Mrs. Godbold on the Bosphorus

My mother does not like being cold. We have that in common. She especially does not like being cold on choppy water in the middle of a large estuary on what was advertised as a ‘river tour of Istanbul.’

“This is rubbish!” declares Mrs. Godbold. “The banks are so far away I can’t see anything. And the tour guide’s accent is so thick I can’t understand a word he says!”

Her American friend, Gloria, who is a dead ringer for Virginia Woolf and equals her intellectual courage when it comes to learning Cyrillic script or mastering the cornemuse, braces herself in anticipation of an International Incident.

“Ees everything okay, ladies?” inquires the ingratiating tour guide.

“No it isn’t!” replies Mrs. Godbold. “I want to get off!”

“But we don’t make any stops.”

“Too bad!” says Mrs. Godbold and stomps down to the lower, enclosed deck. A second of hesitation before she is joined by the entire viewing deck who eagerly drink Turkish coffee from the little snack bar, relieved finally of squinting at distant banks.

Mrs. Godbold and Gloria decide to penetrate the souk in search of bargains. Gloria has it in her mind to buy a Turkish coffee pot. Mrs. Godbold gives her the drill: “Look down, Gloria and keep your mouth shut.” The woman who speaks six languages fluently and is an expert in medieval music willingly acquiesces to Mrs. Godbold’s undisputed superiority when it comes to handling the natives. Being Deputy Head at a private school where students are still addressed by their surnames turns out to have been all the preparation Mrs. Godbold needed.

“44 lira,” says the young man when Gloria disobeys instructions and shows interest in the only Turkish coffee pot yet to be found.

“I beg your pardon!” says Mrs. Godbold, taking Gloria by the arm.

“44 lira,” repeats the young man.

“Yes, I heard you,” says Mrs. Godbold, “but I’m not paying that. Give me your best price.”

Gloria is casting covetous looks at the coffee pot from behind Mrs. Godbold’s body.

“That is the price,” says the young man smoothly, “44 lira.” And he smiles the knowing smile of someone who has faced down British tourists in the past. The guidebook instructions about bartering always crumble before the ingrained dislike of conflict… But then he has never met Mrs. Godbold.

“Come on, Gloria!” sings Mrs. Godbold, leading her away by the arm. “We’ll go to the stall down the street.”

“But I really wanted that one!” whispers Gloria, urgently.

“Okay!” calls the young man. “42.”

Mrs. Godbold strides back to the merchant.

“30.”

He is momentarily taken aback.

“35,” he counters.

She holds out her hand. “I’ll shake on 32.”

Gloria gets her coffee pot.


Flushed with success, Mrs. Godbold goes on to beat down a street urchin selling a headscarf and a surprised café owner who finds himself haggling over a can of Coca Cola.

After a truly profitable afternoon, the two ladies are growing weary of the maze-like streets and the constant calls from vendors standing in doorways.

“Ladies! Ladies! Come and see my carpets!” “Jewelry, good prices, ladies!”

One vendor makes the mistake of addressing my mother as “darling.”

Mrs. Godbold stops stock still in the middle of the narrow street. Gloria plucks nervously at her friend’s elbow.

“Oh no!” says Mrs. Godbold, wheeling on the unfortunate merchant. “You don’t call a British lady ‘darling.’”

“Ees good English, no?” says the man, confused.

“It’s too familiar!” reprimands Mrs. Godbold, walking on. Gloria shoots the man a sympathetic look and hurries after her.

Finally they burst out of the streets to an open space on the riverbank. One of the clamorous vendors has followed after them, importuning the ladies with a litany of items and prices and not-to-be-missed bargains.

“Do you want to buy a carpet?” demands Mrs. Godbold, rounding on him.

The man steps back in confusion. “No.”

“Some jewelry?”

“No.”

He spreads his hands in a nervous apology, backing away into the noise and confusion of the souk. Gloria laughs.

“I do love your sense of humor!”

“I wasn’t being funny.”

Middle Aged Spectacles

“I have frames, but I need progressive lenses,” I tell the young woman carrying the clipboard. Her ponytail flips and rests over the crest emblazoned on her sweater. Order of the Arrogant Retail Assistant? A royal warrant to dispense overpriced spectacles with attitude?
“These frames are too small for progressives,” she informs me authoritatively. I might believe her except for the fact that I already have progressives in them. Apologetically, I inform her of this fact. She seizes the glasses and holds them up to the light.
“These are not progressives.” Well, that is certainly perplexing.
“I got them from Kaiser,” I counter, actually beginning to doubt my own judgment.
“Fine!” she says, swiveling on her heel, “I’ll get the lab to check.”
The ponytail bounces to a backroom and then triumphantly flicks its way back to me.
“The lab manager says they’re not progressives,” she says, handing me the glasses. We now have a small audience of people awaiting the attention of the supercilious assistant. “I’ve worked here for four years and I can tell you they’re not progressives.”
“Young woman,” I say, using the expression for the first time but deciding to turn advanced age to my advantage, “You may have worked here for four years but I am the one wearing the glasses and I can assure you they are progressive lenses.”

Suffering from a distinct lack of confidence in the retailer, I head back to my healthcare provider. They can indeed provide me with lenses, and happily at $400 less than the outrageous price quoted by ponytail. All is going well until I attempt to leave the parking structure.
“That’ll be $2.”
I fish in my purse and come up with eight quarters.
“That’s 40c.”
“Excuse me?”
“You gave me nickels.”
Bloody stupid currency!
“I’ve been here twenty years and I still can’t tell the difference between the coins,” I trill in what I hope is a charming way, seeing as I am now likely to be taken for a crook or an idiot. She decides on idiot.
“The quarters are bigger,” says the young girl, holding up an example just to complete my mortification.
“You’ll laugh,” I say (although it’s unlikely from the look I’m getting), “But the reason I’m here is because I need new glasses.”

Last Chance at Normal

The guard at County Jail is bemused and bewildered by my presence. It is not often he sees an eight-and-a-half-month pregnant white woman dressed in exuberant Sunday Best coming to collect an inmate. After I make the startling admission (in a British accent, no less) that I am married to the inmate in question, I waddle over to the red, molded-plastic bench, which rises in a smooth curve from floor to wall (presumably to prevent prisoners' wives and mothers from throwing furniture should they feel inclined to start a riot). I lower myself next to the only other occupant of the bench, an older señora who is bowed over her feet, sniffing.

“Buenas tardes,” I say politely. She responds without raising her head. I lean back against the wall and close my eyes, instinctively resting my hand on the ledge of my belly. Since the baby turned I can feel a hard heel thrusting against my ribs like a swimmer waiting to push off from the side of the pool. Don't come yet little boy, I pray. County jail would not look good on the birth certificate.

“He tried to kill me with a knife.”
I jerk open my eyes. The señora has turned her face towards me.
“He was high on PCP. My son,” she explains as I frown in confusion. “He's twenty. He was prendido and he tried to kill me. Then he took off all his clothes and jumped through the window,” she adds, turning back to her feet.
“Ay, que si,” I acknowledge, closing my eyes again and thinking of my own life in the past fourteen months, “Increible, verdad?”

