Roots

With spring break on the horizon, all the students and faculty at Med U were abuzz with plans for the holiday. As usual, there is an overlap of Passover and Easter during the week break. Growing up in such a melting pot of a county, people often simply wish others a happy “break” or happy “holiday.” This year, however, I was asked more than a handful of times, “What are you doing for Passover?” I always respond the same way: smile, and say, “Well, I’m not Jewish…but I am having seder with my best friend Jo M..” In a twist of irony, I, the Catholic girl, have a German last name, which people always equate with Judaism. My best friend, meanwhile, who is Jewish, has a name “as Irish as Patty’s Pig”, as my own Irish nana would say. When I offer this information, my acquaintances assume confused expressions and then inquire about my heritage, seemingly very flustered that my name did not confirm their assumptions.

When I’m not being asked about my religion, I often get other questions about my background. Where I grew up, many of my friends were of one, or two country backgrounds, or so they thought. Usually Irish, or Italian, or some combination of the two. Now that I am in medical school, which is like a mini United Nations, I have the privilege of collaborating with people of so many diverse backgrounds. Many, if not most of my classmates are first generation Americans, if not immigrants themselves. It may be my own projections or insecurities, but when I answer that my background is diluted and muddled, and I really don’t have any cultural connection, I often feel that my classmates seem bored, or pity me for not having culture.

Inspired by a recent television series about tracing one’s ancestry, I decided to delve into my family’s tree, and try to find meaning in my heritage. While researching my ancestry for the first time, in the third grade, I discovered that I was German, Danish, Dutch, English, and Irish. What a mouthful! Later, I got another window into my ancient past when my mother got her DNA tested. As a high school science teacher, my mom takes her class annually to a world renowned research center to do experiments with DNA. One project is to use mitochondrial DNA to trace the maternal ancestral line. The information is then compared to a giant world DNA bank, and you can see where your ancestors arose. My maternal line was 98% Scandinavian, and 2% Transylvanian (cool!). But what I was to make of it? It’s not like I knew of any recent immigrants in my family. This information did not justify having St. Lucia celebrations, or lacquering my nails with Chanel Vamp; it was simply an empty fact.

I then decided to go back and check out the little report I did as an eight year old. A history of the eight great grandparents. Of the eight, only one was an immigrant—from Germany. The rest had random situations—a couple orphans, a daughter of a wealthy businessman, son of a tailor, daughter of a dressmaker, etc. (I was quite pleased to see so many fashion people in the family!) But one thing all my ancestors had in common was New York City. Piecing it together now is fascinating to me. Both my mother and father’s ancestors grew up all over my favorite parts of the city. My father was born as the seventh generation in a brownstone in what used to be a Scandinavian neighborhood in Brooklyn. Seventh generation! In the same brownstone in Brooklyn. It blew my mind. (And made me wish that house was still in the family—Park Slope is pretty nice these days!) My mother’s great grandparents were wealthy people whose family roots lay in Manhattan’s earliest beginnings. For as far back as I could trace, my family were New Yorkers, through and through.

My muddled mix of German, Danish, Dutch, English, Irish, Scandinavian, and Transylvanian, is really a reflection of the melting pot that makes up our beloved city. And I have found meaning in my heritage, and can proudly proclaim that my heritage is simply, and wonderfully, New York.

Royal Flush

The most interesting thing about vitamins to me is that British people pronounce the word vee-tamins. That’s the extent of my interest in those Easter-colored pills. To be fair, my opinion was not always this obsolete, and is just the result of two separate tries to hop on the vitamin bandwagon, both during my senior year of high school. My first go was an attempt to aid the incredible fatigue I had developed, and I assumed my lack of energy could be treated with more B 12s, Cs, calcium, and such. Swallowing one horse pill after the next did nothing except turn my pee neon yellow, and I learned from my doctor that my exhaustion was not exhaustion as much as mono. That’s senior year for you! My next try at regular vitamin intake came a few months later when I started packing on a few pounds, felt sluggish, and was ultimately asked if I was pregnant by my close friend. Desperate measures needed to be taken. Turns out, I wasn’t with child but I did have IBS, the most awkward syndrome a teenage girl, or any person for that matter, can get—irritable bowel syndrome. “Just a little backed up today. No big deal, just my bowel getting irritable again.” Awkward.

Needless to say, I was less than enthralled when my mom told me her doctor prescribed her vitamins to lower her cholesterol. “Can you believe it? Vitamins! Who prescribes vitamins before medication? Everyone I tell is amazed that a doctor would explore vitamins before jumping to Lipator! It’s really amazing. She’s so holistic! I love it.” My mom was won over and couldn’t be more thrilled to be under doctor’s orders. I, on the other hand, thought it sounded like a fairly inefficient way to manage her cholesterol and wasn’t really sure how increased doses of this nutrient and that nutrient would perform the magic the doctor promised. But who am I to squelch my mom’s boundless joy? It’s not how I roll. I ooh-ed and ahh-ed told her she was lucky to have such an open-minded internist.

That’s just like my mom though, to jump on the Titanic faster than she can notice or ask, “Why are people throwing life preservers overboard?” It’s that loose grip she keeps on her own opinions that makes her easily swayed by others but that also allows her to take risks, entertain different points of view, and enjoy the ride. Being around her is a treat, and so there was nowhere I wanted to be more than with her last weekend while Curtis was at a fishing club dinner.

My mom and I went on our regular date—Target for mindless strolling, a drink at a local wine bar, and then a movie to finish off the evening. The wine bar suited our moods and allowed us to fritter away some time trying new wines and doing nothing but catch up about her trip to Rome, my search for a co-op, and our excitement that I was sleeping over. Curtis’ dinner was an all night affair, and so my mom and I knew we’d pick him up somewhere in the wee hours of morning and why not try to stretch out the mommy and me date.

Yes, Curtis could have taken a cab home from town to my mom’s house, but what fun would that be? My mom raised my sister and me with the idea that midnight adventures are a necessary part of a life well lived. Growing up, we three would venture out to go food shopping or simply get ice cream as the clock neared twelve. Our midnight adventures, taken while the rest of the world seemed to be fast asleep, were stolen moments that I’ll always treasure. And I thought last Saturday would be no different. From wine bar to film night, the evening was going as planned, and we were both incredibly content to bundle up, crank up the heat, and pass out on the L shaped couch and miss the movie. Pretty standard.

A few heat induced comas later, Curtis called to alert the troops and tell us he was all ready to be rounded up and taken home—the night was young but he is not so much anymore. My mom stirred from her slumber in a stupor and I said, “Mom, you really don’t need to come with me. Stay here, it’s fine!”

“No, no. I’m coming. Ugh, I’m so warm though! I’m roasting! Are you warm? Is it hot in here?”

And just when I was about to ignore her complaints, I looked at her and said, “Whoa, mom, you’re burning up! That’s what you get for swaddling yourself in a quilt and burrowing yourself into the couch! You marinated and then cooked yourself!” As per usual, we both laughed, thought a midnight adventure would do her good, and then scuttled into the car.

On the way downtown, my mom cracked her window to let in the biting winter cold, and started fanning her face. “Mom, are you alright?” I asked, growing slightly concerned that my mother, who collects Social Security, was experiencing a hot flash.

“I’m fine. Just a little hot. Is it hot in here? Are you warm at all?” she asked while tugging at her turtleneck.

“No, I’m fine, mom. I’m not the one who cooked myself at 350 degrees for sixty minutes!”

We couldn’t stop laughing, probably due to delirium from being out in the middle of the night and sweating off the Greek wine we drank earlier that day. In any case, Curtis was pleased to see us drive up and eagerly ducked into the backseat, ready to go home and collapse. A night of hibachi, beer, and fishing talk will due that to a guy!

On the way home, my mom rolled down her window even more, letting in pools of frigid air. “What’s going on in here?” Curtis asked.

“Oh nothing. Mom’s just overheating! She cooked herself a little too long,” I said, laughing, with mom chuckling next to me. But then I turned my gaze from the road and saw that she had rolled her pants up to her knees and sweater up to her elbows.

“I’m burning up! I don’t know what’s going on!” she said with a laugh, although I could tell she was growing more concerned with each increasing degree. By the time we pulled into the driveway she was desperately tugging at her clothes, as if being suffocated by her wooly knits. She ran up the walkway and up to the shower, swearing that she’d be fine once she took a chilly shower.

Curtis, intoxicated and tired, did not intend to come home to a mother-in-law on fire. “Are you sure she’s okay?” he worried. Truthfully, I wasn’t too sure of the answer.

“Jo?! Can you come up here for a sec? I’m really… red.” Curtis and I exchanged nervous looks and I scurried upstairs. Nothing could prepare me for what I saw next. I’m not even sure how to explain it. My mom stood in front of her mirror in only her shiny white bra and cotton underpants. She was agape, as was I, at the shade of red her body had turned. Her very fair skin doesn’t extend beyond the hues of ghostly pale in the winter and moderately freckled in the summer, so this sunburned red that extended over her entire body, ears to toes, radiated all the more against her white undergarments.

“Mom! You’re red! What happened?” I stammered.

She shook her head and said, “It must be sleeping on the couch in the blanket, but I don’t really know! I’m burning!” She started scratching at her limbs and said, “Ow! It’s like fire ants are crawling over my body!”

Upon hearing this, Curtis yelled up to us, “It’s an allergic reaction! It must be! Do you have any Benadryl? Did you eat anything out of the ordinary?”

“The wine!” she and I said in tandem. “It has to be.” The wine. Nice try.

After some more examination and amazement at her deep tomato red skin, she finally got into the shower and yelled out, “I feel better! The shower’s helping! I think I’m fine!” Yet, moments after drying off and slipping into cotton pajamas, the fire ants were back and her skin was once again flaming.

Unable to understand her sudden seemingly allergic reaction, I did a quick search on Google for “full body flush.” I was temped to search for "my mom is on fire," but knew that would be in vain. A stream of results popped up, and as my eyes scanned the screen, my focus settled on the phrase, “Niacin body flush.”

“MOM! What vitamins did the doctor prescribe you? Aren’t you on Niacin?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Because apparently it gives you something called the ‘Niacin flush.’ They actually have a name for this! And not only that, but people can apparently have reactions that last three hours and make them feel like they’re on fire! This site also says that people usually experience this flush a few days after starting Niacin.”

“Oh my god! You’re right! How did you realize that?!” my mom, a lady who makes few connections, called as she ran downstairs.

“You haven’t stopped telling me about these vitamins you’re on, and how amazing it is that your doctor prescribed them.”

She laughed, “Huh, you’re right! Wow, I’m so glad you guys are here! I don’t know what I would have done if I were alone. I probably would have gone up in smoke!”

She might not have gone up in smoke but I hope she learned her lesson about doctors who try to blow smoke up her you-know-what. Sometimes there’s nothing like a good ol’, FDA approved cholesterol busting pill to do the job. A vitamin might be more holistic but I think it’s a whole lot of crap. And after that night, my mom, Burning Woman, might agree. Well, until she hears about the next new snake oil product on the market.

Remember me?

