As usual, she greeted me as if no years had elapsed. ‘Hi, sweetiepie, another day, another thousand dollars. Once every ten years you show up like a bad rash that keeps coming back…’
I had brought her a gift of Cadbury’s Flake — a chocolate bar that crumbles the minute you unwrap it. She was thrilled.
‘We don’t have it here. Your mom actually turned me on to them. The first time, I said, “It comes like this?” It’s a mess. You have to work at them. Great when you are cooking.’
At the college, Lori deals with about a hundred foreign students from thirty different countries, providing a resource centre for them, working on cross-cultural acceptance, dealing with immigration issues and acting as an advocate on campus for those new to the States. It isn’t always easy explaining America to people who have conceived life in the States by watching Star Trek and Bonanza.
Photographs of Lori with her friends from Thailand, Thai masks and pictures of Buddhist monks line the wall of her office.
They are a tiny people. Can you imagine me with them?’
Lori was in Thailand from 1990 to 1992 and the evidence of its importance to her is everywhere. From the Certificate of Appreciation from the United States of America for her work to the large notice which reads, ‘The Peace Corps — the toughest job you’ll ever love. Ask me.’
We sat in the castle amid panelling once owned by Napoleon Ill and talked about America, the country she now represents to newcomers. She was abroad during the Gulf War and was ashamed of the propaganda she heard broadcast on the international radio station Voice of America. It made her a lifelong fan of the BBC World Service and I realised I felt pride in that. She spoke of her pride in the freedoms of America but echoed what I had thought about some of the education.
‘I appreciated the US so much when I came back. I am allowed many freedoms in this country to do, or at least attempt to do, what I want. If I wanted to take on a non-traditional job then I might have to swim uphill but I could make that choice. Somewhere else I might just have got married at twenty-two and had babies. It’s a good country but it’s not the only good country There are lots of them. This one just happens to be mine.’ She shook her head. ‘I find the ignorance of the US college student about geography scary. The kids who think Africa is a country.’
Lori wanted to take us to The Cobble Stone, a local diner, for lunch.
‘Can we walk?’ asked my English companion.
‘No!’ she scoffed. ‘There are no sidewalks. This is Purchase.’
It was our own geographical ignorance. Over lunch we talked about the past. She was unimpressed by how long we had known each other.
‘Why shouldn’t we still be friends? It just means being there for someone.’
Lori was happy to look back but I don’t think the Gladys connection had been as strong for her as it was for myself, Cathy and Rita. She seemed to live in the present and look forward to the future in a way that I envied. I also felt a twinge of jealousy that, despite all her travelling, Lori was quite clear about her nationality and where she belonged. A simple thing but something I had not yet achieved. I had thought, because of my upbringing, that at heart I too was an American but I was beginning to have second thoughts.
We headed back and wandered across the lawns to the purpose-built apartment complex where Lori now lives. From the elegant old-world confines of the castle we moved to 1960s functionality. Former student accommodation has been turned into a very nice three-bedroom apartment for the Director of International Student Services.
We headed into her computer room to see if we could search out any more of the Gladyses over the internet. In particular, we were looking for Leslie, whom Lori had been very close to at high school.
Lori leads a single life. She and I are both wide-hipped women who would have had no trouble birthing, but neither of us has ever bothered. I had been blessed with kids by another route but it didn’t look like being part of Lori’s life.
‘You never going to settle down with a volunteer fireman?’ I asked as she fired up her computer.
She looked over the top of her glasses at me. ‘Now that you mention the volunteer fireman, I might give it a second thought.’
Lori has had several boyfriends over the years whom I have met but there seems to be no one at the moment.
‘A woman in her forties — the pickings are slim.’ She shrugged. I asked her if she couldn’t find some nice woman instead.
She laughed. ‘Women are always coming on to me but it’s just not my thing. I’m just not playing on that team.’
‘Twenty-five per cent of the Gladyses are gay,’ I told her.