“Franco. Francisco Franco!” calls a male voice. So he gave his real name this time. He has a criminal record under his nickname, Pancho, as well as his street name, Frank. His family uses his middle name, Javier, because that's the only identity that's never been arrested. I lever myself to my feet and waddle back to the window. Stamping some papers, the guard twitches his moustache in a smile. “I'm letting him out first,” he says, glancing down at the mound that separates me from the counter. It is definitely a ‘you're-one-of-us’ smile, coupled with a ‘what-the-hell-are-you-doing-with-that-scum?’ raised eyebrow.

Suddenly there is a clanking and the wall slides back to reveal what appears to be the empty stage of an opera house. A line of men stand shackled together at the wrists, bright lights glinting off their chains and reflecting in the shiny floor. From the dark reaches of the high ceilinged area, more clanking and a line of female prisoners, also chained, makes its way across stage. At any moment I expect the two lines to converge in a choreographed chorus. Instead, one of the women lifts her shirt and flashes her boobs as she passes the men. There is cheering and whistling, and in the middle of the commotion, the familiar thick black hair and moustache of my husband crossing the footlights and walking quickly into the waiting area. He looks from side to side, as if expecting a huge hand to reach out and grab him at any second, and then focuses on me with a delighted grin:

“Reyna! You are the persona mas de aquellas that I know. You're aw-right!” He grabs my elbow and hustles me out of the jail, still smiling and shaking his head. When we get outside he says, “There must have been fifty people ahead of me! They let me out because of you, La Reyna de Inglaterra!” He chuckles gleefully. “You're firme, man!”

Once I have maneuvered my bulge under the steering wheel, and we've negotiated our way through the rush-hour traffic on Cesar Chavez, I am able to get a better look at him. He has a three-day growth of beard, and now that the initial exhilaration is wearing off, he looks thin and haggard. His case was dismissed and the only thing on his mind at this point will be to ‘get well.’ Three days into withdrawal and stranded downtown. As my day in the office had drawn to a close, I pondered the inevitable outcome of his release. Despite my intentions to get on with my life, I found myself thinking that if he could only get past the fourth and worst day maybe he could really kick this time. If only I could only get him back to his father's house maybe he would be clean in time for the birth. Do this like normal couples. Have a father for my son.

That's how I find myself on the freeway to Bell Gardens with a recently released pinto who is rubbing his arms to keep warm and dropping hints about being hungry. We stop off at McDonald's but half way through his burger he starts looking around for an exit, a sure prelude to trouble.

#

“Oye, Luisa! Pull in here, mija!” He thrusts his arm in front of my face, pointing to the mercardo close to his dad's house. “I need to speak to my friend.”
Hanging out the window, he whistles to a scruffy-looking guy who is circling the deserted parking lot on his bike: “Quióboles, brudder!”
“Órale, carnal! I thought you were torcido, man.”
“Nel. My heyna sprung me!”
They both laugh and the guy gives me an appraising look through the open window before they break into rapid-fire caló (slang) making it impossible for me to follow.
“Andele. I'll meet you outside my cantón,” says Pancho wrapping up the exchange.
“Al rato,” says the guy over his shoulder, giving me another leer through the windshield.
“What was all that about?” I ask.
“We're going into the Alcance Victoria program together. There's a home where I can kick.”

#

Jefe, or ‘boss,’ as Pancho calls his father, is pleased to see us in his quiet, contained way. After offering us un chanate (not that Pancho appears in need of caffeine), we sit in the small living room, arranged on three sides around the blank TV screen. If it weren't for Pancho poised on the edge of his chair and the stiff conversation, you might think that this is a normal family visit of a son, daughter-in-law and soon-to-be-delivered grandson. Only there has been nothing normal about my life for quite some time. Without a word, Pancho springs up and into the bathroom. Jefe and I exchange looks. This is where Pancho's stepmother keeps the syringes for her diabetes. The toilet flushes. Pancho streaks into the bedroom where there's a telephone.

“I'm calling el programa,” he shouts. There is another conversation peppered with 'carnal's, and as Jefe goes to investigate, Pancho races past him and out the back door. “I'm going to get some chicle,” he calls over his shoulder.

Chewing gum? Does he think I still fall for all this rubbish? Jefe and I collide at the door as we make our way after him. Jefe stops at the end of the house, holding the wall, doubled over by his smoker's cough, I continue on into the alley, cursing my office shoes and swollen ankles, one hand braced underneath my belly. Enough with Pancho's lies! I'm determined to bust him this time. As I hobble round the corner, I spot Pancho coming out of a house and stuffing something into his jacket pocket.

“You're not going into a program, you just wanted to score!”
“Of course I want to get down,” he says angrily and then looks away, his anger turning to dejection. “Reyna,” he groans, “no te aguites, mija; don't be mad. I did call the connection, yes, but first I had to go get the feria.”
He pulls open his pocket and withdraws a bunch of one-dollar bills.
“The guy who lives here owed me money.” His voice trails off into a sigh. “Ahorita ya! ‘I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired.’ Take me to the program. I'm ready to do this for us.”
He waits until I hestitantly point my bulk towards Jefe’s house.
“I just have to pick up mi licensia,” he says quickly, “I left it with the connection.”

I am used to this arrangement. Eye glasses and ID cards left with the drug dealer as collateral against future payment. I wonder if the social service agencies have ever figured out why their clients lose so many pairs of spectacles. We walk to the furthest end of the alley, Pancho with his stiff Charlie Chaplin gait and me like a ship at sea rolling behind. Hallelujahs emanate from the Good Shepherd church on the corner (Pancho would have gold status if they awarded customer loyalty points for their rehab program), but Pancho dives into the house next to it. I wait in the gathering dusk, listening to the a cappella chorus floating on the air like a love song, “Bendito sea, bendito y alabado sea, bendito sea…” until Pancho at last returns, triumphantly waving his license.

#

The Alcance Victoria house is in a part of Bell Gardens I have never visited before, dominated by a large green. Parking the car by the expanse of black grass, I become aware of garish lights and the sound of revelry coming from behind the dark trees. “Carnaval,” says Pancho, following the direction of my eyes, then hurries across the street to a lit-up house, its interior rendered shockingly naked by open curtains and windows. When I catch up with him, Pancho is straddling the living room windowsill.

“Francisco!” I hiss, but I can already see that despite being flooded with light, the place is deserted.
“I think I hear someone in here,” he says, disappearing into a back room.

I wait nervously outside the bank of windows until he comes back into the living room, readjusting his jacket.

“Did you steal something from in there?” I demand, incredulous at the speed and nonchalance with which he negotiated someone else's house.
“No!” he retorts indignantly, climbing back through the window. “Chale, mija, there's no one there.”

On the way back to the car, he hands me a scrap of paper with an address etched in heavy pencil. It is for another program, another home where he can kick he tells me, but first he has to use the restroom.

We trudge across the grass towards the lights of the carnival. Cinco de Mayo, of course! Everyone will be there, eating pork rind chicarones and elotes – white corn slavered with butter and mayonnaise, dusted with cheese and chile. Families: children on fathers' shoulders, mothers with arms wrapped around husbands' waists; happy, complete families. And then there's us, making our way towards the public restrooms that hunch outside the circle of light and laughter. The grill of the men's side is chained half-closed but there's still space enough for a non-pregnant person to crawl through. In the gloom, I see a kid filling a water balloon at the sink.

“I've messed my pants,” floats Pancho's voice from the stalls. “I'll be a while.”
Heroin has that effect – vomiting, diarrhea – but only when you first use. I wait until the kid leaves.
“Liar!” I shout between the bars, “You're shooting up!”
I want to go in and throw open the stall door, to reveal him in all his deception and iniquity, but there is no way I can squeeze my belly past the grill.
“You want me to show you?” his voice demands.

