Wherein Pearl Enjoys a Good, All-Day Fright

These people look really put together.

I back out of the room, check the signage. 

It’s the right room.  I slowly re-enter and take a set at one end of a long table. 

Welcome, my friends, to eight hours of corporate learning, where an innocuously titled course on “Communications” reveals itself, in dizzying, slow-motion horror, to be the stuff of nightmares.

All that was missing was my entering naked and forgetting my locker combination on the Day of the Big Test.

I turn to the woman next to me.  “Why am I here?” I whisper.

She grins, and I like her immediately.  “Because someone loves you very, very much.”

And we burst into laughter.

It is close to the truth.  My boss, a lovely woman who now owes me an adult beverage the size of a day-long lesson in humility, had hoped only to enroll me in a course that would help me resist the urge to send e-mails with the salutation “Dear Inconsiderate Boob”.

In actuality, however, I have been thrust amongst people who speak for a living, the course being designed to teach them how to move across a stage effectively, how to gesture without appearing to have T-Rex arms, how to make eye contact without frightening the audience.

Now why don’t you come to the front of the room – hold on, we’ll be videotaping you several times to go over in your one-on-one coaching sessions – and give us a couple minutes on, oh, let’s see.  How about the rodeo?

One would think that I, personally-renowned writer loved by absolutely tens of people, would have quite the stage presence.  And you’d be right – as long as I am at a podium and reading. 

But this?  Suddenly, I cannot tell a story and walk.  I have forgotten how to blink, I am rocking on my heels, I am holding my arms out as if to play an invisible piano. 

The word “um” comes to my lips and stays.

The room is supportive and generous, the applause genuine.

I have wandered into a room holding a kazoo, and I have been taken in by the violin section.

And I am looking forward to the drink that is surely in my immediate future. 

Well It’s Not Like I Signed Up For It

I have friends who aren’t sure, exactly, if they’ve ever seen a cold sore.  This amazes me, as I’m pretty sure that everyone in my family – and we’re counting the cousins as well – is a carrier.

“We’re not even a huggy, kissy family,” I explain to friends. "I mean, babies, yeah.  Babies are open game.  We kiss the dickens out of babies."

“Huh,” they say, looking for an exit.

“Seriously,” I  say.  “I can’t remember ever kissing my parents on the lips.”

This is usually met with some sort of blank stare and then a broad grin.  We are, after all, Midwesterners. 

Kissing on the lips is meant for your wedding night.

I point out, of course, that the cold sore is caused by a virus, that nothing will get rid of it, that it’s not something I picked up whilst working as a carnie, nor was it part of a two-for-one deal with any other crusty-sored display of dubious affections.

This is met with exactly the kind of response one expects amongst the smart-aleck set.

And so it was Easter this last Sunday.  There was ham, there was asparagus, there was a lemon pound cake that I begged my mother for.  And there were stories.

My mother is holding a bottle of water.  The ham was particularly salty, and we are all swollen as ticks.

She regards the bottle.  “Isn’t it funny?  Bottled water?”  She takes a drink.  “You know, there was 14 of us kids growing up.  Mom would keep this big pail of water in the kitchen, and when you wanted a drink, why, there was a big ladle in there.  You’d go in, grab that ladle and drink as much as you could.”  She shakes her head, amused.  “Bottled water,” she says. 

And there’s another mystery solved. 

Why does the family have cold sores?

Well ladle me tell you a story…

Mary and Pearl Go to Florida; or I Don’t Know Anyone Who Thinks of Them as True Liquids

Balancing on one foot while re-shodding myself, stuffing my laptop into my carry-on and briefly marveling over the way my left leg sets off metal detectors yet contains no metal, I have made it through Security with a minimum of indignities. 

I am trying to figure out what to do with my winter coat – do I put it back on?  Do I try to cram it into my already cram-full suitcase? – when I glance up in time to see Mary shoot me a look of dismay.

“Ma’am,” says a man with a badge on his chest.  “Please step out of line.”

Mary points to herself.  Me?

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Is it what’s in my bag?  I thought I could pack anything in the bag…”

My head swivels from speaker to speaker, my jaw open, a dog watching a game of ping pong.  “What’s in the bag, Mary?”

“Ma’am,” and now he is addressing me – in the credits of this particular scene, I am, apparently, Second Ma’am – “Please step aside.”

I step, as instructed, aside.  “What is it?  Mary!  What’s in the bag?”

And Mary, a woman whose skin tone is settled comfortably between alabaster and Cream of Wheat, has gone azalea on us.

And for just a moment, I have visions of prisons, of ill-fitting clothing and garbage-bag wine. 

“What’s in the bag, Mary?”

“I – I – well you know how I go on my kicks!”

Bright spots appear before my eyes.  A humming goes up in my ears that experience tells me is a precursor to fainting.

“What kinda kicks, Mary?”

The security guard, mirthless as Death’s dad, is unzipping the suitcase.

Should we start running? I mouth to Mary.

But Mary’s eyes are not on me.  Large, bright blue, they are on the guard who is now removing the clothing from her carry on.

“Nice undies,” I say to her.

She looks up and smiles.  “They’re new.”

And that’s when he holds them up.  Not her undies, oh, no.  There are more subversive things in store for this trip than Mary’s brand-new undies.

“You can’t bring these in a carry on,” says Security Man.  Now surrounded by a supporting cast of other Security Men – all grinning – he holds aloft the offending items.

A squeeze container of Top The Tater.

A large bottle of Western Dressing.

The men in blue shake their heads.

