Sylvie kissed them all on the cheeks. She knew intricate details about each of their lives—Jonathan had bought an eighteenth-century historic Quaker meeting house that had allegedly once belonged to William Penn. He and Stewart, a man he always referred to as his friend, restored it themselves. The house had been featured in a splashy magazine, featuring just one photo of Jonathan sitting on the couch, his hand clenched nervously in his lap. Last year, Dan’s father had unexpectedly willed all his money to charity, forcing Dan to find his first job at forty-four. Geoff and his wife had divorced, and he’d married a much younger woman named Melinda two months later.
Of course they knew about Sylvie, too. That her children had gone to school here, that Charles had attended Cornell, that he’d married Joanna, and that Joanna … well, Sylvie knew that Joanna had held some sort of job before they moved out to the suburbs a few weeks ago, but she could never remember what that job had been, nor did she know what Joanna was planning to do with herself now.
They knew about Scott, too, though they never asked about him, as if it would be intrusive to do so. And they were around for James’s death. They’d paid their respects at his funeral and gone to the luncheon afterward.
They had all attended Swithin and so had their children. They’d worked together for years now, planning and debating and deciding. When they considered adding an extra member to the board, they pored over each potential candidate as if they were running for political office, examining tax records, properties owned, and extramarital affairs. They didn’t help vote for teachers or staff—which meant, thankfully, they hadn’t had to discuss Scott’s position as an assistant coach—although they did help to choose Michael Tayson as headmaster two months ago after Jerome announced his retirement. That meeting had been only one week after James had died, and Sylvie had felt too shell-shocked to come. Now, she wished she had.
They sat down and Martha pressed play on the mini-recorder. It taped the meetings from start to finish, and afterward Martha’s husband, who was adept at all things technological, would plug the recorder into his computer, press a few buttons to launch the software that could translate the contents of the audio file into a Word document, and voila, they had minutes without any of them having to feverishly write or transcribe.
Martha started talking about the numbers and research on the school-wide laptop program, which issued laptops to every student to use to take notes and do homework. “The thing is, they’re all using them to do non-school-related activities,” she said. “Apparently, the network goes down at least once a week because everyone’s on their laptops, using all those Facebook sites. And they’re not very careful with them. Seventeen machines have gone in for repairs just this month.”
“Are they encouraging the kids to learn?” Dan asked.
“It’s hard to say,” Martha flipped a page. “The way kids learn isn’t the same anymore. But the teachers are also a problem. A lot of them aren’t nearly as technologically savvy. They’re still making their students write their papers in longhand.”
“Oh, God, especially that Agnes,” Geoff said, rolling his eyes. “How old is she now, eighty?”
Martha pressed pause on the tape recorder. “And still spry as a fox,” she whispered giddily. “There are rumors that she’s dating Harold.” Harold was one of the guidance counselors. He was quite a bit younger than Agnes, the doyenne of the English teachers.
“Speaking of Harold,” Dan said while raising a finger. “That daughter of his is back at home. I heard somewhere that she was kicked out of Brown.”
Martha’s eyes widened. “Another one?”
“She’s all out of Ivies,” Geoff said.
“Cheating again?” Jonathan asked, shaking his head.
“I thought she was kicked out of school because of prescription drugs.” Martha blew her bangs into the air. “Poor Harold.”
Sylvie stared at her fingernails. Nothing seemed amiss. None of them were looking at her pointedly, indicating they had heard about Scott. Maybe Michael Tayson had kept his word, not telling them about the rumors or Scott’s upcoming meeting.
Martha pressed play on the recorder again. “Anyway. Back to the laptops. Should we take them away?”
“Laptops do look good, though,” Dan said. “Parents are impressed by that kind of stuff.”
Geoff stroked his chin. “But it’s a big expense. I’ve heard some complaints from the art department. Their supplies are getting more and more expensive, and they can’t buy what they need with what they’ve been allotted. A few of the sports coaches have also come to me, talking about replacing old uniforms and equipment.”
“Which teams?” Martha straightened her papers.
Geoff shrugged. “It was the basketball coach who spoke to me. And Carla from gymnastics registered a request in the office.”
“We still have a gymnastics team?” Martha sniffed. The others snickered, and just like that, the suggestion was dropped. Basketball and gymnastics weren’t steeped in history and scholarship money the way, say, girls’ soccer was—the team was top in the state, and many girls were recruited by Division I schools—or the way the boys’ crew was. It was Swithin’s first official sport, and the school had sent several boys on to row for Yale and Penn, and from there on to the Olympics. Those were the teams that got the money.