            People cradled my face and said things like, “You look just like him. Look at those eyes,” and, “Really, he lives on in you and your sister.” Those are lovely sentiments, but I couldn’t fathom how to appreciate them, so instead I would smile vacantly, nod, and think, “No, he’s dead. There’s no more living on for him.”
            At his funeral, while teeming with self-consciousness, I remember pulling at the clingy, black outfit from Loehmann’s I had found in the Junior’s department and worn to Rosh Hashanah services earlier that year. At eleven years old, I had one foot firmly placed in the comfy confines of childhood, and the other foot precariously positioned in the world of tweendom. I had planned to use my tween years to test out make-up and slightly trendier clothes, all in pursuit of becoming instantly cool a la She’s Out of Control – the 90s movie in which the geeky girl turns into a gorgeous teen whom all the boys fawn over. But my sixth grade year did no go as planned and in lieu of consumption by way of boys and parties and what lunch table I’d sit at, my dad developed stomachaches. His pain grew so suddenly intense that on our family road trip, he drank an entire bulk case of Maalox. The eternal optimist he was, and clutching to a gross misdiagnosis of ulcers, he kept his worst fears and the severity of his agony hidden from us the best he could. He assured us he was fine, despite wearing the unspoken truth on his taught, strained face. Be we soon realized he was slipping out of our grasp, as if a thin yet impenetrable membrane had formed over his handsome, charming, Irish self.
            His stomachaches quickly turned into cancer and cancer turned into a funeral four months later. During his illness he remained upright because the cancer had coiled in and around his spine. Unable to recline, he sat up through the duration of his battle, writhing in a leather chair in our living room, captive to his own rapidly deteriorating body. My parents spent entire days at the library poring over journals and books that espoused recent breakthroughs in cancer research. Since his cancer had advanced beyond the aid of chemotherapy, and radiation eroded his organs worse than the tumor, his only options were natural remedies. My parents soaked Maitake mushrooms in the basement, ordered capsules of Cat’s Claw and Shark Cartilage, and began contacting anyone who had found success using alternative regimens. One day I accompanied my mom to visit a local woman who contributed her recovery to all the supplements my dad had begun taking religiously. The youthful forty-something woman possessed the glow of survival and she convinced us that we too could one day find our way to remission. It was moments such as those where I thought, “It’s not too late. The doctors are wrong. He can make it.” But, then I would return home from school only to see him writhing in the living room, exactly how I had left him—his withered frame bent over, gray beard attempting to fill in the cavities of his gaunt face. And just like that, remission seemed as made-up a place as Oz. Six-months after learning that cancer had invaded his spine and stomach, there I was, receiving people’s tears, words, and attempts at comfort. But what could they say to the daughters and wife who survived this beloved man? Nothing could bring him back, and that was the fact that I held onto.
            The seasons have turned, years have elapsed, and we have somehow managed to turn our broken pieces into a collage of normalcy. More entangled in each other’s lives now than ever, we remaining three talk on the phone so often that upon starting my freshman year of college, a fellow frosh asked, “How often do you call home?” I replied, in earnest, “Today?”
            My husband knows my dad through stories, I remember my dad through yellowed photo albums, and my mom, sister and I still yearn for one more moment with the man whose absence and presence have had equal impressions on our lives. Unlike many friends of mine whose parents got divorced and soon remarried another, my mom has never dated anyone. She says she found her one true love and that, in her words, she’s “perfectly content.” She travels through Europe, has a season’s pass to the local theater house, and frequents the independent cinema in town. She has never been one to accept idle life. My mom jokes that visitors to our house probably assume my dad has just briefly stepped out since we tell stories of him so effortlessly and often. However, sometimes our longing to hug him glows so strong that it is not uncommon for any one of us to dream that he has come back, forcing said dreamer mid-reverie to awkwardly explain to everyone he was just “on vacation.” We have our lives as they are now, and we have our lives as they were then. Yet, the slightest whiff of Stetson or faintest melody of a Willie Nelson song, and the past fourteen years collapse like an accordion and I’m back to remembering he’s gone.
            One recent morning, while walking to work, I called my mom to ask about a birthday party she attended the night before. She said, “Oh you know, it was like Mary Tyler Moore goes to a party.” I wasn’t exactly sure what she meant, but took it to imply, “Strong, fabulous lady goes to social event solo, carrying conversation, witty banter, and glasses of wine all at once.” Then she said, “Oh my, do I have a story for you!”
            She went on to say, “I was just futzing around the house yesterday, tired from the party, when I heard the bell ring. I assumed it was Steve from across the street coming to see about painting the side of the house, but there was some guy standing at the front door. He asked me if I recognized him. And as you know, ‘Do you recognize me,’ are my least favorite words next to, ‘Mom, watch me.’ Anyway, of course I said, ‘Oh, no, I’m sorry but I don’t know you. What’s your name?’ And this guy said his name is Ray, and then said, ‘Don’t you remember? I worked in Julius’s? The deli in town? I used to help Billy out on little odds-and-ends jobs, and we’d all hang out on your boat?’ Then, it all came flooding back to me! I knew exactly who it was! Ray was this guy who we knew from town, and he and Dad were friends, but this was years ago! He was one of our first friends when we moved here. Ray lives in Florida, and has for a long time, and was just up visiting a few friends on Long Island and thought he’d swing by. Anyway, so then, here’s the kicker, we were still standing at the front door when he asked, ‘Is Billy home?’”
            I drew in my breath as if gasping for air and stopped short on the sidewalk. My mom continued on with her story, recounting how she explained to Ray that my dad passed away fourteen years ago. Apparently, Ray almost fell over. He couldn’t believe or understand it. He kept saying, “He was so healthy! Cancer? I’m so sorry. Wow…” He reiterated how my dad was truly the nicest person he had ever met and how my parents remain some of the most welcoming and generous people he’s ever known. During the impromptu reunion, Ray said he was pleased to hear that my parents decided to have kids as he cooed over the gallery of wall and table space devoted to plaster imprints of our once small hands, finger-painted pictures “To Mom,” and photos of us across the years, at Colonial Williamsburg, The Eiffel Tower, my wedding, all testimony to childhoods salvaged and savored.
            The last time Ray saw my parents was thirty years. In that time he has moved away, carrying his friends with him in memories. He has led a good life, and assumed his old friends did the same. In Ray’s version of how things unfolded, my dad remained as friendly and fit as ever—restoring old furniture in the garage, and watching the sunset with my mom on their little house boat, which they bought for $1,000 in 1976. He assumed my parents had gone on to raise kids, and if they did, they were sure to be the parents everyone wanted—camping, wearing high-tops, going on midnight adventures to Carvel for sundaes with extra gummy bears. Even though cancer punctuated our happy foursome, shifting the course of our lives away from our original destination of picket-fence perfection, we have journeyed on a nourishing route. Nonetheless, we have gone on, us three. Hearing my mom’s story, however, instantly made me feel like my dad died all over again. And this time, instead of mourning the life he actually left behind, I mourned the life Ray authored for him—complete with adventures with the grown daughters, the strong wife, and the changing times. The life that was just beyond his grasp. That morning, Ray brought my dad back, and not just for the moment that my mom, sister and I always longed for, but he wrote him into the past thirty years, and he gave him the life he would have wanted.

I prefer Rufus to Doris. You?

“Can I ask you something? Can I ask you something serious,” Christopher said seriously.

“Sure,” I reply.

“So you don’t mind if I ask you something? You don’t mind, no?”

“No, I don’t mind. You can ask.”

“So I can ask you something?”

“Yes.”

“OK, let me ask you something serious. Do you wear contacts? Do you?” he asks.

He licks the marinara sauce off his fingers, scattering his stare around the pizzeria, waiting intently for my response to his urgent question.

“You know already. You know,” I say, aware that I am about to enter into a game of compulsivity.

“But do you? Do you wear contacts?”

“You know, Christopher. What do you think I do?”

“You don’t wear contacts, right? You don’t, do you?” He straightens his plate and seven crumpled napkins, then starts to shake his head as if shaking out his discomfort.

He follows up by asking, “So you have perfect vision? You were born as a baby with perfect vision?”

“Yes, I was born with perfect vision I guess,” I say. “So how is your work going at Home Depot?”

“You have perfect vision. So you don’t wear glasses then? Do you wear glasses? No, right? Because you have perfect vision so you don’t wear glasses. Right?”

“Are you enjoying your time at Home Depot? Are you taking the bus by yourself?” I asks in an effort to steer our conversation, or what some would call a round of obsessive-compulsive questioning, away from topics that feed Christopher’s fascinations. Christopher has autism. My husband used to work with him once upon a time, and he and I have taken a real liking to each other. We still get together every now and again, for pizza and catching up.

“I asked you a question if you wear glasses and you ignored me. You ignored my question.”

At age twenty, Christopher twitches around in the Formica booth, wiping his hands and face, looking to me for his next fix. Not answering his questions, especially those related to his favorite topics, stirs up an uneasiness in him that swells through his body and cannot be tamed. I know if I answer his line of questioning he’ll instantly feel satiated. He is doing his best to engage me in this process, but the temporary satisfaction will quickly be replaced with more anxiety and agitation.

“I did ignore you because we shouldn’t be talking about this. You know I don’t wear glasses—“

“You don’t wear glasses? I knew you didn’t.”

“—and this isn’t a good use of our time. I just wanted to see you on your lunch break and see how you’re doing, and we’re talking about glasses. How are you?” I push.

“Well,” he says, taking a big sip of his soda, “there is a new girl at work, Ashley. She is there at work with me. Do you like that name, Ashley?” he asks, almost innocently.

“It’s OK, although I’m not a huge fan,” I say, knowing where this conversation is going. I don’t mind the name game, and find myself strangely entertained by it. I live with my own set of obsessive behaviors—including my propensity count things in eights, and to trace shapes (like the outline of the TV) with my teeth in a repetitive manner. On the very low end of obsessive-compulsive behavior my life is only mildly controlled by these tendencies, whereas hearing a name he greatly dislikes, such as Doris, sets the tone of Christopher’s day.

“What about the name Rupert?” I ask with a smile and rise of my eyebrows. I suspect I know the answer.

“Yes, I like the name Rupert. Rupert. Do you like that name?” He starts jutting his head like a whirligig and jumping up in his seat, rocking the booth back and forth. He’s happy with our new dialogue.

“Yea, I like that name, a lot actually. I like the -oop sound, you know?” I know he does because we are almost always in sync with our particular choices in names and the reasons as well.

“Yes, I like that sound and it’s like Rufus, which I also like. Do you like Rufus? Not Rupert, even though they sound alike, but Rufus. Do you like that name?”

“I do! OK, let’s stop talking about names. We’ve talked about names for long enough. Do you like your pizza?” I ask.

“Why don’t you want to talk about names anymore? Is it bad to talk about names? We shouldn’t talk about names? No, we shouldn’t? Or yes, we should?” He looks sterner upon asking this question.

“Let’s talk about the bus. How is the bus working out? Do you still take it on your own to work?”

“You don’t want to talk about names? Why don’t you?”

He is trying in earnest to rope me back in. I know I should stay strong. Lingering in topics like names and vision problems do nothing but cripple him socially and show him it’s appropriate to discuss these subjects with others. Yet while I’m talking with him like this it seems completely fine, no worse than talking with Cece about my clothing options for Saturday night or talking with my mom about the Wednesday night line-up on TV. But it is different, I know.

“That pizza was delicious! And the soda was perfecto! Did you like your pizza, Christopher?” I ask.

“Yes, it was good. I usually get this though. May I ask you something, Jo? You won’t be mad if I ask you something, right? You won’t get mad at me if I ask you something? You wouldn’t get mad.”

“I won’t get mad, but I might not want to talk about it. I won’t get mad, I promise,” I assure him.

“What is your favorite kind of food?”

Good. I think this is a fairly healthy path. “Well, I like everything, really. But not meat because I’m a vegetarian, but you knew that. Umm, I guess I like chocolate the best!” I say, probably due to my need to finish off any meal with a little sweet.

