didn’t warrant a dissertation. “I don’t know why.” She smiled, or at least bared her teeth, waiting for a response I truly couldn’t muster. The things I could think of would have broken my promise to mind my manners.
“Truly,” I finally said. “I help out in an office a few hours a week. I file papers, but Beth has me confused with Sam Spade.”
Ha-ha, laugh it off, forget about it, please, Ms. Baer.
“Or Emma Peel in The Avengers,” Fay—or Kay—said from across the table. “I always loved the way she dressed.”
“That’s precisely how it is. And how I dress, too,” I agreed.
“It sounds exciting and . . . dangerous,” Victoria Baer said.
“Filing? The only dangers are paper cuts and being bored to death.”
She smiled politely and, as two more women joined us, completing the table, the conversation turned to them, much to my relief. Except, of course, that at the next lull, Beth again felt the need to introduce me to them as her sister, the shamus. Time to either gag my sibling or take over the conversation myself for damage control. “Beth doesn’t want you to know that my actual job is quite ordinary and seldom glamorized by Hollywood produc-tions. I teach high school English. Now you know the dull truth, and please don’t think less of Beth because of how boring I am.”
“Teaching’s probably more dangerous than we thought your other job was. Kids today.” The speaker was one of the newcomers, an elderly woman with unnaturally black hair through which her scalp showed. I wonder when “kids today” became shorthand for how drastically the human race was in decline. I suspected that the phrase was one of the first the Neanderthals expressed.
79
GILLIAN ROBERTS
“They’re not that bad,” I said.
“Everything I hear, I read . . . where do you teach, then?”
I told them.
“A private school,” the black-haired woman said. “No wonder.”
I took that as the perfect cue. I sat further back in my chair, withdrawing from the table-wide conversation, and turned my attention to my left. “To tell the truth, I sometimes dread saying where I work, because so many people are hostile to the very idea of private schools, and I understand their point of view. I do. Free education and public libraries—access to information and knowledge, how to use it—that’s the basis of democracy, if you’ll forgive my getting on the soapbox.”
Ms. Baer raised her eyebrows and shrugged a “what can you do with people who don’t like whatever—but don’t take my sympathy to mean I’m wildly interested in this topic, either” sort of gesture.
“I gather you’re not one of the people in the antiprivate schools camp,” I said as a salad was placed in front of me. The greens gave me something to poke and cut so that I didn’t look too eager for information.
“It would be hypocritical to attack private schools, because I attended them from kindergarten on,” Vicky Baer said. “And I deal with them professionally now. I consult to nonprofits that need to find ways to raise funds.”
“Really? That would certainly include the private schools I know,” I said. “Your work sounds like fun. Or at least, if it’s not, you’re not stuck in that school forever.”
She’d been toying with her fork, but I could almost see through her skull as she recategorized me from ignorable dinner partner to: Contact. She put the fork down and reached under the table.
“Here,” she said. “Let me give you my card. And I have a brochure that explains more of what I do. In case your school ever . . .”
I wonder what percentage of cards exchanged in this random, optimistic, and hopeful way ever result in a sale or a job, or even a phone call. I certainly had no clout with either Havermeyer or the 80
CLAIRE AND PRESENT DANGER
trustees about how or through whom they should raise money.
And yet turning down a card seems a deliberate insult, like blatantly saying, “I am not interested in you
“Truly,” I finally said. “I help out in an office a few hours a week. I file papers, but Beth has me confused with Sam Spade.”
Ha-ha, laugh it off, forget about it, please, Ms. Baer.
“Or Emma Peel in The Avengers,” Fay—or Kay—said from across the table. “I always loved the way she dressed.”
“That’s precisely how it is. And how I dress, too,” I agreed.
“It sounds exciting and . . . dangerous,” Victoria Baer said.
“Filing? The only dangers are paper cuts and being bored to death.”
She smiled politely and, as two more women joined us, completing the table, the conversation turned to them, much to my relief. Except, of course, that at the next lull, Beth again felt the need to introduce me to them as her sister, the shamus. Time to either gag my sibling or take over the conversation myself for damage control. “Beth doesn’t want you to know that my actual job is quite ordinary and seldom glamorized by Hollywood produc-tions. I teach high school English. Now you know the dull truth, and please don’t think less of Beth because of how boring I am.”
“Teaching’s probably more dangerous than we thought your other job was. Kids today.” The speaker was one of the newcomers, an elderly woman with unnaturally black hair through which her scalp showed. I wonder when “kids today” became shorthand for how drastically the human race was in decline. I suspected that the phrase was one of the first the Neanderthals expressed.
79
GILLIAN ROBERTS
“They’re not that bad,” I said.
“Everything I hear, I read . . . where do you teach, then?”
I told them.
“A private school,” the black-haired woman said. “No wonder.”
I took that as the perfect cue. I sat further back in my chair, withdrawing from the table-wide conversation, and turned my attention to my left. “To tell the truth, I sometimes dread saying where I work, because so many people are hostile to the very idea of private schools, and I understand their point of view. I do. Free education and public libraries—access to information and knowledge, how to use it—that’s the basis of democracy, if you’ll forgive my getting on the soapbox.”
Ms. Baer raised her eyebrows and shrugged a “what can you do with people who don’t like whatever—but don’t take my sympathy to mean I’m wildly interested in this topic, either” sort of gesture.
“I gather you’re not one of the people in the antiprivate schools camp,” I said as a salad was placed in front of me. The greens gave me something to poke and cut so that I didn’t look too eager for information.
“It would be hypocritical to attack private schools, because I attended them from kindergarten on,” Vicky Baer said. “And I deal with them professionally now. I consult to nonprofits that need to find ways to raise funds.”
“Really? That would certainly include the private schools I know,” I said. “Your work sounds like fun. Or at least, if it’s not, you’re not stuck in that school forever.”
She’d been toying with her fork, but I could almost see through her skull as she recategorized me from ignorable dinner partner to: Contact. She put the fork down and reached under the table.
“Here,” she said. “Let me give you my card. And I have a brochure that explains more of what I do. In case your school ever . . .”
I wonder what percentage of cards exchanged in this random, optimistic, and hopeful way ever result in a sale or a job, or even a phone call. I certainly had no clout with either Havermeyer or the 80
CLAIRE AND PRESENT DANGER
trustees about how or through whom they should raise money.
And yet turning down a card seems a deliberate insult, like blatantly saying, “I am not interested in you
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