The Headmaster's Wife(5)

Mrs. LaForge brings her into my office and then closes the door on her way out. The girl sits in one of the tall wingback chairs in front of my desk. I take in her clothes and see she is in full compliance of the dress code. White blouse buttoned appropriately, knee-length skirt, close-toed shoes fully laced. On her lap are three of the novels from my class.

“Betsy,” I say, saying her name for the first time, feeling it in my mouth.

She looks up at me expectantly. “Yes?”

“You are enjoying the Russians?”

“I like the realists.”

I nod. “Which of the books we have read speaks to you the most?”

“Turgenev. It seems … relevant.”

“Expand on that, please.”

“His view of love. Of marriage. He seems to be constantly questioning the importance of institutions while reaffirming them at the same time. And the struggle of the two brothers to find their place in the world seems similar to my own experience.”

I smile. “Are you struggling to find your place in the world?”

“We all are,” Betsy says.

She shifts in her chair now and crosses her legs. There is the sense of white flesh beneath her skirt.

“Surely the struggle is different now than in nineteenth-century Russia.”

“I don’t know about that. The trappings are different. Technology and so on. Ways of travel. But those are all surface things. The elemental truths are the same.”

“The elemental truths?” I lean back in my chair and stroke my chin thoughtfully.

“Love and family. Fathers and sons. Mothers and daughters.”

“What about economics?”

“Like serfdom?”

“Yes.”

“It still exists, just under different names.”

“Are we a young Marxist, Ms. Pappas?”

“No. It’s just that the idea of America as a meritocracy is an illusion designed to make the elite feel better.”

“Designed?” I say. “That implies someone is calling the shots.”

“It’s self-perpetuating,” she says.

“What about a black president who was born poor and raised by his grandmother in a Hawaii apartment? Doesn’t that refute your premise?”

“Not at all,” Betsy says. “To maintain the illusion, a few have to be allowed through. Anyway, the presidency isn’t a good example.”

This makes me laugh. “The presidency? The leader of the free world?”

She shrugs. “Presidents still work for others.”

I look beyond her to the wide windows that line my office. On the quad the large maples have turned the brightest of red, their leaves catching the afternoon sun and lifting their color as if they are on fire.

“I have an idea,” I say. “Next week I have to go to an alumni gathering in Boston. I would like you to come.”

“Me?”

“I sometimes bring promising students. So the alumni can meet the new generation of Lancaster students. And see the minds their scholarship gifts support.”

She smiles. She likes this. A proud phone call back to the parents. She looks down for a moment. When she looks back up, her hair falls in front of her face, and she does that thing again, pulling the blond strands behind her ears.

“Okay, then,” I say. “Mrs. LaForge will make the arrangements with your dorm parent and see you are forgiven your classes that day.”

“Thank you, Mr. Winthrop,” Betsy says, as if sensing her time has come to an end.

“You’re welcome, Betsy,” I say.





It is not at all calculated, this idea of bringing her to Boston. The amazing thing is that it comes to me on the spur of the moment. Now, it is true I have brought students to alumni gatherings before, but mostly a star quarterback and the like, some prize horse to show off to the donors. I have never brought someone undistinguished in the obvious ways. Betsy is a very bright scholarship student, and the alumni will certainly be happy to meet a young woman who is a prime example of the importance of these kinds of contributions. Opening the world of Lancaster to the gifted, regardless of progeny. Nevertheless, I am concerned that her charms are below the surface, you see—a subtle but agile mind and a beauty that is invisible to the rest of the world.

I do not feel the least bit awkward about letting others know she is coming. One of the advantages of being head of school is that, in matters like this, others will assume only purity of motive. And while it crosses my mind—one can never be too careful when it comes to female students—it is hard to imagine anyone suspecting an attraction on my part. What is it I would see in Betsy Pappas? If I were truly to be interested in a female student, it would hardly be this unremarkable daughter of hippies from the woods, now, would it?

“A gifted student,” I tell Mrs. LaForge once Betsy has left. “Surprising. Interesting ideas on literature.” I continue, pacing in the outer office, moving to the window and then back to her desk. “Yes, very interesting, Mrs. LaForge. You do not come across young women like that very often.”

Mrs. LaForge watches me from the pile of paperwork on her large desk. She does not say anything, which is par for the course with Mrs. LaForge. She assumes all my statements are rhetorical unless I am very direct.