Ruy Lopez, Your Move Whately Prep p.10

http://files.chesscomfiles.com/images_users/tiny_mce/BGP9/chess-bishop-white-risk.jpg

My office has changed little since my grandfather's time.  Even less since my father's.  I have a small 5 x 7 inch frame of our present day family on the credenza behind the desk.  The large, oak desk is both a barrier and a comfort to me.  I also have a small 2 x3 inch photo of Kelly wearing her tutu. It is a candid picture I shot one day after ballet, I was enraptured by her beauty.  In this view, she has a wild halo of curly, blond hair.  Her torso is slightly longer than her legs, her toes are turned out in a perfect replica of first position.  A heaviness forms at the center of my chest while I am holding Kelly's picture, gazing at it.
Then, she appears.  She is at the window, then quickly ducks behind one of the long heavy drapes that graces the window. There is a knock at the door.  The out-of-sequence quality to an action before a response can be off-putting.  Clara, once no more than a clairvoyant parent of a ninth grader, has been my administrative assistant for four years.  Her son is now studying biology at Skidmore.  Clara has been a leveling,  a calming, influence in the Head Mistress's office; right now, she is handing me a leather binder.
"Don't forget Nimmy Mendez remarried since the last Board meeting. Her name is Cristopherson now."
As always, I am grateful for her prods.  I ask her, "Who did you say is coming late?  George Tillman?"
"His flight was delayed into Hartford. He flew into Greene Airport outside of Providence, instead.  I sent a car to get him.  Our very own Carl Lattner was free; he took the Whately Prep mini-van to retrieve Mr. Tillman.  I thought it would be what you wanted. "
I feel the corners of my mouth tug in the beginnings of a grin.  Carl.
Sweet Carl.
"Please ask Food Services to bring in the coffee and danish at 10:30 a.m.. Thanks, Clara." I touch
her elbow as I moved forward toward the door.  I exhale, letting the words be carried on my breath,
"Watch out for her."  Both of us glance toward Kelly.  She is flipping through the pages of a coffee table art book.

I stride across campus with the confidence that comes from feeling like I own the place. Confidence is borne from truth.  I am in the unique position of being the majority share owner of the property on which the school sits.  From Swamp Road to Routes 5 & 10 to the farthest reaches of the playing fields that abut the back side of Chestnut Plain Road, I inherited a one quarter share from my father's estate.  I bought out my sister's quarter and an eighth from my older brother. The school and the land it sits on are integrally related.  The board meeting today is mostly routine.  The most important topic is my proposal to promote Carl Lattner to Head of Buildings and Grounds Services.  A bigger job than his father could have ever imagined.  If everything goes as planned, Carl will be at the helm when we begin construction on the largest addition ever made to the Whately Prep campus; a new library.  The former library is being revamped to house Languages and the Arts.  The School House will be refurbished for Sciences and Mathematics and History. A priest named Ruy Lopez devised one of the best known opening plays in chess.  First used in 1561, this same strategy is frequently used today.  I wish Father Lopez could help me plot out my strategy concerning these major changes.  This is going to be both convoluted and challenging when it is all said and done.  I can't help but wonder what buried bones we may unearth.
                                                                                             

For Whom the Bell Tolls (thanks to Hemingway) Whately Prep p9

                  Whately Prep Bell            dee

The first time I saw Julia, I despised her, in that way only eight-year old boys can do, It was an explosive feeling that left me confused.  Looking back on it, I probably wanted to kiss her, but didn’t know the difference between attraction and repulsion.  I was eight, she was seven.  The sight of her with her fancy braids, turquoise petal pushers and new, white Ked’s set my heart racing in all new directions.  My father was new to Whately Prep.  He was hired to run Buildings and Grounds.  My mother had left us the summer before our move to Whately. It was for this reason that my father packed our belongings and said it was time to find a new roost.  His girlfriend didn’t seem too happy about our leaving Hartford, but it was a good move for us and my father jumped on it.  

The school provided us with an apartment above the Buildings garage.  We each made five trips from truck to apartment and that was it, we were in.  My father had his room. I slept on a sofa-bed in the living room.  There was a kitchenette, but we ate most of our meals in the dining commons.  Our most valuable possessions were my father’s television and my trombone.  

