DIPPEL AND FEINBERG agreed on how to teach math to fifth graders, but there was no such consistency in their feelings about each other. Their romantic instincts were rarely in sync. They were busy people. They did not know if they had any spare time or energy for love. From the first night they squeezed past his Xerox machine to get into his apartment, there was an obvious attraction. The thing just never quite jelled.
Once, when Dippel was still teaching at Port Houston, she summoned the courage to ask him the question. “I feel like I know you, you’re a great teacher, we like each other,” she said. “But please tell me there is going to be a time and place where this thing can get serious. Tell me you want to commit.”
He shook his head. “No, I don’t want to commit,” he said.
Well, she thought, that’s that. It was time to cut this off for good. “Don’t talk to me anymore, except about school,” she said. “Don’t look at me anymore. Whatever you do, definitely don’t smile at me anymore.”
He tried to comply, but it was difficult. On October 20, 1998, Feinberg’s thirtieth birthday, after Dippel had been working full-time at KIPP for a few months, they had a huge fight. She had gone into his thinking-skills class late in the day and found him reteaching fractions to her fifth graders. She had taught the same lesson just days before. It was, she thought, typical Mike, just so annoying.
As they walked to their cars in the parking lot, she ripped into him. She told him what she thought of him and his sneaky way of dealing with his teachers. He defended himself, somewhat feebly, only making her angrier. Then, as often happened, she calmed down. “Sorry,” she said. “Don’t worry about it.”
She got to her car and pulled out a wrapped birthday present. “I got you this,” she said. Feinberg felt numb, then happy. “Thank you,” he said, and gave her a hug. The hug lasted longer than he had intended. He found he could not let go. He was teetering on the edge of confessing his feelings. But he stepped back and said nothing more.
She had told him she had a new boyfriend. She said that she was serious about the guy and that Feinberg might see this person on the basketball court, since he was friends with Farabaugh. She told Feinberg she wanted him to know so that there would be no awkward moments.
Feinberg thought about it that day, and the next day, and every day after. He could not get her out of his head. He was seeing a great deal of her. There were so many reasons to go by her room. He still felt what he had felt during the hug. He decided he would have to do something about it.
They were having dinner at the Black Labrador, an English pub on Montrose Boulevard. Dippel had ordered the Guinness cheddar soup, which was delicious. It was a fun evening, a relief after a hard day of teaching.
Then Feinberg spoiled it by telling her he loved her. “I guess my timing is bad, but I just wanted you to know how I felt,” he said.
She put down her spoon and gave him a look of intense exasperation. “You know what?” she said. “You can’t say that to me at this point.” She was silent for a moment, getting herself together. “You know, that’s ridiculous! I have a boyfriend—who I am really serious about!”
Feinberg admitted he was out of line. He said he was sad, and he looked it. “I know I’m a little late,” he said. “I am really a little late, but I am really in love with you.”
The rest of the dinner passed quietly. But over the next few days, Dippel learned the consequences of saying no to Mike Feinberg. The man launched a full-scale campaign for her heart. He was not going to fade into the background just because the woman he loved had another suitor. He sent five dozen roses to her classroom. It really annoyed her. It was so very Mike—big, public, loud, out of control. She told him to stop it. He didn’t. The note that came with that first gift of roses said each dozen was for each of the four years they had known each other, plus an extra dozen for their future years together. There were more notes and flowers. She told him it was not going to work. He was her boss. His actions were grossly unprofessional. And anyway, he didn’t really love her. There wasn’t room in his life for anything but KIPP.
He didn’t listen. He kept telling her how he felt, and then telling her some more. And as both of them knew would happen, it worked. In February she broke up with her boyfriend. At the end of February she told Feinberg she was in love with him too. They were a couple again, this time committed, but would it last?
Dippel had been helping Feinberg test a computerized classroom-assessment system designed by Stacey Boyd, a young San Francisco-based educational entrepreneur whom Dippel considered a kindred spirit. When Boyd offered Dippel a job helping set up the system in Chicago, Dippel said yes. She saw it as both a professional opportunity for her and a test for Feinberg. He was focused on her at the moment, but who knew what that meant? If he was not full of crap, she told herself, moving to Chicago that summer would prove it. “I am moving to Chicago and I am not coming to Houston every weekend,” she told him.
That was fine with him, he said. Her ambition was one of the things he loved about her. This was a good move for her. He went to Chicago to see her almost every other weekend. He talked about moving to Chicago himself.
KIPP Houston was about to graduate its first eighth-grade class. It was humming along at cruising speed. It was a state charter, free of school district red tape. He was in a typical Feinberg mood, a bit bored, looking for something new. With his closest confidants, Dippel and Levin, he would sometimes joke that what he really wanted to do was become a FedEx driver. Then he would have no one to manage but himself. He could enjoy the satisfaction of making measurable progress every day. There were FedEx jobs in Chicago. Why not?