Chapter 3 January 1995 Jennifer De Narp—Trustee
Jennifer de Narp—trustee
Gripping my second-favorite Vuitton handbag to my chest, I limped into the ALP, where as usual, Meg manned the wobbly welcome table. “I was nearly mugged, by a woman! Can you believe it?”
“Never underestimate women, they can be just as violent as men.”
Meg was correct: one should not underestimate women. At my all-girl boarding school, I often sought refuge in the stacks after cruel pranks by classmates. And now, at the ALP, I had to deal with my nemesis, Pam de Laney.
“Are you all right?” Meg asked.
I gave a little shrug, though honestly, the encounter had shaken me. “At least the mugger didn’t get my money. Isn’t Paris supposed to be safer than Dallas?” I lifted my pant leg to show Meg the bruise that had formed.
“Poor thing,” she tutted. “Let’s get some ice on that.”
I followed her to the kitchen. At the Formica table, I sank onto a chair while she took ice trays from the fridge, which mostly served to hold bottles of wine.
As she placed the bag of ice on my purplish shin, I murmured, “You’re a dear.”
It was nice to be fussed over, especially since my own mother never cosseted me.
She spent more time with her charities than at home.
Nonetheless, she instilled in me at a very young age the need to serve.
My entire adult life, I’ve supported educational organizations: Libraries Without Borders, which provides books to schools in developing countries, and another favorite, Reid Hall’s steering committee.
At the turn of the twentieth century, Elisabeth Mills Reid created a clubhouse for women artists.
After World War I, this feminist Garden of Eden became a study abroad program for women.
Junior year there broadened my horizons—the language, the food, the culture, the distance from my native Texas; now, I relished raising money for scholarships so that women from modest backgrounds could experience the same life-changing opportunities.
Though I wanted to be a lawyer like my father, he and my mother were more concerned with me marrying well.
When he came to Paris to visit a satellite of his law office, he took me out for lunch.
Before the waiter could bring our crèmes br?lées, he threw a wad of francs on the table and stormed out.
Once again, I’d given him indigestion by bringing up law school.
That evening Mrs. Kinchlow, the director of Reid Hall, invited Daddy and me for chamomile tea in her airy office.
Girded by a tweed skirt and a pastel twinset, she listened as he informed her that my year in Paris was a way for me to collect recipes for future dinner parties and find a titled husband.
“Yes, of course,” Kinch agreed blandly. “That’s why young women attend classes here.”
I didn’t know how she said it with a straight face.
Kinch was certainly used to dealing with demanding fathers ranting about their uppity daughters.
With her hair bound in a tight bun and a pearl necklace that made her appear as demure as a debutante, no man would ever guess how subversive she was, how far she’d go for her girls.
Several of us were convinced she’d buried some bodies beneath the cobblestones of the cloistered campus courtyard.
“Nonetheless, it’s flattering that she wants to be like you,” Kinch said. “What is your practice?”
Daddy explained that men in our family had a tradition of “community service”—cutting their teeth in the role of district attorney to “put bad guys away for life”—before moving on to lucrative private practice at an international firm.
Kinch gushed about how wonderful it was that he valued schooling for his daughter, and that research had proven that the brightest boys had educated mothers who could advocate for them.
“I’m sure Jennifer will raise a brood of strapping sons,” she continued.
“But what if her aristocratic husband passes away? His younger brothers might inherit the money you bestow on Jennifer and her children and bleed them dry. In the great state of Texas, in times of tragedy, families might come together to support a foreign widow. In France, however…” Brow knit in concern, she paused to let him imagine the lawsuits and custody battles.
“Wouldn’t you want your daughter to be able to provide for your grandsons, in that case?
I’m sure we can agree that Jennifer is a gifted debater.
She might as well be paid for it, for example, as a lawyer. ”
Sons, inheritance, ensuring wealth remained in the family.
Kinch and I watched the pieces click together in his brain.
Soon, he was imploring her to write a letter of recommendation to ensure I would get into the top French law school.
When he took his leave, he shook her hand heartily, thanking her for looking out for our best interests.
I loved my parents, but I needed an ocean between us.
Studying law in Paris had allowed me to stay at Reid Hall.
And later, my background in tax law helped me stay one step ahead of my “noble” husband and his venomous parents, le baron and la baronne.
At least my wedding to a Frenchman had afforded me a carte de résident.
When my marriage eventually disintegrated, I clung to my identity as a lawyer and to Kinch.
I would owe her forever, so when she beseeched me to help the ALP, a “sister” educational organization, I joined the board.
Sadly, the library was starting to feel like a lost cause.
Under Hayes’s “leadership,” membership was down.
Fewer members meant fewer fees. There was barely a budget to buy books and pay staff.
These days, the trustees’ mission was to find a way to keep the lights on—but we disagreed on how.
Unlike those of my other boards, ALP meetings were full of blowhard men and strife.
Fed up with being the token woman, I would have loved to see a member of W.E.
—wives of executives—on the board. These trailing spouses were intelligent, hard workers who’d left behind their own aspirations to support their husbands.
But the W.E.s were unable to accept paid positions because the French government refused to grant them work visas like their husbands got. Sexism at its finest.
So when I’d heard that a woman was joining the ALP board, I was elated. Until I learned who—Pam de Laney. What she’d done was bad enough. Now she had the audacity to join the board—my board. Was nothing sacred?
At monthly meetings around the conference room table, she tried to impress me with announcements of the thousands she and her current husband donated for the children’s room remodel and the writer in residence program.
Nonetheless, I did my best to rebuff her.
But two years ago, during the search for a new director, ignoring her became impossible.
I wanted a woman, an actual librarian, but damn Pam put forward her own nephew, an accountant who she insisted would balance the books.
I glared at her. She pretended not to notice.
When just the two of us were left in the room, I hissed, “You have no morals. Adultery, nepotism, it’s all the same to you.”
“I told you at the time that I was sorry,” she shot back.
The chairman didn’t care for either of our candidates, though.
He insisted the ALP needed “a name” like Quentin Hayes III, who I happened to know from my undergrad days.
The lightweight sailed through life—and our debate team circuit—thanks to his prep school connections and illustrious family name.
After what had happened, I kept tabs on him—and didn’t like what I saw.
Before the vote, over a boozy lunch at Le Bristol, I raised my concerns about Hayes and took the opportunity to praise my candidate, who was actually qualified.
“Librarians care too much about books, and not enough about the bottom line,” the chairman argued between bites of foie gras. “Paltry book fines aren’t enough to cover exorbitant heat bills.”
When the ballots were tallied, I saw the other trustees hadn’t even considered my candidate. On the bright side, damn Pam had been voted down, too. Even so, that left the ALP with Hayes. He was a cheater, a fraud. And I wanted him gone.