About mid-admissions season Nan sticks her head out of her oak-paneled office decorated with portraits of past school heads to meet with me for an admissions status update. The moment always reminds me of a gopher sticking its head out of a ground hole checking for predators to make sure it’s safe to come out and scurry about. I wish I could say after a few years her directive e-mails wash right off my back, but I’d be lying. Every single e-mail that comes my way I want to clap back with:
Nan, I know you ain’t talkin’ to me like that, did you mean to send this to someone else?
But I do like my job, and after checking my bank account balance last night I know I need this job. So I reply politely that I look forward to meeting with her.
And then show up at 1:04 p.m.
Our brief biyearly admissions updates have, without fail, gone something like this the past six years:
NAN (CLEANING HER GLASSES):How are the numbers looking this year, Josie?
ME (STICKING TO SCRIPT):As strong as last year.
NAN (NEEDING MORE):Stronger than when Dr. Pearson was here?
ME (RECOGNIZING WHEN AN EGO NEEDS TO BE STROKED):Absolutely, Nan, I never saw numbers like this under Dr. Pearson.
NAN (PLAYING WITH HER SILK NECK SCARF):Good, good. Admissions has always been one of my strong suits as head of school.
ME (NOTHING)
NAN (A BIT LOST IN SELF-CONGRATULATIONS):Not that I care, but the board of trustees will want to know the admissions numbers.
ME (IN MOCK AGREEMENT):Yes, yes, for the board of trustees.
NAN (RETURNING TO HER ALL-BUSINESS TONE):Here is my list of three “must accept” families. They will need to go through the full admissions process like all families, of course, but will be accepted to Fairchild no matter what. And I may have a fourth.
For thirteen years as a student and for my first six years as an employee in admissions, I had never known any head of school other than Dr. Pearson. For generations of students and their families, there hadn’t been a Fairchild without Dr. Pearson. For thirty-eight years the school was his life aside from his wife, Della, who was as loved as Dr. Pearson by the student body, with her warm, reassuring presence and the sacks of tulip bulbs she planted with each incoming kindergarten class in the fall.
As far as anyone knew, Dr. Pearson had no children, no friends, no hobbies, and no interest in travel. He had Della and he had Fairchild. That is probably why, under Dr. Pearson’s leadership, the school endowment grew to sixty million dollars. Even through two dot-com busts, the campus gained four new state-of-the-art buildings, a couple of playing fields, and a parking garage. And, along the way, Fairchild became the most competitive private school in the Bay Area. From tech billionaires living in Presidio Heights to moody, persnickety chefs planted firmly in Mission Dolores, the one thing they had in common, aside from their Range Rovers, was the desire to have their kids attend Fairchild.
In the fall of my fifth year working as an admissions assistant, Della passed away suddenly. The whole community was sure Dr. Pearson, who was healthy as a horse, would follow shortly thereafter from a broken heart. A secret head of school search committee was formed to make sure the school was fully prepared to find an exceptional new head for when that fateful and devastating day came.
Dr. Pearson took off the month of November. The board offered him more paid leave through the winter holidays even though he probably could have taken off two full paid years given the amount of unused sick time the man had accumulated during his tenure. But Dr. Pearson kindly declined the offer and returned to school the Monday after Thanksgiving vacation looking tanned and fit. Still, the community stayed braced for him to drop dead any minute.
But then the one-year anniversary of Della’s passing came and went and Dr. Pearson showed no signs of slowing down. The school thrived and, oddly, Dr. Pearson began to show up at school looking younger and appearing more vital than ever, mentioning dinners at San Francisco’s trendiest restaurants. It seemed Dr. Pearson was going to go on forever as head of Fairchild Country Day and that was just fine by me because in that time of personal renaissance he promoted me to director of admissions. For the first time, I felt like I had some financial wiggle room. By no means rolling in cash, I could at least start to pay down my NYU loans and not have to choose between rent, groceries, and new ballet shoes for Etta. I had finally been given a break in life, and I was ready to coast a little bit.
The spring of my second year as director of admissions, Dr. Pearson was discovered by Fairchild’s upper school’s dean of students, pants down around his ankles in the art supply closet with Señorita Flores, the Spanish teacher. This in and of itself may not have been that big of a deal. In fact, most of us would probably have been rooting for him, knowing he was getting a second chance at love. That was until Bea Cornwall, Dr. Pearson’s long, long, longtime executive assistantwent batshit crazy and destroyed his office with the new nine iron he had her pick up for him since his late-in-life interest in golfing developed. She put that nine iron right through his head of school portrait. It turned out all these years Dr. Pearsonhadhad a hobby: Bea Cornwall. It also turned out that Bea Cornwall had simply been biding the appropriate amount of time (whatever that is) after the Della era for Dr. Pearson to pick up the pieces and ask for her hand in marriage. By the end of the Week of Love all three were gone from Fairchild and the middle school art supply closet had been emptied, disinfected, and restocked. What remained of Dr. Pearson’s thirty-eight-year legacy was a Greek tragedy that would haunt the next head of school, Nan Gooding, and Fairchild’s reputation for the first couple of years of her headship.