I turn away. The stench is so bad perhaps he is telling the truth. Then I hear a quiet cough on the other side of the wall. Creeping back to the grill, I see his figure crouched in the shadows, one arm extended into the flickering colored light from the doorway, a needle pushed into his vein.

I hear voices. A woman and a little girl clutching a balloon walk towards me, backlit by the carnival. “The other side!” I wave them away, not caring what they think about this exotic creature resembling a hippo dressed for a church social and gesticulating wildly. They change direction, twisting their heads to stare at me.

“Liar!” I spit back through the grill and fling the slip of paper through the opening. “No me chingues, Pancho! Don’t fuck with me!” I march off as best I can, hampered as I am by heels and bearing our progeny.

“Luisa!” comes the muffled shout, and a few minutes later the sound of running. “You don't have to call me a liar,” he remonstrates from behind. “Did you see a needle in my arm, mija?” he pleads, catching up, “Did you actually see a needle!”
I stop and allow him to come level with me.
“Yes, Francisco, as a matter of fact I did!” and then stalk off in an ungainly fashion towards the car.

His face appears at the window as I am locking my door.
“Reyna, ay! Wait!” His hands grip the roof, his face contorted in pain. “I'm sorry, Reyna, I'm so sorry. It's not me, it's the addiction!”
I wind down the window half way, and he tries to squeeze his arms and head through.
“You're a tecato, Francisco, and always will be!” I slap off the hands that are attempting to massage my shoulders and wind up the window again.
“I know I messed up,” comes his muffled voice, “but I'm going to stay in this home right now.”
I start the engine.
“I would have told you about shooting up. This is just one page, let's turn it.”
I put the car into drive.
“I know I had a golden opportunity and messed up the nice tardecita today.” He is crying now. “It's just, it's been twelve years.”
Through the smeary pane, I study the drawn and shabby man who is my husband.
“No one's ever touched me like you,” he mouths, hands and face pressing white against the window. “You found me, Reyna. Don't let me go away,” his hands slipping and falling as I drive off, his voice fading. “Get me before I go away.”

A White Person's Experience of Racism (because who else's experience counts?)

“Today we are going to discuss cultural diversity,” says the parent trainer, hitching his pants against his crotch. Elvira gets the impression he is nervous. Meanwhile, Moira is rubbing her shoulder, wondering if the baby-sling is doing permanent damage to her shoulder muscles.

“Racism is a system where the white people hold all the power and privilege,” says the trainer. Elvira nods, but is confused. Didn’t he just describe the United States? Is he saying that’s wrong or that’s just how it is. She decides on the latter.

“I am SO tired of feeling guilty about privilege,” says Moira, crossing her legs under her on the chair. Two children later and she still has a body that looks good in tight yoga pants, and a chic bob that brushes against the fine bones of her chin. Elvira is wearing stretch pants that look like they’re being modeled by the Michelin man and her hair is dyed a lurid shade of magenta. Somehow that didn’t matter when she was making breakfast for her children this morning, but suddenly she feels the opposite of confident mother and neighborhood aunt. She should have remembered that these white people always look like they stepped from a magazine. Twenty years in Los Angeles and she still wouldn’t know where to buy their kind of clothes. Perhaps the stores are in the shopping malls Elvira is too intimidated to visit. Her children don’t have the same problem, spending all their money on movies and hot dogs and music that would frighten the devil, but they have never brought her back anything from their Saturday trips to the mall. She doesn’t mind really – the clothes don’t come in her shape anyway.

“I feel like I need to apologize for being born white,” says another participant, arrested for a moment in her consumption of a rice cake. She unscrews the cap of her metal canteen and gulps some water. “It’s not like I asked to be born with privilege and power.” Other participants nod in agreement. Elvira wants to say something, only she’s not sure what. It feels like she is holding onto some information that’s an important part of this discussion, but it takes too long for her to formulate the idea and by the time she’s practiced it in her head in English, the conversation has moved on.

“The thing is,” says the white woman sitting next to Moira, “just because you see the outside doesn’t mean you know my story. I may have been born with privilege, but I had a totally screwed up childhood.” The women around her and the trainer pull a sympathetic face. Elvira thinks about her childhood. Lots of noise, lots of laughter, but not a lot of time for her feelings on any matter, let alone her right to exist, to have an opinion. Some things don’t change. Except the laughter. These white people take themselves much too seriously.

“And when I try to get my child in the car seat,” sobs one of the participants, “I have to struggle with not getting angry and forcing her.” There is a suitably appalled silence. “I want so much to respect her needs and feelings, you know, her right to take up space, but it’s so HARD!”

As usual, the parent training has turned into someone’s private therapy session. Getting your kid into the car seat? Is that all you’ve got to be worried about, thinks Elvira. I wish I had your life.

(Photo by Gerard Castaneda)

Noreen's Birthday Lunch

Glamour is in short supply in Noreen’s life. Her son had briefly been engaged to a French girl but after being brought up on Velveeta cheese he could already foresee problems in the marriage and called it off. Noreen and her husband took a Caribbean cruise when he retired, but he contracted food poisoning on the second day and had to be flown back home. She had kept the brochure and stuffed it guilty behind the sofa cushions if he ever came in while she was gazing at all the destinations and tours they had missed. It wasn’t his fault he was allergic to foreign food and the upsetting of routines. That was Howard, a man of routines.

But today is Noreen’s birthday. She did her research at the local AAA branch in Anaheim and came away with a purse stuffed with ideas that finally solidified around a restaurant in the upscale suburb of San Marino. It was an hour’s drive, but Howard had promised to take her anywhere she liked for lunch, except the Queen Mary because he still had bad associations with ships.

Following the hostess outside to the terrace, Noreen beamed with pleasure. It was just as she had imagined it – white tablecloths, elegant women, and wasn’t that the actress? The one in the commercial for… “Give me a minute and I’ll think of it,” she whispered conspiratorially over the table to Howard. “But she’s big. Chewing gum, I think.”

Howard feigned interest. He was hot and his polo shirt stuck to his back. He had been hoping Noreen would chose lunch at the beach when he’d offered – somewhere casual where he wouldn’t have to tuck in his shirt or wear polished shoes. However, he was a good husband and Noreen’s awed happiness couldn’t fail to affect him. Perhaps he would suggest a chocolaty dessert after lunch, knowing that she’d never order one if he didn’t pretend he was going to share it. Not that her weight watching was doing much good: The whole outing was nearly aborted when she discovered she couldn’t do up the waistband of her skirt. They were only saved because she found a black and pink two-piece she’d bought for the cruise. The large tropical print seemed a little over the top among the sedate diners, but Noreen always did have flair, he’d give her that.

At exactly the same moment, Noreen was also thinking about the tropical flowers, wondering if the famous actress had noticed her matching pink toenails. What a relief she hadn’t let the girl in the salon go for the orange. Famous actresses would probably pick up on details like clashing toenails – after all, it’s part of their job to look glamorous.

