If I wanted to look? Of course I wanted to look. If Xander had actually written something already, we might have a good start. The essay was due next Wednesday, and it was only Thursday. We had five whole days to write and edit five hundred words. How hard could that be? I scanned the desk for any loose sheets of paper but found none.
“I don’t see it, Xander.” I shoved through some more pages. Xander wasn’t the world’s most organized student. Torn sheets of his science and math notes littered the desk’s surface, but none resembled the start of an essay. “It’s definitely not on your desk.”
Xander stared at me and continued playing. I mentally counted to ten.
“Xander, can you please leave the guitar alone, and come help me look for the essay.”
Xander bent his head over the Gibson and plunked its strings harder. The resulting discord had even him wincing. He paused his fingers, returned the guitar to the bed and rolled the chair back to the desk.
“Maybe it’s still in my book bag.” He pulled out his massive JanSport from underneath the desk and rummaged through its clutter of text- and notebooks. “Here it is,” he triumphantly crowed, pulling out a crumpled sheet from between two books.
I took the sheet and focused on the barely legible scribble. Xander’s handwriting was atrocious. I could just make out the essay. In his forty-five minutes of class time, Xander had managed to write:
I’m writing about how nothing new anymore, because everyone just copy what everyone else already says, ergo what point, like my mother, she take picture for magazine, but picture going to be like everyone picture, but magazine published, mother calls by important people important, they say she is giving new pictures, but I doesn’t believe them, because her picture is looking like picture of other important person they say is important, so I’m just saying like my mother that nothing new anymore because my mother picture like other people picture so ergo not new, nothing original,
I sat back in my seat—temporarily forgetting the stool had no backrest—and almost tipped myself over. I grabbed the desk for balance and scanned the page again. Could this be another prank? But few people could easily fake writing this poor, and Xander wasn’t that good of a prankster anyway. No, unfortunately, the essay was probably not Xander’s idea of a joke.
But perhaps I had misread his handwriting. Yeah, that was a definite possibility since Xander’s script was pretty illegible.
I ran my eyes over the text for a third time, just to make certain.
Nope.
The essay was really that bad. There was not a period in sight, not to mention the repetition or the paragraph’s complete lack of clarity. And “ergo”? Where had that come from?
I tried to recall my own freshman year of high school. I had to have made plenty of writing mistakes. Many a teacher had probably cringed at my efforts. After all, no one—maybe with the exception of Hemingway—was born knowing perfect grammar, but this? This felt elementary. I couldn’t possibly have been that bad.
I carefully placed the sheet back on the desk and looked up at Xander who, with two pens in hand, was tapping them on the desk, his head bopping to the beat, his shaggy hair flying in and out of his face with each shake. He seemed joyfully oblivious. If only I were so lucky.
How to handle this? I didn’t want to hurt Xander’s feelings by being too critical, but I didn’t want to lie either. He had to rewrite the essay, obviously, and there was no denying everything he already wrote needed scrapping.
I ground my teeth. I had no clue how to teach someone basic writing. That’s what English teachers did, and I was not one. I was a law student hired to go over homework and make corrections. Xander’s essay, however, needed anything but minor fixes. What to do? Where to even start? I was in way over my head.
I straightened my back. Calm down. No need to panic. Yet. This couldn’t possibly be the first time Xander had an essay to do for English class. And, apparently, since he passed grades one through eight, he had done well enough on those. Perhaps his school was far more lenient in its expectations, and Xander’s essay would suffice, with a few small alterations.
“Ah, Xander,” I began, folding my hands. When Xander stopped his impromptu drumming, I continued. “Do you have any of your English essays from last year around? You know, for comparison, so I can see what your school expects.”
He pursed his lips, scratched his head, and narrowed his eyes, as if in contemplation.
“Lisa always put them away in some folder in my desk drawer. I guess I could look and see.”
He rolled his chair to the drawer and flipped through its contents. When the drawer finally looked like a bomb had exploded inside, he pulled out a couple of stapled sheets.
“Here, I think this is one.” He glanced at the paper. “Yeah, that’s when Mr. Barsky had us write about our most unusual hobby. I got an A-.”
I took the paper and skimmed the first paragraph:
I love to see people happy. It makes me feel good. The best feeling, however, is when I’m the one making the people happy. I have been a magician for more than three years. I love it, and so does everyone else. I specialize in card magic. I make cards disappear, reappear, switch places, even change color. I perform my magic everywhere I go, sometimes to friends and family, but mostly to strangers, people I barely know. When I first meet someone, there’s a very solid chance that I might go straight into one of my card tricks. On the subway, in a waiting room, at a party, I bring my magic to people everywhere, and they always take away a little more than just a shocked face.
Okay, then. I tapped my fingers against the paper. We had periods here. We had subject-verb agreement. Hell, we even had parallel constructions. So there was no way Xander had written both essays. And since I knew he authored the one worked on in class today, obviously someone—read, Lisa—had to have written all of this one.
Was I now expected to take over, to write Xander’s papers for him—completely?
“Ah, Xander … ” I turned my head in his direction. While I was reading, Xander had abandoned his seat and was now pacing around his bedroom. “How do you feel about what you wrote in class today?” I asked.
