Game Change: A Nina Bannister Mystery (The Nina Bannister Mysteries Book 3) (16 page)

Within minutes she was breakfasting on her deck.

What was in the paper this morning? Let’s see, Republicans disagreeing with Democrats, tension in The Middle East, meth lab raided south of town…

And enough of that.

She threw the newspaper away and looked up.

The sea before her was magnificent, the sun now high enough in the sky to be whitening, the oil rigs having turned off their lights.

To the South, a tanker, huge and ponderous, chugging its way across the horizon so slowly as to seem almost motionless.

“Unsuitable,” she whispered. “Unsuitable for a principal.”

“You could move to a new condo.”

“You could live on a golf course.”

She rose, walked inside, found paper and pen, and returned to her deck.

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN…

She wrote.

Then:

IT IS WITH DEEP REGRET THAT I MUST RESIGN AS PRINCIPAL OF BAY ST. LUCY HIGH SCHOOL.

I WISH YOU ALL THE LUCK IN THE FUTURE.

She signed the letter:

NINA BANNISTER

Then she put it in an envelope, sealed the envelope, addressed it to Jackson Bennett, and went back down for her walk along the beach.

CHAPTER 11: BEING RESIGNED TO BEING RESIGNED

“As long as I live under the capitalistic system I expect to have my life influenced by the demands of moneyed people. But I will be damned if I propose to be at the beck and call of every itinerant scoundrel who has two cents to invest in a postage stamp. This, sir, is my resignation.”

––
William Faulkner

She had her Monday morning planned.

She would arrive early at school, call into her office a small circle of teachers and staff, and tell them personally of her resignation. There would be some shock about the matter, and perhaps a few tears—some from her—but she had only been back a few weeks and her presence had not grown into a comfortable habit. The school would run itself without her, at least until someone new could be found.

Then she would seek out Jackson Bennett, either in his office or at the courthouse, and hand deliver to him the letter of resignation.

Her reasons?

Multitudinous.

It was all just too much for her. Her health was not up to it. Too many changes had taken place. She missed her old lifestyle too much.

And these reasons were in fact true. Every one of them.

The real reason for her resignation though was April van Osdale, her intense passion for TESTING TESTING TESTING and her refusal to let professional educators run their own institution without pressure from political forces.

The job of principal as she had once known it no longer existed.

The job of teacher as she had known it no longer existed.

And so she parked and locked her Vespa with a calm sense of having done the best she could, and the eager anticipation of being able to put her new clothes in a trunk which would live forever in the back of her closet.

She walked into the building.

Chaos reigned.

Teachers were running everywhere, secretaries (forget using ‘administrative assistants’ now, when they were this upset they could go back to being secretaries) scurried about shaking their heads, and parents roamed the halls looking for someone to yell at.

‘I want you all to come into my office, because I have something to tell you’ is what she’d planned to say to a select group of calm women, all of whom were having their first cup of morning coffee and going about their “let’s begin the school day” duties.’

“What’ going on?” is what she did say.

Ms. Fitzwalder (tenth grade civics) stared at her, and finally said:

“The letters!”

“What letters?”

Ms. Blankenship (eleventh grade social studies) stared at her, and said, without quite the long pause that Ms. Fitzwalder had taken:

“A whole bunch of letters must have gone out on Friday.”

“From whom?”

Then, before anyone could answer, she took note again at the small knots of weeping mothers, and the veins standing out red and dark blue in the sunburned necks of several pre-fisticatory fathers, and she caught herself:

“I know from whom,” she said, quietly.

Then, unlocking the door to her office, she said to whoever happened to be closest behind her:

“Come in.”

She put up her coat, put her things away, and sat down.

A line of people had already formed in the doorway.

It snaked out into the main hallway.

Sonia Ramirez’ mother was first, her daughter gripped fast beside her.

“Ms. Ramirez, what can I do for you?”

“It’s Sonia, Ms. Bannister. They have done this to her.”

“What have they done to her?”

The woman shook her head; she looked exactly like Sonia, coal black hair and deep-night eyes. Her hair was cut shorter than her daughter’s, and she’d gained a few pounds since the days when she, too, could probably have nailed the outside three that won the game.

“The two of you,” said Nina, gesturing at two chairs that stood ready for emergencies in not only this but every good principal’s office.

They did so.

Nina glanced at her brown leather purse, which lay like a good dog on the carpet beside the desk.

Her resignation letter, imprisoned within the purse, cried out:

“Let me out! Let me out! Use me! Use me now!”

She ignored it.

“On Saturday,” Ms. Ramirez choked, “we receive this letter. My husband and I. It is about Sonia we think. But we do not understand it!”