Noreen clasped her napkin more tightly in her lap. Isn’t this exactly what she’d dreamed of? Lunching with the jet set of San Marino? She was so happy that everything seemed to hum with her delight. The sprig of fresh mint in her ice tea, the crisp uniforms of the waiters, even her husband’s freshly shaven chin seemed to be reverberating with song. If I could only hold on to this moment, thought Noreen, stuff it in a glass jar and screw the lid on tight, then I would have somewhere to visit when the FedEx man passes my house and the neighbors pile suitcases into a taxi, something to inhale on days when the air conditioning whirrs and I feel like I’m in a terrapinium. But Noreen, despite her frequent flights of fantasy, is at heart a practical woman. She decided to steal a menu and frame it when she got back home. She couldn’t risk the famous actress seeing her steal one of the teaspoons.

Unreasonable Women

Rupert believes himself beset by unreasonable women. The last one pummeled him with her fists, shocking his old-school sensibilities by requiring him to use force to defend himself. Then there was the former girlfriend he visited in Los Angeles who swooped and shrieked, her pashmina extended like a pair of black wings, until he was more than glad to pack her off in his chauffeur-driven car, back to the ghetto she claimed was bohemian but in his eyes was just grotty.

She called him, still furious. “You are attracted to romantics, girls who want to believe the best of people, because they are the only ones who could overlook your behavior. But eventually your manipulation and deviousness show through and they realize they haven’t found a savior, someone to protect them from cruelty and ugliness, but that you embody, make a skill even, of the very cynicism and selfishness they detest. That’s why they leave amid tears and recriminations.”
“Preposterous!”
“You see a hard-headed girl, someone who’s a little more skeptical would immediately see you for who you are and give you a very wide berth. Or maybe they’d be willing to make a deal with the devil, but they’d certainly never LOVE you!”
“I’ve obviously upset you.” This line works well for him. Moral high-ground in the sense of sounding willing to take the blame but actually just accentuating the distance between his high place of moral certitude and the groveling emotional display at hand.

Really, he can’t understand all the fuss. A bottle of vintage champagne had caused the misjudgment of informing her about the women he had been rogering while she was living with him. One of whom was now the mother of his illegitimate child.
“You didn’t use condoms!”
Clearly.
“You might want to play Russian roulette with your life, but you had no right to do that with mine!”
“I had to do something! You were refusing to sleep with me.”
She seemed to consider this, then grabbed her pashmina from the back of the chair and proceeded to prance around in what appeared to be a Red Indian war dance.

He chortled at the memory. Women! Totally unreasonable. It’s the hormones. Nutcases every last one of ‘em.

Neither House nor Home

Bob doesn’t know how it happened. One day they were laughing down at the pub, the next screaming at each other. She got their daughter, he got their cat (but he, of course, pays for both of them.)

There hadn’t been much time to contemplate life, leaving college halfway through his degree to help his father with the house building company. “That’s what we are,” said his father, in his stout Nottingham accent, “Builders of houses – homes – not some swanky developer putting old ladies out on the street or buying up dockland to build yuppie penthouses. Nay, lad. Remember that we are house builders and you won’t go far wrong.” And then he died, leaving the business to his son, who would rather have continued with his English Lit. degree, but there you are. One moment you’re discussing the meaning of life in student digs, the next you are watching your mother dress a corpse in his favorite tie and walking down an allée of doffed hard hats.

Sybil, the cat, is a comfort to Bob. He can come home any hour he chooses, connected as he is to the office via Internet. Often he returns mid-afternoon, picking up Sybil and holding her close to his nose, the soft white fur tickling his nostrils and making him long for human hair, soft hands, a silk wrap…

He doesn’t know how it happened – the Bulgarian women. He misguidedly went on a site that offered, "Meet your ideal match," and instead met Eleonora, and Leila, and Mira, who insist on sending him virtual teddy bears and satin hearts on Facebook. Gemma now, she’s a bit of all right. Boobs like ripe summer fruit and legs up to her armpits, but he doesn’t know how that happened either – South African women posting pictures of themselves in jaunty sailor outfits or in scanty dresses. He supposes there are a billion women out there who consider a 46 year-old property developer (“House builder, lad, house builder”) a good catch. Never mind that he sometimes gets caught up in the mystery that we are the only animals that can contemplate our mortality, that biology has produced Shakespeare and tears and a propensity for sunsets…

He opens his laptop to find “Alexandrina has sent you a kinky gift.” The economy must have dropped another couple of points in Bulgaria. Naturally, a kinky gift warrants a second look, but Bob doesn’t really go for the plucked and oiled curves of pornography. It’s like looking at motorbikes – all sleek molded perfection but cold and hard underneath.

He doesn’t know how it happened, how he became the Master of Kittylitter and the object of affection for skinny Bulgarian women sitting in Soviet era apartments in sunglasses and jeans. “Have my own tool belt,” he types onto the website, wondering if he might snag an English girl if he baits his trap with irony.

A Lover of Beautiful but Unstable Women

“Daddy, you’ve got an email.”
“Hunh?” Michael glances at his laptop, but Tilly has swiveled it to face her at the table.
“Who’s ‘LA Lou’?”
“Oh, just some work thing, probably.” Or one more desperate middle-aged woman, Michael thinks, inexpertly dislodging French toast from the frying pan. I don’t know why I let my friends talk me into it; it’s not as if I’m really in a position to start a new relationship, what with the filming schedule and Tilly at the weekends…
“It says she’s a TV drama en-enthus-iast and would love to meet you when she comes to London.”
“Tilly, don’t you know it’s rude to read other people’s mail?”
Tilly pouts. “I was just practicing my reading,” she says disingenuously. Michael wonders if this is a learned behavior or if her mother has bequeathed her with the dissembling and manipulation gene.
“Okay, eat your breakfast now or you’ll be late for school.”
“Daddy?”
“Yes.”
“Why does she think your glasses are sexy?”

#

“Michael!” The very gorgeous Hazel is leaning over his desk.
“Haze! Sorry, I was miles away.” Actually, with a Vietnamese girl he’d met at Bar Italia. He was buying his breakfast bagel when he’d seen her reflection in the mirror behind the counter dipping a finger into cappuccino foam and licking off the chocolate flecks. I can’t help it, thinks Michael, I am essentially a painter, “Very visual,” then realizes he’s spoken out loud. He jabs at the set designs spread before him. “Very, erm, visually interesting.”
Hazel looks at him quizzically and shifts one hip to perch on his desk. “I don’t think you’ve heard a single word I’ve said. What’s the matter? Is it Nadja? Is she being difficult about Tilly again?”
Nadja is Michael’s ex-wife. A beautiful but unstable actress. I am a lover of beautiful but unstable women, thinks Michael, noting the exquisite landscape of flesh down the back of Hazel’s jeans. God, a black lace thong. Too bad she’s much too together to be his type.
“Ahem! I’m not your type, Michael.”
He refocuses guiltily on her face. Is she a mind reader?
Smiling, she shakes her head. “You men are so predictable.”
“Sadly, we are at the mercy of our hormones. But I’ve sworn off women, remember?”
“What about that Chinese girl I saw you with this morning?”
“Vietnamese, actually. Nice girl. A dancer.”
Hazel raises both eyebrows. “What she do? Give you a card with her number and a discount on a lap dance?”
“How d’you know?”
“About the discount?”
“About what kind of dancer she was.”
“Because this is Soho, Michael! You really are a disaster when it comes to women.”
“I thought she looked vulnerable.”
“That’s the trouble with you – you romanticize women. You have to learn that we’re just the same as you only without, you know, that thing.” She gestures towards his crotch. He crosses his legs protectively. “What you need is to meet a nice woman, an equal. Someone who can be a real partner.”
Michael thinks about all the unanswered emails from nice women on the dating website. I’m just too much of a romantic, he thinks. There’s something so prosaic about hanging out your shingle and matching yourself to someone else’s religion, hobbies, retirement plans…
Especially as he never plans to retire.

