Bring the Rain

by JoAnn Franklin

  She doesn’t deserve a warning.

  I paused before I hit the send button because this felt like the right thing to do, yet a part of me wondered if this impulse might be the mixed up part of my brain talking. Regardless, the impulse was too strong to resist. I sent the email to Dr. Hendrix.

  FOURTEEN

  PUTTING THAT FOLDER in Ash’s hands revived my work habits, or maybe with the semester concluded and with no more emails from Hendrix, my emotional barometer righted itself. I could think again. My motivation for work returned. I implemented the first step in the process Lea and I had put together for TRI, and a week later, I pulled up at the gatehouse of Anchor’s Pointe to talk to the Busy Bookers book club.

  They’d accepted my request to speak about The Raindrop Institute. Although hesitant at first because no connection is apparent between discussion of books, particularly novels, and eradicating poverty, once I explained they understood.

  The guard at the gate, not armed but looking very official in his rent-an-authority uniform, waved me to a stop. As the window rolled down, I smiled to show how friendly I could be and said, “Dart Sommers to visit Stacy Adams.” The tang of fresh salty air invaded the car as did the warmth of sunshine.

  “Just one moment.” He consulted the list and didn’t smile.

  What would he do if I punched the gas, busted through the flimsy one-arm restraint, and drove on through without being admitted? Then I noticed the stream of Mercedes, Volvos, Lexus, and BMWs from Anchor’s Pointe gliding past me in the lane on the other side of the guard house at a sedate twenty-five miles an hour. This was an impressive place but nothing like I was used to. And wait, was that a Tesla? Those were California cars. Maybe I’d made a wrong turn and ended up in Silicon Valley. And why was I considering breaking the law? I didn’t do that sort of thing.

  The guard continued to consult his list for the day and gave a grave nod when he found my name. A slip of paper on my dashboard said I was legal, and I was through the checkpoint. This community was at the top of the list of wealthiest cities in North Carolina. Income data from the latest census placed most of the residents within the top quartile of richest Americans. Baby Boomers from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and other northeastern seaboard states had discovered they could enjoy four seasons plus the ocean in North Carolina. Nothing like this would have been possible without cars, local airports that could zip them home to see the kids and grandkids, and the money to make that happen. The big homes housed relatives whenever they visited for a bit of the salt life and, although school buses trundled up and down Anchor’s Pointe roads, the average age in the community was late fifties to early sixties.

  I’d done my homework for the visit. Those who had FTD wouldn’t have bothered, but the rationalization felt false.

  Lots of folks out on the golf course, I noted as I drove deeper into Anchor’s Pointe, and because the December day was warm and sunny, bikers and walkers shared the road. Nice community, but as I drove past the crowded marina and boats that took crews to operate, I wondered if I’d made a mistake thinking that the Busy Bookers, the only book club to invite me to speak about TRI, might want to help me out.

  This storybook town with its manicured lawns, beautiful homes, and Southern charm—all surrounded by endless real estate dedicated to playing a game called golf—could be the subject of the textbook on survivorship bias. The people who lived here carved out the life they wanted.

  I parked the car in the driveway of 3362 Linkpin Drive and marveled at the Southern mansion with wide sweeping porches, bay windows, and manicured lawn that said “gracious living.” This wouldn’t be my retirement. I could never afford this on a professor’s pension. Even among impressive homes, this one stood out. Locking the car seemed silly given where I was. So did my irreverent thoughts that moving white to blue to green described the best way to play golf.

  Better not bring up that theory. I didn’t want them to throw me out before they listened to what I had to say. Shutting the car door behind me, I walked up the brick sidewalk to the sweeping front porch that was decorated with masses of flowering plants, comfortable cushioned wicker rockers, and a glider like one we’d had on the farm. Yellow and white, just like the one my mom used to sit in to shell peas.

  I hesitated before ringing the doorbell. They’d laugh me right out of this fancy place for suggesting they might be vulnerable to poverty. Brunswick County used to be the poorest county in North Carolina before the Baby Boomers started to move in. I would have to convince them they couldn’t shut poverty out with gates that closed after their cars’ exhaust.

