The Better Half(74)
FROM: Nina Morgan Clarke
DATE: February 4
SUBJECT: Welcome to Royal-Hawkins Board of Trustees
TO: Courtney Dunn
Dear Courtney,
It was wonderful to have you attend our February meeting. The board valued your input and abundance of advice.
Thank you in advance for your generous service.
Yours in community,
Nina Morgan Clarke
Head of School
Royal-Hawkins School
“NINAAAAA,” Fitzroy sings from my backyard. “Come on out here and give me a hand collecting all these weeds I’ve pulled out of the garden.” Dad decided to fly back to Queens right after New Year’s for the month of January. I invited him to stay longer, but he brushed me off with a claim of house business to attend to. I couldn’t imagine what that would be for the twelve-hundred-square-foot apartment he’s been living in for fifty years, but I also didn’t have the energy to get into it.
We actually bumped into my dad at LAX as Leo and I were walking out to find Marisol, and Dad was heading in to catch his flight to New York. I was startled to see him. I didn’t really think he’d leave until after I got home, and we caught up on my trip. My real shock, however, was catching him heading to a midday flight, not one first thing in the morning. Was Fitzroy’s New Year’s resolution to ease up on a lifetime practice of up and at ’em? I couldn’t imagine, but I also didn’t want to discourage the welcomed change. We hugged and wished each other a Happy New Year, and Dad promised he’d return just around Valentine’s Day to get started on my garden, a late-in-life interest he’d come to enjoy in mild Southern California winters.
When Roan dropped me at school after our Crenshaw investigation, I tasked him with figuring out how to get ahold of Marcus’s and Dontrelle’s academic transcripts and some type of teacher recommendation. Roan reminded me, for the fiftieth time since fighting through traffic to Pasadena, that this is not how the other five hundred applicants had applied. On time. Paperwork complete. And on their own is how everyone else, as far as we knew at least, had done it. I assured Roan I understood, but we are in uncharted admissions territory here, and as much as we make individual concessions from time to time for children of alumni or the occasional tycoon, we may have to bend some rules to get to the bottom of the Burnses’ story, both academic and athletic.
Staring at the thirty emails I missed being out of the office for an afternoon, I’m unable to open even one with Dontrelle and Marcus parked in my brain. Hearing Dad’s call, I close my laptop and heave myself off the couch to shuffle outside to help him, and to avoid my waiting messages.
“Dad, can I run something by you while you’re out here working?”
“I’d love the company, but I’m going to need you to talk and hold the compost for me.”
“I can do that.” I grab the bin and tip it over slightly. Dad reaches up and pushes the bin down a little lower, making it more difficult for me to talk and hold with the baby pushing up against my diaphragm, but easier for him to shovel and listen.
“What’s on your mind, Nina? Been a while since we’ve both sat still long enough to talk.” Under normal circumstances I would tease my dad about him heading out the door to the Y before I get up in the morning and then being out playing dominoes long after I go to bed, but not tonight. My wit is weighed down by real issues. I haven’t thought through how to unravel the Burns saga to Fitzroy, I only know I want him to hear the long, convoluted story and have him shrink it down to size in the way only my dad can.
“So today, Roan and I went over to Crenshaw. It’s a neighborhood about an hour or so southwest of here. Kind of reminds me of our neighborhood in Queens.” Dad nods his head, understanding without me having to explain who lives there or what the streets look like.
“What were you doing all the way over there in the middle of the day?” Dad probes while doing battle with a rogue root situation.
“I went to meet this woman, Carmel, who believes her twin boys will be attending Royal-Hawkins for high school this fall.” Dad looks up from the dirt, signaling I’ve piqued his interest. It didn’t take Fitzroy but a minute to figure out Crenshaw to Pasadena is a common commute for no one.
“Go on,” he urges me.
“Seems Winn Hawkins and Jared Jones, the Black teacher I’ve been telling you about, recruited the boys to play basketball for Royal-Hawkins.”
“For high school? Why would they want to do something like that? Royal-Hawkins is across the city and doesn’t have much to offer in the way of sports. My guess is these boys grew up hustlin’ ball in the parks.”
I startle hearing my dad follows Royal-Hawkins sports. “You’re not wrong, Dad, but I’m surprised to hear you know anything about sports at school.”
“I don’t, but I saw the level of play at Collegiate and Spence when you and Clive were coming up. And I watched enough of Xandra’s middle school soccer games that I’d say private schools are rarely athletic powerhouses. Academics are your game.” It’s true, neither Clive nor I have any athletic laurels to rest on, but Xandra did get Graham’s fast footwork. It was the other girls on the soccer team that ran faster for the postgame snacks than they ever did on the field.
“Seems Winn promised Dontrelle and Marcus entry into Royal-Hawkins so they can start as freshmen on the varsity basketball team, win us some championships, and in turn overhaul our athletic image, all the while, raising millions for the school. Winn’s determined to scout out the next Black Mamba.”