Instead of a forty-something loser, overnight I am transformed into a First Amendment heroine, free-speech pioneer, inheritor of the mantle of Lenny Bruce.
And my heroism…feeds on itself. The more my boss colorfully insists I am an emotionally unstable person who tried to destroy her station by pulling a Janet Jackson, the more reporters demand a response. I don’t have to be witty. All I have to do is suggest the difficulty of—of smooshing—a pre-edited breast…into the radio? and I look like some kind of comic genius. And in the L.A. Times, every day it’s “she says, I say, she says, I say”—this kind of wild, over-the-top “Mothra versus Godzilla” battle! Which people have never seen anything like in public radio! I mean, this is like Jerry Springer, but the NPR version, with two haggard women in flat-heeled shoes hitting each other over the head with like 100 percent recycled-material tote bags, coffee mugs, and special pledge-drive CDs. “And here—Yo Yo Ma! Bill Frisell! And what’s this? The Kronos Quartet doing the songs of Elvis Costello—take that!”
The more we fight, the more media outlets love it! These are the best reviews of my career…!
Celeste calls me, voice purring.
“Did you see The New York Times? Unbelievable. Two words: Frank Rich.”
FRANK…RICH???
Until now, my local public radio commentaries have never been heard east of Barstow. But now, within the bowels of Manhattan, Frank Rich has cited MY firing as an outrage. Even better, and this is like every fired misfit creative person’s wet dream come true, he deems MY boss…like the Taliban!
Forget Clive Barnes and the Post. This is Frank Rich in the FUCKING Times of New York!
“Frank Rich,” Celeste repeats. “The reason I’m calling is the ACLU wants you to be a V.I.P. guest at this huge ‘Speak Truth to Power’ event Friday in Hancock Park. It’s the Clintons, Bill Gates…Al Pacino actually requested you. Personally. He was outraged after reading the Frank Rich column.”
A town car is sent for me. Celeste rides along. When we arrive at the giant stone castle in Hancock Park, the street is already mobbed with town cars and limos. I know the guest list of performers includes Anjelica Huston, Kathy Bates, Carrie Fisher, Jeffrey Tambor, Eddie Izzard, Johnny Rotten, Eva Longoria…Which tends to only strike me with dread, because I know how low in the celeb pecking order I’m going to be.
But unbelievably, when Celeste says my name to the guard, the gates explode open and we are waved in toward rows of security guards, listening to earpieces, bent over, aggressive. As urgent as though they were landing helicopters at Camp David, they wave wave wave our car in!
I am a person who has wept in a rain-spattered Lutheran school parking lot…Who laid all my cards down before an implacable Mrs. Claus…Who sent a gift basket to Mrs. Carla Feninger, packed with free books, to no response.
I have broken tuna melts with Brenda, and taken notes for Joan Archer, of the tattered Parents Fools, the Patron Saint of Lost Causes, in Van Nuys.
I have kissed the asses of third-tier people, and below-tier people, and gotten only chapped lips.
But since the Frank Rich mention, it is as though a silent underground alarm has gone off. I am now an iron-clad folk hero, a Woody Guthrie, a Rosa Parks, a…who is that lady? Rigoberto Menchú! The V.I.P. guest list—it’s me and this group of Afghanistani doctor women. It happened overnight. Al Pacino requested to meet me PERSONALLY? What will be next? A Nobel Peace Prize?
I float through the party as if in a dream.
I am never left alone for a moment.
Never a back is turned to me. No, by contrast, conversational bouquets open to me…
Guests turn, with champagne flutes in hand, gasp, rush up to me.
I am introduced, “Here she is…the writer…who STOOD UP…to KCRW!”
People swoop on me not like crows but like royal falcons bearing gifts.
“I love Howard Stern!” an older man in a pinstripe suit says. “When he talked about you, I thought, I’ve gotta meet this woman!”
A fish-eyed younger fellow, more of a fallen-professor type, paisley tie:
“I confess to being surprised at your firing, Sandra. I wasn’t even aware you were still on the air—And I’m certainly disturbed by the First Amendment implications of your case—But most of all…” The man’s face suddenly turned red. He bends over double. His fists clench. “What I realize now is how much I HATE THAT WOMAN!!! The way she torments me on all those pledge drives! She’s like a bad mother! A guilt-inducing, constantly berating Jewish mother! And I should know! I had one!”
