The Headmaster's Dilemma Read Free

steps back toward the school.
    Who was he, after all, to think he could change the world? What would it gain him to stand between Donald and the rip tide of his millions? Did he think for a minute that the board would back him? Did he not know that they would tear down the chairman's pants and place their lips devoutly on his fat exposed rear end?
    As he approached the headmaster's house he saw that Donald had left and that Ione was sitting alone at the coffee table idly examining a blueprint. The temperature had dropped and she had put on a striking red sweater that went well with her gold necklace and large gold bracelets. He recalled that she had said that only gold could be worn with sweaters. Her tan hair was also gold-tinted, but the hardness suggested by the shining metal was softened by her beauty. Michael reflected as always that he could get through anything with her behind him.
    "You look exhausted, my love," she said as he came up. "You should really have a drink or a vitamin pill before any meeting with dear Donald."
    He slumped into the chair beside her. "Oh, he'll have his vulgar sports plaza, I've faced that. There's no fighting his big bucks."
    "Yes, but you can moderate them. I've been going over the plans. They can be cut down. The new buildings can be scattered. The whole thing can be spread out and muted."
    "But he'd never stand for it, darling. He's got his great architect. The whole thing's a must. It's what he calls a work of art. You can't fiddle with works of art."
    "The board may not see it that way."
    "Ione, you're dreaming! They'll gobble it up."
    "You have friends on the board. More than you think."
    "But not enough for a battle like this."
    She suddenly stood up, as if to make a great point. "And you have the ace of trumps up your sleeve! You can threaten to resign!"
    He too jumped up, but in astonishment. "And if they accept my resignation?"
    "Then we'll go! There are plenty of other places that will want you. Do you think, my darling, that I haven't known how often you've been wondering if Averhill is really the right place for you? Or if any New England boarding school is the right place for you?"
    He gazed at her in admiration. "Darling, what's got into you?"

2

    W HAT INDEED had got into Ione?
    From childhood, she had been a deeply serious girl, eager to find the right place for herself in a confusing society and often wondering if such a thing as a right place existed. At Barnard College she had joined the ranks of the majority of the girls in her class who believed that women should keep their maiden names after marriage, have full-time jobs even while raising a family, hold liberal political views, and prefer casual dress to haute couture. The great thing in life was to be natural. The great thing to be avoided was something called fancy pants.
    The trouble was that her mother, whose only child she was, seemed the very opposite of much of this. In many ways indeed her parents appeared the essence of fancy pants. And yet they were a brilliantly successful couple; they were even, at least in Manhattan, almost famous. Her father, Ira Fletcher, sleek, slim, ebony-haired, and elegant, was the highly reputed designer of women's wear, and Diane, her mother, the graceful grande dame of urban chic, was the editor of the popular fashion magazine
Style
. Photographs of the couple in splendid evening attire appeared so often in newspaper accounts of Gotham revelry and charity balls that friends made health inquiries if their images were missing for a couple of weeks. Yet for all of this their manners were open and kind; they exuded a charm that won them hearts wherever they went.
    Ione's particular difficulty, when she came of college age, was that she couldn't fault them. They both took what had to be a sincere interest in her studies, in her amusements, in her boyfriends, even in her would-be rebellious resistance to their interest in her. They included her in their parties well before her