I went from being an admissions assistant in May to director of admissions in July to acting head of school eighteen months later while the board scrambled to find a new head late in the private school hiring cycle. Why me? you may wonder. Why not the CFO or the assistant head of school like all the other private schools in the country would do when they are in need of an immediate interim head of school? I have a two-word answer for you—white males. Dr. Pearson was not the only administrator in our school who enjoyed a good striped bow tie from Brooks Brothers or Thomas Pink. The board of trustees thought, given the nature of Dr. Pearson’s sudden departure from Fairchild, that a woman in the head’s role would be a nice change of scenery. I was a twofer, being black and all. The hope was that any memory of the old guard—khakis, cuff links, wandering penises—would be erased from short- and long-term memory when I was in charge. I represented a new era for Fairchild.
Only I had no idea what I was doing. Luckily, it was April and admissions were complete. New parents had signed their enrollment contracts and put down their deposits mere days before the private school gossip wires were set aflame.
I still remember watching Dr. Pearson pack up his office. Ms. Cornwall was already checked-in to a “retreat” in Napa, her nerves unable to survive the public embarrassment of losing her marbles and losing her lifetime-coveted love. Her desk sat as she had left it before being tranquilized and hauled away by paramedics post face-off with Señorita Flores. The front office went from a bar brawl to a ghost town in a matter of hours. The board of trustees wanted me present as Dr. Pearson packed up almost four decades in his office to ensure there was no extraneous funny business.
While I understood why Dr. Pearson had to go, my heart was conflicted. Here was a man who had always believed in me and held me to high standards of academics and conduct. He was the first to brag about me to anyone who would listen and then he welcomed me home to Fairchild, no questions asked. Dr. Pearson was the closest thing to a father I had ever had and letting him go, even given the circumstances, proved difficult.
In quiet moments throughout my life, I wondered if having a father would have improved my luck with men. I fantasized about my dad being something like Dr. Pearson, graying temples and a tweed jacket even on warm days. When I was nine I made the mistake of telling Aunt Viv. Her boisterous voice shook the apartment walls as she repeated, “Tweed? What black man have you ever seen wearing tweed?” and then she would break out in hysterics all over again slapping her velour-covered knee at my ignorance. “Girl, you’d do better imagining an Afro and some shoes that need resoling as fast as he skipped town!” At my disappointed expression, Aunt Viv softened a bit and reached for my hands, “Don’t worry about it, baby girl. Tweed or no tweed, that daddy of yours is gonna be mighty sad he ever walked anywhere away from you. No man will ever do that to you again.” But here was Dr. Pearson in his best tweed jacket preparing to do just that. And a handful of years later, Michael walked out on me, too. This was officially a pattern I had no interest in repeating.
I was only acting head for five draining months before Nan Gooding arrived at Fairchild to save what some speculated might soon be a sinking ship without Dr. Pearson. And thank God she arrived when she did because I knew within a few short hours of my first day as interim head, I had no desire to ever hold the position permanently. Turned out, I loved being director of admissions! Being around families on their Sunday church behavior as the director of admissions, having them shower you with compliments and delightful conversation—all good cheer and gratitude—is where I shine. Easy, I know. Give these same people five minutes in the front door of a new school year and some of the best and the brightest parents of a generation turn into cold, complaining, sniveling shells of their formerly optimistic selves. After only two phone calls and six e-mails as head, I couldn’t deal with the entitled and disgruntled customers coming at me from all grade levels. Who knew serving corn on the cob with hamburgers on a gorgeous spring day in May was too many carbs in one meal, thus why Charlie Taylor in third grade was unable to make it through his select soccer tryouts? Apparently Fairchild was to blame for his spiked insulin followed by a carbohydrate crash. Little Charlie’s father did a three-way call between him, Charlie’s pediatrician, and me to make sure I understood the severity of the mishap. What I understood was that Charlie had a dad out to single-handedly dismantle the tradition of the great American picnic. To say I was beyond ecstatic when Nan was hired, and a start date was confirmed, would be an understatement. I looked forward to the moment I could return to my office in Colson Hall, where the loudest complainer was Roan after a spray tan gone awry.
From the get-go, I think my relationship with Nan could best be described as frosty. I’m not sure how it spiraled downhill so fast. My two-cent speculation is that Nan didn’t grow up with many girlfriends. Any girlfriends. I think she grew up seeing other capable, competent girls as enemies who had to be edged-out for her to earnthe accolades and get the boys. Trying to be head of a private school only fertilized these nasty characteristics. In an industry that is at least 80 percent male and still discriminates against hiring women into head of school positions, female candidates can quickly become, as Aunt Viv loves to say,women with sharp elbows.
Funny thing is, of the three finalists, Nan was my favorite candidate. She had done her homework on the history and current state of Fairchild and had reputable research to back up her personal philosophy on education and leadership style. The two male candidates tried to skate by on charm, cronyism, and white male privilege.
Nan, unfortunately, viewed my enthusiasm for her appointment and imminent start date with a healthy dose of skepticism. I shared with her my gratefulness to turn the reins of the Fairchild wagon over to her and even pointed out the big piles of horse crap to watch out for as she took the old wagon on her first spin. Somehow Nan took my offer to share some advice as a vote of no confidence and she’s been working hard to prove her exceptionalism and superiority ever since. I just wish Nan could get off the power trip she’s been on for six years. One would imagine she’s tired from all that travel.
With each passing year she seems to leave the security of her oak-paneled office less and less and rely on commanding e-mails and sporadic public displays of self-congratulations more and more.