She looked sternly at me. ‘Sandi, are you thinking this through? You care about statistics?’
She is a whiz on the computer and the entire time we were talking she tapped away.
We tried to think what we could recall about Leslie. Like Lori, she had been a junior, so she was a few years older than me.
‘She was divorced at one point,’ Lori came up with. We tried searches in Massachusetts and New York and found a Leslie with the same surname in Worcester, Massachusetts, but the details didn’t seem right.
‘I would guess that she is at a school,’ Lori mused. ‘Let’s put the name in with “edu” and see what happens. For all we know she has a porn site and we could easily come across it.’
We found a Leslie in herbal medicine and knew it wasn’t her and Leslie’s architectural page …
‘I don’t think so … not her …‘ A different site lit up on the screen. Lori peered at it. ‘Georgia … Georgia …‘ Suddenly she started to get excited. ‘Oh, oh, she was in Georgia! She did go down to Georgia. This might be good … I’m just having a flash—’
‘It’s your age,’ I replied.
‘Shut up!’ she boomed and we both laughed. Lori read over the information on screen and announced, ‘I believe it’s cracked … Leslie … set and costume designer … She’s in Georgia. I remember now’
I was starting to get nervous. ‘Do you think she’s going to want to see us?’
‘I bet it wouldn’t hurt.’
There was a phone number and we began to egg each other on to call but neither of us really wanted to. Finally, Lori looked at me and picked up the phone.
‘Ballsy, aren’t I?’
There was one call to a switchboard and then Lori got a direct line number. Neither one of us had spoken to Leslie in over two decades but Lori placed the call and someone answered the phone.
‘Hi, Leslie? This is Lori …‘ I could hear the shriek from all the way down south. Lori grinned at me. ‘Oh, it is the right Leslie. We’ve done a good job … I was hunting you down because a friend of ours is here — Sandra Toksvig.’
Lori handed me the phone and I didn’t know what to say. I told her about tracking down all the Gladyses and how that meant she was included and I was very English because I was very sorry, etc. I don’t know why I mentioned being English. My accent was becoming more and more American as I spoke. My first sensible remark was to ask her where she lived. Her response was a little surprising. She lived in Georgia, as we had established, but she was getting married in two weeks’ time. Did we want to come?
‘Lori,’ I said, ‘do you have a hat? Leslie’s getting married.’
‘That means there’s hope for us.’ Lori looked at me. ‘Well, hope for me.’
‘That would be wonderful!’ I kept repeating until Lori took the phone back. Everyone was giggling now like the schoolgirls we once were.
‘You needed this on a Monday afternoon, didn’t you, Leslie?’ Lori laughed. ‘Congratulations on getting married, you’re giving me hope.’ It seemed we had caught Leslie just in time. She was now not only costume and set designer at a university theatre but also artistic director in charge of the season. She had been heading out for auditions when we called.
By the time we hung up we were planning to fly to Georgia, rent an open-top car, be very ‘Southern’ and wear navy.
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I was a little nervous. ‘Do you want to go to a wedding?’ I asked.
‘I think it is kind of odd.’
‘We’ve got to have a hat!’ I repeated. ‘Maybe,’ I said, ‘we could take some time to——’
‘Be bad?’
‘Chill … as the English say.’
Lori looked at me. ‘Since when do the English say that?’
‘Are we really going to do this?’ I asked.
Lori nodded. ‘You know, Sandi, we have a way of making things happen.’
We were both over-excited and I was late getting back. Sadly I missed The Learning Annexe class where I was going to learn to ‘Speak French in Only 3 Hours!’ and for just $8. Still, I could do that some other time. How difficult could it be? French people speak it all the time. I was floating on air. I was going to a Gladys wedding!
CHAPTER 7
Leslie — Gladys Eleven
‘I wish I could care what you do or where you go, but I can’t … My dear, I don’t give a damn.’
