Students often waited in long lines to speak with registrar Louise Krauss. In the fall, stress etched on their faces, procrastinating seniors pleaded for her to rush their school records to meet college application deadlines. And at the end of the admission season, students left out in the cold by their favored colleges sought comfort from the registrar, her round face and sunny smile inviting them to open up. Her talent for repairing their lives traveled beyond the students to their parents, including to Mr. Daniel Lefcowitz, father of Abe Lefcowitz, the most brilliant member of the STEM Magnet at the highest ranked high school in all of Montgomery County. At least, that’s what Mr. Lefcowitz asserted about his son when he charged into Louise’s office and demanded to know what had happened and how she was going to fix it.
Normally the Guidance Office would be the first stop for frantic parents when their students were locked out of the most competitive colleges. But on this particular Monday, all the counselors were in an emergency meeting regarding their administration of the upcoming Advanced Placement exams and the loss of a nearby church as a testing site because an oak tree had smashed its roof during a wind event yesterday. So it was that Mr. Lefcowitz burst into Louise’s tiny closet of an office, waving a fistful of rejection letters and reciting his son’s resume: “4.0 unweighted GPA, 1520 on the SAT, countywide finalist for the National Science Talent Competition, state finalist for National History Day, county tennis champion for two consecutive years.”
Louise spun her chair so that she could face Mr. Lefcowitz directly and nodded in rhythm to his recitation. She made sure that her eyes engaged his and that her expression suggested genuine concern. She watched Mr. Lefcowitz’s face redden and the red soften to pink as he completed the recitation and sank into the armchair next to her desk, burying his face in his hands.
“Mrs. Krauss, I don’t know what to do. A brilliant boy and no place to go to college. I knew Harvard was a long-shot, and so were Yale and Princeton, but Tufts? For goodness sakes, Tufts and Penn and Colgate? At least one of them should have accepted Abe. What am I to do?”
If Louise had become callous after 10 years as registrar, she would have heard only the “I” in his question and labeled him a helicopter parent. But she had lost sleep herself over her own daughters’ ups and downs and the strains they still felt because of their parents’ divorce, amicable though it was. Thus, when Louise thought of the involvement of Mr. Lefcowitz, the word that came to mind was empathy—a natural outgrowth of a parent’s love. As he lifted his head and looked at her with misty eyes, Louise passed him a box of tissues, waited for him to blow his nose, then said, “It’s horrible, Mr. Lefcowitz. But we can do something.”
He sat up straight in his suit and crisp dress shirt. “We can? Of course, we can.” Then he paused and added, “But what?”
“We’ll work three paths and see which yields the best result. Is Abe waitlisted at any of his schools?”
Mr. Lefcowitz nodded. “Tufts, Penn, Colgate.”
“Good. Then I’ll begin by calling the admissions office of one of these schools and offering official testimony on his behalf. Abe will have to pick one because the school will want assurance that Abe will accept if they pluck him from the waitlist. Path two involves my calling other less competitive schools and seeing if they have vacancies. When they hear of Abe’s sterling credentials, they may jump at the chance to capture such a great student. Path three entails Abe finding an interesting internship or travel opportunity for the first semester and calling the waitlist schools to request a second semester admission. Illness and personal issues often send students home midyear, and some schools like to fill those vacancies. Now none of these is an ideal way to begin college, but we’re past ideal at this point. So, go talk with Abe. Tell him to let me know by tomorrow morning what he’d like to do.”
Mr. Lefcowitz flung his arms around her, squeezing her as if their relationship had deep roots. “Mrs. Krauss, you are an absolute angel. I thought it had all been for nothing—those sleepless nights, his weekends researching in the lab when other kids were playing, the nonstop sacrifices of my boy’s life. And for what? Now you are making it happen.” He leaned forward to squeeze her again until she pulled back, her pursed lips and flushed face reminding him that she was, after all, an MCPS employee.
“No promises, Mr. Lefcowitz, only untested possibilities. One way or another, this year or next, Abe will go to college and do just fine.”
“That’s all I wanted, Mrs. Krauss. Hope.”
As the father turned and left, his aftershave lingered in the room—crisp, bursting with energy—like Mr. Lefcowitz himself.
~
Tuesday Louise arrived at school with a sleep-deprivation hangover following late-night fretting about her oldest daughter Samantha’s low history grade and what Sammi saw as its potential impact on her GPA and as a result, on her entire future. The pile of updated-transcript requests on Louise’s desk had exploded over the past week, and her email was clogged with urgent messages from the Head of Guidance about Louise’s responsibilities as a result of the revised Advanced Placement testing plans. As her head throbbed, Louise could tell that most of today would be devoted to drudgery.
It was a relief when midmorning, the main office called her to pick up a delivery. She entered the office, expecting a box of forms from Advanced Placement, only to discover the main office staff encircling a huge spray of hydrangeas, calla lilies and hot pink roses. “For you,” the business manager, Ricki, announced.
It wasn’t her birthday, and her ex hadn’t done anything that required a lavish apology. Besides, Mike had never thought in terms of floral tributes, not even on Valentine’s Day when they were first married.
“Open the card,” Ricki insisted. “We all want to know who sent such lovely flowers.”
Louise hesitated, then slipped a slender card from its envelope and read: “Many thanks, Dan Lefcowitz.”
“Who is this Dan Lefcowitz? Where did you meet him?” demanded Ricki, who as her best friend knew there had been no man in Louise’s life since Mike.
“Stop imagining things. Just a grateful parent.”
As she walked down the crowded hallways enjoying the admiring glances of teachers and students, the flowers felt like a validation of her ability to make things right. In her office, she perched the flowers on the metal filing cabinet where no careless student could knock them over. She wondered what sort of man sent such an opulent display to a school employee, someone he scarcely knew. Nevertheless, the generosity of his spirit hovered over the office, lifted her headache, and made her transcript work less onerous. She thought of the living being behind each transcript request, the hopes and dreams of each student, the nervousness as the student crossed the graduation stage in June, unfettered from school rules and parental control, pretending to know what to do next. With each thud of the school seal, she stamped her best wishes on the transcript.