On our second day on campus, my father announced his biggest goal for me, “I fully intend that you attend Whately Prep as a stepping stone to college.”  Part of his job offer as a full time employee included a scholarship for me.  In third grade, it was hard to have my sights on something that might happen in six years.  However, once I met Julia, it became a lot easier.

We had a friendship that was impossible for anyone to understand. Julia was water to my stone, shade to my desert. She both reshaped and tempered me.  I knew what passion was before I could spell or define it.  

Julia was one of four children. Her parents reigned by benevolent neglect.  So long as she stayed within hailing distance, we could explore to our hearts delight.  There is a   huge school bell installed in a frame outside of the Schoolhouse. Whenever Julia’s father would ring it, it was a summons that  could not be refused. The bell was rung when Whately Prep teams won their team events, upon graduation, and when there was an emergency on campus. (The night Julia disappeared, for example.)  Everyone was bound to gather in the School House when the peals of the old bell cracked the air.  The  bell was wrought in 1776 in Troy, New York.  With such a well-documented provenance, I knew that bell had powers. After all, it brought my mother back.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

Faint of Heart Whately Prep p.8

Illustrated by Emma Hanquist

I am a woman in a man’s world.  Seriously, if not for nepotism and a healthy dose of croneyism, I might never have made it as Head of a co-ed independent boarding school.  Few women do.  About 70% of independent school leadership is male.  The percentage is much higher if considering only secondary schools.  More like 90% male. My experience and education might not have been sufficient for the Board to appoint me when my father died, if he hadn’t taken the last three years of his life to groom me for the job.  

His point of view was that we would make it impossible for the board to make any other decision than selecting his daughter, Julia Grant Dickinson, as school head.  I did not take Declan’s name because I felt I worked too hard to establish a professional identity.  I was not willing to give it away with my name.  Declan made it easy for me; he didn’t care.  “Just so long as you marry me and promise never to sing Cher songs, of course, you should keep your name.” It is the unexpected with Declan that makes me laugh. He so often delivers the unexpected. I am uncomfortable when I consider what life might be without him by my side.  

I pride myself on having had almost every job on campus. I mowed lawns, washed down dorms, worked in the kitchen and filed in the Admissions office all before graduating high school.  In college, I worked as a substitute administrative assistant in whatever department had their full-time assistant off vacationing.  When I graduated college, I went to work at Exeter, teaching English, as a dorm parent, and field hockey coach.  Four years in, I received a call from Deerfield.  They had an opening in the Admissions office and thought of me.  My job changed, my locale changed, but I didn’t. I wanted more.  I put in a request to fill an opening in the Development Office. It was tremendously satisfying to “land” a fish that contributed 1.2 million dollars toward a new Arts Center.  The night of the Deerfield Art Center opening, my father cornered me with two glasses of champagne.  He toasted me and asked me to come work for him at Whately Prep.  He wanted to teach me a few things. I went to Whately as Assistant Head of School.   

Our partnership was simply remarkable.  He granted me room to make mistakes, and even more to fix them.   In the beginning, I seemed to be falling down, making the wrong choices more times than not.  Gradually, something shifted.  I discovered that I had to combine compassion with leadership. I had to be dogmatic and precise if I wanted to short-circuit impressions that I was warm and matronly.   A lot of what I did to establish myself as a leader was related to wardrobe.  I am not too proud to deny that.  I shopped at Talbot’s, Cathy Cross and Thorne’s Market in Northampton, combing the stores for clothes that were slightly conservative, professional with a youthful edge.  I found skirts work for me. Skirts with or without blazers.  With pumps, with boots, with stockings, with tights.  Skirts with blouses or sweater-sets or body-hugging shirts with scarves to tone down the sex appeal factor.  My wardrobe is modest, but functional.  I live here, too.  That means my off-hours clothes must be correspondingly acceptable.  I use the Dallas Cheerleaders as my model for keeping up appearances.  Their rules are so strict (no leaving the house without makeup, no leaving the house without being groomed for a photo shoot) that even an approximation is a step in the right direction.  

My father never noticed my habits of dress.  He was invested in my academic and financial acumen. 
“We are raising leaders here, Julia. We have a responsibility to each and every crop.

