The Headmaster's Dilemma Read Free Page A

eighteenth year; they apparently saw no reason why she should not fit snugly into their world. They simply did everything right—shouldn't that be enough? But wasn't something missing in her mother's delicate peck of a kiss on her cheek, in her father's gentle pat on her back, something like the bear hug she had seen her friends' parents give their offspring? Did she dare to compare the manicured lives of Ira and Diane to a finely produced and expertly acted parlor comedy?
    She had no occasion to discuss these doubts with her friends because, without exception, they were all, even the most liberal minded, dazzled by her parents, who greeted them with invariable charm and warmth. But as Ione's graduation approached, she began to feel the absolute necessity of a candid discussion with her mother as to her future career. They
had
to talk frankly, at least once.
    She had no sooner started on this than Diane interrupted to assure her there would always be an opening on the staff of
Style
.
    "Oh, no, no, that's not my idea of a career at all!" Ione exclaimed, seizing on this with a kind of desperation to introduce the real topic. "I have in mind something totally different!"
    "You sound as if
Style
were beneath you," Diane replied with a mildly reproachful smile.
    "Oh, it's not that, Mummy. It's not that really.
Style's
all very well for those that like it. It's just that ... well, I'd like to be more in the real world."
    "And you think
Style
isn't real?"
    "Well, it's not grubby. If that's what I mean."
    "You're looking for something grubby? How singular."
    "I was thinking of law school."
    "Well, I guess that's grubby enough for anyone." Diane paused now to consider this new option. Oh, she was always ready to consider things! "Actually, women are beginning to make great strides in the law. They say Betty Stackpole has made a fortune in divorce cases, and I hear she's going to represent Ted Saunders in his wife's bigamy suit. That should net her a walloping fee."
    "Oh, I don't think I'd go in for domestic relations. I'd want a wider field than that. Divorce lawyers make dirty waters dirtier. I'd want something more in the public interest."
    "Well, so long as you don't spit at money, my dear. You'll find it can come in very handy. But talk to your father about this. He's had more experience with lawyers than I have. He won a big suit last year against some crazy shop that claimed he'd stolen a design.
That
was grubby enough for anyone."
    Ione decided that she would discuss it with Ira that very night, and when he came home he promised that he would go into it with her at dinner, which, for once, they were all three to have alone. But at the last moment the table in the elegant Pompeian dining room had to be reset for four because Ray Adla, the great ballet star, had asked himself suddenly to the meal on the pretext of discussing with Ira the offer from a French ballet company that he had just received.
    Adla had been a protégé of the Fletchers ever since his humble and impecunious start, and his subsequent fame had not tempered his gratitude. He consulted them in everything, eagerly and submissively. Ione reflected bitterly, as the evening droned on until bedtime, with her father never seeming to notice that he had promised her an important meeting, that Adla was like the son he had never had.
    And then a nasty thought struck her, the fruit, no doubt, of her suddenly aroused jealousy. She had been having some sad talks recently with a Barnard friend who was distraught over her discovery that her beau and lover was finding greater diversion with a member of his own sex. She took note now of the peculiar warmth of her father's treatment of his ballet star. Was it really paternal? Wasn't it something more cherishing? Even more carnal?
    The young man was certainly lovely to look at. His every motion was gracefully true to his profession. And his reputation in love, as Ione and his fans well knew, was notoriously bisexual. This,