“Well, thank you,” I say…
But he is not done.
“Those PLEDGE DRIVES!” Spittle actually flies out of the man’s mouth. “While some clock is always ticking down, it’s like she’s riding shotgun with me in my car as I crawl through L.A.’s choked, smoggy freeways, hectoring me that twenty-five dollars, fifty dollars, one thousand dollars…No matter how much I give the station, IT WILL NEVER BE ENOUGH!”
An older Hancock Park matron, platinum-white hair, perfect size-two yellow Nancy Reagan suit, comes up to me. She is holding a white poodle with bows. Puts it down.
“I have been a huge public radio fan for twenty years. I’m a Democrat, I’m a member of NOW, I know Gloria Steinem, I care about the Sierras, I care about what happens in Rwanda, I always want to hear what’s on the BBC. I give and give and give every year. But then I read Frank’s piece in The New York Times—it made me so mad!” She opens her Hermès satchel.
Takes out a KCRW mug. Carefully wraps it in a linen dinner napkin, takes out what appears to be an Emmy(?), and with an astonishing heft of strength smashes it!
“And look at this!” she says, pulling something else out of her purse.
“My KCRW Fringe Benefits cards! I’ve cut them all up! And I’m sending them to the station!”
More guests join us:
“Public radio’s going to the pits!”
Why?
The complaints come hard and fast:
“‘Funny’ news quizzes where radio stories used to be!”
“Precocious food shows! Whimsical Chardonnays! Sweepstakes involving Jaguars, where ‘Ja-gu-ar’ is pronounced with three syllables!”
A squat Wallace Shawn look-alike collars me:
“The bottom line? Nine words. ‘Leonard Nimoy reading the work of Isaac Bashevis Singer.’”
“And John Tesh on PBS? Why is John Tesh on PBS?”
And now an Irish lawyer with muttonchop sideburns pushes me against the wall.
“Here is an e-mail I wrote to you that KCRW apparently never forwarded. I’m going to read it to you now.
“‘Dear Ms. Loh,’” he says.
“‘I do not fucking know if those fuckers at fucking KCRW are fucking going to forward this fucking e-mail to you, but—what the fuck!—I’ll try, anyway.
“‘I fucking find it fucking outrageous that you should have been summarily fucking fired for having inadvertently used a ‘naughty’ fucking word on-the-fucking-air. To my mind, it’s part and parcel of the Massive Wave of Fucking Stupidity that seems, once again, to be washing over this fucking country. FUCK! Just because fucking Middle America saw a black woman’s tit during a fucking football game. Who gives a fuck?’”
God, I think. In a weird Los Angeles way, my life FINALLY MAKES SENSE.
I am not Amy Tan, I’m simply a conduit through which liberal people can express ugly thoughts. I’m just kind of a topsy-turvy MESS. Like society!
Celeste squeezes my arm. She indicates that I should turn my gaze forward.
A windswept woman appears before me, wild mane of auburn hair, big geometric earrings, a kind of peach-colored sarong, very silky.
The woman catches me, grips me, holds me like a figure about to leap away from her off a cliff. She holds me close, like a lover.
Her voice is oddly low and mellifluous, on an entirely different wavelength from the rest of the room. She has a wonderfully ornate, almost foreign, way of speaking.
She pulls out a card and writes down, on the back…her cell.
7
Wonder Canyon
We are now in a magical time when there is only more, more, more magic.
I hear my phone chirp, chirp, chirp, like it is doing so constantly these days. I run to the kitchen to grab it…only to hear the dial tone.
And realize…it was Mike’s phone.
From the dining room, I hear the cadence of Mike’s voice as he wanders through our tiny bungalow, picking up our girls’ as-usual scattered clothes. Socks, shorts, a tutu, a teddy wearing a tutu, a monkey wearing a tutu…
Instead of a jovial “Hey, brother, how’re you doing?” (I always find it quaint how musicians call each other “brother”), I hear more of a measured, professional tone—“Yes, uh-huh, yes, I COULD…”Then suddenly, “Today? You want me to come today? It’s two already here, which must make it five over there…”
“What?” I cry out when he hangs up the phone.
