The Social Climber of Davenport Heights (10 page)

“Let me write this down,” I said. “So I can look it up at the library.”

“I can do better than that,” Buddy said, reaching for the phone. “I’ll call my dad, he’ll be able to put his hand right on it.”

“Your dad?”

“He’s a rabbi,” Buddy said.

The phone conversation was short but productive, and within a few minutes we could hear the ring of the telephone in the outer office and the distinctive buzz, beep and growl of fax communication.

I wrote Buddy a check for the office visit and he gave me his home phone and offered to talk to me anytime.

“You just do what you feel you need to,” he said. “And don’t let anyone tell you that it’s less sane than the shortsighted selfishness that surrounds you.”

“Thanks.”

He handed me the fax. I said goodbye and walked out of the office. I skirted through the throngs of teenage tooth-straightenees and waited for the elevator. It was not until I was enclosed inside, completely alone, that I read through the list for the first time.

Levels of charity, from least meritorious to most:

• 1. Giving begrudgingly
  
• 2. Giving less than you should, but giving it cheerfully
  
• 3. Giving after being asked
  
• 4. Giving before being asked
  
• 5. Giving when you do not know the recipient’s identity, but the recipient knows your identity
  
• 6. Giving when you know the recipient’s identity, but the recipient doesn’t know your identity
  
• 7. Giving when neither party knows the other’s identity
  
• 8. Enabling the recipient to become self-reliant
  

I stepped out of the elevator, walked through the lobby and out into the parking lot. At least now I had a basic framework to go by.

That very afternoon I started keeping a journal of my do-good efforts in my Day-Timer. Truthfully, I kept it in a kind of code. It all seemed silly but I was just a little bit afraid that someone would see it and expect an explanation.

Red Toy Rite-O-Way 1
was my way of recording my slowing down to let a burgundy Camry enter the freeway. The numeral 1, of course, referred to the rating on the rankings list. It was a good thing and I did it, but begrudgingly.

JL Trash Cash
got a four, because I called up and volunteered to run the Junior League rummage sale prior to the organizational meeting.

Fridge Free 2/6,
defrosting the refrigerator at the office, was less quantifiable. It was a two because I got rid of the ice buildup cheerfully, but could have bought the staff a new no-frost model. It was a six because I know everyone who works in the office, but no one would have ever suspected that it was me who broke down and did the cleanup.

On my next visit to Chester, I took both the rankings list and my journal to show him.

He was seated in his chair with his feet up on some new, high-tech footstool.

“It’s like a hot seat,” he told me, laughing. “Fortunately it’s not for my backside. It gets mighty chilly around here with these linoleum floors.”

I nodded. It was undoubtedly true. The heated ottoman was a weird cushiony thing that his feet and ankles sank into completely. He was swathed in a strange, netlike bandage up to his knees.

“Why don’t they just get you some wool socks and a pair of house slippers?” I asked.

Chester shrugged. “They couldn’t charge that off to Medicare,” he speculated. “Anyway it’s a pretty neat idea for keeping warm.”

I told him about my visit to Buddy Feinstein and he looked over my Day-Timer.

“It does seem like you’ve been a busy lady,” he said.

“I don’t know,” I told him. “Buying Girl Scout cookies and getting a lost cat back to its owner doesn’t seem like world-changing altruism.”

He laughed and reassured me.

“Everybody wants to do the big things,” he said. “Everybody wants to make peace in the world or cure terrible diseases or end racism. But there are plenty of little things that need to be done just as badly. When you take care of the little things, you make a difference.”

He made me feel good just by saying that.

“What is
Brynn Tongue Bite 1?
” he asked.

“Oh, I talked to Brynn after my visit to Dr. Feinstein,” I said. “She wanted to know how it went.”

He nodded.

“I could have told her the truth, that he didn’t seem to think I was crazy, and that I should keep on trying to keep my promise. I actually wanted to tell her that,” I admitted.

“But you lied instead?”

“Not really, but I hedged.”

“Why?”

“It would be as if I were saying, ‘Brynn, you’ve got problems and I don’t,’” I told him. “That would make me feel better, but it wouldn’t do much for her self-image.”

“I suppose not.”

“I just said I didn’t want to discuss it,” I told him.

“And she accepted that?”

“She loved it,” I said. “Brynn always believes the worst of me. So I’m sure she thinks I would never hold back anything good about myself.”

Chester thought about that for a long moment and then agreed that that was probably the best way to handle it.

“What about what the doctor said about Brynn’s behavior?” he asked. “Maybe it would help her to know that he thinks she’s being pretty typical for a teenager.”

