“Laptops do look good, though,” Dan said. “Parents are impressed by that kind of stuff.”
Geoff stroked his chin. “But it’s a big expense. I’ve heard some complaints from the art department. Their supplies are getting more and more expensive, and they can’t buy what they need with what they’ve been allotted. A few of the sports coaches have also come to me, talking about replacing old uniforms and equipment.”
“Which teams?” Martha straightened her papers.
Geoff shrugged. “It was the basketball coach who spoke to me. And Carla from gymnastics registered a request in the office.”
“We still have a gymnastics team?” Martha sniffed. The others snickered, and just like that, the suggestion was dropped. Basketball and gymnastics weren’t steeped in history and scholarship money the way, say, girls’ soccer was—the team was top in the state, and many girls were recruited by Division I schools—or the way the boys’ crew was. Crew was Swithin’s first official sport, and the school had sent several boys on to row for Yale and Penn, and from there on to the Olympics. Those were the teams that got the money.
Sylvie often wondered why her fellow board members invested so much of their time in Swithin. What made them come back, year after year, budget after budget, graduating class after graduating class? Did they feel they were part of something? Did it define them, as it did her, or did they simply do it because, as people of means, it was their obligation? Take Martha, for example. Sylvie remembered Martha from when they were in school together, though Martha had been a few grades behind her. Back then, Martha had been a bossy, controlling field hockey player, always preening herself, always surrounded by a group of cackling girls. When a representative from the New York Public Library Conservator’s office spoke at an assembly about Swithin’s rare book collection, Martha whispered with the girl next to her the whole time, completely uninterested.
But as a board member, Martha had gotten involved in just as many school projects as Sylvie had. There had been some discussion that Martha had become so involved because of trouble at home—she and her husband had wanted another baby, but then she unexpectedly started her menopause. “Maybe their marriage is falling apart,” Sylvie once whispered to James only a few months before he died, after she’d found out everything about him, “maybe the school is Martha’s oasis.” “So the only possible reason Martha could be so heavily involved at the school is because she’s miserable at home?” James had replied, raising an eyebrow. “Of course not!” Sylvie said quickly. “I mean, I’m involved. I’m not miserable.” James looked at her challengingly. Sylvie looked back. Neither said anything.
“Next up?” Jonathan said. He leaned over the table and glanced at the list. “Hmm. This.”
Martha tipped forward, now curious. “The boy’s death.”
Sylvie’s heart started to pound. She glanced at the recorder, thinking that Martha might hit PAUSE again. She didn’t.
Geoff leaned back in his chair, the springs squeaking. Dan riffled through a few papers on the desk and found a photo of the dead boy, Christian Givens. Sylvie leaned forward. He had elfin features and freckles across his cheeks. His hair was bright green. Acid green, really, a color not found in nature.
Sylvie’s stomach fluttered. She recognized him.
“What do you suppose they call that color? Antifreeze?” Martha murmured. She covered her mouth. “Goodness. Sorry.”
“What happened?” Dan asked.
“We don’t know.” Martha admitted. “They’re doing an autopsy. That’s all Michael Tayson would tell me. The boy’s father has been very private about everything.”
Jonathan glanced at his watch. “I wonder where Michael is. He said he would come to this.”
Sylvie’s heart rate picked up. She hadn’t considered that the new headmaster might show up. She didn’t want to see him.
“Has counseling been made available?” Geoff asked.
“They’re using Judith.” Jonathan laced his hands together. “She really helped out when those girls on the crew team died in the car accident last year. And during that school shooting at Virginia Tech. A lot of kids saw her after that.”
“Judith is so good,” Martha cooed.
“Which one’s Judith?” Geoff scratched his head.
“The one with the long hair,” Dan said.
“She’s so gentle,” Jonathan added. “But firm.”