He squeals with laughter and claps his hands once, rocking back and forth. “Me too! But do you like other things like that? Would you eat candy that’s not chocolate? Would you? You don’t mind if I ask you right? This is OK to talk about, right?”

“Sure, it’s fine to ask that. Let me think… Umm, I really like Skittles actually. Do you like Skittles?”

“Yes! Oh yes! I love Skittles. You like Skittles? What about ice cream? Do you like ice cream? “

“Of course! I love ice cream.”

“You do? Do you like vanilla or chocolate ice cream? Because you said you like chocolate but do you like chocolate ice cream? You must like it. Do you?” He is very excited about our tête-à-tête.

“I like vanilla more than chocolate ice cream. Skittles and vanilla ice cream,” I say, summing up my preferences, hungrier than ever for a little sugar.

“Skittles and vanilla ice cream!” he echoes.

Curtis, who was very amused by this lunch and remained silent throughout the duration, speaks up and says, “OK, Christopher. If you’re going to get to work on time then you should start walking to the bus stop. What do you need to take the bus?”

“Well, let’s see, I need 75 cents, which is three quarters.”

“Do you have three quarters?”

“Yes, I have my three quarters, Curtis. Do you like the name Curtis, Jo?” he asks, and I realize Christopher is prolonging our time together and ignoring Curtis’s request to start walking to the bus stop. I’m sad too.

“You have your money? So we can go?” Curtis asks.

“I had it when we got here. But now I can’t find my quarters!”

He looks anxious and starts walking between the table where we ate and the front door of the pizzeria. “I can’t ride the bus if I don’t have three quarters!”

I run to our car parked out front and search the change compartment. I grab a handful of coins and start poking through the pile with my index finger for some arrant quarters. Christopher’s bus is arriving in four minutes, and I’ve found two quarters when I see Curtis and Christopher standing by the front door of the restaurant. Christopher’s head is looking down and he seems to be tearing up. Then he bursts through the front door and Curtis just looks at me with a cockeyed smile and shrugs.

No sooner do I start to climb out of the car, Christopher walks back outside, holding his fist up in the air looking victorious. He opens his palm for Curtis to see and they both wave me on, signaling his discovery of the 75 cents.

I’m frightened by episodes of nervousness such as this and reminded of the randomness of life. Why is my OCD manageable whereas Christopher’s is frustratingly present and overwhelming? I am tired from our thirty-minute lunch, tired from cyclical conversations and tangible angst, and I wonder how Christopher lives through each day—or even worse, though moments of greater crisis than misplacing bus fare.

As I drive my car past the bus stop about fifty feet away, Christopher and Curtis stand under the plastic alcove, and I notice Christopher white-knuckling the coins. Onlookers would not suspect that there is anything wrong with Christopher if they saw these two men waiting for the bus. No one would realize right away that one is a psychologist and the other a man who copes with autism. You would have to talk to them first to realize the differences that cleave them apart.

I wave to them, and Christopher jumps up and gives me a feverish wave back. He’s smiling. He yells something at me, but I’m too far away to hear him. Curtis blows me a kiss and then I drive away, watching them shrink away through the rear view mirror, waiting for the bus.

Later that afternoon I pick up Curtis from town. He is standing in front of a local bookshop, grinning from ear to ear, happy to see me. I know we are lucky. We are lucky that picking out the perfect piece of pizza is not an ordeal or that hearing the name Doris does not fling us into overpowering worry.

“Did you hear what Christopher said to you before?” Curtis asked.

“No! I didn’t!” I frown, “What did he say?”

“He yelled, ‘Skittles and vanilla ice cream.’”

Skittles and vanilla ice cream. I know exactly what he means.

Let's talk about sects.

They’re growing up right before my eyes. Literally. I’m watching them. My students are crossing the divide from neutrons to romantically charged particles. They seem to have felt the sting of Cupid’s arrow and don’t know what to do with themselves. Valentine’s day is around the corner, but so is the 100th day of school. In past years, my students were always giddier about collecting 100 M&Ms or exercising for 100 seconds than distributing Valentines and swooning over each other. In elementary school, the 100th day of school is a milestone that students and teachers alike value, just for different reasons. Students love any day that comes with themed activities and teachers love the fact that year is more than halfway through. Teachers nationwide wake up on that morning singing, Hooray! We’re all still alive and actually doing well! Students wake up on that morning singing, Hooray! We get to eat candy, play games, and sing songs!

But this year is a little different. There are new kids on the block. A few weeks ago I projected a large world map onto the overhead and began teaching my class about the bodies of water. I got to the Pacific Ocean and said, “This is the Pacific Ocean. It borders the west coast of the United States. See it right here? The Pacific Ocean.” Then instead of seeing a gaggle of nodding heads, I heard one boy lean into his friend’s ear and whisper, “Pa-sexy Ocean.” Nice. Happy they’re taking it all in.

Which takes us to math. Recently we began our geometry unit—the study of shapes. Angles, sides, vertices… What could go wrong? Well, apparently, geometry isn’t as vanilla as I had always thought, and is in fact just as easy to corrupt as is geography. (Is it the common prefix? I am not sure.) I started by saying, “These aren’t just regular sides on the rhombus. These are parallel sides! They are like train tracks and will never run into each other. But these sides,” I said, pointing to two adjacent ones, “these are also special. They intersect. This one intersects that one; they run into each other at one specific point. When a line intersects another line, they are not parallel.” And as I was delivering this little lecture, I noticed my slight lisp on S-sounds mix dangerously with the –cts ending on the word intersects. And then there was laughter. Just a little bubble of giggling, but it was all I needed to raise my eyebrows in a telltale the-crazy-teacher-is-coming-out manner. “Off the rug. Please get up, and write me letter explaining what it is that is so funny about this lesson.” (I couldn’t have sounded more like an old-school teacher or mother if I tried. Now being a teacher myself, one of the many lessons I have learned is that teachers and parents only inflict such “adult-isms” when they’re experiencing a sudden loss of power and surge of vulnerability.) I knew the boys were snickering at me, and I had an inkling as to why, but it wasn’t until I received their letters of apology a few minutes later that my suspicions were blown out of the water. One letter read as follows:


When you said intersects I laughed because you said intersects. When you said intersects it sounded like intersects, like when two people have sects.

Like when two people have sects. Obviously, my first instinct was to laugh out loud, which I did. And the letter has proved to be the gift that keeps on giving, as I’ll spontaneously chuckle each time I think about my student’s way with words.

Then, just as I began to chalk up these incidences of immaturity to just that, I picked my class up from recess yesterday. One of the boys was extremely frustrated and couldn’t wait to tell me all about how Brian had betrayed him. If there is anything I am loath to do everyday, it’s pick up the kids and hear the laundry list of complaints that crop up from the time I drop them off at lunch and gather them up in the yard. But this time seemed different, there was a sincere urgency to Andy’s request and I was rather curious about what had come to pass between them. When we returned to the classroom and the students settled in, I pulled Brian and Andy aside.

“I told Brian a very deep secret of mine and he told Ms. Holly’s class! He told all of them my deep secret! I trusted him and he told everyone!”

“I didn’t! I didn’t tell Ms. Holly’s class!” Brian retorted.

“Ok, let’s say you didn’t tell Ms. Holly’s class. Do you know why Brian would think that?” I asked.

“Well, I turned toward them when I said it, but I didn’t mean to tell them. I just said it out loud.”

“You yelled it! You yelled it at them,” Andy protested.

“Take a deep breath, you two. Andy, would you mind telling me your secret, so I know what we’re dealing with here?”

Andy, a boy who acts fairly tough, is on the older end of the class, and has a slight strut to his step, looked up at me with widened eyes and got up on his toes. I was sure that I was about to learn some family secret, a new dirty song he made up, or how he bullies kids in the bathroom. I hesitantly leaned down, already wincing, and he whispered into my ear, “I love Jane.”

He loves Jane! That’s all! I wanted to scoop him up and jump for joy. I opted to keep my cool and nod politely. Brian got the speech and consequences he knew were coming and Andy, heart slightly bruised, returned to his seat, past Jane, looking at his feet as he walked by. I later explained to Andy that even though Jane might not feel the same way (and in fact Jane then rushed up to me and said, "Andy likes me and I really don't like him." Oh girl, you're in for a long haul!), she would be lucky to be his Valentine. He didn't seem to care. I don't blame him.

And thus, in third grade, our fuzzy understanding of love and sex begins, and I am now wondering, does it ever really clear up? As adults we often still find sex (or sects as the kids are calling it) funny and amusing, confusing and awkward. Our hearts can still be spontaneously set aflame as we realize a close friend is more than a friend—and the love can also be extinguished just as quickly when the love goes unrequited. Just as the kids in my class, some of us adults go after sects, while others go out in pursuit of love, while still others are basically just perverts when you get right down to it. At the end of the day, however, we’re all in search of something—be it sexiness, sects, or the sting of Cupid’s arrow. And all we can hope for is that we find what we’re looking for. I’m just praying all this romantic energy is snuffed out over February break with the aid of some cold showers.

Happy Valentine’s Day indeed.

The rabbit is loose!

I wrongly assumed a case of lice would be the worst of our day. A few times a year, my school invites white coated nurses into our school to carefully comb through every student’s hair—braided, curly, buzzed, or knotty, no coif avoids the nit-picking sessions. The kids love the process, and drool a little as the women comb through their hair inch by inch. Yesterday, upon hearing from a parent volunteer that the Licenders were speedier than usual, my class squeezed into an earlier time slot and I was hopeful that we could quickly filter in, filter out, unscathed by eggs, nits, or creepy-crawlers.

The kids who had been checked and cleared stood along the wall, chatting noisily with each other while I made small talk with some of the parents. I knew their volume was rising and that I should probably dampen the racket with a threat of no choice time, when all of a sudden two teachers burst through their classroom doors. Oh boy, I’m in trouble, I thought, assuming my animated, loud third graders had disrupted the teaching going on around us.

“Bring all the students in here. Now! Get them all into my room!” one of the teachers exclaimed. “The rabbit is out of its cage. Get all the students inside! The rabbit is out of its cage.”

I started looking around my feet and down the hallway. “Did one of them lose their class pet,” I wondered. Not having much time to think clearly, I herded my kids standing against the wall and those in the middle of being checked for lice, and corralled them inside the teacher’s classroom. Luckily her own students were in music at the time so the small room accommodated all of us just fine--the kids, nurse, parents, and nearby teachers. You know, just the normal reaction to a free wielding animal! My kids encircled me, asking whose pet escaped, what color rabbit it was, and why we had to lock ourselves in Ms. Thompson’s classroom if it was just a little rabbit. Good points all around!

“Don’t worry, the school just takes this type of thing very seriously. We’re fine, we’re fine. Think of this as a little, unexpected free time. Enjoy yourselves!” I didn’t know what else to say, since I was just as confused by the drastic measures being taken to protect us from a furry friend. But I shrugged and smiled, doing my best to remain somewhat in control during this lice-gone-wrong moment.

I turned to Ms. Thompson and asked, “What’s going on? How did you know a rabbit got loose?”

“The assistant principal got on the loudspeaker and said, ‘Attention teachers and students: The rabbit is loose. I repeat, the rabbit is loose.’ You know what that means, right?”

“That there’s a rabbit loose?”

“No! It’s our school code for ‘a dangerous person is in our school!’ An unidentified person in the building and could be dangerous. You’re so funny! You thought there was an actual rabbit?”