One day, you will be running Whately Prep.  You must be prepared for the burden that represents.  It is not a task for the faint of heart, believe you me.” In the years that I was groomed and then became Head of School, my daughter died. My husband strayed, My son became clinical depressed.  I believed him, being Head is not a task for the faint of heart.   

http://www.nais.org/publications/ismagazinearticle.cfm?ItemNumber=154181

Marshall Dickinson Whately Prep p.6

Chestnut Plain Road, Whately, MA dee

"I never see The Street under its double row of trees but I bless the man who planted them. Nor go the River Road with Sugarloaf ahead, but a thrill runs up my back to see it there."Fred Bardwell 1883 - 1968

Marshall Dickinson, founder of Whately Prep, was a man of great imagination when it came to educating young minds; he was supremely unimaginative in his vision for the footprint of the school.  Whately Preparatory School for Honorable Young Men and Women was founded in 1851.  Deerfield Academy was already well-established as the premier boarding school in the region.  Dickinson, a Princeton man, was a native of Amherst, MA.  He returned to the Connecticut River Valley to teach at Deerfield.  Dickinson, his wife, Hester and their family, lived modestly on Deerfield Academy’s campus as house parents.  Whatever money he could muster, he used to purchase adjoining parcels of land that was once inhabited by the Norwottuck Indians.  After a decade at Deerfield Academy, Dickinson attracted a following. His philosophy was one of discipline, honor and piety.  He was successful in recruiting a few very wealthy families to lend their support to the new school.  Dickinson believed that a value-driven, spiritual foundation with a strong physical outlet was necessary for a balanced education.  Reportedly, he was known for frequently imploring his students to “Think man, think!”   While there were a few girls on campus, there were no more than a smattering. Teacher’s daughters and local girls who passed the rigorous entrance requirements were granted an education.  Most thought it unseemly and did not apply.  Dickinson required that students from all walks of life contribute to community life - both on and off the campus -- by doing chores. In addition, all students were mandated to attend daily chapel meetings. It was Dickinson’s rigid adherence to the creed that “all men are created equal” that set him apart from other educators of that era.  He accepted “half-breeds,” saying that young men of all color and nations should study history, latin, mathematics, science and english.  If applicants passed his rigorous entrance requirements, they received an education with room and board.  
Dickinson set up and protected a generous scholarship program using funds from several anonymous donors.  Dickinson paid as much attention to the mortar and bricks as he did the curriculum.  It was in this vision that his detractors claim he was lackluster. The school's campus was nothing more than a familiar model of a typical New England town.  Town Hall was the Administration Building.  The Chapel was a replica of the one found on Chestnut Plain Road in Whately.  Classes were taught in The Schoolhouse.  Students were billeted and fed in one of four dorms that were built like typical New England homes.  All the buildings were situated around a central pastoral area known as The Common.  
Unfortunately, Dickinson was ridiculed for trying to inculcate an unnatural alliance between distinct breeds of men; behind his back, Whately Prep was called “Dickinson’s little experiment in the woods.”  However, the carefully chosen cross slice of humanity that shared fibers of intelligence, honor and a strong work ethic paid off; Whately Preparatory School gradually gained acceptance.  It took decades for the men and women who Dickinson took under his wing to find their places in government, industry and society.  However, leaders will rise.  As they did, their common thread was evident.  The change-makers, the trend-setters, the visionaries of the 1870’s to the 1900’s were more often than not graduates of Dickinson’s “little experiment.”  

Pancakes and Popcorn Whately Prep p5

When I come home from my run, I kick off my beat-up Adidas sneakers and toss them back into the shoe basket.  I can smell the scent of popcorn wafting out of the open windows.  Our family is big on the Popcorn food group.  Leftover popcorn with sugar and milk is a delicious alternative to cereal.  At lunch, we melt and broil cheddar cheese on popcorn.  For a snack, Julian sprinkles popcorn with cinnamon sugar.  Our dinner involves popcorn and tomato soup. Thompson started our habit of throwing pieces of popcorn into tomato soup; the first time he dropped some pieces in the bowl, he said, “Look, Mom, the popcorn is swimming.”  Dessert, anyone?  We coat it with melted chocolate chips and...tada!  The chocolate hardens in a cluster of popcorn and chocolate.  Sometimes, we toss in cocoanut and chopped nuts.  I am not the lease bit surprised to smell the popcorn at 7a.m..  