  I pressed the doorbell. The chime within sounded, a deep gong, then a whistle followed by the melody from the movie The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Things were looking up. That’s what I had come to discuss with them.

  Footsteps sounded in the hall. My stomach tightened. I remembered these were adventuresome, intelligent people. They’d all uprooted themselves in retirement and moved far away from the familiar. Older women understood the importance of social relationships. Most residents did volunteer work that kept Brunswick County afloat, and the dollars that came out of this place supported many, many local businesses. Maybe my idea wouldn’t be a hard sell.

  A shadow darkened the frosted glass from within. Then the door opened wide, the noise of conversations and laughter snatched my attention, and the hostess of the Busy Bookers, a tall beautiful blond woman who looked to be forty said, “Hi, I’m Stacy, welcome.” She grabbed my hand and led me inside.

  I had an impression of space, light, graceful elegant furniture, beautiful woodwork, and then Stacy introduced me to the women who’d come for the book club meeting. I could see the speculation in their eyes. I glanced around the room hoping for a sign they saw a normal human being, which is always somewhat in question when people interact with a university professor.

  “So, why are you here?” asked one lady whose name I didn’t know. I didn’t know any of these folks other than Stacy who had let me in.

  “She’s here, Rachel, to discuss why men like to argue.” Laughter burst from all corners of the room.

  “Which is why romance novels sell,” Rachel said. “You all are missing my point. Although I must tell you that I’ve often thought that preoccupation with the male member is to blame for most of our social problems.”

  “You can’t blame everything on men, Rachel.”

  They’d forgotten I was in the room. I was wasting my time. These women didn’t want to think, they wanted to have fun.

  “Young women’s hormones get in the way of common sense just as often as male hormones,” said another. “Ten minutes in a man’s arms can lead to a lifetime of poverty for both of them.”

  Wait a minute. Cloaked in humor and common sense, a bias could masquerade as wisdom when stated that way. And I was just about to comment on love, sex, and poverty, when someone else said, “It’s not as simple as that.”

  “Of course, it is,” another older woman said. Heads cloaked in different shades of gray nodded. The younger women in the room, I noticed, weren’t taking sides. Interesting. They let their silence pretend for them. From a neurological perspective of my research, I had another example of the unconscious brain caring about what others thought.

  “It’s as easy to fall in love with a rich man as it is a poor one, that’s what my mother always said.” Rachel turned to me and demanded, “Don’t you agree, Dr. Sommers?”

  That was my cue. I could have told Rachel that humans are psychosexual beings, but I doubt she would have listened. Rachel was one of those who believed, and nothing I could say would sway that belief. Maybe if she knew how rare it was that rich men and poor women had access to one another, that fact might bend her belief. “Anyone here see Pretty Woman?” I asked.

  That brought oohs and ahs and “I loved that movie” and “Of course it wouldn’t happen in real life” and “Except it did, and it was just so romantic.” Skeptical glances my way, and if I dared smash romance,
they were going to make short work of my idea.

  “Even I enjoyed that movie, but not all of us look like Julia Roberts,” I said, “and social barriers aren’t all that permeable.” That earned me some smiles of understanding.

  “Why are you here?” Rachel asked again.

  “You might be wasting your time with us, Dr. Sommers,” another Booker said. “We’re not intellectuals. Some of us worked, but a lot of us stayed at home and took care of the kids. I followed my husband, and it was my job to make a home for us.”

  I nodded, thinking that’s why they didn’t understand. Careful, you have to be careful. She’s right at the edge of being indignant if she even suspects you think yourself better than she is because you have that PhD. Although I never did understand that envy. How I lived my life didn’t mean their choices were less valuable. I would have given anything to trade places with some of these women who’d had children and a love that lasted a lifetime.