And I am practically speechless.

Practically.

“What?!  Mary!  No taters?  No salad?”

The red in her cheeks sets off the blue of her eyes nicely.  “We have a room waiting for us with a fridge and a microwave,” she says.  “And I heard you can’t get these in Florida.”

“Can’t get --?  What are we, traveling back in time?”

But Mary is undeterred.  She shakes her head, firm in her understanding that she must travel with her own condiments. 

Security Man #1 is back.  “Ma’am, do you want to put these in your bag and then check it?  You’ll have to go back through Security.”

And I already know the answer, know it just as surely as I know Mary.

She will check the bag.  She will go through Security again.

And I tie my winter coat around my waist, take a seat on a bench leading out of Security.

“I’ll be here then, shall I?” I say.

Is there more to this?  Of course there is!  Come back tomorrow!

Wherein Pearl Becomes Conscious, or Look, You Little !!#@$%, I Said "MOVE OVER"!

As part of a social experiment in 8th grade, our political science class had a general election. As a result I, along with other classmates heavy on charm and short on real action, was voted into office.

Whereupon we were promptly moved to better living quarters.

There, at the front of the class, we lolled about on extra-large desks. Members of the high school football team peeled organic pomegranates for us, and we were carefully talcum-ed before exertion, lest we chafe.

We were, of course, thoroughly convinced that we, the elite, were deserving of these things.

Meanwhile, our constituents were forced toward the back of the room, their desks pushed together in overly friendly and possibly unhygienic groupings. Cries of “heeeeey, no fair” went unheard; teeth were bared in boisterous and vicious acts of aggression; and correct penmanship was disrespected in wanton, territorial displays against the left-handed.

My campaign promises, whatever they had been, were quickly forgotten, not only because I was an eighth grade twit but because those of us on “Mount Olympus”, as our neighborhood was called, quickly came to political differences with those on “Cannery Row”.

Arguments ensued. Friendships were forever altered, but for crying out loud, couldn’t the people in the back of the room see that we deserved all that extra space?

It was a far cry from yesterday’s yoga class.

There I was. Wedged between Amy and The Guy What Smells Like Cheetohs, mere inches from six people, while the row ahead of the row ahead of me had full range-of-motion rights.

Look at them, up there! Why do they get special privileges? How come the sweat around their mats is from them only? Look at them, with their breathable air and their smiley yoga faces!

No fair!

It is part of the practice, of course, to set aside petty annoyances, to tune out that which does not serve us in pursuit of serenity and a good stretch.

I close my eyes, do my best to ignore Stinky and Fuzzy and Sweaty and the other yoga dwarves crowding my mat.

It was then that I remembered Social Studies.

I had this coming to me.

Wendy, wherever you are, I’m sorry that I didn’t work harder to make more room for the desks. I’m sorry that I suggested that if you worked harder that you, too, could get elected and move to Mount Olympus.

And I’m sorry we traded that one time and I kept your painters pants.

It’s been 30 years, but I finally see the error of my ways.<

But I Thought You Liked Me!

The gin and tonic is delicious.

And I can’t take the suspense anymore.  

I adopt what I hope is a casual air.  “So,” I say, “Did you get the book I sent you?”

Sarah peers at me from over the top of her own drink.  “I meant to talk to you about that.”

I grin.  “Did you love it?”

She takes a cautious sip, continues to observe me.  Finally:  “Love it?”

I dig out a suspiciously fat lime, re-squeeze it. “He’s one of my favorite authors,” I say.  I stir the drink vigorously.  “His writing style, his use of language, his wit…”

“Wait,” Sarah says.  “His wit?”

I laugh.  “He’s the very essence of wit.”

She frowns at me.

I frown at her.

“You didn’t like it,” I say.

“Pearl,” she says carefully, “I have nightmares because of that book.”

My jaw drops.

She shudders.  “I got through the first 20 pages, and I’m thinking, holy mackerel, why did she send me this?  But I kept reading, you know?  I mean, my friend sends me a book, right?  There must be some reason for it.”

Sarah closes her eyes.  “The scene where someone was flayed alive –“

I manage to close my mouth.  I put a hand up.  “Wait.  What book are we talking about here?”

She looks at me, a glimmer of light coming into her eyes.  “The Night Soldiers,” she says.

I shake my head aggressively.  “No,” I say.  “No, no, no, no.  That’s not what I sent you. “

Sarah bursts into laughter.  “So you didn’t send me a book where people were forced to eat fish head and rotten horsemeat soup?  You didn’t send me a book where someone was eaten alive by bugs?”

I choke on the sip I’ve taken.  “No!  I sent you a collection of short stories by Sholom Aleichem! “

Sarah says nothing. 

 “Tevye the Milkman!” I say.  “Fiddler on the Roof?  Gentle good humor from a teller of Yiddish tales?”

A slow smile spreads across her face.  “Oh, my word,” she says.  “I read the whole book you sent, certain that it would become clear why you sent me such a horrifying book!”

“Oh, wow,” I say.

“Oh, Pearl, you’ve no idea.”  She grimaces prettily, shakes her head, the very thought of the book creeping up her spine. 

I grin at Sarah.  “Couldn’t be further from what I ordered.  And yet you read it!”

She smiles, pushes blonde hair from her forehead, shrugs.  “My friend Pearl sends me a book, I’m going to read it.”

By silent consensus, we pick up our glasses.  “Here’s to the unconditional nature of friendship,” she says.

We clink our glasses together. 

“And to my contacting Amazon’s customer service,” I say.