“That’s neither here nor there,” William said. “Really,
Father, you let Billy get away with murder. If Roger or Gary or I did something that drove the stock down that far, you’d be—”
“Oh, it will come back up, it will come back up. Linus, you get onto the corporate communications staff? They good to go? Who is this? One of the speechwriters?”
Everyone turned to look at me: the skillet-faced woman, who was standing next to Bysen’s desk with a laptop open in front of her, the two sons, the man named Linus.
I smiled sunnily. “I’m V. I. Warshawski. Morning, Billy.”
Billy’s face relaxed for the first time since his grandfather had stormed from the meeting. “Ms. War-sha-sky, I’m sorry I forgot about you. I should have waited for you after the meeting, but I wanted to escort Pastor Andrés to the parking lot. Grandpa, Father, this here is the lady I told you about.”
“So you’re the social worker down at the high school, hnnh?” Buffalo Bill lowered his head at me like a bull about to charge.
“I’m like you, Mr. Bysen: I grew up on the old South Side, but I haven’t lived there for a long time,” I said easily. “When I agreed to fill in as a basketball coach for the girls’ team, I was truly dismayed by the terrible changes in the neighborhood and at Bertha Palmer. When were you last in the school?”
“Recently enough to know that those kids expect the government to hand them everything. When I was in school, we worked for—”
“I know you did, sir: your work ethic is extraordinary, and your energy is an international byword.” He was so surprised at my riding over his harangue that he stared at me, openmouthed. “When I played on the Bertha Palmer team, the school could afford to pay a coach, it could afford to pay for our uniforms, it had a music program where my own mother taught, and boys like you got to go to college on the GI bill.”
I paused, hoping he’d make a tiny connection between his own government-funded education and the kids on the South Side, but I didn’t see a dawning light of empathy in his face. “Now the school can’t afford any of these things. Basketball is one of the things—”
“I don’t need a lecture from you or anyone, young woman, on what kids need or don’t need. I raised six of my own without any government help, hnnh, hnnh, and without any charity, hnnh, and if these kids had any spine, they’d do just like I did. Instead of littering the South Side with a bunch of babies they can’t feed, and then expecting me to buy them basketball shoes.”
I felt such an impulse to slap his face that I turned my back on him and jammed my hands into my suit jacket pocket.
“They’re really not like that, Grandpa,” Billy said behind me. “These girls work hard, they do the jobs they can get down there, at McDonald’s, or even at our store on Ninety-fifth, a lot of them work thirty hours a week to help their families besides trying to stay in school. I know if you saw them, you’d be really impressed. And they’re crazy about Ms. War-sha-sky, but she can’t stay on coaching down there.”
Crazy about me? Was that what the girls at Mt. Ararat were saying, or was this Billy’s interpretation? I turned back around.
“Billy, you keep sticking your naive nose into things you don’t know jack shit about.” The man who’d been in the room with Mr. William spoke for the first time. “Jacqui told me you had this insane idea that Father would bankroll your pet project; she says she warned you that he wouldn’t be the least bit interested, and now, on today of all days, when you’ve done your best to destroy our good name with our shareholders, you waste more valuable time by encouraging this social worker to come up here.”
“Aunt Jacqui wouldn’t even listen to Ms. War-sha-sky, Uncle Gary, so I don’t know how she can figure out whether it’s a good proposal or not. She threw her copy out without even taking one look at it.”
“It’s okay, Billy,” I said. “Do your folks understand I’m not a social worker? I’m doing volunteer work that I don’t have the skills for. Or the time. Since the government in the form of the Board of Education can’t hand the girls at Bertha Palmer the help they need, I’m hoping the private sector will pick up the slack. By-Smart is the biggest employer in the community, you have a history of helping out down there, and I’d like to encourage you to make the girls’ basketball team one of your programs. I’ll be glad to bring you down to one of our practices.”
“My own girls do volunteer work,” Bysen observed. “Good for them, good for the community. I’m sure it’s good for you, hnnh?”
“What about your sons?” I couldn’t resist asking.
“They’re too busy helping run this business.”