“I did think about saying that,” I said. “But it’s been years since going to therapy was something I made her do. She is very involved in her own care. And she picked Dr. Reiser herself. She’s very confident in him.”

Chester looked skeptical.

“I don’t ever put more confidence in a doctor than he does in me,” he said. “And if what I’ve heard from you is any indication, this Reiser fellow is giving that girl of yours far too little credit.”

“You think so?”

“Absolutely,” he said. “Brynn is your daughter. She’s bound to have a great deal of the same spunk and drive that you have. You saw a life you wanted and thought you needed, so you went after it. Brynn doesn’t know yet what she wants, and you and your husband have made sure there isn’t anything that she needs.”

That was certainly true.

“It’s hard to take aim at the world when you haven’t got an obvious target to shoot for.”

“I guess that’s true,” I said. “I just wish I’d been a better mother. I tried everything. I was lenient and flexible. That didn’t work. So I got to be exacting and disciplinary. That was even worse. So I became inconsistent and conflicted. And I’ve been paying ten thousand dollars a year for therapists ever since.”

Chester chuckled.

“Your mistake was thinking that youngsters are supposed to be happy,” he said. “Some are, I guess. Those who are just naturally good-natured. But the bulk of them aren’t. And that’s nature’s way. If they were pleased with their lives and satisfied, they would never get out on their own, they would never seek their separate lives. The mother bird has to push the chicks out of the nest. Jane, not being the perfect mother was maybe the good Lord’s way of getting little Brynn out into the big world.”

“You talk like you’ve had a lot of experience with children,” I said.

Chester lowered his chin and eyed me over his glasses. “Not one dang bit,” he said.

I laughed.

“Vera and I never had any of our own,” he said. “She had a niece and nephew, but we didn’t see them much.”

“So how did you get so wise about parents and children?” I asked.

“Oh, just watching around the neighborhood, I suppose,” he said. “We were lucky, where we lived. There were always young people moving in. A young couple would move in down the street with a baby or two. By the time they were grown, we knew all about them.”

I smiled a little uncertainly. I had no idea how many young
couples lived down the street from me. And I wouldn’t know any of their children if they showed up at my door.

“Growing up is hard,” Chester said. “Even in the best of times and with the best of parents. Sometimes another adult can get to the heart of a child the way his own parents can’t.”

“I suppose so.”

“We had this one young boy…” He hesitated. “Now, what was his name? It was Joe, no Jim—no, that’s not it either—it was James, oh yes, it was Jamie. I remember now. Jamie liked to take things apart. He nearly drove his mother out of her mind. He’d open up the back of the television and try to figure out how it worked. While she wasn’t looking, he’d take apart the motor on the refrigerator. Or his father would come outside and find the transmission on his company van strung all over the driveway.”

“Oh no.”

“Oh yes.” He was chuckling. “I’ll never forget that night. We could hear both his parents yelling at the boy for hours. It was like a tag-team match.”

“I’m laughing, but it’s not funny.”

“No, it wasn’t funny at all,” Chester said. “Things that were said to that boy could never be taken back. And they had to take the van into the shop to get it running again.”

I shook my head, able to visualize exactly what that scene was like.

“Vera said to me, ‘Chester, you’ve got to do something for those folks. They are at their wit’s end with that boy.’”

“So what did you do?” I asked.

“Well, I had this old lawn mower I’d bought secondhand,” he said. “It hadn’t worked in five years at least. I invited Jamie over and we were sitting around in my garage and I asked him if he’d take a look at it.”

“What a great idea,” I said. “That kept him occupied for a while.”

“About two weeks,” Chester answered. “He got that old beat-up thing running like a sewing machine.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope. He did such a good job, I went down to the junkyard and found an old washing machine that somebody’d thrown out. That took him about a month, but he had to make up some of the broken parts from scraps.”

“Oh my gosh.”

“From then on, we went to the dump together,” Chester said. “He got to where he could fix any kind of motor or machinery. He began scavenging junk to fix up and sell. He sent himself to college on the money he made.”

“Chester that’s wonderful,” I said. “
Enabling the recipient to become self-reliant,
that’s an eight!”

He chuckled like a venerable old sage.

“How long did it take you to get this smart?” I asked him.

“You live, you watch, you eventually learn,” he said. “Although truth to tell, most people don’t even start till they’re about thirty-five.”

“Thirty-five?”

“Believe so,” he said. “It takes that long just to find out what’s going on in the world. Then it takes thirty-five more years to figure out what you’re supposed to be doing about it.”