Margaret Mitchell, Gone With the Wind
Okay, settle down for a long read. I have enough to say about a Gladys wedding in Georgia to rival Gone With the Wind. Paul and I returned to the UK and a couple of weeks later Richard, bless him, flew out to the wedding with me. If in doubt about an escort to a big occasion always take a gay boy. They know how to dress and are fabulous with other people’s maiden aunts.
Leslie and I had not been close and had not even exchanged Christmas cards in the last thirty years. Truth be told, when I rummaged in the photo album of my mind, I couldn’t remember that much about her. How bizarre to be going to her wedding. Richard and I were on an economy drive and flew into Newark Airport before heading off for a special overnight deal at the Airport Hilton. The hotel was yet another example of the mass homogenisation of product throughout the world. It could have been anywhere except there were signs all over the place indicating that everyone within spitting distance was pleased that I had ‘given them the opportunity to serve’. Being pleased about these things only happens in America. It is creeping into the UK, but in the old country people do still seem to serve because that is how they get paid.
I was glad that the Hilton people were pleased, although this didn’t actually help with the problem of finding anyone on the staff with whom I could communicate. The Newark desk clerk was handsome and young and nice and very Latino. It had been a long flight. Richard and I were carrying a great deal of luggage (well, we were going to a wedding), plus a heavy camera to record it all. I am a nervous traveller and I was thrilled to have arrived at all. I practically fell on the front desk to complete the formalities. When this was done, I enquired, ‘Do you have a porter?’
I smiled at the desk clerk as I provided him with his opportunity to serve.
‘On the second floor, left out of the lift,’ he replied in a thick Spanish accent and smiled back.
I was tired. ‘What’s he doing there?’ I asked.
‘Who?’ said the desk clerk. The porter,’ I replied.
‘Second floor, left out of the lift,’ he repeated, now less friendly.
‘Could he come here?’
‘Who?’
‘The porter.’ The clerk opened his mouth but I stopped him. ‘I know, second floor, left out of the lift.’ I tried a simpler concept. ‘Do you have someone who could help me with my luggage?’
There was a long silence. I think he had preferred the banter about non-existent porters. We stared at each other for a while but I stood my ground. Finally he sighed and came out from round the desk. He grabbed the lighter pieces of our luggage and moved away to the lifts. The three of us proceeded to the bedrooms on the tenth floor in total silence. Richard didn’t want to get involved and the Latino and I were divided by distant approaches to the same language. I could sense that we were equally disappointed at where we had ended up. This was not what either one of us had expected from America.
It had been an unimpressive return to the land of promise. We had stepped off the long flight and straight into an even longer queue of people. The line of disgruntled immigrants trudged down a dull white corridor with an oppressive polystyrene ceiling about to join the floor below. Through the broken ceiling tiles I could see that the roof void above was actually the same height of the room again. It had been concealed for many years. There was a general air that it was best not to give passengers too much of a sense of space. Each-one of us arriving cattle was required to go into a numbered booth to spend time alone with an immigration official. I looked down the line through the plate-glass divisions.
For their initial welcome the USA had provided a uniform front — bored young men with very short hair. They slumped over their work as we waited behind the yellow line to get some individual attention. I took the time to fill in a form which guaranteed that I had not been involved in ‘moral turpitude’, didn’t have any ‘communicable diseases’ and was not in the country for ‘the purposes of sabotage or espionage’. It seemed a strange lesson in honesty. I was honest and said truthfully that I hadn’t come to do anything bad but if you were already a bad person then it probably wouldn’t worry you to tick the wrong box; to claim to be a cheerful tourist when your head was just bursting with turpitude.
‘What the hell is turpitude?’ I whispered to Richard.
‘Just say no to everything,’ he replied. ‘Don’t cause trouble.’
When it was finally my turn, the bored young man went through the motions. He mumbled ‘Welcome to America’, but I think we both knew he didn’t mean it and he just wanted everyone to move on so he could go home. The trouble was I knew the queue would be full of people coming for the first time. Foreigners with their heads filled with images of Star Trek and Bonanza.