He puts it down on the cradle, dazed.
Then puts up his hands.
“I didn’t say yes for sure. I said I’d call them back. I said I needed to think about it.”
“WHAT? WHAT? WHAT?” I yell.
His hands remain up:
“I did promise you I would not go out on the road anymore.”
I’m stunned.
“Why did you promise that?”
“You made me, remember? Now that we’re parents? You said my being away from the kids is too hard?”
“I don’t recall saying that. I must have been hallucinating. WHAT?”
He suddenly dimples, boyish, at fifty-one.
“Bette Midler!”
“Aieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!” I scream.
“They’ve just fired the guitarist!”
“Fired!!! Yippppppppppppppeeeeeee!!!” I howl.
“They want me to fly to New York TODAY!”
“Woo-hooooooooooooooooo!”
“Well?” he says shyly.
I look at my husband, surrounded by socks, skirts, tutus. This tiny, cluttered bungalow of females—this is no place for a man.
I shout, “Well, honey, what are you waiting for? You’d better get going!”
He comes and puts his hands on my arms. His tone is amazed. “So you’re letting me go on tour? Really? You would do that?”
“What are you smoking? GO! It’s Bette Midler!”
“I just…I also know I promised to follow through on Hannah’s school stuff. Which I know you’ve been worried about. But I know it’s going to work out.”
He puts his hand on his temple, massaging the familiar migraine—the familiar swooping crows—of his own family duties. “I made up a calendar. The magnet letters come out in May. Then you can do open enrollment…I started a list. I hate to dump it on you.”
I put my head down, close my eyes, then tilt my chin up, channeling, I don’t know, Diana Ross in Mahogany, forging bravely ON, in this business of show, without a man.
“No worries. Just give the stuff to me. I’ll handle it.”
“What a great wife I have!” he says, in glee.
“Not that you haven’t been doing a great job,” the Great Wife replies, lying through her teeth. “The great foundation you’ve laid will make it super-easy.” It’s amazing what outrageous lies you can still pull off after eighteen years of cohabitation. I guess that’s the beauty of men and women. I could not pull off such hilarious corkers with my sister. “What I appreciate is your patience,” I said to Kaitlin one day on the phone, and she laughed hysterically for five minutes. Three days later we talked again, and I murmured, “And I love how nonjudgmental you are—” “Oh no!” she screamed, howling, as she dropped the phone.
“I’ll call them back!” Mike exults…and all at once we’re in a flurry of activity, suitcases exploding open, iPod attachments, twisting wires, headphones, pants, socks, guitars, wawa pedals…!
I wave my fist in a victory salute.
“Better a musician far away working than home and unemployed!”
It is only when the excitement of Bette Midler! New York! Five-month tour! subsides that I realize…Mike is going to miss the Wonder Canyon tour.
I feel a stab of disappointment. It’s so like missing the opening of Christmas gifts on Christmas Day.
Then again, he will see the school eventually…and maybe it’s a good thing.
First of all, in this competitive town we live in, it’s always MUCH more glamorous to have the husband AWAY.
Second of all, although Wonder Canyon is a done deal, we’ve basically been offered a slot…(I carry Reva Thon’s card in my pocket at all times, which I rub like a lucky rabbit’s foot.) Look, it’s not that I don’t think he presents well, but after the great Bobblement that was the Luther Hall kindergarten assessment, it’s just much simpler to have the dad AWAY! Bette Midler! New York! Working!
And thirdly…
There is a person I know who deserves to actually see the inside of Wonder Canyon, the school where NO ONE gets a tour.
When Hannah and I get to Pane Simple, a track-lit French espresso/pastry joint on Ventura, Aimee is already there, in a dark suit, pacing. No BlackBerry, no earpiece, nothing. She is simply pacing and pacing, in preparation for meeting…Her maker? Her master? Her what?
I pull up, roll down the window. “Hey!”