#

The soccer match is on full blast, Michael sprawled on the couch in a dirty T-shirt and sweat pants that have seen better days. At first when the doorbell rings he doesn’t hear it, the shrill sound indistinguishable from the whistles and the roars of the football crowd. Now in a lull he hears the insistent buzzing and jumps up, spilling the packet of pretzels. Damn! Who can it be? He runs a hand through his hair which only succeeds in making it stand more on end. Pulling the drawstring tighter around his belly, he staggers to the door. A female shape stands behind the rippled glass.
“Good afternoon. I’m sorry to disturb you, but I’m with the South Downs Flora Defense Fund. I wonder if you will join us in the fight to protect native species by banning the planting of non-native flora,” she says, proffering a clipboard of soggy signatures.
She is young, perhaps late twenties, her long black hair weighted by the misting rain and sticking in strands to her face. Tiny drops of moisture bead her eyebrows, her eyelashes, her lips, and he has a sudden impulse to kiss them away. He checks out the long, rain-darkened legs of her jeans, which are stuffed into clumsy Eskimo boots. She’s staring up at him with a rapt expression.
“You’re Michael Bessinger, aren’t you? I was a film student at Brighton and Hove College before I left to work for SDFDF. You came to lecture us on TV drama?”
“Yes, come on in! You’re getting soaked,” he says, realizing now why he recognizes her. Another beautiful but unstable woman.

Must Have Own Canoe

Peter shifts the newspaper off the small dining table. Right! No good putting off the evil hour. He opens the laptop, catching his reflection in the screen. Not bad, really, for fifty-seven. His wife had hated the cropped hair – said it made him look like a thug – but the woman had run off with a bloody property developer who dresses in open-neck shirts and loafers: So much for her taste!

He angles the computer screen to get rid of irritating reflections. Nothing really feels right in this flat. He keeps banging his head on kitchen cupboards and striking his elbow on the shower walls. But no use moping around. Better get down to business.

“Seeking woman not afraid to get her hair wet,” he writes. Clarissa never understood his wanderlust, was more the sort of hotel-with-a-beach kind of girl, whereas he wanted to trek the Himalayas. Nothing to stop him now! He types energetically, trying to put the image out of his head of Clarissa and her tanned Lothario sipping gin and tonics on a sun-baked terrace. After paying off a mortgage and putting the kids through uni Peter couldn’t compete with a villa in Ibiza and a thirty-foot yacht.

“Someone for the weekends – a ‘cupboard girlfriend’,” he writes, wondering if that looks odd. It’s what he said to his daughter Gemma when there was that unfortunate business with the married man. Clarissa was all for having a first grandchild but, “You can’t just put a child in the cupboard when you’re tired of it,” he warned Gemma. Turns out Nature knew best in that instance; not that Clarissa didn’t get her grandchildren eventually. He smiles remembering the holiday cottage in Cornwall, all three grandchildren jumping on their bed in the morning. He doesn’t realize it, but a tear is rolling down his cheek. How do you fit a girlfriend into that scenario? How do you repair a life torn down the middle? “Buck up, old chap!” he says aloud. Getting maudlin. Life’s an adventure, carpe diem!

Weekdays he doesn’t have much use for company. When he finally looks up from his accounting clients there’s usually only time to rush down to the little Thai place before they close and order something from the sweet-smiling waitress. Other chaps might ask her out, but Peter would say an English girl is more reliable. “Decent and loyal,” he types. Someone with blond hair called ‘Ginny’ or ‘Sarah,’ who reads the Guardian and knows how to fix a Pimm’s.

Trouble is, even with a weekend-only partner it’s going to be difficult bringing anyone back to the flat. The sitting room’s all right, furnished with a few odds and ends from the house, and Emily came to help her dad hang curtains, but the bedroom’s a bloody disaster. “I suppose he’s got his canoe in there with him,” Clarissa is reported to have said, which is a typical exaggeration but the limited space around the bed is jammed with a sleeping bag, rolled-up tent and two backpacks.

He uploads a picture of himself in a furry hat among a group of smiling Sherpas. That should give a girl the right idea. He hears his wife’s brittle laughter. “I could be better at expressing my emotions and saying what I am feeling,” he adds, in the interest of full disclosure; “Can worry about unimportant stuff.” Like the roses he’d tended for twenty-five years. Would the new owners of the house know to cut them back before winter? “Divorced eighteen months ago,” he finishes up. “Hurt very much at the time, but over it now.”

The Philosopher

Milky light bathes the bookshelves. It is late afternoon and the French windows opening onto the garden are drafty with birdsong. The vapors of varnished floorboards have not yet been displaced by the plump sap of summer. Philip smoothes the page of a book, words hopping like fleas around his fingers. He should get up and close the windows, pour himself a Scotch, but the peace is too precious. Poets and philosophers circle him, waiting for him to surrender into their ashen arms but something tick, tick, ticks inside of him. Is it his wind-blown heart or is it the hope that standing on illustrious shoulders he will finally see over the wall of random living to enlightenment? He shivers and closes the book, wishing that tonight he could be a lover of women, not wisdom.

Lonely Heart

Billy Braithwaite tucks his scarf into his coat. Bloody parky waiting for the bus on this street corner! The wind whips round the chip shop and carries with it the snow on the moors, salt ‘n vinegar crisp packets, a sniff of something curried.

He wouldn’t normally be going to the shopping centre in this weather if he could help it, but the website says it will ‘increase his chances’ of being selected. Billy finds it hard to imagine that his image will inspire passion. He thinks of blond secretaries in London or ‘fit bits’ who frequent the local pubs and can’t believe that his unruly hair and Yorkshire wind stippled complexion will inspire love, but he’s doing it for Her - the one who will see through the black and white photos of design consultants and the heavy spectacle frames of the arty types and rest on him, an honest man, “Because I'm a warm, caring sensitive soul who will give everything to the right person.” He worked hard on that line. Surely she will see. He is willing to give his everything. No games. Surely that means something.

Life is not a dress rehearsal, he mutters, once he positions himself in the photo booth. Momentarily, he wonders if he should undo his scarf. No, he thinks, leave it as it is. This is no rehearsal, this is the take.

(Photo used with permission www.photo-zen.com)

The Honorary Jew

“Goldberg? Ms. Goldberg?”
“Er, my name’s Godbold. Are you calling me?”
“Right this way, Ms. Goldberg. Now if you’d just take a seat I’ll pull up your medical record.”
“God-bold. My name’s Godbold.”
“Now let me see, Goldstein, Goldsmith, we don’t have a 'Goldberg, Louise.'”
“That’s because my name isn’t Goldberg.”
“I’m sorry, I just glanced at it briefly. Let’s see, Goldbold.”
“Actually, it’s God, Godbold.” I attempt a smile, “Can’t confuse God with gold,” (at least, not if you’ve been listening to the series on idolatry at my church.)
“Uh-huh.” She doesn’t look convinced. Perhaps she’s set up an altar to a golden calf in the staff lounge.
“The name means, ‘good and brave.’”
“Oh, you’ve done that genial-ology thing?”
“Er, no.”
“Your family told you?” she asks suspiciously, perhaps thinking they’d got it wrong and it was Goldberg all along.
“Yes. My family has lived in Britain since about the year five hundred.”
“Ah, they went through the Holocaust and all that?”
“No, we’re Anglo-Saxon!”
“Oh, sorry, I thought you said you were Jewish. So, Ms. Goldbold, what is the reason for your visit today?”
“Regular check up.”
“Okay.” She types something into the computer. “And what is your first language?”

