Buddha Baby (5 page)

As intimidating as they still were, Lindsey noticed they all looked much older. Most had silver or white hair now, except for Mrs. Yee, whose wig was as black as a doll's. Also, they all seemed to have shrunken and looked like they could use blood transfusions and chocolate sundaes to give 'em a little pep. They each moved in slow motion, and Lindsey longed for a can of WD-40, since she could practically hear their bones creaking.

So many years had passed since she was a student, she hoped they had all forgotten about the intercom incident. In eighth grade, Lindsey and a friend had gone to the office to make a student council announcement and had found the room empty. They pushed several buttons on the switchboard but couldn't figure out how to work it. As they waited for Mrs. Grupico to return and help them, they had joked around, unaware that they had inadvertently turned on the P.A. system and the entire school could hear their conversation over the intercom.

"Don't you wish Patrick Swayze was your boyfriend?" her friend asked.

"Are you kidding?" Lindsey screeched. "Is the Pope Catholic?"

A second later she added, "Does a bear shit in the woods?"

The girls erupted in peals of laughter, and a moment later when they caught their breath, Lindsey delivered a final punchline, "DOES THE POPE SHIT IN THE WOODS?"

As their howls of merriment were broadcast in the teacher's lounge, throughout the halls, and in every classroom, Sister Boniface came charging through the office door and tried to grab their collars. The other girl, closer to the door, ran out so fast that Sister Boniface didn't get a good look at her. Lindsey was on the floor laughing so hard that she didn't see the small nun until it was too late. For the rest of the school year she was forced to clean the faculty toilets and had secured a reputation as a foul-mouthed perpetrator of hooliganism. A real enemy of the Vatican.

Lindsey winced, recalling the incident. Thinking further, she supposed that everyone had thankfully forgotten about her eighth-grade antics, otherwise she probably wouldn't be standing here now with a job. She started to relax, and sipped weak coffee from a Styrofoam cup.

But she cowered when she saw the next teacher who arrived. It was Ms. Abilene, her seventh-grade nemesis. Shockingly, although fifteen years had passed, the woman looked not one day older than when Lindsey was a student. She wore the same flesh-colored hue of lipstick, and her hair was still styled in that Carol Brady flip that made it look as if a stiff baby octopus sat atop her head. Her inexplicably shiny complexion and fake-friendly smile were that of a wannabe-glamorous trailer-park mom, and her perpetual squint made the color of her eyes and pinpoints of her pupils indiscernible. She was no doubt the unholy lovechild of Renee Zellweger and Mr. Magoo.

Unnerved to see Ms. Abilene so untouched by the years, Lindsey was convinced that the seventh-grade dominatrix definitely had some Picture-of -Dorian-Gray thing going on. Wanting to disappear, Lindsey hid from Ms. Abilene by stepping behind a rotating rack of serial paperbacks,
Deeds of the Saints
.

After a moment, Sister Constance clapped her hands together and said, "Ladies, let us commence."

A few standard school announcements were made about the stairwell lamps being out of service, end-of-year grades due, and Boraxo to be used sparingly in the lavatories. Sister Constance caught Lindsey off guard when she announced, "And I'd like to introduce our new office girl, an alum of St. Maude's whom I am proud to welcome, Miss Lindsey Owyang."

One might have expected a few polite remarks, but no. Instead, Lindsey heard a few whispers, such as, "Cheeky, cheeky girl."

"Always acting the maggot, that one," and in a thick, Gaelic accent floating from the back of the room, "She's no better than a fishmonger's wife."

She bit her lip. Obviously, no one had forgotten about the Pope shitting in the woods. These phrases uttered by the teachers were the same ones used to describe Lindsey more than once when she was a student. Although she hadn't gleaned their meanings back then, today, if she had a copy of 501 Irish Verbs, she could look up their definitions:

Being Cheeky: acting in a manner worthy of being slapped on either or both cheeks as many times as deemed necessary by nuns of miniature stature.

Acting the Maggot: conducting oneself shamefully, squirming about as does a maggot or other subhuman larva.

Behaving No Better than a Fishmonger's Wife: sneaking around like a daft harlot, fool enough to be married to a "monger," whatever that was.

Despite the chilly welcome, Lindsey smiled and gave a little wave. Sister Constance pulled her granny spectacles down with her index finger to the tip of her broken-capillaried daschund nose and tsk-tsked as she caught sight of Lindsey's pink nail polish. Mrs. Mann clasped her hands together like a chipper cruise director and in her clipped yet throaty voice reminiscent of Miss Jane Hathaway on
The Beverly Hillbillies
said, "Miss Owyang is at your disposal to perform any of your end-of-the-year or summertime tasks. Just leave your instructions for her on the office chalkboard. You needn't worry about her efficacy, which is sure to be splendid because, as her student records show, she routinely received First Honors and was Miss Perfect Attendance five years in a row!"

The small crowd disbanded and Lindsey looked to the pastry tray to see if any cookies were left. Blocking her view was a mannequin-still Ms. Abilene, who suddenly turned to face Lindsey, her false lashes quivering slightly like venus flytraps coated in Maybelline mascara. Lindsey averted her gaze but could feel Ms. Abilene's sand-speck pupils boring into her head like weevils into a cotton ball.