I move into the house, down the central hallway.  My head turns to the right and I take in the large front sitting room with its tall, wide, many mullioned windows. To the left, I see the smaller, cozy den. The next door on the left in the dining room. Across the back of the entire house is the kitchen and family room.  Everyone is clustered around the central island.  The television is blaring and no one notices that I am back. Declan is saying, “Does anyone else want popcorn in their’s?”  I peek into the frying pan and see three pancakes dotted with chocolate chips and popcorn. A growing stack of pancakes sits on a plate by the pan.  I grin,”Oh, the mighty have fallen. And you made fun of me having gone popcorn crazy! I can take it from here if you want to jump in the shower.” Our lips gave a resounding smack when we kiss, evoking a groan from Julian and Thompson and happy, clapping hands from Sarah.  

Declan disappears toward the back stairs to get ready for his job at the magazine.  For years, he worked from 7a.m. to 3p.m.. Now his hours are his to make because of his title as Editor-in-Chief. He is a minority share owner of Perennial Gardens Magazine, a small, national magazine popular with avid gardeners and landscape architects.  The magazine uses some of Whately’s fertile fields for its trials and experiments.  Three greenhouses with lights allow year-round growing.  Declan graduated from U. Mass, Amherst, but never left the fertile Connecticut River Valley.   Never did he plan on falling in love with a local girl with deep roots in the area.  He came to the Valley from Providence.  It was Declan’s ties to Rhode Island that led us to buy our summer house at Miquamicut Beach in R.I..  

Thompson and Julian sit on the stool at the counter next to Sarah’s high chair.  The boys are loudly disputing who’s turn it is to take out the trash.  My running clothes are soaking wet. I peel off my tee shirt, throw that into the laundry room. By the time I walk back in, the garbage is tied shut and the bag replaced.  I notice it is Julian who is washing his hands.   

“Thompson, would you come here and start feeding Sarah some of these canned peaches?”  

“Julian, are you packed and ready for camp? Daddy will drop you at the pickup spot for the bus from the YMCA.  Last night, I put your lunch money in a zip lock bag in your back pack. You need your bathing suit... Thompson, please? Pay attention!”  Sarah has wrested the spoon from Thompson and now I am wearing Sarah’s peaches.  She flung them at me, through the nearby screen door and onto the floor.  Grrrr.  I make a mental note to add that to the list for Rebecca, our longtime, devoted, can’t-live-without-her housekeeper when she gets here today.

With a practiced hand, I flip the pancakes onto the growing stack, slip those onto the counter in front of the boys and call out, “Eats!”  I nibble on one myself as  I sprinkle Sarah’s tray with Cheerios.  I reflect on which of our mugs to use, choose with one that says ‘Angel for a day,’ and pour myself a cup of coffee.  As I add sugar and cream, I have the familiar thought, “I wish I could drink this black.”  

Declan returns to the kitchen, smelling of Ivory soap and clean man. I inhale deeply. “Your turn,” he says. “I’m going to leave when Rebecca gets here.  Why don’t you see if one of the students can babysit and we’ll grab dinner at the Inn?”  

Julian complains, “I don’t need a baby-sitter.”

Declan and I reply in unison, “It’s for Sarah,” then turn back to each other. Okay, I’ll text you.”

Declan asks, “Julian, are you almost ready?”  Julian jumps up from the table, then runs to the other room.  “Where is my glove?”  “Look under your bed,” I call.  His footfalls traipse across the floor overhead. A muffled, “I found it,” ensues.  

Next, I check in with my eldest son. “Thompson, are you working at the Patterson’s farm today?  If so, are you biking or do you have a ride?”  

“They don’t need me until next week since the weather’s dry and the cukes aren’t ripe. I’m playing tennis and just hanging out.”

“Work on that chore list, bud.” I kiss Thompson, bump into Julian and get half a hug, then fist bump Thompson.  Last, I plant a kiss on top of Sarah’s head, before hoisting my mug and exiting.  Already, I have turned my thoughts to what I should wear.  I have a board meeting today.  

