

I said, "You never even had two minutes' conversation with Ritchie. You're prejudiced because he plays hockey. Too bad he doesn't work at Dewing and have a couple of grievances to file. Then you'd invite him home for dinner."

"Ritchie is irrelevant," said my mother. "This is about your future and your need to recapture your love of learning."

Ritchie
was
irrelevant; I would never see him after his June graduation, and he'd already been spotted with Debbie DuBois, a senior and a majorette, at
Slap Shot.
I curled my lip and took a brochure. The first one showed a semicircle of girls smiling around a big bowl of chocolate batter. Next to that was a photo of girls in pleated plaids wielding sticks, and below that, girls in fuzzy cardigans listening intently to their language-lab headphones. "No good," I said, and pushed the bunch back across the table.

My father picked up the closest catalogue and feigned deep interest in its table of contents. "What didn't you like about this one? It looks so pretty. You can see mountains behind the playing fields. I think they're the foothills of the Berkshires."

I said, "I don't see any boys."

I knew those faces too well to miss the disappointment. They had tried so hard to do everything right, but they'd been rewarded with a newly defiant and possibly boy-crazy girl.

My mother spoke first. "Some have brother schools relatively close by."

"So?"

"I would imagine that means mixers. And perhaps some coed activities..."

"Like field trips," said my father. "Or volunteerism. Cleaning up public spaces or ... library privileges."

I sighed deeply, sadly. "Is that how well you know me—that you think cleaning up litter would be a selling point?"

"No," said my mother. "Not at all. We were thinking aloud ... about activities ... where the opposite sex might come in."

I stared across the room, hoping to convey,
Deep in second thought.
My father asked what I was thinking. "Maybe I
should
go away," I answered. "Lots of kids from broken homes go to boarding school."

"Broken homes!" my mother repeated. "What would make you choose those words in relationship to yourself?"

I shrugged. "Dad and I live here. You live over in Tibbets. Sometimes a person's grades slip when her parents live in separate dormitories."

"You know this wasn't voluntary," she said, her voice catching. "We hate it, too. The thought that you see us as a broken home and yourself as a casualty..."

"Do you think any brick wall or any fire door can separate your mother and me?" asked my father.

"Or that boarding school would exile you from this family?" added my mother.

"Look," I said. "Not that I wasn't trying in Chemistry, but maybe I could do a little better."

"We know you can," said my father. "That's what breaks our
hearts—we know your potential. Since you came home with a C, we've been grappling with the question, 'How can we get Frederica back on the right path?' Everything you do now, in a sense, will determine how far you can go later."

Again I said okay, maybe I could do better. Today's quiz was tomorrow's good job with an excellent benefit package. I'd not only study harder in the future, but I'd go right to my room and read a book.

My mother pointed out that I'd voiced similar promises in the past, which turned out to be lip service.

"Such as?"

"Guitar lessons. And before that, the recorder."

I said, "This time I'll put it in writing: Give Frederica R. Hatch the chance to improve her grades at Brookline High School, one of the top public schools in the country, before we rashly send her away."

My mother said, "Or words to that effect, which you'll sign."

I thought this over, then asked, "How many honor rolls will I have to make?"

"All," said my mother.

They adjourned to their bedroom for further deliberations. While they were whispering behind the closed door, I flipped through the catalogues. The school I knew I would hate the most was Harding Academy. Every photograph of its overly attractive students seemed to say,
Give us your rich, your reckless, your promiscuous adolescents yearning to act out.
Marietta could be happy here, I thought.

My parents rejoined me, body language mute.

"How did it go?" I asked.

My mother announced, "We've decided to let you stay at Brookline High School for the remainder of the school year, but we're keeping the private school option on the table—"

"With a codicil about Ritchie," said my father

"In fact, about all boys," said my mother.

I waited.

"There won't be any going out during the week."

I asked if this was negotiable.

"We'll revisit that clause after the next marking period," said my father.

I knew them well; I knew that imbuing their only child with confidence was first or second on their parenting wish list. "What if I can't do it?" I whispered hoarsely. "What if I'm not smart enough to get back on the honor roll? What if I do everything right and stay home on weeknights and give up sports and my grades
still
get worse?"

It worked. In the face of the excellent low self-esteem I was projecting, they rushed to reassure me that I was loved, and above all else valued for my intelligence and my ... my ... those many attributes too numerous to name.

Sniffling, I raised my miserable face from the nest of my own crossed arms. I may have been substandard in Honors Chemistry, but I could act.

I kept the catalogues. The following week, the principal of Brookline High School called Dr. Woodbury to announce that he was suspending Marietta for smoking marijuana in the girls' room. Yes, he did understand that there was a family crisis, to which he was completely sympathetic, but rules were rules, especially when it came to drugs on school property. No, of course he hadn't witnessed it firsthand. But others—reliable and unimpeachable students who'd been putting up with the acrid fumes for months—had reluctantly come forward.

W
ITH MARIETTA SHIPPED OFF
and out of the picture, I had more time to indulge my curiosity about Laura Lee's condition. I wanted to know everything: How could anyone who'd lived with my gynecologically astute father let herself get pregnant? Did her serene smile mean that this was no accident? And how far was she broadcasting the news?

