“All right. Please—”
“Be careful. I know. I will be, Calista. Give Mandy a hug for me.”
“I will. Thanks for checking on me, Mel. Bye.”
2:59 p.m. Not much time before I have to leave again. As I take the dishrag to the hall laundry closet and put it in the washer, I think about this week’s to-do list. Work tonight. Groceries tomorrow morning. I pull out the knob to start the washer and grab the Lysol spray on the laundry shelf. Hmm…class tomorrow at 6:00 p.m. Professional Writing Lab I. Our second night of my professor’s Publishing Series. Some published writer will be speaking for the entire three hours. Trying to be inspirational. Really just feeding his or her ego.
Going back down the hallway, I disinfect my black pumps. Six seconds of spray per shoe.
Lysol can back on shelf. Hands washed in kitchen sink.
Let’s see. TA class on Friday afternoon. College Writing 101. I still haven’t done much more than sit and observe. I can hardly be called a teaching assistant. The freshmen yawning through class probably think I’m just a twenty-something-year-old creeper drooling over their teacher. Little do they know it’s the other way around.
After Dr. Gabriel officially introduces me to the class in late October, perhaps I’ll feel more comfortable about being there. Comfortable, yeah—for about two weeks before I have to teach a couple of the classes in November. With him watching me. Ugh!
Quick trip up to my bathroom. Last one until I get back home tonight around 8:00 p.m. As I dry my hands, I look in the mirror to make sure I look together. Makeup—faded, but not running. Hair—a little frizz, but nothing disastrous.
I go back downstairs to the kitchen table to grab my notebook for Monday’s Literary Analysis II class. Maybe I’ll get some writing done tonight at work.
“You’re a writer?” The memory of a deep, quiet voice questions me. Oh. That’s right. I have yet another writing assignment to complete this week. In the mail by Friday, he said. Before he sends me more “standard” questions. Fantastic.
Maybe I’ll just write my response for him this evening and get it out of the way. I can put it in the mail tomorrow, and we can get this process moving. I’ll have all the paperwork done before I see Dr. Spencer next Wednesday.
I smile, thinking of my conversation with Melanie. According to her, I’ll need just one short visit in Dr. Spencer’s office and my transformation to normal should be complete.
3:05 p.m. Preparations to leave the house.
3:48 p.m. Time to go. I grab my coat and notebook before taking my black leather purse from the closet. I transfer the items from my coat pockets to my new purse, step into my slightly damp heels, and I’m out. Door shut and locked. Handle twist. Handle twist. Handle twist. Locked.
On to work.
Chapter 2
the assignment
THE WRITING CENTER IS PRETTY empty. The usual. No one really comes until after dinner on weeknights. Most of them don’t even want help. They just want a quiet place to type.
For now, I’ll take advantage of this quiet place to write myself. Earliest memories…I begin to brainstorm as I get situated at my corner desk.
Hmm…my parents always tell me that I was a horrible baby. Always screaming.
Not sleeping unless I was on my mother’s chest. But maybe that is how babies are for the most part. Maybe Melanie and Mandy were just exceptionally good. Perhaps Jared was only different because he was a boy. Or maybe he seemed really easy because he came right after me. Could this really have started that early though?
“Excuse me.” A stick-thin girl with a campus sweatshirt interrupts me. “Can you help me with my paper?” She looks to the left, most likely toward the computer where she is working.
She thinks I am going to go over there? Clearly a freshman. I smile at her as patiently as I can and explain the process of emailing me the paper, attaching questions, and getting a response within a half hour.
“Oh. I just thought…” She drifts off. Thought what? That I would actually take a job where I had to sit and talk with college freshmen? That I would sit close to them and hear them chomp their gum as I worry that they’ll accidentally spit while they are talking to me? So close that I can smell their not always clean clothes and the scented sprays they’ve used to disguise their poor laundry habits? No, thanks. Sorry, freshman. {Cue Green Day’s “Boulevard of Broken Dreams.”}
She is still standing in front of me. I manage to give her a smile before she turns to go back to her computer. It’s not entirely her fault that I find her disgusting.
This is probably her first college paper, and she really does look worried. I turn on the laptop sitting on my desk so I’m ready for the arrival of her email.
Back to early memories. So why did the baby version of me scream so much? Not bathed enough? Not changed enough? Maybe I was scarred from my experience with swimming in filthy amniotic fluid for months. Maybe a questionable looking doctor gave me my first shots.
Or was the baby me just afraid that if I stopped crying I’d be left alone with my own scary thoughts? Were they already there?
Perhaps my mega-intense doctor man can tell me if this is even possible. Surely this couldn’t have been what he meant by earliest experiences though. I really think he meant early as in I could hold my head up and eat solid food but not old enough that I had my driver’s license yet.
I don’t have the chance to finish this enchanting conversation with myself because my computer dings. That means I have a paper to check.
My freshman. Brittany at Computer 7, so says her help ticket email. No paper is attached to the email. Just a question about making a cover page. She’s only on the cover page? Looks like I will be spending my whole shift with Brittany.
I type her a quick response, attaching some “standard” cover page examples.