At the gate, the driver we had booked was waiting with Richard’s name on a piece of paper. He was a large black man who talked on his mobile phone continuously but also insisted on pushing the luggage trolley. This made us fantastically slow as we progressed through a British sort of building site — much inconvenience, much dust, no actual work going on. British Airways was ‘Sorry for our appearance’ and so was I.
The driver was suddenly off the phone and addressing us directly. ‘I have a surprise for you folks.’ And indeed he did. Some miles away in a frozen car park a stretch limo was waiting for us.
‘That is a $75,000 Lincoln Town car stretch,’ our new friend informed us.
It was classic mafioso with gleaming black paintwork and banks of white lights etched on the side. We stepped inside and found ourselves in a space the size of my living room back home. Two banks of leather seats faced each other with just enough room, if we had desired, for a reasonable ping-pong table in the middle. I opened a small wooden door in the panelling to reveal champagne on ice, while above, narrow strips of neon changed colour as we drove — blue, green, white, purple.
The TV gets too much interference,’ called Stuart, the driver, from his seat some miles in front. ‘But I have a very fine tape of the film Shaft, if you want.’
We didn’t want and neither did he. The car was great but I was a little financially anxious until we established that we weren’t actually paying for this vehicle. Stuart was merely en route and we were a slight hitch in his system. In between his relentless telephoning, he explained, ‘It’s party night. I’m going “sharking”. I am on “the recruit” for a nice piece of lady.’
He told me this in confidence. I was clearly too far from being such a ‘piece of lady’ to feel offended. Although we had just met he had no doubt that I was no longer sharking and it’s true. If there was to be fish involved in my evening then it would probably be lying in the bath with a tuna sandwich. Stuart had driven many ‘famous people’ all of whom, without exception, I had not heard of. I have never had much time for the notion of ‘fame’ and Stuart confirmed the ridiculousness of it all. People achieve celebrity for the wrong reasons today. They don’t conquer Everest or tingle the world with their spine-chilling
talent. They arrive on the public scene through mediocre television and money.
We had turned up on the night the results of the Presidential election were due to be announced but there had been some flaw in the system and no one could agree a winner. There was relentless arguing going on and I began to think that it was time for the world to do things in reverse. The United States endlessly sends monitors to oversee struggling democracies and check their election procedures. Surely now was the time to fly in a bunch of Somalis or Serbs to check the whole thing out? It is a curiosity of the American system that there are no independent senior statesmen. That everything and everyone from judges to dogcatchers is elected and therefore, by definition, partisan.
The contest had come down to a few votes in Florida, a state governed by George Bush’s brother with the polling overseen by Kathryn Harris, a close friend of the Bush family It was not a good day for transparent democracy. I was quite prepared to take the job myself although I did think I would need to see the house first. The big news from Dade County was that someone had been accused of swallowing a ‘chad’. Chad was the word on everybody’s lips. The new buzz word. Apparently it is the small piece of paper that is punched out from an automatic voting card. I had quickly learned that there are many types of chad — pregnant ones that are punched but not punched out, hanging chads, which cannot bear to leave the mother-ship, and some, presumably, which represent a small country in Africa. Ninety-eight million votes and it had all come down to one man possibly — or not — swallowing a chad. Stuart, our driver, was right. It made America look ridiculous. It is curious that the Founding Fathers (always to blame here. The mothers were too busy baking) legislated for this great hoo-ha.
Election Day is always the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. Then, six weeks later, the electors meet in their respective state capitals and cast their electoral votes; three weeks after that the House of Representatives gets together in Washington to count the votes (who would even think of phoning them in?) and then three weeks after that the new president finally gets the job. Now this leisurely approach to the whole thing was designed to allow time for many horses to cross the country to carry news of the will of the people. Here we are in the twenty-first century and it takes just as long. Go figure. What I think it shows is a measurement of the process of a modern American lawsuit, which clearly moves at roughly the pace of an eighteenth-century horse and buggy.
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