Yes, obviously I did. Call me literal. “Oh, wow! So someone is loose? Are we safe in here?” I worried.

“I hope so!” she said.

I gazed at my innocent, playful children skipping around the room, hovering around picture books, and whispering secrets in each other’s ears. The weight of my responsibility to protect and care for these children blanketed my own anxiety about the ‘loose rabbit’ and I knew that whatever happened, I was there for them. However, why our school has such a bizarre code for such a serious crisis was beyond me.

“Let’s sit in a circle and play a game,” I said, congregating the twenty-five eight year olds. “Let’s play Follow the Leader.” Shrieks of joy rang through the room, and they squeezed into the tight ring of bodies, hoping to find a spot next to their current BFF. As soon as the game was about to start, a voice boomed through the loudspeaker on the wall.

“Attention teachers and students. Sorry for this second interruption, but I’m happy to announce that the rabbit is safely tucked inside its cozy little cage. I repeat, the rabbit is back in its cage. Thank you for your patience.”

My students let out an audible, collective sigh, relieved the class pet was out of harm’s way but disappointed their impromptu fun time was now over. They arranged themselves in two neat rows, Ms. Thompson unlocked the door, and we thanked her for letting us wait in her room while the search and rescue commenced outside. “I’m so happy the bunny’s alright,” one of my little friends confessed.

“Me too!” I said, and I gave her a little hug. The kids instantly divided and assembled themselves into their pre-checked, being-checked, and post-checked groups. Many of them shared how relieved they were that the tiny pet was resting comfortably in its cage, and I was relieved that my tiny peeps were comfortably at ease back in the hallways of our questionably safe building.

As soon as the nurses and kiddies and parents were back into the smooth swing of licending, Ms. Thompson tugged at my arm and pulled me aside. “Guess what I just heard? Turns out the rabbit was a Mystery Reader!"

"What?!"

"He was in the boy’s bathroom, wearing a cape and a mask, when a boy came into the bathroom and screamed, ran down to the main office, and yelled that a strange man in a mask was using the bathroom! Can you believe it? A parent,” she shook her head and laughed. “Better safe than sorry, I guess.”

So, our unidentified and dangerous stranger was a parent in disguise. Bad move using the boy’s bathroom, and an even worse move telling the boy not to say anything! But apparently, even the most well-intentioned masked avenger can shut an entire elementary school down for half an hour.

When all was combed and done, the children were deloused and only mildly distressed. What started as a quick trip to the first floor nurse’s station, turned into a would-be terror threat. I learned our school code for ‘Save yourselves!’ and I think the kids learned a lot, too—the next time they hear a wooly bunny has escaped from its cage, the best thing to do is lock themselves in the nearest room, stay calm, and wait until the coast is clear. That shouldn’t require too much therapy!

The Girl With the Pearl Earring

Already late for work, I decided I had time for a small coffee and egg white veggie flatbread from Dunkin’ Donuts. I couldn’t quite hear the clerk when she asked me if I cared for sugar, and so I yanked off my earmuffs to have a better listen. Moments after taking my first sip of my morning Joe, I felt that odd sensation of the backing to my earring fall against my neck into my collar. It was as strange a feeling as when I lose a tooth in a nightmare, which is a common theme in my dreams that I know has something to do with a felt loss of power. And that’s exactly what was so strikingly odd about sensing my gold fastener tumble down—something so securely fastened isn’t supposed to come off or fall out!

I dropped my head to my shoulder in an attempt to catch the fallen bauble, and grabbed at my ear, feeling around for a back-less pearl. There was nothing there! Just a naked ear! At that point I clutched my breakfast sandwich for dear life (since dropping that too would really cause the morning to go to shit) and began hunching over while walking in slow circles around the register.

“Can I help you, miss?” the confused employee asked.

“I’ve lost my earring! It’s a pearl. I don’t see it though,” I replied, and then began disrobing in front of the cranky commuters. I knew it had to be in my jacket or purse or glove or even in one of my clogs! At least I hoped it was, because if I couldn’t find it there, I had no time to retrace my steps. The subway rumbled underground and reminded me I needed to cut this morning escapade short.

“If we find it we’ll hold onto it for you. Call back later, miss.”

“Thank you! Thank you so much! I will!” I said, even though I knew I wouldn’t. I have worn those pearl earrings everyday for the past few maybe five or six years. I sleep in them, shower in them, and go out in them. I even forget they’re there! Except when they’re not…

I knew that it was a lost cause. Suddenly, I recalled all the various nooks and crannies in the form of grates and potholes I encounter on my walk from the apartment to the station. The earring was gone, and I was bummed. But I was also seriously late for work.

Later that day I began searching online for a new set of studs, and was shocked to learn just how inexpensive they actually are! Relieved and feeling at ease, I then began to wonder why pearl earrings have such an uptight, elitist reputation? Why hate on such cheap little cuties? While on my Internet navigation, I also remembered feeling teased (note: I cannot remember who actually accosted me but I know it happened) by people in college for wearing pearl earrings everyday—and that was way before my current cardigan paired with pearl earrings uniform, which I do see as being a bit preppy. But again, why hate on such a cheap little cutie?

A little research later, and I recalled the reason for the pearl’s snobby rep. In their early days of popularity, pearls had to be made the old fashioned way—one grain of sand and one day at a time. Yet now, real pearls are made instantly and very inexpensively, diluting the market with millions of perfect, iridescent orbs. Almost anyone can access a pair of earrings for a good cost, and she needn’t be Cleopatra or Queen Elizabeth. So, the pearl’s reputation hasn’t changed with modern times and despite advances in mass production, the pearl earring is still an elusive item.

I then thought about why I have stuck to the rounded gems all these years, why I hadn’t mixed up my ear jewelry on a more regular basis. Truth is, pearl earrings to me are the new black. They go with everything by blending seamlessly into the wearer’s ensemble. I like how they delicately dot my ears and don’t hurt the sides of my head when I’m sleeping.

My research and reflections haven’t led to anything awe-inspiring or revolutionary, but losing my earring did force me to take a moment’s pause. Maybe I lost my earring for a reason—maybe the universe is hinting that I could use dose of mystery, like Vermeer’s girl with the lone pearl. So if you see me walking down the street with one pearl in, one pearl out, don’t worry… I’m just trying out my new look: Intrigue (with a dash of crazy.)

Next stop... Plateau?

I try to avoid crying under the covers. It reminds me so much of high school, back when stalking the boy of my eye would inevitably cause me to “coincidentally bump into” said crush and the apple of his eye. I was never a boy’s apple as a teenager. Rather, I was more like the odd star fruit—so delicious and sweet inside but painfully difficult to peel. And, being the prude and high-maintenance star fruit I was, I spent many a night crying under the covers, desperately wanting to be an apple, or even a slutty banana that strips down with one tug at the top.

That level of uncorkable crying is what I experienced last night, while sobbing into my Shabby Chic duvet and begging my husband to turn off the lights because the tears made me as blind and sensitive as a baby hamster. “Please turn off,” sob, sob, “the lamp.” Sniffle, sniffle. I know he was trying to help me by forcing me into the light, but I wanted to cry privately and quietly, like I did in high school, and try not to indulge the anxiety spouting out by way of tears and snot.

“Why are you upset?”

“I’m just so uncomfortable! I don’t want to go back to school. I want to stay home, with you—and my mom and sister. I don’t like going back.”

“I hear ya! But I thought you said school was good today?” Curtis offered, obviously confused, and uncomfortable himself by my sudden emotional collapse.

“I did have a good day. The kids were fine. Great even. I don’t know. I’m just feeling anxious and I’m sure it’s just nerves and post-holiday shit, but I’m really upset.” Obviously.

“OK…It’s OK to cry.”

“I know it’s OK to cry,” and upon spicing up my response with a pinch of sass, knowing that the last thing I needed was to spark a marital fight, I curled into his armpit and said, “I just hate not feeling right, you know?”

“I know.”

“I mean, am I going to teach forever? It’s already been three years.”

“Not even—2 ½, Jo. You’re not used to doing one thing for a long time. And that’s not even that long, but it’s just starting to feel easier, which is what’s supposed to happen after you’ve done it a few times. You don’t know how to just be.”

The truth is, I do know how to be—but being for me is synonymous with moving. This is the case for most people. You start kindergarten, lunchbox in hand, letter on napkin from mom, excited to take this official first step. No more pretend school, this is the real deal. But before the paste has dried on your macaroni collage, pig-tailed Jessica swipes your last piece of dry pasta, slaps it on her paper, and proclaims her carbo-loaded creation done. The teacher then gingerly hangs up Jessica’s sticky mess and says, “Oh, you’re an artist! Good job. Now you’re ready for the clay table.” Having earned her ticket to first grade, Jessica learned a very valuable lesson: The end justifies the means.

And the cycle continues, unbroken, allowing you to rise up in the ranks from freshman to upperclassman, doing what you have to do to get to the next level and reach the golden ring. Then, one day, graduate school is over, dust collects on your backpack and you’re supposed to have found this magical destination you’ve worked your whole life to find. You’ve grabbed the golden ring… Now what?

Yes, you'll probably receive a promotion or two, but that’s just so you can make more money doing more of the same. Promotions seem to odd to me, because usually they just plop more responsibility on your plate with a little more money, but when are your supposed to enjoy the financial gain when you’re stretched thinner than ever carrying out your new found responsibilities? If you ask me, it doesn’t add up.

As a teacher there are many routes I can take from here. I can go back for my administrative license and become a principal… But then I’m really out of the classroom, which is my favorite part about being a teacher-- having a community of little friends. I can become a consultant and teach teachers how to improve their craft… But then I’m not only out of the classroom but I’m traveling from school to school, and I am not a fan of being away from home, obviously. I can earn my doctorate and teach at a university… But after watching my husband complete his doctoral program I’m just about turned off to the whole idea of post-graduate work of any kind.

I’m not sure what my professional future holds. All I can do for now is go to work, bond with my little pupils, and read up on the latest and best teaching practices. And who knows, maybe one day I’ll graduate from third grade—if only I can just stop eating the paste.

Sobering Moment

When I tell people I'm not drinking this month, that I've temporarily given it up, I'm asked one of two questions. 1: "Did you join AA or something?" 2: "Are you pregnant?!" And frankly, I'm more flustered by the latter question and instantly find myself saying, "Oh God no, I'm not pregnant!" while sucking in my stomach. Even scarier than people scanning my midsection for a telltale bump is the idea that either way, alcoholic or preggers, the assumption is I've lost control of my own body.

My husband's friends quit smoking and drinking each January, ushering in a sober new year. And this December, for whatever reason, the notion seemed genius to me! I too was going to go wine and martini free! Tired of waking up hung over after four cocktails the night before, realizing my tolerance has plummeted to a new low, I knew this would be an interesting endeavor.

On New Year's Eve I watched what I drank-- I watched it go right down my throat. I stuck to champagne and I sipped water whenever I felt my blood alcohol level tip uncomfortably toward drunk. It seemed like I was doing alright... until I accosted the MTA teller when I couldn't hear him through the glass window and dramatically tossed each of my used Metrocards into the sky, one by one, as I yelled my discontents through the corridors of the subway. My husband stood on the other side of the turnstile, embarrassed, waiting for my ticker tape parade of flying Metrocards to end. The new year couldn't come fast enough.