Back to my “standard” question. I begin to write my response, and other than four dings from Brittany, I am pretty much left alone…
The Evil Forks and the
Dangerous Mouse Droppings
Some of my earliest fears were based on some simple fatherly advice. I don’t even know exactly why the advice was given; I’m sure my brother, Jared, and I were doing something questionable to bring it on though.
At dinner, Dad told me that a person could get something called “Lockjaw” from having a fork stabbed into his or her skin. Lockjaw sounded pretty scary.
For the next few years, every fork I saw became a nemesis. Luckily, I found that I could eat many foods without having to use utensils. (Knives and spoons were probably okay, but how could I know for sure? Dad hadn’t said one way or another on other eating devices so I thought it was safest to avoid them all.) But I couldn’t avoid them all of the time. Every week (usually during the weekend), there would be four index cards sitting on the kitchen counter, four lists of chores. One for my brother, one for each of my sisters, and one for me. Ah…the dreaded list. Mine always said “EMPTY DISHWASHER” in the small capital letters my dad used for list making. DAMN IT.
Carefully, oh so carefully, I’d pull out each spoon, each knife, and each terrifying fork. If my skin even brushed against one of the menacing prongs, I’d quickly open and shut my mouth a few times to make sure it wasn’t glued shut.
Eventually, the scandalous task would be over and, phew, I’d made it through yet another weekend list…almost. After my dad’s capital-lettered chores, my mom would often add some of her own in her more feminine, lower-cased writing. And many times it was there, the next worst task: dusting. AHH—people should be forced to read the warnings on some of those cleaning supply bottles before they use them. They are freaking scary. I could go blind. I could have to have my stomach pumped. Hell, I could even die. No way. Not me. If I wasn’t going to let the forks get me, there was no way a bottle of toilet bowl cleaner was taking me out. So at the age of seven, I proceeded (very carefully—with gloves) to find out which bottles had the least troublesome warnings. Window cleaner and dish soap
won (but this was many years ago—I’ve found other acceptable products over the years.) From then on, all dusting was done with window cleaner or just water. And when one of those lists said “Clean bathroom sink and tub,” my parents could always count on the hall bathroom smelling like dish soap. Who knows how many times I saved my eyes, my stomach, my life…
Okay, so cleaning products and forks were nightmares, but they couldn’t even compete with the treacherous mouse droppings.
More words of wisdom from my father. “Wash your hands after you play in the garage. There is probably mouse crap out there.” Hmm…sounded pretty bad if this actually merited a warning from my father. (He never really gave random warnings or advice.) What could these mouse droppings do?
It wasn’t like there was a bottle I could use to check out warnings for this feces product. This was also obviously before the Internet was really in swing so I had no help there. Instead, I had to leave the potential dangers to my imagination. Smart move, I know—just brilliant.
That mouse crap was almost paranormal—it could paralyze or even blind a person quite easily. All someone would have to do was walk out to the laundry room (in the garage) in bare feet, come inside, and walk on the living room carpet—and the house was suddenly infested.
If I accidentally picked something up from the carpet after an infestation, I would immediately wash my hands, my feet, the thing that I had picked up—all contaminated objects. It was an endless cycle. We are lucky we had no fatalities.
I did my part. I wore shoes if I had to go out to the laundry room, and I refused to use anything that had ever resided in the garage. My other family members didn’t do their part though. They still don’t. I’ve seen them countless times doing laundry in bare feet, using tools they’ve found in the garage, and coming inside without washing their hands. I constantly fear a call from the hospital. One of them is bound to end up there.
I finish my shift pretty pleased with my completed assignment so I grab an envelope and fold it so it fits inside. If I just drop this in the mailbox on the way home, I don’t even have to think about it for the next couple of days. I do just that.
I BEGIN MY NIGHT PREPARATIONS shortly after returning home. Thermostat: 70 degrees. Stove: off. Doors: locked. Blinds: closed. Alarm: set. Teeth: brushed. Pictures: straightened. Clothes for tomorrow: out. Mandy’s room: cleaned. Nails: painted. Email inbox: empty. Laundry: away. Entire house: dusted. Kitchen: scrubbed. My bathroom: sanitized. Evening shower: taken. Body lotion: applied. Pajamas: on. Hair: dried. Prayers: said. TV: on.
Eventually, I fall asleep while a skinny woman on the television goes through the steps for making ravioli.
Chapter 3
the next day
WHEN MY ALARM RINGS AT 6:00 in the morning, I hear a different female chef preparing some sort of egg soufflé. Sounds wonderful. Like five thousand calories of delicious.
I opt instead for a 175-calorie breakfast of some granola and yogurt before I complete my morning routine and follow it up directly with my leaving-the-house checks.
THE GROCERY STORE IS DESERTED as usual when I get there at 10:00 a.m. Kids aren’t screaming. Vested workers aren’t stocking shelves. It’s nice. I know this tranquil atmosphere will only last until 10:50 a.m. so I pull out my list and get to work right away.
10:42 A.M. SAFE WITHIN MY CAR, I see three disheveled kids get out of a van parked beside me. They are everywhere—beside my car, behind the van, in the aisle of the parking lot. To avoid accidentally harming one of them, I wait to even turn on my car until their mom (or babysitter?) herds all three into the store.