  “That didn’t stop you from thinking,” I said. The Booker still looked skeptical, but her indignation had gone to simmer. I looked around. “Intelligence doesn’t disappear because you’re standing at the kitchen sink instead of sitting in a boardroom.”

  No quips this time. A different kind of silence. They were considering. I could see it, then Stacy said, “No offense, but we can’t help you if we don’t know why you are here. Men who are much, much smarter than we are can’t solve poverty.”

  Rachel’s friend came to her aid. “It’s too complex, too big, too messy.”

  Those were my words.

  Yet another friend said, “It’s a problem best left to intellectuals and politicians rather than women like us who are living our last years in the sun, or on the golf course, or caring for our kids and grandkids.”

  “I think what she means, dear,” said the little old lady sitting in the most comfortable chair in the room, “is that we live in a gated community. We aren’t poor. We have nothing in common with the impoverished. They made their beds, we made ours, and it’s not our fault that ours is more comfortable.”

  “At that little school down the road, they have a washing machine and a dryer. They wash the kids’ clothes because their impoverished parents won’t do it,” another Booker said. “Doesn’t take much, to wash out a pair of pants and a shirt every night.”

  “Clothes don’t dry overnight in this climate, Jenna. You know that,” said another Booker.

  “But they would during the day,” said the unrepentant Jenna. “Some of those kids don’t bathe. They have green mold growing on their scalp.” She turned to the others for confirmation. “You all have seen it when we go in to volunteer. And the ringworm. They’re sleeping with animals. It’s disgusting.”

  Some of the women shifted. My guess was that their dogs or cat slept on the bed with them. As for ringworm, it was an infection that didn’t care about the size of one’s pocketbook. Jenna didn’t believe me, so I said the facts again, pointing out that facts vie with beliefs for dominance. Jenna refused to give up her belief that ringworm affected the lower socioeconomic class and no other.

  “They have jackets and mittens there for those kids who don’t have any warm clothes,” said another Booker. “That’s how kind those who have are in this area. The teachers have to take the tags off the new clothes and rumple them up a bit because if the kids go home with new clothes, their parents take the clothes back to where they were purchased, and the parents work the system to get cash, somehow, someway.”

  “Just goes to show, these people aren’t dumb,” said another Booker who hadn’t spoken before.

  The research bore that out. Low intelligence was not a prerequisite for being impoverished. I looked around the room. Everyone there was dressed nicely, they didn’t smell, their hair was washed, fingernails painted, they weren’t drooling, and they spoke proper English. Their clothes were from the nicer department stores, and the jewelry they wore, while not flashy, made a statement.

  This generation of women had turned away from power before, during the woman’s movement in the ’60s and the ’70s. Had I been stupid to think they would want another opportunity to speak for themselves, to take on the challenges of the world?

  They invited you. Which meant I hadn’t been wrong to come. I tried again to help them understand how they could help. “Current beliefs about the poor don’t solve the problem.”

  “Their problem is not ours.”

  And there it was, the one belief about the poor I’d come to fear. This was the attitude that could stop The Raindrop Institute in its tracks.

  “If you are unwilling to listen to what I have to say, why am I here?”

  “It’s what we do, dear. We listen, we process, and then we go out and play golf.”

  “We’re just a group of women who gather once a month to discuss books, Dr. Sommers. We have a good time,” explained another Booker. “It’s important to keep the brain functioning.”

  “And there are no repercussions to our thinking if we’re wrong,” piped up another one.

  “Beliefs among the poor are strengthening against people like you.” My comment made the room grow quiet. “They will sacrifice rich people on the altar of utilitarianism, and it’s going to be just as ineffectual as the Mayans sacrificing virgins to stop the drought. Older women like yourselves have a lot to offer this culture. In fact, we are the one demographic group that does.”

  I was one step away from seeing contempt in their eyes. Bearing witness to their disgust was bad enough. They weren’t going to help me and, as I listened to the silence, I almost—almost —threw it all away. Then I caught what I had missed in the engagement with Rachel and her friends, the body language of the other Bookers who hadn’t spoken, the pleating of a skirt, the flutter of hands rubbing a headache away, and eyes that winked . . . she winked at me, the woman in the corner, the one with the flashy nails, whose clothes screamed haute couture, and who looked like I had always yearned to look—classy, aloof, cool, and oh so composed.