Yes, I was ashamed of my behavior and awoke to the new year ready for strong coffee and a fresh start. But do one's actions on the most debauchery laden night of the year constitute a problem with alcohol? Doesn't everyone go all out, complete with hats, champagne, and noisemakers, waking up the next morning vowing never to drink again? Well, I'm pretty sure a lot of people do. But telling my friends and family, very casually at that, about my drinking ban has revealed the uncomfortable sting of a stigma. It's awkward for me to say I'm not drinking right now, especially when people say, "Oh, I don't drink enough to have to quit it. That wouldn't really be something I would have to do." Let me decode that for you: You obviously drink a lot more than me, so much so that you really need to dry out, but since I am an infrequent, one-beer-on-Friday drinker, I am better and more responsible than you. OK, that might not be what people mean, but that's how I take their personal justifications. I drink enough where this week there were three social engagements during which I could have had a glass of wine, and where those in my company did have a glass (or two), and that is three moments I have ordered a diet coke instead. I'm not exactly sure why I am on this sober bender, but here I am. Teetotaler. And even though I am counting down the days until February 1, and I'm not sure what I'm trying to prove to myself, I do know my smugness is on the rise-- a side effect of restraint. Out with one vice, in with another. Isn't that the truth?!

Dream Deferred

Christmas and New Year's is a lonely time to be single. It is even lonelier if you just recently broke up with somebody. Or didn’t break up with him, per se, but just let the relationship fade away into oblivion. Saving him the trouble of breaking up with you.

I met my perfect man a few days after my birthday. Just when I least expected it. I was a few weeks into my surgery rotation, when I looked my least attractive due to lack of sleep and the required uniform of ill-fitting scrubs. Yet despite my puffy eyes and blue jumpsuit, I met the man of my dreams. He was tall and very handsome, with dark hair and brown eyes lined by glossy black eyelashes. He had a great sense of humor, and could do funny impressions of people (a talent I really enjoy because I happen to be quite the mimic myself ahem). And an added bonus was that he was Cuban. Sexy, latin, and a revolutionary. (I felt slightly let down when I found out that he had become a US citizen, but let’s face it, I was still high.)

Carlos was one of the other medical students who joined our surgery rotation. I pretty much just looked at him as a classmate the first few days. I always feel pretty asexual in the hospital, and I usually don’t think much of people hitting on me, but for some reason, Carlos caught my eye after a while. He would flirt with me and give me winks and whatnot, but the tipping point was when he stood up for this pathetic, nerdy student in my class, when he was being yelled at by one of the surgeons. I love a valiant man! I was hooked.

Carlos and I were soon talking every day, and texting like love-crazed high schoolers every night. We would sneak away for off-campus lunches, and make out in the stairwells of County General. He was smart, funny, and kind. He showered me with compliments. There was one little fly in the ointment, however. Ok, maybe not a fly. More like an elephant. Carlos had a girlfriend. A girlfriend of four years, actually. I shooed her away in my mind. She’s far away, in Indiana! And Carlos lives in NY now, only leaving to visit his family in Miami! He’s mine. Besides, she can’t possibly be as cute as me. (I am slightly embarrassed to have thought this, but if you can’t tell the truth in a blog, when can you tell it?)

On our first date, after making out in the middle of the street in SoHo, I asked Carlos if he still had his girlfriend. “No, no, I took care of it.” Took care of it? I winced at the idea of some poor girl getting a phone call from her perfect man, breaking it off… But I quickly shook my head of the thought. We went to a bar for some drinks, and it was literally within minutes when the second bomb dropped.

For some reason, religion came up. “Are you Catholic?” Carlos asked me.

“Yes,” I replied in my most angelic way, only then to give a wink and say, “but I’m a very bad Catholic girl.” Rather than a normal response, which I suppose would be to smirk back at me, and imagine a very naughty rendezvous involving spanking and the like, Carlos instead said this: “I used to be Catholic, but now I’m a Christian.” My stomach turned to lead, knowing what was coming.

“What do you mean, Christian?”

“I’m a Born-again Christian, I’ve accepted Jesus Christ as my personal savior.”

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My heart screamed out. My brain told me to run, run far away. Shush! I silenced myself. How could you run from the perfect man?!

What does this Christian thing mean anyway, I wondered to myself. My uncle was born-again, and years ago, he sent the entire family what is now known as “the hell letter”—a letter informing us that if we did not accept Jesus as our savior, then we would burn in a fiery hell for eternity. My mom told her brother if he ever tried a stunt like that again, she would never speak to him again. Later, a roommate in college, who turned out to be a dear friend, educated us. Although she believed we would not be saved on Judgment Day, she still had close friends outside her religion. Comforting. The only other experience I have with this particular sect is the memory of waking up early one day as a child and stumbling upon some weird cult church show while flipping channels on the television. The priest was yelling in tongues and striking people down—even children! I was terrified. (Carlos informed me recently that this is entirely different—Evangelical Christian—but terrifying just the same.)

“Maybe since his religion was repressed in Cuba, this is his way of expressing his beliefs,” my mom offered some words of comfort. Romantic, but unlikely. I took his Christianity and shoved it far in the back of my mind, hoping that if I ignored the issue, it would go away.

Days later, and essentially no dinner dates later, we slept together. It was way too early, but I let him pressure me into it. I was VERY pleased to find out that he was not at ALL very Christian in bed! Just a blur of Spanish and acrobatics. As we lay in bliss, Carlos actually said, “I was just thinking of how attractive our children would be.” HIGHHH!!!!

We continued like this, sneaking off in the hospital for a make-out shesh, making crazy Latin love at night, texting and calling each other all the time. Despite my visions of beautiful half Cuban, half Nordic children, I did not feel intimate with Carlos. It was forced. I didn’t feel like he was my boyfriend at all. But I so wanted to feel that way. Intimacy takes time, I knew this. But did Carlos?

Meanwhile, the church questions were becoming more and more frequent.

“Did you go to church today?” He asked me every Sunday.

“No! You know I never go, its sooo boring!” I would giggle every time. He would laugh too. I decided it would not be the best time to tell him the funny story about how Brian Wilder and I accidentally got wasted off the consecrated wine during the Christmas Eve mass in high school…

Sooner than later, despite my best effort to be charming and adorable, things started to change. Texts got less flirty. Phone calls slowed, and then stopped. I asked Carlos, carefully, what was going on.

“Cosita, you’re perfect. I think we have something really good going on here, and I just want to take things slow. You have to understand, I just got out of a four year relationship.”

Wait. A. Second. Mister! My heart screamed out, but my face stayed calm. He was the one who pursued me! He was the one who pressured me into sleeping together, into calling each other boyfriend and girlfriend, and who showed pictures of me to his family!! “I totally understand,” I smiled.

That was the truth. I understood all too well. Years ago, I had a long term boyfriend. We dated for years, and I was in love with him. I built dreams around him. Living in a house by the sea, babies in white hats playing on the beach…

But I broke my own heart when I realized we would never work out together, and I broke up with him. I rebounded into a whirlwind affair with someone completely different—loud, dark, outspoken and passionate. I was high off Johnny. But after a few weeks, the ghost of my old love haunted me. I couldn’t get him out of my mind. And he became untouchable; no man could ever compare to him.

Was I becoming to Carlos what Johnny had become to me? A fun, fiery affair, but just a careless rebound?

The last time I saw Carlos was the night of his birthday. We went out with his friends in the city, and had a fantastic time. We both had too much to drink, but what’s too much if you’re having fun, right?! But that night, in bed, came the third bomb.

After the usual imitation-porn-movie series of moves, came the question. Actually, more like a statement. “I want to put my ___ in your____.”

Let’s just let that hang in midair, because that’s basically how I felt. I did my best to express that I wasn’t into that (especially after only dating for like a month and a half, are you crazy??!!)

“Well, we don’t have to…tonight,” was his Christian response. I’ll leave out the gorey details, but let me say for documenting purposes that he tried this a few more times, and when he dropped me off the next morning, I was left feeling very uncomfortable about the whole situation.

Carlos headed down to Miami that day. We spoke a few times afterwards, only because I initiated. A few days before Christmas, I stopped calling. It’s his turn, I figured. I still wanted him to be enamored with me, like he was in the beginning. I was dying for him to miss me, to surprise me and come up for New Years Eve. But day by aching day, I never heard from him. My dreams I had just begin to build around him faded away. Dried up, like a raisin in the sun. And just like that, I was on my own again.

It is not Carlos who I miss, but the idea of him. I miss the man I created, who was basically a skeleton of Carlos, once you stripped away the religious zealot, the cheating boyfriend, and the wannabe porn star. So, not Carlos at all really. After a few days of grieving, drinking and eating cookies, (the latter two which I would do anyway during the holidays) I will be my laughing, cheerful self once again. Besides, I already met another tall, handsome guy who just might be the one.

Un clavo saca a otro clavo.

December 21

Snow fell in clumps. It looked like confetti, like fake snow. “It’s too heavy to be real,” I thought. My chin rested in my palms, elbows on a cushiony pillow, and stomach on the rug. As The Santa Clause boomed on the TV, Alex and Michelle giggled, but Becca and I didn’t. We just existed there, looking at the fake snow. “They don’t get it,” I thought. “How can they? It’s not their family.”

Becca was quiet as the other girls laughed again. “I wonder if Becca wants to stay too? Probably.” Nancy carried milk and graham crackers into the TV room. “Wow. We are never allowed to eat outside of the kitchen,” Michelle chirped. Becca turned her head and just stared at me, whispering a million wishes to me in one glance.

“Want anything else, girls?” Nancy asked. She was looking at Becca and me. Her eyes were wider than usual and her eyebrows wrinkled. She knelt down and rubbed Becca’s back.

“We’re okay,” I answered for the both of us.

“Yea?”

“Yea. Have you heard from our mom yet?”

“No, sweetie. She hasn’t called yet.”

“Okay.”

Alex and Michelle chuckled at the movie, but Becca and I were silent. “I remember the movie being much funnier,” I mused to myself. The room was warm, warm enough that I could take off the blanket on my back. I sat up, crossed my legs, and reached for a glass of milk. “The graham crackers look good,” I said, but I didn’t eat any. I took another sip of milk, put the glass down, then returned to lying on my stomach, legs stretched out behind me.

Creeeaaak. The front door bellowed. Becca and I looked at each other but didn’t move. Nancy came in a moment later. “Your mom’s here. She’s in the living room.” The knot in my chest that had been there all day suddenly strangled my lungs. I was nauseated. My heart flung against my ribs in a rhythmic beat of panic, quicker and quicker. The thumping started travelling up my throat. Becca and I lifted ourselves from the floor and casually went to meet our mom. She stood there, stuffed like a teddy bear in her winter jacket and hat and scarf, her cheeks bright pink and blotchy, scratched by the wind. “It must be really cold outside,” I realized, so detached that I felt like I was floating. She smiled and scrunched up her face. “That’s what Nancy did before,” I thought as I looked at Mom.

“Come here girls. Let’s sit down.” Mom had only been away for a night, but in that time the world had changed. She put her arms around us and walked over to the sofa. We all sat down and she slowly pulled off her hat, placed it on her lap and tugged at a loose woolen thread. I looked out the window, shocked at how high the snow had piled. I knew what she was about to say, and I wanted to just sit there in silence, realizing it was all over but not hearing her words confirm it.

“Girls, Daddy passed away a few hours ago.” I sat there. My eyes started to burn and I saw Mom's chin start to dimple. I hated seeing her cry. “Uncle Rick and Aunt Gail were there with us. I was right next to him. Aunt Gail told us something funny that happened to her, and we all laughed. Daddy smiled and then he let go. He’s out of pain now, girls.” I wiped my damp face. “He loved you so much.” She paused. I looked up and realized she couldn’t speak because her face was full of tears and sadness. “You’re all he was talking about.” We three sat there, three who didn't know how to be anything other than four.