I rang the president's doorbell late on a Friday afternoon. Laura Lee answered, looking a little peaked, but dressed as if it were her turn to host the bridge club in a navy blue shirtwaist dress of a lacy knit.

"May I help you?" she asked, her gaze eluding me and resting on some piece of snowy Dewing landscape.

I said, "You don't sound very friendly."

"We're working," she said. "Bunny's here."

"I'd like to talk to you," I said.

Shivering, she wrapped her arms around herself and said, "It's too cold to be conducting a conversation with the door open."

"Then invite me in," I said.

She instructed me to take off my wet boots, after which we could talk for a few minutes in Eric's study, since he was in the administration building interviewing some candidates.

"For what?"

"That's not our business," she said.

She led me down the hall, took the president's chair, folded her hands on the immaculate blotter, and stared.

"Where's Bunny?" I asked.

"We've got her set up in the breakfast room."

I sat down opposite her and shimmied out of my parka. "How's Mrs. Woodbury?" I asked.

"No change."

"Is she with it at all?"

Laura Lee said, "I'm sure you realize that I can't give you a firsthand report. My work is on the first floor, and she's upstairs twenty-four hours a day."

"You'd better watch that," I said. "She could get bedsores."

"I'm not her nurse, Frederica. And she's not confined to her bed."

"Can she walk?"

"With help. But she can't navigate the stairs."

I looked back in the direction of the kitchen. "Any chance I could get a cup of cocoa?"

She said, "You can get cocoa at Curran"—she checked her watch—"in forty-five minutes. Let's just skip to the reason for your visit."

I asked, "How old are you?"

"What does this pertain to?"

"It pertains to my not knowing your age."

"How old do you think I am?"

I said, "Somewhere between forty and forty-five."

"I'm forty," she said.

"What year were you born?"

"I was barely out of my teens when I married your father, if you're trying to do the math."

I said, "I have a reason for asking."

Laura Lee waited.

"I counted the glasses on your tray, which said one thing to me: only a football player or a pregnant woman drinks that much milk."

"I'm not having this conversation with a child," she said, and stood up.

When I didn't move, she sat down again and picked up a pencil from the cluster Bunny sharpened daily.

"What about Bunny?" I asked. "Has she figured it out?"

"I haven't confirmed your theory, Frederica, so don't try to trick me." She scribbled a charade of a note on a presidential memo pad.

I said, "We're a very liberal family. You don't have to worry about us making judgments. And you probably need someone to confide in."

"Did your parents send you over to make this speech?"

I said, "Absolutely not. It's all self-motivated. I have a lot of questions. I'm at that age when I need to know if it was an accident or a birth control failure."

She made another note and said without looking up, "You know when you're the most annoying? When you sound like your father."

I said, "I agree. But I'm being sincere. If you
are
pregnant, and you're raising the baby alone, you're going to need a lot of help."

She allowed a small, guarded smile. "And how would that be?"

"Well, you'd keep it, right?"

"Of course!"

"I've done the math. You're not showing at all, so you're probably in your second month. I figure your due date is late summer."

"Which would mean what in this hypothetical situation?"

"That I'd be on vacation." I smiled. "I'd help. I have a lot of experience with younger children."

"
And?
"

"I could give you references."

"You're telling me that you'd
babysit?
Is that what you meant by help? That's it?"

She was hoping for something bigger, some cunning campaign that would turn her scarlet letter into a blue ribbon and change her last name to Woodbury. I pointed to the bronze nameplate. "Does he know?"

She asked, "You're not going to trick me into confirming anything, especially a wild guess based on what you view as excessive consumption of milk."

I said, "Time will tell."

She asked if my parents shared this pregnancy theory. I said we
hadn't discussed it out loud, but I knew we had all drawn the same conclusion.

"Because of your tight family bond and their unwavering commitment to treating you as an adult?"

"Guess so," I said cheerfully.

"How's it working out—the parents living apart?" I said, "That wasn't voluntarily."

"Still joined at the hip?"

I said, "The biggest problem just got shipped off to boarding school in Connecticut."

Laura Lee leaned toward me to confide, "She phones her father now. Of course it's to beg to come back. But he thinks they're making progress."

I disclosed my own chief Marietta complaint: her kissing up to my mother while boycotting her own. What a brat.

Laura Lee appeared to like that. Sensing that we were slipping back to the old honeymoon phase of goodwill and coconspiracy, I asked if she had had a blood test or had merely missed a period.

She looked toward the hallway. I crossed the room and closed the study door, carefully and soundlessly. When I returned to my chair Laura Lee said, "It isn't customary to make an announcement until one has made it through the first trimester. Especially at my age. It's considered a high-risk pregnancy."

"How old are you, really?"

She whispered, "Forty-four in May."

I asked again, "Does Dr. Woodbury know?"

"I'm waiting," she said.

"Until?"

"He's got too much on his mind. His whole life is one public relations crisis after another."

I said, "I read a book once where this unmarried woman, older, went away to have her baby—just from Manhattan to Brooklyn, where no one knew her. After he was born she told everyone that she'd adopted him in Europe, even though she'd never left Flat-bush. It had a happy ending because her obstetrician thought she was incredibly noble, and they fell in love."