The Sleep Consultant

“I’m looking for a twin bed,” I say, hesitating in the doorway, “… for my son,” I add, not wanting to signal ‘Given Up On Relationships’ (which my flat shoes and lack of make-up probably already have).

Before me stretch acres of showroom, empty except for the salesman who is bounding towards me in a lurid tie. I must be the only person who makes big-ticket purchases three days before Black Friday – but my error doesn’t hit me until later.

“We have these three models,” he gestures to the beds immediately in front of me, “and then there’s our own brand,” he says, pointing to a Papa, Mama and Baby Bear set up. He notes the look of confusion on my face that is introduced every time I have to make purchasing decisions. I hate shopping. I hate even more the decision-making process, which will ultimately result in a sleepless night wondering if I made the right choice. “Why don’t you try them?” he hints, like a kindergarten teacher giving gentle cues. I tentatively sit on the first bed. “No, you can’t test a bed that way,” he says, sounding a mite less patient but still smiling, “You have to lie down.”

Now I know that extras in Sit ‘n Sleep commercials do it all the time, the woman lying down in her high-heels and matching purse and the husband turning towards her, smiling and nodding as if it’s the most natural thing in the world to be replicating your moments of greatest privacy for the viewing public. But I’m all alone and the salesman is hovering over the end of the bed like a mad scientist getting ready to fit me with electrodes. “Very comfortable,” I say primly from my reclining position and spring back to my feet.
“But does he sleep on his back, or does he sleep on his side or his tummy?” the salesman asks, exasperated by my unwillingness to play the extra game.
“His side,” I admit warily, unready to assume the fetal position in a vast showroom like a babe burrowing under the dry leaves of the proverbial woods. He senses my hesitation.
“Well, I’ll leave you to try them out!” he says, plastering back the smile. “My name’s Douglas, Doug, and I’ll be right over there.” He points to a desk at the side of the showroom as if I’m a child who needs to be reassured. But wait! I’m about to be left floundering in a sea of beds with no discernible difference between them, and only unintelligible signs declaring things like ‘Hb&F extra’ to guide me.
“But what about all the other beds?” I ask, gesturing to the pillow tops stretching to the horizon.
“Oh, I showed you the three cheapest ones,” says Doug. “They get more expensive as you go further back in the showroom.”
“Well, you sure pegged my demographic quickly,” I joke.
“I’m a salesman, it’s what we do,” he says proudly.
I am suddenly incensed that a balding man with a badge that says ‘Sleep Consultant’ and a fat tie with the photograph of two children on it (probably not even his own) should have written me off so quickly.
“I come from a very wealthy family in England, you know!” It’s out of my mouth before I can stop myself. (A lie, but being the ancestral kings of Suffolk has to count for something.)
“And I’m a neurosurgeon,” he says with a straight face.
“Really?” Times are hard.
“No.”

I whip out my credit card. “I’ll take the most expensive of the three you showed me.” (It’s my mother’s money anyway. Compared to my own finances, I wasn’t lying about my family’s wealth.)

I leave the showroom a chastened woman. All my years in social programs, working hard to dispel the impression of being the privileged white woman, I’ve obviously become too good at it! But the saddest thing is that somewhere deep in my European psyche I believed that ‘good breeding will always show,’ that I can dress in clothes from discount stores and still retain an aura of ‘genteel poverty.’ Oh, how we deceive ourselves. Dissed by Doug the Sleep Consultant.


© 2009 Louise Godbold

Rattlesnake Red

“Hungry, homeless, please help.” The crumpled cardboard sign belongs to a grizzled black man sitting on the post office steps. He’s been hungry and homeless for at least the fifteen years I’ve known him.

“Hello, my old friend!” I greet him, not knowing whether he’ll recognize me and certain that he won’t recognize my son.
“Is this…?” He asks, incredulous, smiling at Josh. Yes, the young man who towers over me is the baby I used to cart around in a car seat.

“You haven’t changed at all!” the homeless man tells me. A lie that my hairdresser and bright lighting could dispel. I wish I could say the same for him. His black hair is now tiny whorls of white, emphasizing the caramel color of his eyes and skin. Once upon a time he used to stop me outside Rite Aid and ask for money. My answer was always the same:
“I won’t give you money, but if you’re hungry I’ll buy you something to eat. Or maybe you’d like something to drink?”
He would ask for soda – Dr. Pepper’s – and sometimes a snack can of tuna with crackers.

As the years went by, Rite Aid changed hands and I migrated to other stores, but I would always see him pan-handling outside the post office, or standing in the middle of the street turning his smile on the drivers of cars stopped at the lights. In the last couple of years, I’ve noticed the genial demeanor has been replaced by drunken confusion, watched him staggering in the street and in danger of being sucked under by the passing cars. The last time I saw him, he was sitting on the pedestrian island in the middle of six lanes of traffic, cup extended but eyes unfocused. “He’s so out of it,” I remarked to Josh. “Poor old guy. He’s just getting worse and worse.”

Fortunately, today is a lucid day. “This is just until I get my retirement in November,” he tells me, nodding at the sign and cup perched on the steps. “I worked twenty years for the railroad – Southern Pacific.”
“Will you stay here?” I ask, meaning Los Angeles, but he interprets the question differently.
“Oh yes, otherwise how would I see all my friends? Not that,” he says, nodding again at the sign, "The people who talk to me, who give me a little bit of their heart.” He clasps a hand over his chest. “That means more to me than the money.” Suddenly his eyes brighten and he mimes holding a steering wheel. “When I get my retirement, I’ll take you in my limo to Hollywood and we’ll get us some Chinese food.” He looks at Josh. “You like Chinese food?”

We marvel about how long we’ve known each other – so long that I was hugely pregnant with Josh when we first met. “And my mother. Did you meet my mother?” (Her presence was a fixture of Josh’s early years and almost grounds for a divorce according to my father.)
“Yes, I remember your mother. Tell her Rattlesnake Red says hello.”

For a moment, I picture my mum among the rain and cow parsley of Normandy, her neat clothes and the tea trays lined with lace cloths, and cannot imagine a less likely pair of acquaintances.
“Yes, we will,” I say, glad that I at least now know his name.

When we get in the car Josh asks, “What kind of name is Rattlesnake Red?”
“I don’t know. Sounds like a poker player to me.”
Josh is quiet for a while.
“I wonder where he sleeps at night.”
We ponder this in silence. Finally Josh says, “Do you think he’ll still be there in ten years time? When I’m in the police force, I want to get to know the community like that.”
The community of the homeless and substance abusers. The ones the police usually move on or hassle because they make the neighborhood unsightly. Good for you, Josh, good for you. Rattlesnake Red must be a fairy godfather who gifted you with compassion at birth.


© Louise Godbold

Sunday update

For those of you who didn't make it to the service tonight...