Just then I realized Uncle Rick was in the room, still wearing his jacket and slouched against the wall with this thumb and forefinger in his eyes.

“Do you girls want to walk home with me?” Mom asked. It was the oddest question. Wouldn't we all want to cling to one another and never be apart again? Wouldn't we all want to go home to our own beds, no more hospitals for Mom or neighbor's futons for us, and figure out how not to crumble to pieces? But at the time the question made sense to us. What exactly do we do now?

“Umm,” we looked at each other. “I wanna stay here tonight.”

“Me too,” Becca breathed.

“Are you sure?” Mom asked.

I had no idea what I wanted to do. “Umm, yea.”

“Ok. I’ll be at home whenever you want to come back. I love you girls so much. I’m so sorry,” Mom croaked while squeezing us tightly. I couldn’t feel anything.

Becca and I stood up, walked past Nancy and Michael, and sunk back into the TV room. Alex pressed the rewind button and I watched the gray lines on the screen. She pressed play and we continued watching the scene we stopped at minutes before.

A few seconds passed before Becca and I turned to each other.

“Wanna go home?” I asked her. I started to feel the weight of my body. I was so tired.

“Yes.” she nodded.

We stood up. “Bye,” I said to Alex and Michelle.

“We’re so sorry,” they whispered.

“Uh-huh,” I uttered.

Becca and I walked out of the room and saw Nancy and Michael sitting at the dining room table. “We’re gonna go home.”

“I’ll walk you home, girls.” Michael smiled faintly with his red, sunken eyes. Nancy stood up and gave me a tight hug.

“I’m so sorry, Jo,” she said. Her chest vibrated against my head while she spoke. “We’re always here for you. Always.”

I slid my arms into my snow jacket. It was bulkier than I remembered. I wrapped my scarf closely around my neck and zipped my coat up halfway. “What’s the point,” I thought. “It’s only a few houses away. How cold can it be?”

We left through the front door and marched into a sheet of snow. It fell madly from the sky. I closed my eyes and tilted my head down, walking right behind Michael. Wind slapped my face like sandpaper. Becca followed next to me. The streetlights were caked with snow and the light was gray, the street so quiet. I couldn’t even hear my own footsteps.

We got to our front door, opened it, and began shedding our layers of down and nylon. Mom was there, waiting for our return. The Christmas tree lit up the living room and housed piles of presents. There were hundreds of them. I looked at the tags and quickly realized they were from almost everyone we knew. Over the past month people had left presents, casseroles, cookies, and anything else that might distract us from the fact that Dad now lived in the hospital. Seeing all the gifts sparkle under the blinking bulbs seemed like a huge waste.

I stared at the tree and watched the light show dance on the walls and stairway. The Christmas tree flickered, completely unaware of what had just happened to Dad.

***

I remembered when Dad brought in last year’s tree. He had it on his broad shoulders, carrying it through the door as if he held a prize from a hunting trip. He propped the tree up in the same corner as always, and then secured it into the base. We watched him artfully loosen the branches from the netting and fluff the tree into an amazing sight. As he pulled down one of the branches he whispered, “Ah. Look…what…we…” and continued to reach deep into the thicket, “have… here.” He slowly pulled his arm out of the pine needles and held a perfect little bird’s nest in his hand. It was the size of his wide palm. Becca and I shrieked and scurried over to put our faces up close to the discovered treasure.

“Wow! That’s so cool!” I said marvelled. We touched the little branches that comprised the delicate nest. Mom ran into the room and then she too hovered over the finding. “What a cool bonus to getting the tree,” I thought.

“Did you know that finding a bird’s nest in your Christmas tree means you’ll have good luck for the whole year?” Dad said, in his soft voice. He gave us a smile and opened his eyes wide. I felt the luck already.

***

It is almost fourteen years since that cold night in December and I am now twenty-five. During the time my father was losing his life to cancer, I did not know how my mother, sister, and I would soldier on, but I knew we had to.

It was appropriate for us that he died on the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, because we were ready to find a sign of light. It was also an appropriate time for him, being in sync with the natural world, that he should leave this earth as the seasons quietly switched acts. December will always be a difficult time for me and each year I continue to feel a sadness wash over me as the first day of winter approaches, but with each year comes more successes, more promise for the future. Although it would be impossible to retrace the steps we took from that day forward, it is those small steps, those choices, those moments of strength that have allowed not the tragedy to define our family, but rather, our endurance and love instead.

Phoenix or bust

As much as I think I’m trying to be financially responsible, I’m not. Responsible adults pay their gas bills and have functioning stoves. They also receive letters saying their credit limit has increased and that they just earned extra sky miles. I don’t get those letters. I get dangerously thin envelopes with the words Final Notice stamped across the front, letters written in all caps, forcing my eyes to read the words I’ve been ignoring for many weeks, words like Due to accruing late payments and Your credit rating has been lowered. In fact, not too long ago, I opened a letter from The Gap and wrongly assumed it was a bill for yellow corduroys I purchased for a modernized Snow White costume. But no, the letter was even less forgiving than tight yellow pants—it informed me that my credit limit had been reduced to $100. I wanted to yell, “That’s ridiculous! One hundred dollars doesn’t even pay for a chunky knit sweater these days!” Confused and ashamed, my vision inevitably focused on the familiar words that read Due to your recent late payments on other credit cards… Ah, my injured relationship with the bank had been leaked! In the world of payee-payer relationships, I am not redeeming myself with good behavior, and I’m looking at fifteen to life, with only some ill-fitting cords to keep me warm.

Recently, throwing caution to the wind, I bought lunch near my school on the Upper West Side. After much shoving around by high schoolers and fellow lunch goers, I decided on split pea soup and a veggie wrap. I chucked my debit card across the counter, trying to get out of there as soon as possible.

“Sorry, ma’am. It’s declined,” the cashier said, handing me the curled receipt inked with the D-word. “Do you have another card?”

“First of all, ‘ma’am’ isn’t necessary. And please try that card again,” I smiled uncomfortably.

The man rolled his eyes, as if to say, You’re making my life more difficult than those high schoolers behind you trying to steal cans of soda. But he ran the card, and again shoved the receipt reading declined in my face.

“Do you have another card or what? There’s people waiting.”

“Um, yea, hold on,” I said, fumbling through my wallet, “try this one.” I tossed him my sparkly for-emergency-purchases-only credit card.

“Ma’am, card’s no good. Do you have anything else?”

Glowing all shades red, I shook my head, handed the food back over the counter and mouthed, “I’m sorry.” I dialed my bank immediately. When a man picked up, I spurted, “My debit card is no good. I tried to buy lunch and they said no! It’s been declined. Why?”

“OK, Miss (read: Crazy). Hold on…Well, it seems like we’ve put a hold on the card, ma’am.”

Yes, so that it wouldn’t go up in flames the next time I swiped it at Loehmann’s, I thought to myself.

“What’s your social security number, ma’am?” he asked, then followed up with, “And the state in which you received your social security card, ma’am?” The onslaught of ma’ams combined with starvation was all too much. Not only was I being called old and told I may not eat, but my card was being put in a time out. The only thing that could have made the moment worse was if the banker’s next question was, “And when was the last time you actually went to the gym?”

Informing the banker I was born and bred in New York, he said, “So, you didn’t purchase anything in a Walmart in Phoenix, Arizona yesterday?”

“Um, no. I didn’t.”

“Well, it looks like someone has been charging things to your account. At WalMart and Safeway.”

“Oh my goodness! That’s terrifying!”

“Yes, ma’am, it is. We’re gonna go ahead and cancel this card for you, and I’d recommend you close this account, just to be safe.”

“But I’m leaving for Ireland in two days! How fast can I figure all this out?”

He cleared his throat as if to say, You have $200 in your account, you seem to go out for dinner quite a lot, but yet you’re going to Ireland. Don’t choke on your whiskey.

He was right. Who do I think I am? I had two overdraft fees this month and The Gap won’t even allow me any more dark-washed denim. I realize the card cancellation is unrelated to my recklessness—since Fake Me was unaware of who she had swindled while buying armfuls of junk at Walmart—but maybe it takes a scammer in Phoenix to stop the Real Me from committing any more financial harm.

So after work, I darted to my nearest bank to open up a new account and withdraw some cash for my trip. A new checking account and a few twenties in hand, I filtered onto the rush hour subway, desperate for a seat and some sympathy. I squeezed in between a gaggle of high school girls, a sprinkling of sad nine-to-fivers and two moms with strollers. Holding onto my wallet and handrail, both for dear life, I couldn’t help but overhear a mother and teenage daughter next to me.

Daughter: Mom, who are you giving the Tiffany’s gift card to?

Mom: Not sure, probably Kirsten. I still don’t know who to give that Cartier caviar set to though. The only people I’ve seen serve it recently are Barb and Doug. So maybe I’ll give it to them.

OK, so apparently not everyone buckles down when the economy bites the dust. It’s a harsh world out there, and getting harsher—just ask Fake Me, who required my buck for her shopping spree! I know it’s going to be a steep and messy climb out of this hole I’m in, full of ample time in last season’s clothing to think about my sinful ways. I’ll start repenting as soon as my plane takes off for Ireland.

True Blond

One of the reasons I chose to do my surgery rotation at the county hospital was because I heard that you could “get lost” there; meaning, the doctors were so busy, and there was so much going on, that as a medical student, you could just hang out all day and not be missed. “They don’t even notice you’re gone,” the upperclassmen told me. Perfect! I thought. Surgery does not interest me in the least; I looked forward to showing up for a quick surgery, and then leaving early like everyone else.

“WHERE’S BLONDIE?” I heard my attending doctor bellow as I hustled down the hallway, late for evening rounds.

“I’m right here Dr. Barkley, the ENT clinic ran late, I’m sorry.”

“Well I’m glad you decided to grace us with your presence, we’ve been standing around waiting for you.” I glanced around at the surgery team. Besides the residents, only one other student was there; six were AWOL.

“Why is he always on my case? He never asks about the others…” I whispered to my one friend resident, a tall, handsome man with golden curls, who I would imagine the angel Gabriel to look like.

“The blondies can’t hide!” Gabriel whispered back with a wink. I felt momentarily comforted by these words of understanding from a fellow blond.

I have never had the privilege of being inconspicuous, not even for a moment. I must mention that I not only blond, but platinum blond—a result of Nordic heritage mixed with God’s idea of some genetic fun. Since I was an infant, people have been commenting on my hair. My mom tells me strangers would reach into my stroller to pet my head, before she learned to snap at them not to.

“Is that your real hair color?!” Yes.

“Do you know how much people would pay for that?” Not really…

“Wow, you’re soooo blond!!”

“Yes…” Smile and shrug.

“Can I touch it?” No, but I see that you’re going to anyway.

These are the daily questions and comments but I’ve heard the gamut. Yet for some reason, despite twenty-five years of attention, I still feel awkward and slightly embarrassed receiving it. My usual response to a compliment is simply, “Thank you,” a phrase that is far underrated.

I’m sure some of my awkwardness regarding hair color was born around the time of puberty, when there was nothing cute about having glasses, braces, and being pale as a ghost. Growing up, I had to endure Casper comments or kids asking if I bleached my hair (ironically, by girls who now bleach their own hair in their twenties). One boy who sat behind me in my ninth grade math class used to whisper “soft cornsilk” into my ear, and occasionally would stroke his fat fingers around a lock of my hair before I flung myself forward, out of reach.

