Saying Grace by Beth Gutcheon Page A

moment decided to retire from public life and devote himself full-time to undergoing Jungian therapy, the nominating committee was left with no other candidates.
    They decided the school had weathered worse things; it would weather Chandler.
    “It’s only for two years,” Rue had said to Henry. “How bad can it be?”
    Rue had a full agenda when she arrived at the California Chuck-wagon for her first weekly lunch with Chandler Kip. The Chuckwag-on was a cafeteria with wagon wheels next door to Chandler’s office, where you stood in line to order Stew ’n Biscuits or Doc’s Rattlesnake Chili and then ate at formica tables and were done in twenty minutes.
    That was all right with Rue; whenever she was off campus for more than an hour, something seemed to blow up or catch fire.
    Rue explained about the problem with the Shaftoes, and Chandler nodded. She reported that Emily Goldsborough wasn’t working out and they were seeking a replacement. Chandler concurred. Chandler reported that he had had an angry call from a mother of a second grader who claimed her daughter was being abused by her teacher.
    “By Janet TerWilliams? I can’t believe it. Who was this?”
    “Helen Blainey.”
    “Ah,” said Rue.
    “She said her daughter was made to sit in a corner for half an hour. The child had been humiliated.”
    “Did she tell you what her daughter did to deserve it?”
    “Her point was that the child is seven…what could she have done?”
    “She announced in a loud voice that there are too many fucking Jews in this school,” said Rue.
    “Oh.” Chandler noticed that two people at the next table Saying Grace / 43
    turned to stare at them. He tried to look as if he and Rue had sat down together by accident.
    “If she does it again, I’m going to expel her,” Rue added. “I hope I’ll have your support.”
    Chandler broke off a piece of sourdough bread, rolled it into a pill, and ate it. “That seems hard on a seven-year-old.”
    “It’s the mother I’m expelling. I discussed this with Mrs. Blainey the day it happened. You can see what kind of support I got.”
    “Okay,” said Chandler, “I’ll tell her I’m backing you up.”
    “Thank you,” said Rue, feeling an unexpected wave of gratitude.
    Maybe this wasn’t going to be so bad.
    Chandler wiped some bread in the grease on the plate left by his Blanket Roll Hash. He wasn’t finding this job at all as he had expected. He was used to conducting business in a decisive world of move fast, cut to the chase, on to the next. The men he worked with respected and enjoyed this style. With Rue he found himself continually in a mushy world of six sides to every question. He felt like a basketball superstar who finds he’s been traded to a football team. He wondered how to regain his footing.
    “I had a talk with Oliver Sale the other day,” said Chandler. “You know he works for me?”
    “Yes,” said Rue. The Sales were relatively new to the school. They had moved out from Sheboygan a year and a half before and put their children in public school, but it hadn’t worked out. Rue had taken both children in the middle of last year, under some pressure from Chandler Kip. There was a girl, Lyndie, now in fifth grade, and a boy named Jonathan in junior kindergarten who was passing strange. Jonathan had a walleye and he licked the palm of his hand all the time, as if he were a cat trying to calm himself. He also had a trick of sticking his tongue way out as if he were trying to get it into his nose. He was not an attractive child and seemed racked with anxieties. Late last spring Rue had asked the Sales to come in to talk about Jonathan, but they hadn’t responded to the message. That was fairly unusual. When parents were paying X thousands of dollars a year, they usually wanted all the attention they could get, and they virtually always snapped to attention at any hint that a child was not working out at Country.
    “I don’t know how well you know them,”