“It’s crap.” Xander shrugged and shoved his hands in his pockets. “You don’t have to say it. I know I can’t write for shit. Though I did use ‘ergo’—did you see?—and that was one of our new vocabulary words.”
“Yes, I did see,” I nodded. “But I don’t get it. You speak perfectly grammatical English. So what’s the problem when it comes to writing?”
Xander scuffed his left toe against the floorboards. “My counselor at school thinks it’s because I have a French mother. That my speaking and writing to her in French might be confusing my brain. He wanted to put me in remedial English with the other foreign students, to relearn the basics, but Dad wouldn’t let him. He said I was a U.S. citizen with a British father, and no Lamont by birth had ever been placed in ‘stupid English’—that’s what he called it. And that’s when he hired Lisa. He said I needed a nanny with a Harvard degree. We also went to a psychiatrist, who told the school I had ADD and that my grades in class exams would probably be much worse than those I did at home. My English grades have turned out decent since then, since I get Ds or Fs on my in class essays but all As on those written at home. That averages out to about a B, so Dad’s happy.”
I barely managed to hold my mouth closed. Evidently Mr. Lamont assumed I would write Xander’s essays: I expect results. Whatever it takes, Miss Reznar. I don’t tolerate failure. His warning spun in my head.
“Yes, well, hmm.” I stammered for something appropriate to say to Xander. Mr. Lamont might have been a complete asshole, but that wasn’t Xander’s fault. “But don’t you also want to do well on your in-class essays?” I asked, grasping at straws.
“Sure.” Xander smiled and paced another circle around the room. “But like you saw, I suck. Don’t feel bad. It’s not your fault. As long as the essay we submit on Wednesday is good, we should be fine. So d
o you think you’ll have something in by tomorrow?”
Now my mouth did drop. I was supposed to work on this overnight? On my own time? Alone?
“I really don’t want to be dealing with this over the weekend,” Xander continued, oblivious to my predicament. “Maman is coming and she’ll probably drag us out somewhere, so the sooner you’re done the better. Anyway, I read a story on BBC News about Darfur. What do you think about that situation?”
Darfur? My mind reeled. He wanted to talk world events now?
“Wait,” I declared, popping out of my seat. Enough was enough. First Gemma and now Xander. I didn’t sign up for this.
I glared at Xander’s constantly moving body. “Stop.” He paused, visibly surprised by my tone. “Just because you wrote a crappy first draft doesn’t mean you can’t write a better second one. And, no, I am not going to have something in for you by tomorrow because we are going to sit down and you are going to start writing. I’ll help. So sit.” I pointed to his vacant seat.
Xander arched a brow and continued standing. “I told you, I don’t know how to write. You saw what I can do. I’ll get an F, and then what will you tell my dad?”
“You won’t get an F.” I sighed and sat back on the stool. “I promise. Come on, Xander, trust me. Sit,” I instructed. “If you know how to speak English, you know how to write it. It just takes more practice.”
He hesitated, but eventually stepped back to his chair, sulking.
“Great,” I chirped, to get our spirits up. “So your essay topic is to answer whether you believe anything created in art and literature today can be truly original. Right?”
“Right.”
“And what do you believe?”
When Xander pointed to the crumpled paper, I shook my head. “Forget that version. Just look at me and tell me what you think.”
He rolled his eyes, but answered, apparently willing to play along.
“I believe that nothing we write or create today is really original.”
“Great,” I smiled and patted his shoulder. “So why don’t you write that?”
“What?”
“Take that paper there,” I flipped his old essay over and handed him a pen. “And write exactly what you just said: ‘I believe nothing we write or create today is really original.’”
He reached for the pen and wrote it.
“See,” I beamed. “You have a perfectly grammatical sentence that’s much better than before. Now, why do you believe nothing we write or create today is really original?”
Xander shrugged. “Because everything ‘new’ seems to just be a copy of something someone else did before. That’s what I meant when I wrote about my mother. Everyone says her pictures are original, but to me they look like all the other pictures in the fashion magazines.”
“Excellent,” I nodded. “You’ll get to your mother later. First write your reason down.”
Xander stared.
“Write, ‘Everything that is written or created today seems to copy something someone else did before,’” I reminded. “Go ahead. Write it down.”
Xander scribbled.
“Good, Xander. You’re well on your way.”
He put the pen down and furrowed his brow. “But this sounds stupid. Like someone in first grade did it.”
First grade! He thought this sounded like first grade? Had he not read the essay he had written in class today?
“I thought writing was supposed to be fancier than speaking,” he whined on.
“It can be,” I agreed. “But sometimes you have to simplify before you can complicate. Look, finish your essay this way, and I’ll help you make it sound fancier after. I’ll edit it for you.” Yeah, edit. That’s it.
“Finish on my own?!” Xander burst out. “But that will take forever. The essay’s five hundred words!”
“Lucky you got until Wednesday then.”
I smiled and got up. Today’s session was over. I’d had enough for one day.