Sylvie often wondered why her fellow board members invested so much of their time in Swithin. What made them come back, year after year, budget after budget, graduating class after graduating class? Did they feel they were part of something? Did it define them, as it did her, or did they simply do it because, as people of means, it was their obligation? Take Martha, for example, Sylvie remembered Martha from when they were in school together, though Martha had been a few grades behind her. Back then, Martha had been a bossy, controlling field hockey player, always preening herself, always surrounded by a group of cackling girls. When a representative from the New York Public Library Conservator’s office spoke at an assembly about Swithin’s rare book collection, Martha whispered with the girl next to her the whole time, completely uninterested.
But as a board member, Martha had gotten involved in just as many school projects as Sylvie had. There had been some discussion that Martha had become so involved because of trouble at home—she and her husband had wanted another baby, but then she unexpectedly started her menopause. “Maybe their marriage is falling apart,” Sylvie once whispered to James only a few months before he died, after she’d found everything out about him, “Maybe the school is Martha’s oasis.” “So the only possible reason Martha could be so heavily involved at the school is because she’s miserable at home?” James had replied, raising an eyebrow. “Of course not!” Sylvie said quickly. “I mean, I’m involved. I’m not miserable.” James looked at her challengingly. Sylvie looked back. Neither said anything.
“Next up?” Jonathan said. He leaned over the table and glanced at the list. “Hmm. This.”
Martha tipped forward, now curious. “The boy’s death.”
Sylvie’s heart started to pound. She glanced at the recorder, thinking that Martha might hit pause again. She didn’t.
Geoff leaned back in his chair, the springs squeaking. Dan riffled through a few papers on the desk and found a photo of the dead boy, Christian Givens. Sylvie leaned forward. He had elfin features and freckles across his cheeks. His hair was bright green. Acid green, really, a color not found in nature.
Sylvie’s stomach fluttered. She recognized him.
“What do you suppose they call that color? Antifreeze?” Martha murmured. She covered her mouth. “Goodness. Sorry.”
“What happened?” Dan asked.
“We don’t know.” Martha admitted. “They’re doing an autopsy. That’s all Michael Tayson would tell me. The boy’s father has been very private about everything.”
Jonathan glanced at his watch. “I wonder where Michael is. He said he would come to this.”
Sylvie’s heart rate picked up. She hadn’t considered that the new headmaster might show up. She didn’t want to see him.
“Has counseling been made available?” Geoff asked.
“They’re using Judith.” Jonathan laced his hands together. “She really helped out when those girls on the crew team died in the car accident last year. And during that school shooting at Virginia Tech. A lot of kids saw her after that.”
“Judith is so good,” Martha cooed.
“Which one’s Judith?” Geoff scratched his head.
“The one with the long hair,” Dan said.
“She’s so gentle,” Jonathan added. “But firm.”
Everyone looked again at the boy’s photo. Unnatural hair colors weren’t allowed at Swithin; teachers were required to immediately send home anyone who wasn’t adhering to the dress code. So how had Christian’s hair gone unnoticed long enough for him to sit for his picture? Maybe Christian was the type of boy who fell between the cracks, even with acid-green hair. Sylvie thought about what Michael Tayson had said on the phone: You probably wouldn’t remember him from the matches. But Sylvie did remember him, an image of him with the wrestling team flashing through her mind.
“So what about the boy’s mother?” Geoff looked at Martha. “You only mentioned the dad. Are they divorced?”
“Out of the picture for some reason or other, I guess,” Martha said. She looked at the piece of paper, presumably some kind of dossier on Christian. “He’s a scholarship boy. Was. The address we have on file has him living over at Feverview Dwellings.” She flipped a page. “It doesn’t list an employer for the father.”
“Maybe he’s unemployed,” Jonathan suggested.
“Or on disability,” Martha said.
“Do we remember admitting this boy?” Dan asked. “What’s the father’s name?”
“Warren,” Martha read.
“Warren … Givens,” Dan repeated. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”
Everyone looked around, sheepish. Sometimes they had a say in admitting students, especially those receiving scholarships. But there was a separate committee for that, people with actual credentials to judge one candidate from another.
“If we wanted to set up a scholarship in his name, what could it be for?” Geoff said quietly.
Martha picked at her cuticles. “Well, we’d do the standard scholarship, of course. Needs-based, I would imagine. How does that sound?”
“Or we could make it kind of specific,” Dan suggested. “You know, according to what he was interested in. Do we know if he liked particular subjects in school? Art? Music?”
“He doesn’t look like he’d be too involved in anything,” Jonathan said, holding up Christian’s photo. “I suppose we could look for his transcript …” He started to leaf through the papers.