The others were already in the library. They were sitting on the leather couches, a pot of tea on the large, low coffee table. When they saw her, they stood.
“Sylvie.” Daniel Girard held out his arms. He was good-looking, tall with silver hair. He had come from work, presumably, still in his suit. Geoff Whitney stood, too, jowly and blustering, smelling a little like cigars. The other two stood as well. Jonathan Clyde, bookish and nervous-fingered, and Martha Wittig, plump and matronly, always wearing a different colored pair of glasses. Today’s frames were a warm pumpkin shade.
Sylvie kissed them all on the cheeks. She knew intricate details about each of their lives—Jonathan had bought an eighteenth-century historic Quaker meetinghouse that had allegedly once belonged to William Penn. He and Stewart, a man he always referred to as his friend, restored it themselves. The house had been featured in a splashy magazine, highlighting just one photo of Jonathan sitting on the couch, his hand clenched nervously in his lap. Last year, Dan’s father had unexpectedly willed all his money to charity, forcing Dan to find his first job at forty-four. Geoff and his wife had divorced, and he’d married a much younger woman named Melinda two months later.
Of course they knew about Sylvie, too. That her children had gone to school here, that Charles had attended Cornell, that he’d married Joanna, and that Joanna … well, Sylvie knew that Joanna had held some sort of job before they moved out to the suburbs a few weeks ago, but she could never remember what that job had been; nor did she know what Joanna was planning to do with herself now.
They knew about Scott, too, though they never asked about him, as if it would be intrusive to do so. And they were around for James’s death. They’d paid their respects at his funeral and gone to the luncheon afterward.
They had all attended Swithin and so had their children. They’d worked together for years now, planning and debating and deciding. When they considered adding an extra member to the board, they pored over each potential candidate as if they were running for political office, examining tax records, properties owned, and extramarital affairs. They didn’t help vote for teachers or staff—which meant, thankfully, they hadn’t had to discuss Scott’s position as an assistant coach—although they did help to choose Michael Tayson as headmaster two months ago after Jerome announced his retirement. That meeting had been only one week after James had died, and Sylvie had felt too shell-shocked to come. Now, she wished she had.
They sat down and Martha pressed PLAY on the mini-recorder. It taped the meetings from start to finish, and afterward Martha’s husband, who was adept at all things technological, would plug the recorder into his computer, press a few buttons to launch the software that could translate the contents of the audio file into a Word document, and voilà, they had minutes without any of them having to feverishly write or transcribe.
Martha started talking about the numbers and research on the school-wide laptop program, which issued laptops to every student to use to take notes and do homework. “The thing is, they’re all using them to do non-school-related activities,” she said. “Apparently, the network goes down at least once a week because everyone’s on their laptops, using all those Facebook sites. And they’re not very careful with them. Seventeen machines have gone in for repairs just this month.”
“Are they encouraging the kids to learn?” Dan asked.
“It’s hard to say.” Martha flipped a page. “The way kids learn isn’t the same anymore. But the teachers are also a problem. A lot of them aren’t nearly as technologically savvy. They’re still making their students write their papers in longhand.”
“Oh, God, especially that Agnes,” Geoff said, rolling his eyes. “How old is she now, eighty?”
Martha pressed PAUSE on the tape recorder. “And still spry as a fox,” she whispered giddily. “There are rumors that she’s dating Harold.” Harold was one of the guidance counselors. He was quite a bit younger than Agnes, the doyenne of the English teachers.
“Speaking of Harold,” Dan said while raising a finger. “That daughter of his is back at home. I heard somewhere that she was kicked out of Brown.”
Martha’s eyes widened. “Another one?”
“She’s all out of Ivies,” Geoff said.
“Cheating again?” Jonathan asked, shaking his head.
“I thought she was kicked out of school because of prescription drugs.” Martha blew her bangs into the air. “Poor Harold.”
Sylvie stared at her fingernails. Nothing seemed amiss. None of them was looking at her pointedly, indicating they had heard about Scott. Maybe Michael Tayson had kept his word, not telling them about the rumors or Scott’s upcoming meeting.
Martha pressed PLAY on the recorder again. “Anyway. Back to the laptops. Should we take them away?”