The Word was brought by Dib and her husband, Ellen (they're Australian), who revealed many things I hadn't known before, such as, the kingdom of heaven is like a knit and that Jesus went around healing lippers.

I got into a bit of trouble over dinner when I was questioned by one of the guests - an elderly lady dressed in hat, pearls and a white frilly dress.
"I overheard that you're a writer. What is the name of your book?"
I hadn't foreseen situations like this when my agent suggested the current title.
"Ahem. Our Lady of the Condoms."
Fortunately, it appears the old lady was deaf.
"Have you spent much time in the Congo, dear?"


© Louise Godbold

Saint Louise

Sunday is the feast day of Saint Louise - patron saint of disappointing children and people rejected by religious orders. Well that would explain a few things!

Harry and His Friends

"Do you have a seat?” asks the usher.
“Well, actually I was looking for someone who looked all alone to sit next to them,” I reply, feeling virtuous. Also, because for the month or so that I’ve been attending this church, many times I have sat with empty seats beside me feeling conspicuously alone. Previously that would have provoked a complaint that the church is unfriendly, except that a couple of Sundays ago – when I was still trying to get used to the fact that I was once again surrounded by Christians as an unfortunate by-product of having had a real and powerful experience of God in this place – a geeky looking man started to talk to me and I ignored him completely. “I don’t want you,” I said angrily in my head, “I want God. So leave me alone!” When visitors raised their hands, of course, he was one of them. And when the sermon was about being a church that was generous with our smiles as well as our money, the message finally sank in: I am the church. The fact that I’m sitting in these pews means to this man beside me and anyone else who walks in here, I am the church. If I want a friendly church, I have to be friendly. If I want a church that sees the people who are alone and sits next to them, it starts with me.

I am not feeling nearly so virtuous when I find myself placed next to an old lady in a wheelchair sitting alone in the back row. “The usher says you speak English and Spanish,” I try gamely. She answers something in a feeble old lady voice. “Are you Latina?” I ask. She says something and looks to me for a response. Heck, I don’t understand a word she’s saying. “Okay,” I improvise, tucking the blanket closer around her, although for all I know she may have asked me to take it off.
“Do you have any money?” I understood that. Please don’t tell me this sweet old lady it hitting me up for cash!
“Only for the collection,” I say with forced joviality.
“I wish I could help you dear, but I don’t have any money.” The poor old soul is confused. Or perhaps not as confused as I think. I am currently living on a loan from my mother and I really don’t have any money. Maybe she’s perfectly lucid and as frustrated as I am at our inability to communicate. We both resume watching the preparations at the front of the church for a service that is taking WAY too long to start. Groups of attractive young people gather and re-form. There is much greeting and smiling and tossing of long blond hair. Why are so many of the women blond? For that matter, why does the whole church look like they spent last night at the Emmy awards?
I hear the reedy voice: “Where are you from?”
“England.” No recognition. “United Kingdom? Great Britain.” Now she looks confused. Can a person be from three places?
“You speak very good English,” she says, kindly.

A wheelchair is parked on the other side of the old lady. A completely bald man sits hunched over, his head twisted in my direction. He wears thick glasses and has slack, rubbery lips, but somehow this endears me to him. One hand rests on his bald pate, moving slowly back and forth as if asking himself how he came to be in this wheelchair, unable to raise his head.
“Hello,” says the abuela.
“Hello,” he manages through thick lips, appearing to smile. I like it that the old lady has given up on me and is concentrating on welcoming her peers.

Finally, the lights dim and the music starts. Now don’t get me wrong, I think it’s wonderful that there are so many talented musicians in the church, that gifted technicians work to produce lighting and sound worthy of a professional concert. The kids (that is, anyone under forty) love it, and I can’t wait for the day my own son throws off his agnosticism and is blown away by rap music in church. But I have to say I find it hard to worship God when I can’t hear the sound of my own singing, when I don’t know the songs, when, just as I think I’ve got it down, there is a guitar solo and I’m left mouthing words when no one else is. I hate clapping along – it makes me feel like I’m at a children’s party watching a tired entertainer bend balloons, or on a cruise ship listening to an out-of-tune dance band and trying not to notice the people leaning over the side. So there I am, feeling all bristly and superior, when I notice that the guy in the wheelchair has twisted his head some more to see the monitor and is singing along to the rap music and, with just about the only mobility afforded to him, is clapping his hands.

I remember last Sunday when I was going through a similar oh-no-here-comes-the-loud-music moment, watching another old guy grab onto the back of the chair in front of him and pull himself up. The liver spots on his bald head reminded me of my granddad. He turned to me, clapping his bony hands, with a big smile on his face that said, “Come on; let’s worship God!” I bet the old guy in the wheelchair today would love to spring to his feet if he could. I bet the old lady would love to clap her hands if they didn’t tremble ineffectually under her blanket. How can I not stand up and lift my hands to God, if this dear old man makes such effort to follow the words of songs that are as new to him as they are to me? I’m sure we’d both prefer Amazing Grace, but there you are. And when the music veers off into the inevitable solo, the man in the wheelchair continues to clap, undeterred.

A helper comes to retrieve the wheelchairs at the end of service. He squeezes the old guy's shoulders, hard, the bent body jerking into an upright position under the attack. The helper is behind him and can’t see the old guy’s face. To me, it looks as if he’s in pain – the rictus of his mouth certainly doesn’t suggest he’s enjoying it.
“What is this gentleman’s name?” I ask the helper.
“Harry.”
“Harry,” I say, bending down beside him, “I just want to tell you how much you ministered to me. Clapping along,” I add, feebly. What I want to say is, How much you ministered to me by praising God when you’re stuck in that body, not able to do anything for yourself. He takes a while to process why his clapping would cause this tearful middle-aged woman to crouch at his side. He grasps my hand more tightly and pulls me closer into the collapse of head and shoulders.
“I was a Baptist,” he’s saying, “but forty years ago when I came to a Pentecostal church I came alive.” Indeed you did, Harry. More alive than me, that’s for sure.
An usher offers the old lady a lollipop. She looks at him suspiciously.
“I don’t have any money.”


Copyright © 2008 Louise Godbold

Passing the Sniff Test

Her email address reads: Penelope Davis, Ph.D. This may be the first clue that my future boss may be a little hung up on appearances. Other information was not forthcoming, despite a series of increasingly urgent emails. This is how I end up sitting in Starbucks one hour before the client interview, during which I am to represent myself as the Project Manager for a project about which I am remarkably vague. But $40K a year is no small incentive, especially as I’m seriously unemployed right now.

Twenty minutes later, a tall white woman comes through the doors talking animatedly into her Blackberry. She stops two feet away and despite my smile, continues to stare into the middle-distance: “No, just include it in the proposal with the other… I know, but we have to get this out today. I’ll see when I’m back in the office… Okay, bye.”
“Penelope?” She turns to me blankly, as if surprised that the only other white woman in the place should turn out to be the Program Evaluator from England.
“I need to use the restroom,” she says, pivoting on her four-inch heels.

I have to admit to feeling a little pissed off. Terribly busy people think that being terribly busy is a legitimate excuse for inconveniencing other people who obviously have less busy and therefore less-important lives.

A flash of shiny magenta blouse crosses my vision as Penelope plops down in the armchair opposite. She pauses, looking quizzically at my face, then proffers her hand. “Penelope Davis. Pleased to meet you.” I shake the outstretched hand and then wait as she rearranges her Jimmy Choo purse on the table in front of us. I know it’s Jimmy Choo because each corner has a large, shiny gold hinge emblazoned with “Jimmy Choo.” I guess the ostentatious bag serves the same purpose as the email address – lest we forget.