Aimee’s face, behind large oval sunglasses, is blank. Her voice sounds thin, papery.
“I’m nervous.”
“It’s a Play Encounter!” I say. “What could be less foreboding than that?”
“I know.” Arms crossed, as though hugging herself, she turns away. Her voice becomes meditative. “It’s just…After all the reading I’ve done…I’ve waited so long to see the inside of Wonder Canyon.”
She doesn’t make a move toward the dented white Toyota minivan.
“Shall we?” I ask.
There is a brief, humming pause.
“I’ve got a car seat,” she says, jerking her thumb left. With relief Hannah and I climb out of the fetid minivan and mount stairs into Aimee’s cool, clean, steel-and-leather Lexus SUV-thingy.
I’m actually quite happy to be going up the hill in a Lexus. Even though I know, what with my X person/Rigoberta Menchú/Afghanistani women status, this is the rare L.A. occasion when I could literally drive up to Wonder Canyon in anything. The saying of “Fuck!” on public radio has somehow bought me that. (“She drove up in a Pinto! Isn’t that cool? A Pinto.” “What sangfroid! I wish I had the sangfroid to drive a Pinto.”)
And besides, the Lexus does seem to be a delectable treat for Hannah.
“Ooh!” she croons, in the sheer pleasure of being surrounded by smooth leather rather than by such customary bad smells as rancid McDonald’s fries and her sister’s crumpled socks. Down pops Hannah’s viewing screen. I hear a beeeep, then the cheerful theme from Little Einsteins: “We’re going on a trip on a little rocketship!”
“Pick up the headphones, honey,” Aimee instructs. “You see them?”
“Ooh!” Hannah says, with ill-masked pleasure.
“And there’s a sippy cup of cold water back there, and sliced apples and rice cakes if you’re hungry.”
“Thank you,” says Hannah, with sudden eerie good manners. “These apples are delicious and your car is so…so…” She leans forward to deliver the ultimate compliment, the most outlandishly high praise she, in her four-year-old world, can bestow. “…clean! Your car is so clean!” She puts the headphones on, takes in her surroundings. I can see the wheels and dials clicking in Hannah’s brain. Hannah is making a mental note to search the seat pocket for tiny child-sized handcuffs, the better to handcuff herself to Seth’s post in the Lexus in t
he same way I wanted to handcuff myself to the infinity pool at Auberge. (That’s what I just call it now: Auberge.)
“I’m almost afraid to see it,” Aimee observes as we twist and turn up toward Mulholland. “I have been studying Baz Ligiero ever since I was in graduate school.”
“Baz Ligiero?”
“‘Baz Ligiero?’” Aimee repeats, lightly mocking my tone. Turning right on Mulholland, she shakes her head. She is almost talking more to herself than to me. “Who is Baz Ligiero! Ah!” She throws up her hands, as if in pain. As if it’s all too much.
She recites the painfully good news almost dully, educational pearls to the swine.
“Wonder Canyon is the only gifted children’s school—actually, school PERIOD—in the world whose curriculum is based on the cognitive developmental methods of Baz Ligiero. Before Piaget…before Reggio…there was Baz Ligiero. People think of Piaget as the first Swiss constructivist in child psychology, but the main part of Piaget’s work, if you read it, is all based…?”
“On Baz Ligiero.”
“Yes!”
I hear the contented chomp of apples behind us. I feel that Hannah is accumulating ever more brain cells simply riding in this car. I wonder if dirt and bad smells can actually retard kids’ cognitive and emotional development. Probably. And ants. Probably truly gifted children typically do not need to deal with ants in their car seats.
Aimee’s voice drops lower. Within the hum of the Lexus, I feel as though I am in a James Bond movie and Q is giving me top-secret British Intelligence information.
“Baz Ligiero was a former Geneva armorer who taught at the Binet Boys’ School in France at Grange aux Belles at the same time Piaget began. Ligiero was ALREADY teaching music via a method he invented based on his boyhood experiences in Geneva lying in the park and watching sparrow flight patterns. It was basically the Orff-Schulwerk method, and this was ten years…pre-Orff!”
Mother on Fire: A True Motherf%#$@ Story About Parenting! Page 16