I headed for the door. “Remember, say it out loud before you write it, so it makes sense.” I paused here. “Actually, try asking your sister for help. Say your essay out loud to her, so you’re not tempted to start writing something from your head; write your spoken words instead. I’ll check what you come up with tomorrow. Okay? Oh, and whenever you’re tempted to write a comma, just make it a period. We’ll see where that gets you tomorrow.”
“But … ” Xander sprang out of his chair and ran after me. “Tekla, wait … ”
I kept on marching. Tough love was sometimes the best medicine. I jogged down the stairs, towards the front door and freedom. Midway down, the doorbell rang.
Xander leaned over the stairs’ balustrade and, his face sour, snickered. “Ding dong, the bitch is here.”
“Who?” I turned to look at him.
“Lisa. My dad made her give back the key since Maman is coming back.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but shut it again. I wanted to ask but didn’t. The Lamonts’ private lives were none of my business. Still, one issue needed addressing.
“Ah, Xander,” I advised, “don’t tell Lisa about your essay. She may not understand our approach. And Xander, one more thing: watch your language.”
“Sure.”
He stepped away from the balustrade and started walking back to his room.
I guess it was up to me to let Lisa in.
“This is going to be some weekend,” I heard him say as he drifted off, although I could barely make out his voice. “Maman. Lisa. And me talking to myself. Just a bunch of loonies.”
CHAPTER 7
“I DON’T KNOW why we pay so much for law school if you’re just going to be a nanny.”
My mother placed a bowl of potatoes in the middle of her dining room table. Steam rose from the bowl and danced up towards the room’s ceiling.
“You can do that without college,” she continued as she eyed the bowl and moved it until it was perfectly parallel with a platter of breaded chicken cutlets. “Like all the other Polish girls who come to this country and are foolish enough to work as maids instead of going to school and getting proper jobs.”
Apparently satisfied with the bowl’s new placement, my mother pulled out a chair and sat on the other side of the table, across from me.
It was Sunday and I was at my parents’ house in Brooklyn. I rarely made the trip, but today I craved familial company, to my fast-growing regret.
“That’s how we get our reputation in this country. We’re either maids or construction workers. Dumb Polaks,” scoffed my mother.
She leaned over the table and reached for the empty dinner plate directly in front of me. Clearly, she meant to hand-feed me.
I scowled. No, you don’t pay for law school, I wanted to say. I have the student loans to prove it. And for God’s sake, I can get my own food.
The words hovered on the tip of my tongue, but I remained silent. Sunday dinner was usually a one-woman show: my mother’s. There was no room for a second act. And I had arrived, unannounced and unexpected, looking for comfort and a break from school, Gemma, Xander and the essay. So I tucked my hands under my legs and listened.
“Forget that I went to college hardly knowing any English and graduated summa cum laud while raising two children,” my mother reminded me.
Boy, did she ever love reminiscing about the good old days.
My mother spooned a glob of potatoes, dumped it on my plate and sprinkled the white heap with dill. I winced—both at the size of the serving and the litany that was surely to follow. My mother especially relished analyzing my father’s unwise criticism of the Socialist regime and how it precipitated our move to the States twenty years before. She savored going into minute detail about our descent from comfortable intelligentsia to impoverished working class, and having to start over from scratch.
“Forget that your father was the most prominent law professor in all of Poland before our unfortunate move to America.”
My mother forked a massive c
utlet onto my plate, next to the potatoes. I cringed.
“Or that he managed to open and run a successful restaurant while supporting a wife in school and two small children.”
Steam from the potatoes mixed with the aroma of fried chicken. I sniffed and glanced down at the food. The cutlet was just golden enough. The potatoes looked lighter than air. I sniffed again. My stomach grumbled. I missed hearty Polish home cooking. It was better than any sushi, soufflé or foie gras I could buy in the city. The food almost made the visit to Brooklyn bearable.
Almost.
“Or that those same children are now enrolled in some of the best schools in the country.”
I tore my stare away from the food and returned it to my mother, to her perfectly coiffed hair and flawless make-up. She looked stylish, as always, a modern-day Sophia Loren, down to her amber eyes and olive skin. My mother never missed her weekend beauty appointments. She considered those the ritual of a proper lady.
“No. We’re servants.” She jabbed her manicured finger at the tabletop and nodded her chin in the direction of my plate. “Eat. You’re as skinny as those poor starving children in Africa. I don’t know what they feed you at that school of yours.”
I glanced down my body. It was no skinnier than it had been when I first moved out of the house my freshman year of college. Still, I picked up the cutlery and dug in.
“Why,” my mother said, waiting to continue her litany until I swallowed, “just the other day a woman from Manhattan came into your father’s restaurant. She said she just adored authentic Polish food and made it a point to eat some at least once a year. She ordered the stuffed cabbage. She talked to your father, and after he told her he had a son and daughter, she asked if your brother would be interested in a janitorial position in her building. They had an opening for a young, strong man. And when your father told her thanks, but no thanks—because his son was too busy getting an M.B.A. at Wharton—she was floored. She couldn’t believe he meant the Wharton at the University of Pennsylvania, the same Wharton her son attends. Turns out they’re classmates.
Work for Hire Page 9