I remember praying to God to give me brown hair. Around puberty, I started losing huge amounts of hair. I would shower or comb my hair and handfuls would come out. My hair was all over the house. Then I started finding random dark brown hairs in my scalp. I panicked. God was replacing all my blond hair with brown hair! “Dear God, please, please, I changed my mind! I want to stay blond! Please let me stay blond!” I pleaded pathetically. I now know that the variations in my hair color was simply from hormones and growing, but it took an event like that for me to start appreciating what I had.

Thankfully, I have outgrown that wretched stage, but as any ugly duckling (or self-perceived ugly duckling) can attest too, the self- consciousness that developed during youth dies, but never truly disappears. Today, I am at peace with having platinum blond hair. The truth is, now I love being blond! It suits my personality and style. Not that I have much experience having dark hair.

I dyed my hair once, before embarking on a six month teaching stint in Qatar. “You’re a target, Cece.” My mother has been drilling this phrase into my head since the age of twelve, when I first started going to Manhattan alone with friends. In some ways she was right; I walk down any city street and I hear countless men call out, “Hey Blondie, wassup?” “Blondie, where you goin’?” “I’ll carry that bag for you, Blondie!” I’ve learned to handle this, however. All a girl has to do is wave and smile. Assault/mugging averted. I’m probably the only girl you’ll see smiling at bums and drug dealers, but I assure you, it is all in self preservation! So, to avoid being a “target” in an Arab country, where women don head to toe black abayas, I dyed my hair brunette. Well, it was more of a honey color. “You’ve made yourself worse!” my mother lamented. Although the hair color was pretty, I did not feel like myself. I was happy when the color started fading out. It was also fun seeing the reaction of my Arabic friends as my hair became lighter and lighter as the weeks went on. The lighter my hair got, the more free things I seemed to receive—coffee at Starbucks, VIP tables at clubs, invitations on random princes’ yachts… As it turns out, the Middle East may treat blonds better than anywhere else on earth!

My hair color may even have saved my live once. I was three years old, and we were visiting family friends out on the East End. They lived on a farm, with endless fields of cabbage. My mom lost sight of me for a few minutes, and I disappeared into the fields. (Later, I informed my parents I was searching for the Cabbage Patch Kids.) If it were not for the reflection of the sun on my head, my mom may never have found me, already a far distance away!

The other day in clinic, as I presented a patient to Dr. Barkley, a resident interrupted to ask the doctor a question. “Excuse me!” Dr. Barkley yelled. “I’m talkin’ to Blondie here!” Dr. Barkley stared at me, distracted by the interruption. (Face reddening begins.) “You’re a true blond, I can tell. Do you know how you can tell if a girl is a true blond?” he asked the audience of residents. (Face now catching fire.) Dr. Barkley has a reputation for being extremely inappropriate, and is probably the most chauvinistic person I have met. I feared the worst, and memories of being cornered in a frat house and being asked if the “curtains matched the carpet” came flooding back.

“She has no roots.” Oh thank you Jesus.

Dr. Barkley slapped me with a medical question. Mercifully, the answer reflexively came to me. (If I think too hard about something, sometimes the answer escapes me!)
“So perhaps, the old saying about blonds being dumb may be proving to be false…” Dr. Barkley concluded. Perhaps…

I guess the lesson in all this is to own up to who you are, no hiding, no shrinking away. And being different has its perks—people can find you in a crowd, or even in a cabbage patch.

Guess who's coming to dinner?

There comes a time in a young professional’s life when she must switch career paths or U-Haul it out of Manhattan. I chose to move. Having heard and answered the call of teaching and then skipping through graduate school in fourteen months, my only option was to move from my two-bedroom (shared three ways) on the Upper West Side and venture outward. To the boroughs. Teaching may have fed my soul but it wasn’t filling my pockets, and there’s only so much scrimping a girl is capable of when all the boutiques along Columbus Avenue know her name and everyone’s glad she came—with the happiest of them all being her credit card company.

I spent my last Sunday morning as a city girl camped out at one of those coffee shops that’s too cool for coffee and has now moved into the realm of exotic teas and gluten free baked goods, reading the Sunday Styles and phrasing my own wedding announcement. “Ms. Finley, who will keep her name, wed Mr. Whitman last night at some magnificent waterside soiree.” I may not have been able to afford the croissants and cabs of New York City anymore, but the tradeoff was having some money tucked away for monogrammed napkins and a honeymoon next summer. I could deal with that.

And so I began making the negotiations betrothed people make. I (begrudgingly) traded in the bustle of Manhattan for the bustle of a Nicole Miller gown, and decided to head east. With Curtis working on Long Island and me teaching in the city, we battled it out in a mean game of Tug of War. Curtis would heave the red taped-off center on our rope toward Huntington, then I would yank it back near Brooklyn. Both tired and ready to let the real negotiations begin, the rope started to hover over Queens. I neatly packed up my books, stuffed animals, and college photo albums, and off I inched—watching the rows of brownstones and parade of hipsters fade behind the horizon—hoping LL Cool J was right when he sang, Queens got the vets, Queens be the best.

Far from my best-laid plan, I went apartment hunting with my mom. Curtis, knowing all too well the impulsive decisions we would soon make, wisely instructed, “Don’t sign anything.” After researching the address of some buildings near the 7 line, my mom and I hopped into her Honda and hightailed it for a day of looking and thinking... Oh, who were we kidding? We were signing.

I can picture my first impression now: whitewashed arched doorframe and quaint walkway, two gleaming, marble fireplaces in the lobby, and a staircase that cleaved left and right. In my pathetic attempt to play it cool, I just smiled and exchanged this-is-it looks with my mom, all while jumping up and down. Smooth. (As we’ve always said, we could never work for the CIA.) Then I saw my potential home sweet home, a corner apartment on the sixth floor, cattycornered to the floor’s garbage disposal. All the closer to throw my garbage out with. The level of delusion still frightens me when I think about it. I’ve been told I see the world through rose-colored glasses, but let’s be honest—it’s more like I take intermittent, frenetic glances from behind a satin eye mask.

“Great door! So cute!” I chirped.

“Mmm-hmm!” mom smiled back.

Goners, the broker cackled to himself. “And this is the kitchen,” Mr. Broker explained. And luckily he did, because the sterile white room sans cabinetry or appliances that we were staring into could have gone one for one against a psychiatric holding room. I appreciated the clarification.

“And this is the living room,” Mr. Broker pointed out as we continued the tour, or rather, herding of sheep. “And the bathroom...” Mr. Broker trailed off. OK, so it had a hole in either corner of the room, marking the place the toilet and bathtub would one day be affixed to. My gut told me I needed that apartment, and beyond that my gut was also telling me that it was the last apartment left in Queens. What is that, gut? The last apartment ever? Oh no, I better sign. What’s that, gut? You think I should sign immediately? You’re probably right, gut. (I ate Indian food the night before and I realize now that I might have misread that message from my gut. Either that, or I was high off veneer and paint fumes.)

Why the deranged obsession with a frighteningly unfinished apartment? Why the need to move into that apartment right then? This is where I’m reminded of sage advice I received in a fortune cookie years ago, a fortune I’ve saved and framed: A handful of common sense is worth a bushel of learning. Full of knowledge, there was no room left for common sense. I ended up signing the lease because it resided in Sunnyside. Yes, I chose my future home based on my attachment to the song "Stay on the Sunnyside," a song Curtis put on a mix tape for me while we were dating.

The name was a sign.

The name was all I needed.

The name turned out to be the best part of the whole place.

***

A few weeks after moving in, I woke up to a familiar scene for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, or any other creature living in the sewers. Green-tinged water trailed down my bedroom wall and pooled on the increasingly warped wooden floor. The ancient heating system released enough scorching steam at night to press my shirts or power an engine, and it was definitely hot enough to create a mirage. I prayed for a mirage, or at least a reflection from another building. I tiptoed out of my bed, toward the slimy cascade, wiping beads of sweat from my hairline. I slid my fingers down the shellacked mess and I realized it was no illusion. The walls were leaking and quickly turning into mold. Overnight. My rose-colored glasses and eye masks gathering dust in the corner, I was quickly settling into life in Sunnyside.

There was no live-in Super, so it was nearly a week before I contacted a human being at the leasing office, then another few days before they arranged for someone to come check out the "eledged" mold, and from that timeframe I estimated it would be about a year or so before it was cleaned up.

Yet clean it up they did. But of course, it had to be before 4:00, and since I’m with students everyday until at least 3:40, I hailed a cab faster than you can say, “Spores are killing me!” Thank goodness I made it home in time to watch the barely functioning employee douse my wall with bleach, mop up the floor, and extend his hand for a tip. Here’s a tip: Fix the leak!

He assured me it was, “All better, all better,” and left me seething with clenched teeth. By the end of that week I started to notice bubbles popping out of the bathroom wall. My adolescent walls (that cried at night and sprouted acne by day) needed obvious and immediate repair. Yet before I had time to dwell on what might be inside the bubbles, one of said bubbles grew an arm! Upon closer inspection, the protrusion wasn’t an arm as much as, with God as my witness, a mushroom. And unfortunately, the only mood altering this mushroom produced was agitation.

Getting dressed the morning of the fungi finding, I mindlessly outfitted myself in my teacher uniform of cardigan and khakis. With each button I fastened, I silenced my gut that kept whispering, "I might have been wrong. Sorry, Alice. Apparently this ain’t no Wonderland."

I scratched my neck and cursed the heater for sucking all moisture from my skin. As luck would have it, the defunct heating system averaged the perfect temperature to not only farm mushrooms, but also bake my skin. As I slammed my front door closed, I saw a flyer posted on it with the word ATTENTION: MEETING RE. BUILDING LAWSUIT. Frankly, I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn my apartment was condemned, but it was just a friendly reminder regarding the building meeting later that night. My first thought was, “If it starts at 5:00, how soon do I need to come home to avoid the meeting and how quiet do I need to be in order to pretend not to be home yet?” Despite the strong tug of my desire to avoid all things group, the tug of why the fuck is this building involved in legal matters won out.

Skip to quarter past five that evening, upon tripping over some disgarded furniture in front of my building, I flew through the lobby doors and took my place among the we’re-fed-up-and-we’re-not-going-to-take-it-anymore crowd goers.

“It’s been a few months since we last gathered to discuss the legal proceedings against Vantage Management,” the Tenant Advisory Board chairwoman said. “But before we catch everyone up, does anyone have new concerns or issues with their apartment?”

“My rat problem has gotten out of control! Now I’m trapping about one a week. They keep finding their way through that sliver of space between the pipes and the floor,” one neighbor complained.

“Try stuffing that space with Brillo pads and then covering it with caulk. Worked for us, so far,” offered a fellow friend.

“Well, I have roaches all over my kitchen,” voiced a third person. “No matter how well I seal bags and containers, they keep finding their way into my cabinets!”

“Have you tried sealing bags and boxes with tape and then enclosing them in Ziploc bags?” suggested another member of the masses.

I thought I had it bad with mold, a radiator that seemed to be housing a prisoner trapped inside clanging to come out at 5:30 every morning, and a toilet that sporadically went on strike. Maybe I had broken out in hives over the last few months, but who wouldn’t have a visceral reaction to a crumbling apartment and foreclosed dreams? I was starting to realize that I had it easy and that I would take the path of least engagement; nod and look fed up, then scurry like a good little mouse up into my apartment and count the days until Curtis moved in. Why deal with it when you can ignore it? So that’s exactly what I did. Hives making my woolen sweaters unwearable, I soldiered into the winter months warmed by the knowledge I would soon live with my husband-to-be. Staying on the sunny side would be markedly easier with him next to me.