“Ah…” I said. “So you’ve had thirty-five years to find out what’s going on and thirty-five to figure out what you’re supposed to do. What have you been doing the last eight?”

“Good question,” he answered. “I guess I’ve been trying to figure how to get out.”

I didn’t quite get the joke, but he obviously thought it was one, so I laughed with him.

“Did you bring me my treat?” he asked quietly.

“Oh yes, of course,” I said. “I’m glad you didn’t let me forget.”

I pulled the Snickers bar out of my purse and gave it to him.

“Thank you, Jane,” he said to me. “I’m going to save it for later, when I can really enjoy it.”

Chester glanced down at his feet, which were still on the heated ottoman, and then looked over at the drawer where he always hid the candy. He stretched as far as he could, trying to reach the drawer. I guess he was so comfortable he didn’t want to move his feet off the warming footstool.

“You want me to put it up for you?” I asked.

“No!” he answered a little sharply.

I didn’t take offense. I decided he must be getting tired and therefore a little cranky. I was willing to cut him some slack. He was a very old man and he’d saved my life.

I said goodbye and got up to leave.

“Jane,” he said, “just scoot that bedside table over this way. It’s on rollers.”

It was the chest where he hid his candy. I easily moved it over within arm’s length of him.

“Thank you,” he said with deeper sincerity than was honestly warranted.

“You’re welcome.”

I went to the door, and, glancing back, I saw him put away the Snickers bar. He wanted to do that himself. Then he gave the chest a good strong push and it was back in place beside the bed.

He was a curious fellow, there was no doubt about that. But I felt better by going to see him. I was sure that he was doing me a lot of good.

A
LTHOUGH
T
HANKSGIVING HAD
never been a big holiday for me, and this one was to be especially noneventful since Brynn was not coming home, I began to look forward to that Thursday as a built-in doing-good opportunity.

It was a tradition in David’s family to spend that day volunteering at the interfaith meal for needy families that was held annually in the exposition hall downtown. I had participated, in my own way, for several years. Teddy’s family also did the citywide service dinner and the two of us typically spent the day watching coats in the volunteers room. Somebody had to keep those coats from walking off on the backs of the guests. But I figured coat watching was probably only a two.

This year, however, I was determined to actually get out there among the less fortunate. That might even be considered a seven. So with benevolence in my heart, I visualized a day of shoveling congealed mashed potatoes onto metal trays for dirty, street-crazed homeless people.

David and I went in separate cars. He had a tee-time at two o’clock and I didn’t want to be forced to leave just when the good work was getting started. He, however, was the first
person I saw. He was standing in the doorway of the volunteers room, chatting with two other guys in polo shirts. I didn’t know the men, so I stopped to say hi.

David introduced me a little reluctantly, I thought.

The big blond guy, who was introduced as Earl, an Automotive Center franchisee, shook my hand enthusiastically.

“It’s so great to finally meet you,” he said. “Dave talks about you all the time.”

I couldn’t imagine that. But then I couldn’t imagine that anyone called my husband Dave.

I smiled warmly and made my getaway. Teddy hadn’t arrived yet and it was just as well. I didn’t want to get stuck sipping champagne from disposable cups and watching the coats. The area was already crowded with people I knew from the club or Junior League, friends of David’s family or those I’d met through my work. I was smiling and waving continuously, and exchanged little hugs and overenthusiastic greetings of delight with numerous acquaintances.

But I didn’t stop and chat. I headed for the heat of the kitchen.

The huge industrial area, with its white-tiled walls and gleaming metal equipment was buzzing with activity. The volunteer area, where the coats were kept, had been equally crowded. But those men and women were well dressed, affluent and mostly white. The kitchen was peopled by folks of different races and ethnic roots, dressed in clean work clothes covered by aprons. There was a lot going on, lots of rushing, lots of questions and answers flying back and forth. But I got no sense of panic, worry or disorganization. Everyone seemed to be familiar with their task and competent to do it.

For me, it was a roomful of strangers. I didn’t know anyone and had no idea who to approach about finding a job to do.

“Who’s in charge back here?” I asked one young black woman who was using a two-foot-long pair of tongs to put dinner rolls in a bread basket big enough to be used for laundry.

“Back there,” she answered, pointing beyond the long rows of counters thick with little white bowls of salad.

I headed that way, trying to stay out of the paths of those busily engaged in the preparation activity.

Around the corner the first person I saw was the chef from Le Parapluie. He was working alongside a square-built middle-aged cook in a thick hairnet.

