Secretly, Karen—who liked to refer to her husband’s project as Poor-coran, a joke that worked best with people who had familiarity with the New York and Florida real estate juggernaut Corcoran—thought the website was of dubious utility. In her experience, most poor people didn’t have consistent access to the Internet. Some didn’t even have e-mail addresses. Karen knew this because, as class parent the year before, she’d been asked to collect e-mail-contact info for all twenty-three students and had come up with only seventeen. But she wanted to be supportive of her husband, who was clearly excited about the project and had already put hundreds if not thousands of hours into it. Also, for the first five years after Ruby was born, and before Karen began working at Hungry Kids, Matt had earned far more than she had.
Karen and Matt were hardly indigent. According to Zillow.com, which Karen checked every so often when she needed cheering up about their finances, their apartment had nearly doubled in value in the three years since Karen and Matt had purchased it. As a down payment, they’d used a portion of the money Karen had inherited from her parents, who had died a few years before. In fact, their two-bedroom condo was now worth a cool million, possibly more. And Karen had money in the bank on top of that. But she hated the idea of dipping into her savings to pay for everyday purchases; God knew what college tuition would cost in ten years. Maybe that was why she felt even guiltier than usual that morning as she cardigan-shopped for Ruby. Karen was busily seeking out promo codes to plug into the Gap.com checkout page to mitigate that guilt when April Fishbach appeared in her face, flashing her Volunteer Hero smile. “Fancy running into you again!” she said.
April was dressed as if it were 1973: corduroy bell-bottoms, a frayed jean jacket covered with political buttons offering such dated slogans as NO NUKES, and lots of ugly silver-and-turquoise jewelry. Two slender bobby pins kept her frizzy hair off her lunar-size forehead. It seemed to Karen that, in a certain light, April Fishbach was actually quite pretty, or she might have been if she hadn’t done everything possible to present the opposite impression. Objectively speaking, she and Karen had a good deal in common. In addition to both of them being white late-life mothers at Betts, their children (Ezra and Ruby) had been in class together since kindergarten. And both women had devoted their careers to bettering the lives of underprivileged populations. But Karen had never been able to stand April’s company for more than two minutes at a time. “Oh, hey,” she said, quickly closing Safari lest April see how Karen, in perusing Retailmenot.com, was failing to contribute to the Social Good.
“Well, that was quite a harrowing scene in there this morning,” April continued.
“Yes, it was,” said Karen.
“To be honest, I was shocked by how harsh Miss Tammy was with Jayyden. The child needs help, not punishing.”
“Well, he did assault the girl.”
“That’s a bit of an exaggeration, don’t you think?” April raised one overgrown eyebrow.
“Is it?” Something about April’s presence had a way of turning Karen into an unfeeling reactionary.
“In any case, since I happen to have you cornered,” said April, smiling again, “the volunteer committee could really use some manpower this month. Any chance you could take time out of your busy café schedule to give us a hand?”
Karen’s entire body tensed with displeasure and defensiveness. “I really want to be helpful, April, but the truth is that I already work at a hunger-relief nonprofit full-time, except for Fridays mornings, when I basically have two hours to myself to answer e-mail and do laundry.” She knew it was a slight exaggeration of her work schedule, but in this case it seemed merited.
“And drink slow-pour coffee!” declared April.
“Yes, I need caffeine in the morning like everyone else,” said Karen.
“Well, how about just an hour every other Friday?”
An escape route from April’s altruistic web seeming less and less feasible, Karen released a long sigh. “If I can find the time, sure,” she said. “What are my options?”
“Let’s see,” April said. “Well, the arts committee needs volunteers to sit at a table in the lobby on Visiting Artists Day, which happens to land on the second Friday of April, if that works for you, and register our arriving artists. The garden committee needs someone to rake out dead leaves. The fund-raising committee needs someone to organize a penny harvest. The after-school committee needs someone to help with bookkeeping. The talent show needs a pianist, if you happen to play. Mr. Thad from the science room needs someone to take care of his white rat and boa constrictor over spring break. And last but by no means least, my Education Partners program could always use more hands in the classroom. What do you say?”
Karen guiltily flashed back to her silent encounter with the Mother in the Rhinestone-Studded Jeans. But her shame on that count did nothing to dissuade her from mentally vetting the options that April had laid out in an attempt to gauge which one would be the least taxing. Snakes and rodents were off the table: Karen had a long-standing phobia of both. And she’d quit piano lessons in the fourth grade. As for organizing a penny harvest, she already spent Monday through Thursday of every week soliciting money, if in slightly larger denominations; the thought of doing so a fifth day a week was almost too much to bear. Meanwhile, volunteering for April’s signature program seemed above and beyond the call of duty. “How about I register artists on Visiting Arts Day?” offered Karen.
“It’s not Visiting Arts Day. It’s Visiting Ar-tists Day,” said April.
“Fine, Visiting Ar-tists Day,” said Karen.
“Excellent!” said April. “But we actually need you to do more than just check names off a list and point people in the right direction. We need interviews too. I have a printout with five questions for each of them. The artists can fill them out themselves—we’ll have pencils on hand—or you can read them the questions and write down their answers.”
“In the middle of the lobby?” asked Karen.
“Yes, in the middle of the lobby. Is that a problem?”
“Well, the lobby seems like a hard place to do interviews. I mean, depending on when they arrive, it can be really loud. Plus, they’re going to be standing there wanting to get to whichever classroom they’ve been assigned to. Can’t we e-mail them questions in advance?”
“That’s a terrible idea,” April shot back.
“It is?”
“Yes. It is.”
Karen felt heat on her forehead. “Because I thought of it, April, and you didn’t?” she said sarcastically.
“Look,” said April, flaring her nostrils. “If volunteering for Visiting Artists Day is too large of a commitment for you right now, I can find someone else. These are working artists who are taking time out of their busy schedules to visit the school—”
“Exactly,” said Karen, “which is why I was suggesting we save everyone time and let them answer the questions at their leisure.”
“Well, it wasn’t a helpful suggestion,” April said sharply.
Karen could feel blood rushing to her cheeks. April, did anyone ever tell you what a self-righteous little twat you are? she imagined saying out loud. But she knew it wasn’t worth the subsequent fallout. There were still three months of third grade left. Also, it was still early in the morning, and Karen had drunk only half her sock coffee. “April, if you want my help on Visiting Artists Day, e-mail me,” she said in a leaden voice. “But I’ve got work to do right now.”