Nina took the sheet of paper that was handed to her, opened it, and read:

DEAR MR. AND MRS. RAMIREZ:

AFTER A CAREFUL ANALYSIS OF YOUR DAUGHTER’S ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE DURING THE PAST FALL SEMESTER, WE HAVE BEEN FORCED AS EDUCATORS TO INFORM YOU THAT SHE IS UNABLE AT THIS TIME TO PROCEED AT THE PACE SET BY HER OTHER CLASSMATES. THIS DOES NOT AUTOMATICALLY MEAN THAT SHE IS ‘SLOW’ OR MENTALLY INCAPABLE; IT DOES INDICATE TO US, HOWEVER, THAT A DIFFERENT CLASSROOM ENVIRONMENT MIGHT BE MORE APPROPRIATE FOR HER SPECIAL NEEDS. WE HAVE THEREFORE DETERMINED THAT SHE BE LABELED ‘LD’ (OR LEARNING DISABLED) AND THAT A GROUP OF TEACHERS SPECIALLY TRAINED IN THIS AREA (THE AREA OF SPECIAL EDUCATION) CREATE FOR HER A PERSONALIZED SYLLABUS WHICH MAY MORE ADEQUATELY FIT HER ABILITIES.

WE THANK YOU FOR YOUR UNDERSTANDING IN THIS MATTER,

EDUCATIONAL STAFF,

BAY ST. LUCY HIGH SCHOOL

“What does this mean, Ms. Bannister?”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure.”

She of course was sure.

Just as sure as she now was about what was going on down the halls, and in the parking lots, and in the classrooms.

“Would you excuse me a moment, Ms. Ramirez?”

“Yes! Yes!
 
But…”

“I’ll just be a moment.”

“Does this mean that our Sonia is—what is the word? ‘Retarded?’”

“No, of course not.”

But,
Nina told herself on the way out,
somebody damn sure is.

She looked at the group of men and women standing beside the coffee table, gesturing, shouting, and crying.

There was a parent: no. There was a teacher: no. There was another parent: no. There was a coach: definitely no.

There was a woman who was none of these things, meaning she was ‘staff,’ meaning she might know what was going on

She buttonholed the woman and manipulated her into a corner.

“How many of these letters went out?”

“We don’t know, Ms. Bannister.”

“Who sent them?”

“We don’t know that, either.”

“What do we know?”

The woman gestured:

“We know that all this is happening.”

“Yes. Yes, it certainly is happening.”

She went back into the office, where the two Ramirez women were crying in each other’s arms.

“Will Sonia have to go to another school?”

“No, of course not.”

“But—another classroom? Because, all of her friends are with her now. Will she have to leave them?”

Yes, of course, she’ll have to leave them. She’s been SPEK-EDDED
.

“I don’t know. I just…”

“Have
you
sent this letter, Ms. Bannister?”

“No, Ms. Ramirez. This is the first I’ve heard of it.”

“But…you are principal!”

“I know. Listen: I’m going to do everything I can to find out about this”

And she did.

Of course, she pretty much knew everything there was to know about it before she began to see people, to seek out teachers, and to read Hector Martinez’ letter, Fasal Aban’s letter, Chin Chi Choo’s letter—the letters, in short, that had been sent to parents of children unfamiliar with the English language—and there were an inordinately high number of such children in Bay St. Lucy, due to the offshore drilling industry, the motel industry, the fishing industry, etc.—and the letters sent to other students, those who simply had for one reason or another made failing grades.

She knew exactly what was happening.

At nine thirty she called city hall.

“Is Dr. van Osdale in?”

“No. She’s breakfasting out in Larchmont with a group from the capital.”

I just bet she is.

“Pardon?”

“Nothing. Ah…this is Ms. Bannister.”

“Yes, Ms. Bannister?”

“Is there a space in Dr. van Osdale’s schedule today?”

“I’ll check.”

Pause.

“Her luncheon hour is free.”

“That’s from…”

“Twelve to one.”

“Good. Could you tell her that I would like to buy her lunch today?”

“Certainly. And where would that be?”

Several of the more elegant restaurants in town flashed through Nina’s mind:

Sergio’s by the Sea; Fabrizzi’s Fine Dining; Gabriellia’s; Les Fruits de Mer…

“Could you tell her I’ll meet her at Dee Tee’s?”

“Ah…”

“Dee Tee’s. It’s on Third and Packer Streets. She’ll love it.”

“All right. I’ll tell her.”

“Good,” said Nina, and hung up.

“What sets a man writhing sleepless in bed at night is not having injured his fellow so much as having been wrong; the mere injury he can efface by destroying the victim and the witness but the mistake is his and that is one of his cats which he always prefers to choke to death with butter.”

                  
––
William Faulkner
,
Intruder in the Dust

She arrived at Dee Tee’s at eleven fifty.

She wanted to be early, in order to see April van Osdale’s expression upon entering the restaurant.

This event happened precisely at noon. (Nina was not surprised at April’s punctuality).

The expression did not disappoint her at all.

It was the expression almost certainly worn by rescue workers upon entering a village in The Philippines that had, a week earlier, been wiped out by a tsunami.

Now bodies were lying everywhere, beneath rubble, atop rotting and rusted cars.