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Rather than sacrificing the next generation to a failing school that lacks the commitment to education that has long defined Edward G. Mather, we are proposing that Mather instead transfer its two special-education classes to a facility that is better equipped to deal with high-needs children. This would free up at least two classrooms, where additional kindergarten and first-grade classes could be placed.

If you support this alternate proposal, please attend a community forum in the Millicent Grover school auditorium this Monday night at seven. Your voice is urgently needed! The meeting is open to the public, but representatives from the board of education will be in attendance.

Thank you,

Concerned Parents and Citizens of Cortland Hill



Karen felt newly unsettled. On the surface of it, the letter’s call to arms sounded reasonable enough. But it seemed to Karen as if there were another letter hiding behind the one she’d just read, and the former was filled with quiet hate. She found the suggestion that Mather’s special-ed children be kicked out of the building to make way for the regular ones especially galling. At the same time, she was aware that Ruby’s matriculation at the school was at least partly to blame for the overcrowding that had led to the board of education’s proposal. Also, would Karen have willingly enrolled her own daughter at a school that had posted as low scores on the state tests as Millicent Grover apparently had? Above all, she feared that the fracas over the possible rezoning might lead to a witch-hunt of the kind that had been suggested by the volunteer coordinator at the PTA executive board meeting, in which those families who were found not to be living in the correct catchment area were outed as interlopers, their children expelled from the school. Making a note of the meeting time, Karen closed out of the e-mail.

Meanwhile, to the great joy of the Mather PTA and to Karen’s commingled pride and disgust, Fund in the Sun raised far more than anyone had expected—close to forty thousand dollars in one afternoon. Yet again, Karen was on the receiving end of multiple accolades. In the aftermath of such success, and even despite the upset that her run-in with Laura Collier had caused her—or maybe because of it; maybe because it secretly pained her to think she was enhancing the education of a certain small blond child with a hyphenated name—Karen felt newly emboldened.

But it wasn’t just about punishing Maeve. It seemed so unjust that the quality of a child’s education should be predicated on how much money his or her parents made. Why should rich kids get to attend fancy private schools with swimming pools and small classes and no one interrupting—or public schools that had the same amenities, thanks to property taxes and/or the prohibitive price of the real estate in their catchments—while the poor were left to fester in overcrowded, chaotic classrooms with not enough books and too many problem kids? Shouldn’t it have been the other way around? And didn’t underprivileged children stand to benefit the most from the extra attention? Moreover, who had decided that, with a few exceptions, the light-skinned people of the planet should rule over the dark ones? Racism was so random, really, when you thought about it. It was as if people one day had decided that attached earlobes were superior to unattached ones, and those with the former should reap the riches of this world.

Or maybe race was only part of the equation. Maybe it was class that mattered the most, Karen thought as she unlocked the door to the PTA office on Monday morning—class and the lifestyle preferences that went with it. That is, the taste for Pellegrino over Pepsi, clapboard over aluminum siding, community-supported agriculture over community college, imported Parmigiano-Reggiano over Kraft Reduced-Fat Parmesan-Style Grated Topping, and beach yoga at an eco-resort in Tulum over daiquiris in the wet bar at the Grand Bahía Príncipe Coba with a crowd of two hundred overweight, sun-poisoned binge drinkers, at least one of whom could be heard yelling, “Is my wife built or what?” (Also, in a certain echelon of society, you had to know how to nod slowly and say, “Wow, that’s so funny,” without seeming to find it even remotely amusing after the person seated to your left at some boring dinner party said, “My roommate at Choate was her best friend on the Vineyard.”)

But if the government wasn’t prepared to divide the riches up more equitably, why shouldn’t Karen try to do her part? And was it even stealing if you didn’t pocket the money yourself? Besides, by organizing the picnic, she’d more or less earned the dough herself; hadn’t she therefore earned the right to decide how to spend it? These questions in mind, Karen wrote another check to herself in the amount of four thousand dollars, then recorded the deduction in the ledger as Portfolio Expenses. It was a phrase she’d learned from her father. She never entirely understood what it meant—she’d always envisioned oversize black-fronted albums filled with modeling shots from glossy magazines—but to her ear, it had the ring of a well-run business.

Just as before, Karen cashed the check on her lunch hour, then placed the bills in an envelope that she sent to the Parent Teacher Association of the Constance C. Betts School, again with no explanation or return address. The only difference was that, this time, as the envelope tumbled down the chute, she felt determination, not trepidation.



That evening, Karen asked Matt to put Ruby to bed so she could attend the community meeting about the proposed rezoning of the western portion of Cortland Hill. Although doubtful that Ruby would be personally affected if the rezoning went through, Karen wanted to be prepared. She was curious too. Car keys in hand, she set off in a light drizzle.