Where'd You Go, Bernadette

TUESDAY, JANUARY 18

From Bruce Jessup

Dear Mr. Branch,

I tried calling your office, but a recording tells me you’re out of the country. It is with great sadness and urgency that I write. After conferring with Bee’s adviser and dorm mistress, we unanimously recommend that Bee withdraw from Choate Rosemary immediately, without finishing the academic year.

As you know, we were all thrilled by Bee’s sudden arrival. We found her a room at Homestead, one of our more intimate dorms, and a roommate, Sarah Wyatt, a dean’s list student from New York.

Yet from Bee’s first week, I received reports that she was failing to thrive in the boarding school environment. Teachers said Bee sat in the back and never took notes. I watched her bringing food back to her dorm room instead of eating in the dining hall with the other students.

Then her roommate requested to switch rooms. Sarah complained that Bee was spending study hours watching Josh Groban perform “O Holy Night” on YouTube. Hoping this was a portal into Bee, I sent the chaplain to her dorm. He said he found her apathetic to spiritual discourse.

Yesterday morning I noticed a bounce in Bee’s step as she crossed campus. I was greatly relieved until Sarah burst into my office, quite distraught. She told me that a few days earlier she and Bee were in the student activities center getting their mail. In Bee’s box was a thick manila envelope with no return address. It was postmarked Seattle. Bee remarked that the writing was unfamiliar. The package contained a sheaf of documents.

Bee jumped up and down as she excitedly read them. Sarah asked what they were, but Bee wouldn’t say. Back at the dorm, Bee stopped watching YouTube and told Sarah she was writing “a book” based on these documents.

Yesterday afternoon, while Bee was away, Sarah snuck a peek at Bee’s “book.” Sarah was so shaken by its contents — in particular, FBI documents marked CONFIDENTIAL — that she ran straight to me.

Based on Sarah’s description, Bee has written a narrative connecting the contents of the envelope. They include: FBI documents involving surveillance of your wife, emails between you and your administrator, handwritten notes between a woman and her gardener, the same woman’s emergency room bill, back-and-forth from a Galer Street School fundraiser about a disastrous brunch, an article about your wife’s architecture career, correspondence between you and a psychiatrist.

My concern is Bee. As you may know, John F. Kennedy attended Choate. While he was here, the headmaster, Judge Choate, gave a commencement speech in which he uttered the immortal words, “Ask not what Choate can do for you. Ask what you can do for Choate.”

Even though it’s difficult, here’s what I can do for Choate. I can recognize when a student, even one as gifted as Bee, has come to boarding school at a time in her life when she should be home with family. I expect you will agree, and that you will immediately come to Wallingford and take your daughter home.

Sincerely,

Bruce Jessup