“Good morning, Frederic,” I called out, capturing his attention as I hurried in his direction. “I didn’t realize that you supervised this meal.”

He seemed as surprised to see me as I was him.

“Oh, I don’t,” he assured me quickly. “I just help out. Mrs. Owens is in charge here.”

The unattractive woman in the hairnet turned to look at me. Immediately her mouth curved into a big smile.

“Hello there,” she said, and then glanced toward Frederic. “Who is your pretty friend, Fred?”

The name was so ill-fitting on the elegant man, that I covered my giggle by offering my hand.

“I’m Jane Lofton.”

Mrs. Owens didn’t take it, but held up her own, which were covered with gloves.

“Nice to meet you,” she said.

“I’ve come to volunteer,” I told her. “Who do I talk to about finding something that I can do to help.”

“Mrs. Owens is the woman to see,” Frederic said. “She is the head cook at Roosevelt High School, and she’s been in charge of this meal preparation since it started.”

“Oh really?” I said, puzzled. “I can’t believe I haven’t met
you before. My husband’s family is on the Founders’ Committee. I’ve been coming down here for years.”

The woman’s expression changed immediately. In an instant she went from warm and welcoming to annoyed and imposed upon.

“Excuse me,” she said. “I’ve got two hundred and fifty turkeys to carve and three thousand gallons of gravy to make.”

Mrs. Owens turned her back on me as if I were the golf pro’s new wife asking for an application to join the Junior League.

Stunned. Helpless. I glanced over at Frederic. He looked uncomfortable, covering the awkwardness of the moment with a shrug and a self-conscious chuckle.

“What’s that about?” I asked him.

For a moment he hesitated, then answered honestly.

“There is kind of a…well, I guess you’d call it a rivalry or maybe…well, a differentiation of volunteers,” he said. “We call you, the people who spend the day talking to each other in the volunteers room…we call you the
No-Mess Oblige
. You come down here every year to see and be seen. But you don’t get your hands dirty.”

I felt embarrassed. More than that, I felt caught. I had always thought that nobody noticed that I never actually did anything. Now I found out that not only was it known, there was even a disparaging name for me and my kind.

I was tempted to just walk away. I wanted to find Teddy, pop open some midpriced bubbly and spend the afternoon sharing gossip. But the memory of those moments in the car were still amazingly fresh. Chester thought I was someone like him now. And Buddy Feinstein thought that adding any part of good to the world was valuable. More than those things, however, was the knowledge that I had promised.

“I really want to help, Frederic,” I said. “Can’t you just give me a job?”

“Okay,” he said. “What can you do?”

The answer, unfortunately, was, “Not much.”

Although this was one place where my working-class upbringing was not really a detriment, the truth was that even as a girl I hadn’t learned a great deal about cooking. My mother had considered TV dinners to be innovative, and convenient that vegetables came in cans. It would have been a lark for many of my friends to take a course at the Cordon Bleu—I had always felt that it was more fun to eat a beautiful meal than prepare one.

“I can wash dishes,” I assured him.

Very shortly I found myself in the scullery room assisting an aging black man named Cecil who was about twice my size. The whole room was wet and steamy, and my Eileen Fisher linen began to droop sadly as soon as I walked through the door.

Dishwashing was nothing like I had imagined. For one thing, there weren’t any dishes. The plates, cups, bowls and dessert dishes were all disposable, though dirty flatware arrived in bus carts. All the giant metal cooking pots and serving trays had to be washed out and put in the huge industrial scrubber. The whole operation was more akin to a visit to the car wash than any ancient memories I had of my mother’s kitchen.

A flexible spray hose hung down from the ceiling over the deep stainless-steel sinks. All the leftover food and grease was washed out with a quick rinse of hot, high-pressured water. Then the pot, pan or lid was laid on a conveyor that slowly moved it through the washer for a sequence of soap, water and hot air that cleaned, sanitized and dried each piece.

Cecil, the man running this high-tech operation, appeared
genuinely grateful to see me, obviously not knowing that I was virtually inept and a
No-Mess Oblige
, as well. He had me taking the clean stuff off the back end of the machine. The metal was so hot, I had to wear big white oven mitts to unload it.

At first I felt a little like Lucy Ricardo at the candy factory. The conveyor moved a lot faster than I did. Cecil had to shut it down a couple of times and help me catch up. But eventually I got the rhythm right, and he and I were working like a well-oiled machine, or maybe a very soapy dishwasher.

The work arrived in spurts. Sometimes there were so many bus carts that they were spilling out the doors. At other times we would be able to take a breather and chat.

“This your first time to work the dinner?” he asked me.

