Class(80)
As Karen read through the e-mail, she felt angry and frustrated, but also relieved that Ruby wouldn’t be personally affected. Those emotions, in turn, were followed by amazement at the randomness of life. Were it not for Nathaniel Bordwell having tossed out his gas bill and Karen having walked by the particular bag of trash in which he’d tossed it while she was in a particularly upset mood, Ruby would likely still be at Betts. But he had, and so had Karen—and now Ruby wasn’t. And so Karen gave herself permission not to dwell.
But as the day progressed, she found she couldn’t stop feeling outraged at Clay and his ilk for what she considered to be their misguided munificence. It was above all the impulse to punish and shame, not seduce and be seduced, that made Karen break down and e-mail Clay that afternoon—or, really, forward Principal Chambers’s e-mail to him without comment. Though as soon as she’d done so, she realized that her e-mail was bound to elicit a response, the thought of which filled her with excitement and trepidation.
In the meantime, arrangements for the fund-raising picnic needed to be finalized. Karen had planned on joining Susan in the school library the next morning to go over the details, but Susan e-mailed that night to say she had a plumber coming to deal with some kind of pipe leak and she didn’t want to miss the guy—would Karen mind swinging by her house after drop-off instead? Having already made a decision not to involve herself or Susan in the Ruby-Charlotte schism, Karen promptly replied that it would be no problem at all, though secretly she wondered why Nathaniel couldn’t handle it. Hadn’t Susan said her husband worked from home? In any case, the Bordwells lived only a block from the school, so, for Karen, the change of location presented no particular inconvenience.
There was a certain type of woman who always carried a good umbrella, the kind with a smooth wooden handle, a wide span, and a bright-colored block print or stripe. Not Karen, who had never bought a nice umbrella in her life, having always assumed she’d lose it as soon as she acquired it. Instead, she regularly purchased the semi-disposable made-in-China versions that were sold in outdoor kiosks by train stations. After three weeks, she inevitably either lost them or found that the spokes had become detached from the canopy, in which case she threw the whole business in a trash can and bought a new one the next day. But the truth was the plastic handle never felt solid in her hand, especially when she gripped it too tightly. That was what she found herself doing the next morning while standing in a light drizzle at Susan’s front door.
It wasn’t Susan’s fault that Charlotte had blown off Ruby, Karen reasoned. And yet, here she was, devoting her precious free hours to the PTA; it hardly seemed fair that her reward should be the ostracism of her daughter by the president’s daughter. Was it any wonder Karen was feeling surly and standoffish when Susan opened the door?
“Karen! I’m so sorry to make you travel in this weather,” said Susan, pleasant as ever. Per usual, she was dressed in upscale athletic wear.
“It’s fine,” Karen said with a tight smile, following her inside.
“I hear our girls have a sub today.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“I try and support the teachers’ union,” Susan went on, unprompted, “but considering they work only nine months of the year and get to go home at three, I think they get way too many days off!”
“Yeah, well, it’s a pretty grueling job,” said Karen, thinking that it was somewhat rich of Susan to be complaining that teachers didn’t work hard enough when she appeared not to work at all. Judging from her outfit, she was probably en route to some “important” kettleball class. Or was Karen, in shortchanging the essential if unbillable work that Susan performed on behalf of both her family and her local public school, being the worst kind of sexist? She followed Susan into the living room.
“Karen—this is my husband, Nate,” she said.
Karen looked up and then down. To her astonishment, her eyes landed on a clean-shaven, square-jawed, middle-aged Caucasian man seated in a wheelchair with padded grips. His large biceps were straining against the sleeves of a bright red polo shirt. The lack of a cast on either leg suggested to Karen that whatever ailed him must be permanent. Suddenly, it all made sense—the elevator at the back of the living room, the half marathon for a paraplegia charity she’d read about on the web. He must have completed it in his chair. “Oh, hi!” she said, trying to mask her shock and embarrassment with verbosity. “It’s so nice to meet you! I’m Karen and I’m a new parent at the school, and I’m also helping Susan plan a fund-raising picnic for the PTA. Our daughters are friends, which is how I met Susan. She was actually the first parent to invite my daughter over for a playdate, so I’m indebted to her forever…” Karen rambled on and on. It was exactly the opposite of how she’d intended to act. But when she got flustered, she had a tendency to talk too much. Besides, under this new and unforeseen set of facts, how could she justify being a bitch?
“Well, it’s nice to meet you” was all Nathaniel said, but he was eyeing her strangely. Or maybe Karen was imagining it; maybe he simply had an odd facial expression on account of whatever condition he’d fallen victim to. In any case, guilt flooded her body, not only due to her original theft, but because she’d dared to pass judgment on this family and their work habits. That she’d piggybacked on the life of a man who couldn’t even walk was another issue. Nathaniel Bordwell’s paralysis reminded Karen that money was not everything, not even close. Even the affluent suffered. And because their expectations for what constituted a successful life were so much higher, they were sometimes the unhappiest of all. Nothing was as simple as, well, black and white.