The Buttonball Tree Whately Prep p4

www.wikipedia.org

Kelly’s mysterious absence from the Connecticut River doesn’t make sense to me.  Her last moments were spent on the River.  I was alone with her when it happened.  There was an elaborate investigation to try to pin the accident on me.  That’s how I felt, at least. When it happened, it was unthinkable that life could go on, that I would go forward. I was engulfed in a sorrow so great, that I wondered if I would survive it.

I survived.

The price I have paid for surviving is that Kelly watches over me most of the time. Other people have shadows, I have Kelly.  She is a silent observer of all that I do, both bad and good.  In her manifestation, she has not aged.  Oddly, she has a wardrobe that changes seasonally.  I notice that.  I notice that her chest moves as if she were breathing, but of course, she’s not.  I notice her eyes blink.  Her mouth moves, but never to form words.  I can read her expression as well as I ever could.  This fall, it will be ten years since she died.  Ten years.

When she first started visiting me, I told her to cross-over, find the light, do what spirits do. Go.  Instead, I saw more of her.  I made the mistake of telling people.  Oddly, it was only Declan who believed me.  I asked if he could see her, too.  He said, “No, but sometimes I feel her.”

Thinking I must be having some kind of psychological breakdown, I made an appointment with a psychologist.  Three sessions in, she said I needed to talk to a psychiatrist who could also medicate me.  For three years, I was a compliant and cooperative patient who took anti-anxiety and anti-depressant medications.  I talked out my unresolved issues.  Nothing changed.  Kelly came to therapy with me,  She rode home, or if I met friends for dinner after therapy, she sat at the next table.  Kelly was relentless.  

I used the Internet to research psychic phenomenon.  After trying seances and readings and occult gatherings (all of which Kelly attended), I gave up.  Imagine my utter surprise when, finally, finally, someone other than me saw her.  A prospective parent visiting Whately Prep was in my office.  Ostensibly, we were alone.  Of course, Kelly was sitting in the corner, staring out the window.  The mother interrupted my description of the endowment at Whately Prep.  “Excuse me, I just wondered why you asked a student to join us for this conversation. “

My stomach lurched uncomfortably.  I thought I might be sick in the wastebasket under my desk.  I was so startled that I couldn’t speak for a moment.  Kelly turned toward me. The mother, Clara Carter, said, “Oh, but she looks just like you, she must be your daughter.”  

My eyes glanced at the family portrait taken the year before, absent Kelly.  Maybe it was all an unkind and elaborate ruse.  Clara, sensing my dismay, spoke directly to Kelly, “We stopped in Sunderland to see the Buttonball Tree, I didn’t know they make necklaces.  Is that where you found yours?”  

I had never told anyone, not even Declan, that, on the morning of the day she died, I bought Kelly a silver Buttonball necklace.  As I clasped it around her neck, she turned to me with a broad smile and said, “I’ll never take it off Mummy, never, ever.”  

Headstones Whately Prep p.3

There is a small cemetery slightly off the trail that leads down to the River.  The headstones are old and moss-covered for the most part.  The two most recent ones, my father’s and my daughter’s are carved into smooth, grey granite.  The markers are as simple as a Protestant would allow.  I slow my pace to a walk when I pass the small graveyard that is set back inside of a white picket fence.  This land belongs to the school.  Both my father and my daughter belonged to the school, thus they belong to this land.  A syllogism if ever I saw one. 

My father died unexpectedly.  I have missed him every day since his death.  I am grateful that he did not suffer from a long, debilitating disease that robbed him of his memory or vitality.  The cause was identified; It was as simple as his heart stopped beating. It has been three years since he died.  Accepting his death has been like swallowing a chicken bone; it goes down hard. 

There are times I can convince myself that Kelly is not gone.  The idea is at once. so preposterous, so out of the realm of possibility, that I literally find myself on autopilot planning doctors appointments, hair appointments and trips for Kelly.  I have had to keep secret that she comes to me.  In the house, on the soccer fields, during morning assemblies, I see Kelly.  The only place that I am not haunted by her is when I am along, or in, the Connecticut River.