  She winked again.

  Someone had swayed this club to give me a chance, and I wanted that someone on my side, voicing her thoughts with mine, or The Raindrop Institute initiative involving book clubs would falter and die. Because I didn’t have the courage to do this twice. I’d forced myself to come here, to talk with these women. I hadn’t piqued their interest, or provoked them, or riled them up—the methods I used to keep my student interested. I should turn the conversation so that Ms. Couture would feel safe standing beside me. I squinted and saw that her name tag read Carol Lee.

  “Women of our age have been conditioned to think that wealth or education or being loved by others will keep us safe from life’s chaos. None of that is true.”

  “Young lady,” Rachel said, “I’ve been married for fifty years, and my Ralph is the best thing that ever happened to me.”

  In other words, you can’t touch me. Didn’t she realize that insulation worked both ways? It kept out the cold, but also the warmth.

  “I began my research on poverty by studying civilization collapse. That disaster happened six times, at least, in our human history, and we are at the cusp of another collapse. Marriage to Ralph isn’t going to protect you when that happens.”

  “We’re in an age of prosperity,” said Rachel’s friend. “The stock market is at an all-time high, jobs are improving, the economy is coming back, and Americans are breathing a sigh of relief that we escaped economic depression with a few scrapes and bruises. And Ralph has always taken care of Rachel. It’s what he does.”

  “And when he dies? What will happen to Rachel then? How is she going to stand against what is coming our way if none of you,” and I included everyone in the room with that glance, “will think for yourselves? Our indifference to the moral injustices around us caused the Civil War. Had we addressed slavery, instead of ignoring it, the Civil War would never have happened. Moral outrage is building again in this country because poverty exists. The resulting chaos will not stop at your g
ates.”

  “We can’t do anything,” Rachel said. “We’re older women. The frailties of our bodies limit what we can do. And we’ve learned to endure, as women before us have done for centuries.”

  “Then, might I suggest that it’s time women learned a different coping technique because enduring isn’t working.” She didn’t like that, and I didn’t like saying it. If lives across the globe weren’t hanging in the balance, I would have been gentler, but I didn’t have time to coddle her—I didn’t have time to coddle any of them. “Poverty can be stopped, but we have to set aside our biases, our beliefs, and see around corners into the hearts of the problems and stop putting smiley faces on the symptoms.”

  “Intelligent men and women have tried and failed to solve this problem,” Rachel said and others nodded. “It’s God’s punishment.”

  Another lull in the battle, and this time, I didn’t have anything left to argue. God’s punishment always stopped me, ever since beliefs had driven Ellen away.

  They’d won. I’d lost. Time to go home. I reached for my briefcase.

  “My Jenny died,” said Carol Lee, Ms. Couture, and the room grew aware, as if a thunderstorm had appeared on the horizon, “but my husband and I believed we had given her everything that would protect her—wealth, education, and faith—and none of that kept her safe. She knew how to change the flat tire she’d had that night, her father had taught her how, but the young man who killed her wanted what she had. He didn’t need to kill her to take the car, but he did.”

  The sudden inexplicable loss of a loved one made the room grow quiet again. Chaos had shown up again where they least expected it.

  “You came here because of the beauty,” Stacy said.

  Carol smiled and nodded. “When the grief of losing Jenny becomes too much, the sunsets over the ocean remind me of how her smile brightened my cloudy thoughts, and how her beauty burst forth when she smiled. In that last burst of light before dark, I can be with her again.”

  The beauty of century trees and the ocean had helped me accept my father’s passing. Beauty made chaos bearable. These women were as afraid as those in poverty. That’s why they volunteered. They created beauty through gifts of food, money, diapers—and that was all well and good, but those impulses didn’t provide a means of value that would bring those in poverty into a better way of life.