Panicked, Lindsey decided to make a run for it. She bolted for the door and made it safely to the hallway, which smelled of rubbing alcohol and aerosol chalkboard cleaner. Terrified, she scurried back to the foyer office to featherdust the portraits of the archbishops.

Lindsey always had vague aspirations of being an artist, but who had time to mope around all day in unsanitary, paint-splattered coveralls? Sure, she was creative, but her artistic inclinations hadn't yet propelled her to an MFA or a career as a graphic designer. Instead, she worked part-time as a museum gift-shop clerk.

When she first took the job, she thought the position might consist of expounding on color theory or debating the genius of the Fauves and Dadaists, but mostly she just spent her time convincing docents that their modernist jewelry looked "fabu." At the cash register she rang up an occasional copy of
Artweek
, but the store's assistant manager decided her real talents lay in massaging the egos of socialites and the Junior League set. As a result, she was oftentimes trapped in Zone Four, shilling miniature replicas of famous sculptures. Ladies who had just lunched would peruse the Calder-or Eames-inspired knickknacks and once in a while Lindsey would make a sale, perhaps a postcard of Picasso's
Les Desmoiselles A'Avignon
to one of the mademoiselles de filet mignon. Her commission was three cents per card.

Thursday afternoon, she left St. Maude's at four o'clock and took a short bus ride to the museum. Pushing through the heavy glass door of the gift shop, she walked past several matrons with glossy hair-helmets and gigantic Jackie O. glasses. In the back corner, she slipped behind an unobtrusive door that led to a warren of staff offices, and there she tied the required black apron over her clothes and adjusted her name tag. She consulted the schedule on a dry-erase board by the water cooler and found that tonight, yet again, she was assigned to Zone Four, the jewelry and tchotchke counter.

She emerged from the back office and greeted a few customers with her friendly yet reserved retail face. Working at a museum store required a demeanor somewhere between Gap giddy and Sotheby's solemn, and she remembered to walk with her hands folded behind her back like they had shown her in training.

Co-workers at
Vegan Warrior
magazine always bragged that practicing yoga made them stand taller, saying their whole body felt different. Well, Lindsey wasn't into yoga, but now that she worked retail she could honestly say that she held her body in a different way. Greeting customers in such a staid environment, she learned to trade her slouching for poise, and to look people in the eye instead of scanning the floor out of shyness and an overwhelming fascination for dustbunnies. When it came to conversing with strangers, she fought her casual dependence on "urns."

"you knows," and the occasional swear word. And she trained herself, when directing people to exits and restrooms, never to point with a single finger, but to instead use a more polite, open-palmed gesture just like certain Disneyland employees and late-eighties Union Square mimes.

There was hardly anyone in the store, so she leaned against the counter and flipped through a Pottery Barn catalog that someone had left behind. One spread featured a dinette set, chandelier, and handwoven rug, but Lindsey paid little atten tion to the wares for sale, focusing instead on the prominently featured wall hanging of an old Chinese man wearing a mandarin robe, black boots with thick, white soles, and a hat with a horsehair plume.

"Oh, great," she thought. She imagined some designer thinking Chinese people added an exotic splash to any well-appointed home. She wondered what type of person displayed a portrait on their mantel of someone who wasn't even remotely related to them. As for her, she couldn't imagine hanging a gigantic picture of some random white lady in her apartment.

Actually, Lindsey knew exactly what type of person placed framed portraits of costumed mandarins in their house. Working at the museum put her in frequent contact with this exact type. In fact, she'd recently begun charting her sightings, and had hypothesized that the Bay Area was a teeming breeding ground and migratory destination for these particular ladybirds, distinguishable by the following markings: chunky jade or cinnabar jewelry, loose-fitting garments decorated with Asian motifs, a purse or contents thereof adorned with trinkets such as Buddha keychains, sandalwood prayer beads, ointment jars of Tiger Balm, or any other accessory that seemed to say, "I've purchased spiritual enlightenment for $7.95 plus tax."

Lindsey noticed these loyal fans of ethnic regalia fondling Asian pears at the farmer's market, ogling
blanc-de-chine
Quan Yins at antiques stores, and chowing down on seared scallops at the Slanted Door.

She called them the Hoarder Ladies. And yes, they were the female version of
Hoarders of All Things Asian
.

An addendum to her original theory:

While male
Hoarders of All Things Asian
focused mainly on the procurement of Asian love slaves, Hoarder Ladies seemed more concerned with the acquisition of fashion and home items, preferring to feather their nests with a healthy dose of oriental razzmatazz.

For quite some time she'd been noticing that the Bay Area's thirst for the Asian aesthetic in home decor was unquenchable. Even the museum gift shop had its own row of books that described how to arrange candles, statuary, incense, lacquered cabinets, and bamboo thingamajigs "a
la maniere Chinoise"
to achieve the irresistible combination of sexiness and serenity. In one knick-knacky corner there was a small selection of slippers, purses, and blotting papers for shiny noses. Not to mention the best-selling item in Zone Four, which was a handbook of Taoist sayings that promised on its cover "to elevate shopping to a spiritual experience."