Class(77)

“And you’ve got quite a brood!” declared Karen, keen to change the subject. “Are you going to have any more?”

“It’s not up to me,” said Bathsheba, shrugging. “It’s God’s will.”

“Right,” said Karen, nodding.

“Please stop moving.”

“Oh, sorry.”

“So, why do you have only one?”

“One what?” asked Karen.

“Child,” said Bathsheba, wiping her comb on a Kleenex.

“Oh, right,” said Karen, surprised by a question that few dared ask but many likely wondered about. “Well, I got married on the late side and didn’t have my first kid till I was thirty-seven. And then, sadly, time got away from me.” It was true and not true. In fact, Matt had been iffy on the idea of a second, fearing they’d be unable to travel, even though neither of them ever went anywhere. And Karen had bowed to his wish, even though it was a source of secret hurt. She’d always wanted a big family—or at least, she’d once thought she did. “And now I’m too old, so it’s too late to have another,” she added.

“How old are you?” asked Bathsheba.

“Forty-five, almost forty-six.”

“Nonsense, it’s not too late. My mother had her thirteenth at forty-seven.”

“Oh—wow!” said Karen, horrified at the very idea.

Afterward, it pained Karen to have to write the woman a check for three hundred dollars for forty-five minutes’ work. Then again, Karen would have paid nearly any amount for the ability to think about something other than lice. And Bathsheba apparently supported the family. “He studies the Torah,” had been her answer to Karen’s question about what Bathsheba’s husband did for a living…

“Where have you guys been?” asked Matt when Karen and Ruby walked in the door at ten of eight.

“The lice lady,” Karen told him.

“Oh—shit,” he said.

“You should probably get checked too. Though according to Bathsheba the nitpicker, they usually stay away from men.”

“Unlike some people I know,” Matt muttered cryptically before he walked away.

“Excuse me?” Karen said, flinching. For a panicked moment, she wondered if he knew more than he was letting on. But he didn’t answer or explain.

That night, she began the first of seven loads of laundry.

At work the next morning, despite misgivings, she began a formal letter to Clay on foundation letterhead that made no mention of their personal relationship. Considering that the document would become part of the charity’s archives, it seemed imperative that she play it straight. Dear Mr. Phipps, she wrote. On behalf of Hungry Kids, I would like to officially invite you to join our board of directors. We feel that your experience and involvement would be an asset to our organization, and we hope that you will consider accepting our offer…She signed it Gratefully yours, Karen Kipple. When she finished, she printed it out and sent it via overnight mail.

Clay sent a one-line e-mail the next afternoon. When Karen saw his name in her in-box, her heart thumped. The subject line read Your Letter. The body read:

I’m honored. Now will you do me the honor of seeing me one more time? Pretty please?



It took every ounce of Karen’s mental strength not to write back Yes.



Two days later, Karen met up with the interim treasurer, Liz, in the Mather PTA office, which turned out to be a hole in the wall next to the music room. Liz, by now so pregnant that she could barely lean over far enough to open the desk and show Karen where the PTA checkbook and ledger were kept, nonetheless managed to teach Karen how and where to manually record deposits and withdrawals. No less essentially, she showed Karen how to electronically access the PTA account that was kept at Citibank. Owing to a sluggish Wi-Fi connection, the page took forever to load. Finally, the numbers became visible. But Karen had trouble believing her eyes. To her astonishment, the account currently contained $955,000.86, not a penny of which appeared to be spoken for. “Jesus, that’s a lot of money,” Karen muttered.

“Yeah, well, I guess compared to the other public schools around here we’re a bunch of rich motherfuckers,” said Liz. “Though it’s really not that much when you compare it to the endowment of, like, Eastbrook Lab. Then we look like paupers.” She shrugged. “I guess it’s all relative.”

“True enough,” said Karen, noting that Liz must have regarded private schools the way Betts parents like Karen had once regarded Mather—as winning lottery tickets being dangled in their faces. “Well, thanks for showing me the ropes,” Karen continued. “I think I can take over from here.”

“Great,” said Liz, “because either my water just broke or I just peed in my pants. In any case, I think I need some of Denise’s recycled toilet paper.”

“Oh no!” Karen laughed, feeling an unexpected kinship with the Mather PTA’s secretary and former interim treasurer—or, at least, enough intimacy to say, “Hey, can I ask you a weird question before you take off?”

“Sure,” said Liz. “So long as you don’t want to know if I’m excited to have another baby.”

“I promise not to go there,” said Karen. “I’m just wondering: Has anyone on the PTA ever thought about—how do I put this?—throwing a little extra cash at one of the schools in the area that can’t afford to fund-raise? By which I mean, donating some of the donations?”