Before I can back out, another car pulls in on the other side of me. Seriously? Perhaps I should start coming fifteen minutes earlier.
A scummy looking guy and a short-haired girl step out of the car. They quickly join hands and head toward the store. As I am pulling my foot off the brake, I look again in my rearview mirror and see lover boy drop his girl’s hand and head back to the car. AHH…brake pedal back down. Guess he forgot something in the car.
While he is searching in the back seat, the girl calls something to him, and he looks up over the car for a moment, smiling. {Mental picture of Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey lip-synching “Love is Strange” in Dirty Dancing.} He has now gone to the other side of the backseat to look. {Swayze and Grey are now crawling across the floor to each other as the song starts blaring.} He found it! He found…his…hat? Seriously? I’ve been sitting here for three extra minutes for a baseball cap? Maybe I should’ve backed out and taken my chances on not hitting—
NO. I didn’t mean that. I didn’t mean that. I didn’t mean that. As I cautiously back out, I make a silent plea to not hit him, or his girl, or anyone else for that matter.
MANDY IS ALREADY GONE FOR the day when I get back home. I see her colorful note on the table as I bring the groceries into the kitchen.
Three classes today. Thirsty Thursday tonight. Fifty cent drinks. Wanna come?
She asks every Thursday. I guess she maintains hope that somewhere down the line a Thursday will come along when I won’t mind the sticky floors and tables, the sweaty dancing people, the appallingly disgusting bathrooms…and so on and so forth in her favorite college bar.
She asks every Thursday, but she really never expects an answer. Nor do I need to give her one. The offer is just always on the table, literally so today.
AFTER SPENDING THE AFTERNOON IN our quiet house, I complete my leaving checks and head to my 6:00 p.m. class. Tonight’s published presenter writes movie reviews. I half listen and half jot down ideas for my lit analysis paper on the poetry of Pablo Neruda. I also pick off half of my nail polish. Mr. Speaker talks about the process of watching a movie, engaging with it, and capturing it in writing…or something. He lectures for over two hours. I can’t even recall his last name—I’m pretty sure it wasn’t anything close to Ebert though…
WHEN I GET HOME, I take a nice long bath with my notes about Pablo Neruda’s poetry. 9:30 p.m. Mandy knocks on my bathroom door to tell me that she is heading out.
“Okay. Have fun. Be careful!” I yell over the running water.
“I will. I guess you are working on a paper,” she half asks, half states. That is her simple way of acknowledging that I will pass on her offer to go out tonight.
“Yep. Pablo Neruda tonight. Wild and crazy evening ahead.”
“Okay. Good luck. Night!”
“Good night. Careful, Mandy.”
I get out of the tub when I hear the door click shut. I run in my towel to the thermostat and then to the stove so I can go see if the door is acceptably locked while still maintaining my night preparation schedule. If I get out of order, I have to go back and retrace, and I’ll never get to bed.
The bar lock on the door is in the correct vertical position. I twist the door handle three times to make sure it’s adequately locked. Then I move on to the blinds.
When it is time to check my email, I flip open my laptop. Sometimes there is a quick note from Mom or Melanie. There are always a few junk emails that somehow made it through the filter. I guess the filter gets confused over whether or not I would be interested in giving my bank account information to a stranger in Nigeria. Terribly puzzling for even the most intelligent of filters, I’m sure.
I quickly respond to a question sent from a fellow student in my nonfiction class and then take a second to review Dr. Gabriel’s email about tomorrow’s lesson plan. At the end of his email, he says he has to run because he has a date. He writes something like that at the end of every email. I guess he’s just letting me know that his schedule is still pretty full even though I refused to go out with him. Letting me know that he’s still dating a bunch of other girls. And probably sleeping with them. Little does he know, that’s the exact reason I refused to go out with him. Pretty ironic.
Under Dr. Gabriel’s email, I see a brand new email address: [email protected]. DA Blake, eh? {The pounding beat of 50 Cent’s “In Da Club” overtakes my thou�
��}
Okay. Enough, Calista.
Why is he writing to me already? Did he really already get my letter? Freakishly fast campus mail must have a late pick-up time.
Maybe I shouldn’t have been so anxious to drop it off last night.
All right. Time to rip off this hot strip of wax. Silent, brooding, angry wax. Here goes. One. Two. Three.
Click.
Calista,
This isn’t a writing composition assignment. Please try not to make it one. I’m going to send you a few lists of topics over the next few days. Consider each topic briefly, and then quickly type your feelings on the subject. No more letters. No more crafted sentences or sarcastic side notes. Just your feelings and fears. Quick and uncensored. If you need to respond to the prompts in sets of two, or five, or whatever, that is fine.
Respectfully,
Dr. Blake
Respectfully? You respectfully found the fears I told you about to not be worth your time? You respectfully want to know every uncensored thought that runs through my mind?
He wouldn’t even look at me for most of my appointment, yet he sends me this. Bastard. Is that uncensored enough for you?
After a (very) prolonged stare at my computer screen, I finally start putting laundry away at 11:15 p.m.
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