When moving day finally came the weekend after Valentine’s Day and our six-year anniversary, it seemed as though all the loose ends swirling around my head were neatly weaving together into a cuddly cashmere knit. In preparation for our imminent cohabitation, we treated ourselves to a modern day marriage bed. Foregoing one strewn with hand-dyed fabrics and rose petals, we opted for the current mark of a couple’s switch from single life to commitment: a pillow-top mattress and box spring set from Sleepys, and a massive mahogany sleigh bed from Pottery Barn. Those two components were also the last to be moved in from Curtis’s truck, and at the end of a day serving as a painful test of patience and love, we were approaching the finish line. I could see the Gatorade and the shiny medal awarding us Best Couple Ever. Bring it on, mold! Bring it on, busted radiator and plumbing!

Since my old mattress cost about a hundred dollars Memorial Day weekend two years prior, it weighed about as much as a hundred dollar bill. Its lack of cushioning and back support had greatly impeded my hours of rest, but it made the last step of moving day incredibly easy. We lifted it off the metal frame, turned it over, and each let out of breathy gasp.

“Is that… Is that a… stain?” I asked.

“It’s moving. I’ve never seen a stain move. Have you?”

“Look! There’s like five of them. What’s all this black stuff in the corner over here?”

Our eyes met, our faces blanched with realization, and we uttered the words that have left an indelible mark on our lives and bedding. Bed bugs.

Writing this now I am itching the nape of my neck and the back of my leg, worried for a moment that they’re back. I dream about them, so much so that last week I woke up clawing at my forearm. I then wandered into the medicine cabinet, and applied hydrocortisone, all because I thought they had started climbing over my body and left blistery welts in their wake. I generally come to around the time in the nightmare that someone, usually my mom, consoles me by saying, "It's only a mild case. I won't tell anyone."

As soon as we uncovered the fully functioning micropolis living under my nose -- a civilization I had unknowingly fueled with my own blood -- we looked left, toward the plush, pristine pillow-top that peered out from the hallway, shrink-wrapped and untouched. It seemed so wrong to bring such innocence into such filth. Then Curtis and I turned our heads to the right toward the solid wooden bed frame, ready to cradle our hopes and dreams. Little did the sleigh bed know the only thing it would soon provide would be impossible-to-raid hiding places for our little illegal immigrants.

Then, one by one, oddities of the past few months started making sense. I pulled up my sleeves and stared at my mottled arms, red dots blazing on my pale skin. Those were no hives! And the heater might have caused dry patches, but that itch resulted from a far smaller, sneakier villain. My own bed mates! And all those mattresses, side tables, couches, and bed frames that had increasingly piled up on the curb, they weren’t the unlucky cast offs of interior makeovers—they were testimony to a home infested. The peculiarities I had previously shrugged off began to slap me in the face, or, rather, bite me in the ass.

Having no clue where to begin and already overwhelmed by the enormity and minutia of it all, we popped our collars, slipped on sunglasses, and ducked into the hardware store. We were in desperate need of some Grade A juice, some real hard stuff.

“Psst. Hey, Larry. Yea, what’s good for killing bed bugs, really knocking them out. We need the good stuff.”

Larry winced and shook his head. “Nothin’ kills ‘em. They’re out of control, man. But your best bet is to spray them with this,” he said, holding up a white plastic bottle that I could already picture in my pest killing holsters. “Then, you’re gonna’ want to fill any holes in your floors and walls with this,” and he took a machine gun-looking caulking tool off the shelf. Armed with sprays, covers and caulks, we sped home to unleash guerilla warfare. Tools and weapons gave me back glimpses of the power and control sucked dry by the enemy.

We washed all of our sheets and towels, and all the clothing we stored in our bedroom. That was a solid nine loads right there. I still cringe upon opening our linen closet when I eye each tightly folded piece of cotton, crammed onto each shelf, towering four feet above my head. I think, "What if?" as memories of my laundry abyss take over. During the raid, we had to wash the curtains and circular rugs—but we decided just to toss those. We sprayed down each of our expertly restored antique dressers with the magic liquid in the white bottles, heretofore known as White Magic, zapping a few bugs here and there. Once the furniture had been cleaned out and sprayed and all the clothes washed, we began the caulking of the floors and walls. It seemed like no two pieces of wood connected and we found ourselves all but refinishing the floors with the gloppy white mess. There went Saturday and Sunday. Not sure which of my bites were old and which were recent, I figured they would all disappear, give or take a week, after our chemical laden raid. I was practically developing DNA mutations as a result of all the shit we unleashed into the air.

But the red, itchy, welts emerged like clockwork, averaging two a night. They would glow strong in my morning shower, either on the back of my calf, or forearm, or thigh, even on my shamed cheek. I was becoming my own version that doll whose make-up appears after you put hot water on her face—a wave of the “magic wand” and she had her face on, ready for a night of debauchery and tomfoolery. Yet, the only thing hot water revealed on me were marks of disgrace and defeat that were growing harder to cover up as the warmer months approached.

So, we tried Boric acid under each foot of furniture in our apartment. Larry said that might work—except it didn’t.

We also pulled each staple out of our box spring, the place the most bugs tended to burrow, and one by one the metal fasteners fell to the floor with a tinny sound—resonating in our fabric-free room, reminding us that despite all our efforts and might we were steadily losing the battles and it was becoming clear we were losing the war.

Next, the sleigh bed fell victim. Upon dismantling each slat we realized the pieces formed a tightly knit breeding ground for the bugs. The fact alone that it was wood made the bed frame a likely candidate for the enemy to usurp. We placed the sections along our bedroom wall and commenced our habitual spraying down of all things contaminated with White Magic. As winter slowly turned to spring, and snow melted away to reveal new growth and promises of dormant life, so too had our bedroom been exposed. Our unmasking, however, stripped the room of the trappings of comfort and safety, leaving us to sleep on a distressed mattress on a floor sprinkled with Boric acid and crumbling caulk. The scene, resembling an installation at the MoMA, was as follows: walls lined with the one time formidable headboard and footboard, a dejected boxspring, and rows of empty spray bottles. Title: Psychological Warfare. Each night that Curtis and I surrendered to our bed, he would hold me and whisper, “I’m so sorry I can’t stop them from biting you. I’m so sorry they’re still here… somewhere. Those little fuckers.” I would sigh and leave an understanding kiss on his cheek before rolling over to retrieve the bottle of Skin So Soft and begin my nightly ritual: Spray sheets and pillow, spray arms and then legs, tuck pants into socks and shirt into elastic waistband. Curtis, watching me prepare for a fitful night of sleep, looking on while I geared up to battle during my rest, had ironically enough never felt the sting of our pests. Apparently, he wasn’t as sweet. What he was pedaling was of no interest to the little bloodsuckers, making the abuse I continued to endure all the more unfair and senseless. Whenever he did discover a rouge bug, he would drop it into a clear film canister filled with the chemicals used in the daily dousing of our mattress. Sometimes I’d find him holding the bottle of captured terrorists up to his face, just staring at their upturned bodies lifelessly floating atop the sea of toxins. I think it gave him some sense of victory, of valor, proof that he had at least saved me from these creepy crawlers and that yes, we were infested, even though eyeing culprits were hard to come by as the altitudinous emotional damage mounted.

By this point we stopped inviting people over. We had also stopped going to the movies, what with the upholstered theater chairs and thickly carpeted aisles striking fear in our damaged minds and all. We couldn’t risk it. Netflix became our main connector to the outside world, allowing us to appreciate new stories and interesting people with the security of a plasma screen between us. Our wedding was quickly approaching and our nightly visitors continued to mark me with thick, rough bumps, so I decided once school let out to hide at my mom’s house until the big day. Wearing my strapless, sweetheart gown that put my arms, shoulders, and back on display would be the first little snitch to reveal my dirty secret. Camping out in my old twin bed at mom’s was my only option. Curtis, free of bites, continued to battle it out behind closed doors—defending my honor with every squirt of White Magic and caulking of open spaces.

Once we were hitched—the rice settled, cake eaten, and champagne sipped—we left for our honeymoon. Each night we held each other close, close enough to whisper sweet nothings.

Curtis: You’re beautiful. I love you. Did you check the mattress for bugs?

Me: I’m so happy. I love you. Yes, I checked the mattress. Did you check our luggage?

Curtis: I checked, and I think we’re fine. I can’t wait to go to sleep.

Me: I know! I dreamt about being in bed with you all day.

Curtis: Me too! Mmm… Good night!

Me: Good night! Sleep tight—

Curtis: Don’t even think about it.


The week slipped by in a blur created with five parts rum and three parts blazing sun, and before we sobered up on our second day our joie de vivre had awakened and reminded us of how restful sleep and thread-count sheets truly were. Restored and refueled, we flew home ten days later, emotionally prepared to finish the job we started months earlier.

Tattered white flag in hand, we finished the job by surrendering to the reality that we were fighting a battle best suited for Sisyphus. We put down the gimmicks, tools, and hope, and signed a new lease quite a ways down Queens Boulevard, whistling while we packed. Even though each item (frame, votive, book) had to be doused and quickly loaded into cardboard boxes, and each box then had to be placed into black garbage bags and stacked in the foyer (since the bugs could easily and relentlessly hitchhike on the cardboard), the tedium paid off. We pulled up anchor and set sail.

Dozens of boxes encased in bags later, we speedily figured out what to do with the furniture. In the manner of glossy magazine spreads that informed me at the start of each season what to keep, store, and toss, we determined the future of our furniture. Mattress: keep (after careful chemical treatment by exterminators and encasement in microfiber slipcover). Sleigh bed: store (in mom’s garage while wrapped in plastic). Couch: toss (without thinking twice).

“It’s Moving Day! We’re leaving, we’re leaving! Get me the hell outta here!” I sang as I jumped out of bed (read: mattress on floor). Curtis oversaw the moving out and I managed the moving in. The exterminators showered our new place with chemicals that killed any existing bugs and chemicals that nuked any visitors that decided to welcome us to Rego Park. Rego Park. Not as sugary sweet sounding and sentiment inducing as Sunnyside, but sentimental is so last year.

Recently, Curtis and I took an impromptu stroll through Forest Hills, and my boots clicked against the cobblestones while my neck craned up toward the pre-war buildings. We felt like we had stumbled upon the brick road leading us to Oz. “Maybe, when our lease is up next summer, we can think about buying a place here. I mean, could you imagine? The train, the subway, the restaurants—the young people!”

“It’s certainly younger than the Eastern European retirement community of Rego Park!” Curtis smiled.

“Could you just die?! Dartmouth Street!”

And as much as the idyllic town tugged at our hearts, causing Rego Park to feel increasingly like the USSR and us to feel increasingly strange in it, Curtis squeezed my hand, and pausing in the middle of the road, he leaned his forehead against mine and said, “We may live in Little Russia, with no young people for miles. We may still rent, and we may be far from Manhattan… But tonight we can go home, curl up in our clean bed and know we’re the only two things there. That's about all I need right now. I'm good.”

At the end of the day, all anyone really needs are people we love, people to share our lives with—people to help us fight our battles and help us rebuild when the spray settles. And if you’re lucky enough to find someone who will hold you close at night even when your bed is plagued with bed bugs, well, then that person is someone you can trust will hold you close for years to come. Because let’s face it, you both know each other’s deepest, dirtiest secret and that right there is enough blackmail to bond you for all eternity.