I avoided outright confession of my lazy past.

“It’s my first time to ever see a dishwasher like this,” I answered.

“It’s a beauty, isn’t it,” he said. “Although I guess it must be a little intimidating the first time you see it. I’ve been working around them for twenty years.”

“So that’s why you’re so good at this,” I said. “You do this for a living?”

He looked a little surprised.

“Dishwashing? No, I just do that on special occasions,” he answered. “I work in custom sheet-metal fabrication. Among other things, we build restaurant equipment. This is one of ours.”

He ran his hand over the nameplate almost reverently.

Any further discussion was forestalled by the arrival of another swarm of bus carts.

About two o’clock, Cecil made me stop.

“Take a break and get something to eat,” he said. “My wife is going to bring me a plate in about half an hour. I don’t want to be eating in front of a hungry helper.”

I laughed. I liked the man. I liked him and I liked the work. The hours had just flown. But I was hungry. Famished even. In my experience at the interfaith dinner, I could never recall actually eating the food. There was always plenty of wine, celebratory champagne and choice little hors d’oeuvres among my friends. But I could not remember any Thanksgiving when I was actually handed a plate with turkey, dressing, cranberries and sweet potatoes.

Today I was, however, and was waved toward the back door. Outside, in the alley behind the kitchen, I found two crowded picnic tables and a score of cheerful but hungry volunteers. The sun was shining brightly, though the day was chilly. After the muggy warmth of the scullery, the cold felt good. A place on the corner was made for me at one of the tables. And, at the urging of one of the women, a young kid, maybe fourteen or fifteen, went to get me a glass of iced tea.

I listened with interest to the discussions around me. I learned that the servers, those who actually saw the people, were chosen specifically for the job from among people who regularly worked in local shelters. Because many of the homeless had emotional problems, it was thought best not to frighten them away with new faces. And for those who were not from the street, the working poor, it was concluded that they would feel more welcome if no one from their jobs, their church, their children’s school saw them accepting this free meal. That was also the reason why, for media coverage, they always had one of the
No-Mess Oblige
volunteers in front of the camera.

“You have to admit,” one of the women said with a delighted chuckle, “that old lady with the Christmas tree on her chest puts on quite a show.”

Everybody laughed.

The woman with the Christmas tree was, of course, my mother-in-law. That brooch she always wore was jade set with garnets, and a diamond star at the top. Edith spoke often, and with enthusiasm, about her annual television experience. It was one of the many things she had in common with Oprah.

“So what’s your name, honey?” I was asked by a very obese woman with a mole on her cheek and a half bale of hair confined to a sparkly net.

“I’m Jane,” I answered simply.

“Do you have children?” she asked.

I was a little surprised at the question. Not that it wasn’t a perfectly ordinary one, but in my experience, after getting a person’s name, it was typical to inquire,
What do you do?

But perhaps that wasn’t of prime importance to everyone.

“Yes,” I told her, and most of the rest of my table, who looked on politely. “I have a daughter, Brynn, she’s nineteen.”

“You don’t look much past nineteen yourself,” a very thin and bowed older man assured me.

I laughed, delighted, and thanked him.

“I know what you’re going through,” the woman with the mole assured me, shaking her head. “I remember when my twins were just that age.”

I smiled without comment.

“I hope you’re planning a big holiday feast. Do you make pies? I have a special pumpkin pie recipe. I made it for years. The twins always loved it.”

“Brynn’s away at college,” I said.

It was a flat statement, factual. Not meant to convey any of how I felt about her staying away.

“For me and my husband, I suppose this is our big holiday meal,” I told her, indicating the food on the paper plate in front of me.

She nodded.

“Me, too,” she said.

“The twins always came home for holiday dinners. Of course, they went to the university here in town. Scholarships, both of them,” she said proudly. “Nicki in art and Ricki in mathematics. But, honestly, Ricki painted as well as Nicki and often went to her for help with math problems.”

The woman laughed infectiously and it was hard not to smile.

She continued as gushing mom, telling me in great detail of all the myriad accomplishments of her two daughters. I didn’t reciprocate. Brynn had never been especially accomplished in anything. I’d made her try art, music, dance, pottery, poetry, horseback riding, baton twirling. She did moderately well at everything, but never excelled. And she never seemed to take any special interest in any of it. Even now, in her second year of college, her grades were fine, but they were all the same. B’s in everything. There was not one subject that she was better in than any other. She’d yet to even choose a major.

The twin daughters of the woman with the mole, however, could do everything. They both played piano, sang in the church choir and played soccer.