Second, Alice amended school bylaws to reflect that when a Hawkins descendant wanted to be chair of the board of trustees, they were granted the leadership position. Not one head of school has challenged Alice’s decision. Six feet underground, Alice has remained a quiet force.
The boarding component is long gone, but the tradition of challenging students with a demanding curriculum has stayed intact. The leadership bylaw Alice established legitimizes Winn’s perceived influence over the direction of the school. Back from a double-decade stint living in Australia, he plucked himself a beauty of a wife right off Bondi Beach who fits in perfectly on the Hawkins family Christmas card.
Everyone wants to have a beer with Winn, be invited to his courtside seats at Lakers games, or play eighteen holes with him at the Annandale Golf Club. On the surface, I understand why. But I think if one were to scratch below the beachy smell, there’s something a little off, maybe even a little rank. Or as my father would say, I’m not sure what it is, but something’s not right with that man and Jesus. In Winn’s presence, my guard goes up and I’m extra careful with what I say, though I can’t pinpoint what it is, in particular, about him. Face-to-face, I find myself leaning in to take a deep whiff, wondering if his affable appeal comes with a side of Smirnoff, or if his French double-cheek kiss is a preempt to a double-butt-cheek grab.
Winn seems to want something from every person he meets. Last year when I was attending board meetings in preparation for becoming head, there were three times Winn didn’t show up. No email, no text, no call. A few days later, when I finally tracked him down, he talked in circles about intermittent fasting, a funky biome, things slipping his mind, and isn’t aging a bitch . . . ha, ha, ha. I wasn’t laughing. I was full-on judging and wondering what angle he was playing. But then Winn would donate a half million to the financial assistance fund, call the president of Yale on behalf of two Royal-Hawkins seniors, and run a tight board meeting that concluded on time.
“Should we get started, Nina?” Winn holds one of the front doors to the school wide open with his hip and foot and gestures for me to walk in ahead of him. I glance at myself in the window to make sure my rushed makeup job is holding. The fuzzy glass masks any flaws staring back at me.
“Why thank you, Winn,” Roan flirts. “I bet you get whatever you want with those chivalrous manners.” Roan blocks me and gives Winn a deliberate wink. I shake my head and remain hopeful Roan’s sharp sense of humor and quick compliments continue to work in Royal-Hawkins’s admissions favor with prospective moms who collect witty, well-dressed gay men. I’m pretty sure he’s going to make a handful of fathers, like Winn Hawkins, sweat in their socks.
“Nina, a moment?” Winn asks, clearly flustered, pulling me aside after Roan is well into the foyer. “After the meeting I need to chat with you for a few. Just something I want to tell you about, not a full board discussion yet. Let’s get off campus and grab a drink.” Winn gives me a smile that says, I’m your boss and you have no other option than to join me. I want hot tea and bed.
“You bet, Winn,” I agree through a polite but tired smile.
“Great. Settled. Then let’s go bang the gavel. We want to start this party on time, make sure you do it right for your inaugural meeting. All hail the queen and everything that comes after that . . . Oh look, there’s Hank, I’ve been trying to catch up with that bastard all summer.”
“Well, that’s a stretch, but something to strive for, right?” I say to Winn’s back as he trots over to shake hands with a fellow board of trustee bastard and yacht club member.
“Nina, you need anything?” A familiar hand touches me at the elbow as I’m making sure I have enough copies of the fiscal report before going into the conference room. I love hearing my name in Pablo’s Spanish accent, it sounds so beautiful.
“No gracias, Pablo, estoy bien.” I smile and put my arm around him for a warm side hug.
When I started my high school teaching career at my alma mater, Spence, my mother was full of all kinds of advice having spent her entire career as part of the invisible housekeeping staff at New York’s St. Regis Hotel. Some of it I ignored and instead learned the hard way, but there’s one piece of advice I’ve held on to tightly, and it’s paid off time and again.
Celia would preach, Nina, the most powerful people in any organization are the ones who go unnoticed and unthanked. They do the work and pay attention to the details that make all the difference.
In schools, the support staff are the all-knowing eyes and ears of the community able to move freely among conversations, stealthily through the halls, in and out of groups without most people taking notice. They find the crib sheets of the cheaters, spy the mom drying her tears before entering the school, and hurt for the child who has spent a few too many recesses without a playmate. They are the invisible heroes that keep a schoolhouse humming, and I have never taken them for granted.
“Faculty and staff have been back in school for a bit and still no empanadas from Yolanda? Dónde está el amor?” All last year, Pablo Galvez, our facilities manager, would leave his wife’s fresh empanadas outside my office door on Friday mornings. I know Yolanda made them for me so I would have something hot and delicious for lunch at the end of every crazy week, but the empanadas rarely made it past 9:00 a.m. I’ve never been good at delayed gratification.
Pablo pats his stomach. “Sus empanadas están aquí.” We laugh, sharing a common bond of having zero discipline when it comes to Yolanda’s specialties.
“You do good in there, Nina. I got you.” Pablo nods his head at the door and hands me a tissue from his coveralls, an old-school gentleman. I appreciate Pablo’s faith in me, that makes one of us. “You going to do a poem?”
“Always, Pablo.” Recitation is my secret weapon. I start every meeting with words from a song or a poem. I have a pitch-perfect alto voice, and I use that gift to quiet a room, center my audience, and give myself a hit of joy and a boost of confidence before jumping into the evening’s agenda. Tonight, I’ll be sharing a couple of lines from Tupac’s “Old School” to stir the pot and keep this buttoned-up crowd on their toes.
“This year we’ll keep working on your Spanish,” Pablo reminds me. I laugh again and head into the conference room to find my seat next to Winn.
Ding goes my pocket, loudly. I knew Marisol couldn’t let the day tie up without laying down a little love. Her ability to play bad cop never lasts longer than a half hour, sixty minutes max.
It’s still three months and change until my baby, Xandra, comes home from boarding school for Christmas, but I need her tech savvy now. As much as I want to check my texts, I can’t be doing it in a room full of eagle-eyed, opinionated board members, particularly the ones who didn’t want me to be their child’s head of school in the first place. For the life of me I can’t figure out how to get my phone not to ding out loud when a text comes in, and I’m too embarrassed to ask our IT guy such a rookie question. It’s like an invisible dog fence; the ding always surprises me, even though it really shouldn’t for the 2,838th time. Looking from me to my jacket, Winn pulls my chair out for me with practiced manners. I quickly fish the phone out of my pocket to check the text before bringing this first board meeting of my new professional life to order. If not Marisol, it might be a much-welcome hit from Leo. Yep, a text from Leo would definitely get me through the next few hours and keep me from spiraling down a “does he or doesn’t he” miss me toilet bowl.