Halfway to the stage, Mrs. Von Bizmark fell to the floor with a thump. Lanuit and STT had their cameras out and were on their feet. Max prepared to fling his body across the dining room like a human shield. But Mrs. Von Bizmark bounced back up before anyone could capture anything incriminating and shook it off with a laugh. A pro, she smoothed her dress, and the crowd applauded a little more loudly than usual. The chairs parted ways a touch more, all eyes on Mrs. Von Bizmark as she finally reached the microphone. She stepped carefully up onto the dais, as if realizing that she was probably very intoxicated. She grinned at the crowd, who whooped and cheered her like British football fans. The fall had endeared Mrs. Von Bizmark to her audience. A small oval of blood bloomed just below her kneecap.
Max stood in the back of the room ready with predetermined signals: slow down, speed it up, cut it short. Mrs. Von Bizmark wrestled with the stand before freeing the mic, and, collecting herself, she looked from this familiar face to that familiar face . . . the time stretched out. Max made the motion to speed it up. An uncomfortable cough at the back of the room and a few whispers.
“I want to thank you all for coming today. Many of you are dear friends, old friends. Peter’s friends . . .” She drifted off, momentarily. Max mouthed the speech to her, but she was not even looking in his direction. He emphatically motioned for her to move it along and, exasperated, looked to Anna, who could only shrug: What could they do? There was no way to make the situation better, let alone perfect. Mrs. Von Bizmark continued. “But how well do we really know one another?” Max threw his hands in the air. Anna had to wonder if Mrs. Von Bizmark was so blotto she had forgotten why they were even having this luncheon. “I’d like to speak today—a little bit—about”—public education? A great school? A bunch of gifted kids who need our help? Anna silently completed the end of her sentence—“my heritage.”
Say what?
“I am a Jewess.”
More than one woman gasped. Several clutched their necklace, scarf, hair, or neighbor. Two hundred eyes rolled, evenly divided between those who were shocked to hear Kissy Von Bizmark was Jewish and those who were shocked that she should feel the need to confess it. STT shot video on his phone, documenting the various astonishments, an unguarded look of glee on his face. This display pierced Sellers’s coolness; she openly gaped at Mrs. Von Bizmark. Max’s expression slackened in disbelief.
Of course, this was no news to Anna. After over a decade in someone’s home, knee deep in every single document, appointment, contact, and communication that pertained to their life, there was no avoiding the information. Even so, the fact had never been spoken before, and all implications ran to the contrary. The kids had attended Saint David’s and Sacred Heart, for example. They may have even believed themselves to be Catholic for all anyone knew.
And even though this news was no big deal, really, to anyone, what else might Mrs. Von Bizmark say? Anna must stop her, not only from embarrassing herself further but also from tanking Sellers’s fundraising chances. She grabbed a knife off a nearby drunk woman’s place setting and held it up, trying to deflect a ray of sun from through the skylight directly into Mrs. Von Bizmark’s eyes. She could see the slice of light bouncing around on the wall behind her.
“And do you know what is most important of all to the Jewish people? To my people?” She looked around at all those friends, many of them astonished, oil tankers full of Botox making it difficult to glean much more nuance than that. “Not money,” Mrs. Von Bizmark said sagely, and the room positively tingled. The sliver of sun was on her chin, her hair, her earring.
The loud nasal voice asked, “What did she say?” No one bothered to answer, hanging as they were on Mrs. Von Bizmark’s every word. STT held his phone up higher. Lanuit furiously took notes with a fountain pen on a spiral notebook, transcribing this weird speech in French.
Just then, eureka! Anna bounced the light right in Mrs. Von Bizmark’s eyes. She startled a little, squinting for a second. Then she saw Anna, who dragged the knife in front of her neck. A moment of understanding. “Schools!” Mrs. Von Bizmark said, laughing lightly, relieved to be back on script. “Education! A ladder out of poverty! I want to introduce you to an extraordinary woman. Principal of PS 324. Delilah Sellers.”
Now that she was extraordinarily intoxicated with an unusually intoxicated group of friends, Mrs. Von Bizmark’s little oratorical blunders could bounce this way or that: Charming divulgence or cry for help? Whatever it was, it was certainly riveting. Lanuit jotted down page after page of notes, ignoring Dallas’s attempts to reengage her. STT tapped out something furiously on his phone (a text to Page Six?). Max rushed to his side to try to spin the story in a positive way.
Whatever tomorrow’s publications would say about today’s events, Sellers had her work cut out for her. After Mrs. Von Bizmark’s bizarre ditty, how, exactly, would Sellers capture and hold the attention of the room? Whispers broke out and quickly escalated in volume as Sellers strode to the stage, on much steadier, more sober footing than everyone else. Mrs. Von Bizmark embraced her and relinquished the microphone. Sellers looked out at the sea of women in full gossip, smiled warmly, and waited for a break in the chatter. Agnostic Anna prayed. Max rejoined her at the back of the room and whispered in her ear, “Let’s see if she can save this.”
“She’s right,” Principal Sellers said loudly into the mic, denting the din. “Kissy Von Bizmark is exactly right.” She waited, gave it a second to sink in. The attention in the room resettled itself on Sellers. “PS 342 is a ladder out of poverty. And I know this because the New York public school system was the way I escaped. I know education works because it worked for me,” she said. “I grew up in that neighborhood. My mom worked three jobs . . . three real hourly-wage jobs.” She held up three fingers and let this data point hang out there in a room where there were probably not three real jobs among all the guests. “And today, I’m a principal. I own my Manhattan apartment.” Some applause at this. Something clicking into place. Max nodded along encouragingly.
“And what do you get out of helping me and my kids and their school? What do you get out of it?” Another strategic pause. “Freedom from guilt.” A few nervous laughs. “Freedom. From. Guilt.” A few more titters. “Don’t laugh, I’m not kidding. I get it. Your kids go to beautiful private schools, and that’s fine, but they don’t have all the answers! They are going to need raw talent . . . the grit . . . the real-world experience that the kids at my school bring to the table. I make sure smart, motivated, talented poor kids get an education. And if our school closes, I can promise you most of them will not go to gifted programs, and some of them will stop attending school, period.” She bowed her head with the gravity of her own words, and when she lifted her face, Principal Sellers looked dead serious. “But you women here today . . . you can give them their futures.” She raised her hands, theatrical but effective. “You women can keep a school open, and if we meet our goal, it will remain open for decades and touch thousands of lives.”
Everyone sat very still for a beat, not knowing what exactly to do. Max mouthed the words along with her: “Please consider a generous, completely tax-deductible contribution now.”