There is now only twenty minutes before we have to leave for the client’s office, so I start straight in with my questions: Why no parent measures?
“Well, the program is not for high-risk youth, so we wouldn’t expect behavior changes,” she answers, with the tight smile of someone who’s just been asked to deposit money into an account in Nigeria. “It’s what we call high cost, low yield data.”
“But as a parent,” I go on, refusing to be intimidated by the academic bling, “I know that any changes in my child, I’m going to notice them first. Besides, with only the staff and students as data sources, don’t we need to triangulate?” Hah! Stuff that in your Jimmy Choo!

Penelope puts her arms into her black jacket – a signal we need to leave? Preparation for a showdown? Does she have the tasseled mortarboard to match? She appears to be wearing the star from the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree on her jacket, or maybe it’s a hi-tech device that is even now broadcasting live to the American Evaluation Association, offering further evidence of my attempts to bring the profession into disrepute. “We’ll also be using a standard assessment tool,” she fixes me with that same cold smile, tapping her finger on the proposal document. “We have 17 research assistants we can send out to the sites.”

Seventeen research assistants? This is definitely the time to ask. “Your partner said forty thousand dollars when he first spoke to me. Am I still in the budget for the same amount?”
“Ah, yes. That’s something else we changed. You’re now in for thirty thousand.” She registers the flinch. “If that’s okay.”

But we don’t really have time to discuss whether I can coordinate this project (including the legion of research assistants) on only five hours a week, because it’s time to set off for the interview. Circling the client’s building, I wish I had paid more attention to the parking instructions. The entrance to the underground parking proclaims, “Only for the clients of the Curacao supermarket.”

I am expelled from the elevator directly into the office, in full view of the people assembled in the conference room to my right. Dr. Davis turns her head without disturbing a single perfect strand of her orange Cleopatra haircut. “I thought I was in the wrong place!” I exclaim, dumping my pile of papers on the table, “Solamente para los clientes de Curacao!” A handsome Latino man at the table looks up and smiles when he hears the Spanish. Dr. Davis seems to be suffering from indigestion. Recovering, she launches into the pitch:

“We have conducted many multi-site evaluations, including a National Youth Survey,” she says, lowering her lashes in false modesty, “and can help you achieve model program status.” Hang on! We don’t know this program warrants model program status. In fact, we know nothing at all beyond the opinion of a District Supervisor, who told Penelope the program is "good." The previous evaluation only proved that while the kids remained in the program they were kept off the streets. Amusement arcades do the same thing. But after being asked exactly how many after-school programs she has evaluated, Penelope turns to me.

“People work in social programs because they believe with all their heart and soul they are making a difference… Well, it’s certainly not for the pay!” This raises a laugh. “So I ask the staff what tells them there is a change – even if it’s a smile on a kid’s face – and help them to measure that change. I don’t believe in the approach of some academics who come in with a whole bunch of assumptions and then try to impose their framework of outcomes and measures to prove some theory, and completely miss what’s really going on. I’m not interested in publishing, I’m interested in making programs the best they can be.” The Latino man, who turns out to be the Program Director, nods his head. Penelope has become red in the face.

“Of course, we’re not going to make Louise do anything she doesn’t like,” her smile oozes like mango sorbet around the room – sweet and chilly, “That’s why we’re here! I’m not an academic, I’m a clinical psychologist, so I don’t need to publish, but,” she continues in a hushed, serious tone, “to become a model program the evaluation has to be published in a peer-reviewed journal and” she looks hard at me “we have to use standard instruments in order to pass the sniff test.” Which I apparently don’t.

I spend the rest of the hour kicking myself for pitching the project all wrong, then resenting the fact that Mrs. Choo had not taken the time to prepare me. When it’s all over, the Program Director and I drop into easy conversation on our way to the door. “So you work in South Gate and Huntington Park? They’re my old stomping grounds,” I tell him.
“Yeah, we’re doing some really exciting work, organizing the parents and families.” I look at him, astounded.
“Why didn’t we talk about this during the meeting?”
“Oh that? That was just data,” he says, confirming that there are things Dr. Davis and her standard instruments will never find out.

As the elevator door closes over Penelope’s face (which still maintains the professional expressionlessness of the clinical psychologist, but only just), I am left wondering if I could ever have worked under this Over Achiever who is philosophically at the opposite end of the spectrum when it comes to evaluation… and fashion accessories. Then I wonder if I’m not interested in publishing after all: Godbold, L. A. (July 2008). Passing the Sniff Test: A Case Study on How Not to Win Evaluation Contracts.

Top 10 Favorite Signs In My Neighborhood

1) Served in a hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant: Homlet. If you retranslated it back to French, would it mean "little man?" 2) Coming onto my son's school campus: Drive slow. I wonder if the class on adjectives and adverbs is next semester? 3) Painted on the Amtrak platform: Stand in back of the line. What happened to the perfectly good word "behind?" Was it considered too rude? 4) The name of an Armenian coffee shop: Ancient Grounds. How appetizing! 5) The name of a Cambodian bar: Little Joy. A place to cry in your beer. 6) Elvis dress shop. Elvi really should punctuate or she'll perpetuate the myth he's still alive. 7) Outside La Parrilla restaurant: A real Mexican kitchen. That has many scratching their head, but it's the literal translation of the French word "cuisine." 8) On the left rear bumper of a laborer's truck: Passing side. On the right: Suiside. 9) Legal Bookstore. What would the illegal one sell? 10) Outside the library: Literacy class ->

Well Woman

"What drugs you take?"
"Pardon?"
"What drugs. You take."
I am being cross-examined by the Kaiser nursing assistant who somehow skipped the role-play class where you learn to be empathetic to your client's need for privacy and tact.
“Smoke?”
“No.”
“Drink?”
“Yes.” I allow myself a little defiance, despite the “JESUS LOVES ME” in chunky letters around her neck.
“One drink a day,” she concludes and makes a note. How did she arrive at that? Is it because my hands are not shaking and my lipstick smudged? For all she knows, I’m hiding empty bottles down the back of the sofa.
"Sex?"
"Er, female?"
"No. You have sex?"
"Every now and then."
"Men?"
No, sheep and pigs, is what I want to say, but I don't think my humor will translate well into Armenian.
"You put on gown, opening to the front." With that she disappears and I am left to wonder how to fasten the gown without strangling myself or cross-hatching my breasts whilst doing nothing to cover them.

The well-woman check-up is something I dread. It's not the physical discomfort (although I'm not a fan of the part when they sandwich your breast between two waffle irons), but the loss of dignity. And no one knows how to do that better than Kaiser.

"Next!" It's time for my mammogram. Holding the sides of my gown across my chest, I walk jauntily into the room. Got to put on a brave front, so to speak. The technician looks at my chest from under lowered brows, then without a word snaps the current plastic tray out of the machine to replace it with something that looks like it was made to hold earrings. Okay, I know I'm not well-endowed, but no need to make a big production out of it.

Back in the waiting room, I bond with the other señoras clutching gowns. "Ella esta muy mala," glares one of them at the technician who has just emerged from the room. The technician glares back. I leave as the señora is ushered away, grateful that I will be spared her screams.