The Blessed Event

by Frankie Bow

  “A gender discrimination lawsuit, you say?”

  “I know, hard to believe, ah?”

  “I’d better get home” I shaded my eyes against the sun. My turquoise and white Thunderbird gleamed in the parking lot. “I have some work to do before tomorrow.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  I spent the afternoon trying to piece together the first day of my diversity workshop. None of the activities I found online sounded promising. The group itself wasn’t at all demographically diverse, and they obviously knew one other pretty well already. So the get-to-know-you icebreaker exercises celebrating differences would probably fall flat.

  Discussions of stereotyping would brush uncomfortably close to issues of profiling, and I didn’t want to go there. Anything to do with gender would certainly put them on the defensive. Even the most introspective and thoughtful among us bristles a little when confronted with evidence of our biases. And I had no reason to believe these guys were exceptionally introspective or thoughtful.

  I wondered whether I’d be able to provide an effective workshop at all. My husband was a local, which helped a little as far as gaining their trust, but I was clearly not one myself. There was still the danger I’d come off as the missionary, the educated white lady coming in to “civilize” them. As they say in politics, the optics were bad.

  It was too late to back out now. I’d stupidly volunteered for the university speakers’ bureau to show the administration I was a Team Player. I never dreamed I’d actually be called upon to do anything.

  By mid-afternoon, I’d made exactly zero progress on tomorrow’s diversity workshop and decided to take a break. I went back into the bedroom, pulled my new pint-sized guitar out of the closet, and tried playing some chords. My finger pads were sore within minutes. I’d have to build up the calluses on my fingertips again. And the guitar didn’t sound great, although it was probably more my fault than the instrument’s.

  Maybe I could improvise. I’d just invite them all to talk about their feelings or something. If I did a horrible job, well, it would be embarrassing, and I wouldn’t get asked back, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world. After all, it wasn’t like I was getting paid for it. I put my guitar away, returned to my computer, closed the library database, and pulled up the data file for my book chapter. At least I could make some progress there.

  I stared at the screen. The chapter’s main study had one glaring weakness: Our subjects were our own college students. This is more common than you might think. Two-thirds of American psychology studies are based on the responses of college students. The problem is the behavior of nineteen-year-old psych majors isn’t universal. We had no way of knowing whether our results would apply to working adults.

  That was it. I knew what I was going to do tomorrow.

  When I had finished printing out everything I needed, I shut down my computer, and got up to start dinner. Donnie usually cooked, and he was much better at it than I. I liked to pitch in, though, so the burden wasn’t always on him. I’d make Spam and rice tonight. It was simple and cheap. Davison could eat as much as he wanted without breaking the bank.

  I cleaned out the pebbly old rice from the cooker, and started a new batch. Then I sliced up two cans of Spam, one regular and one bacon flavored. I set two frying pans on the stove, poured out a little coconut oil into each one, and assembled the Spam slices. I set the Spam to cook on low heat and was in the middle of setting the table when I heard Donnie’s key in the door.

  I had forgotten how particular Donnie was about the table setting. Even after his thirteen-hour workday, he had the energy to rearrange the entire thing. He made sure to tell me, as he was clearing away the plates and moving the silverware around, how much he appreciated my having prepared dinner, so there was some consolation.

  “You know, Donnie, this is the first time in my life I’ve been the Oscar. I’ve only ever been the Felix.”

  Donnie paused in mid-napkin arrangement. “What about an Oscar?”

  “You know, Felix Unger and Oscar Madison? The Odd Couple?”

  Donnie shook his head. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

  “Old TV show about two roommates. One’s neat and fussy. The other one’s a slob.”

  “Which one am I?”

  “Are you kidding? You’re Felix. The persnickety one.”

  “Persnickety? Me?”

  “Little bit.”

  “Hm. I do have high standards.” He grinned at me. “Obviously.”

  “Well, when you put it that way.” I returned his smile, my momentary irritation forgotten.

  Davison let himself in the front door as Donnie was setting out proper glasses for both water and wine. I moved the rice cooker to the table and set out the fried Spam slices on a platter. Donnie uncorked a cheap and cheerful red, and then Donnie, Davison, and I sat down to eat, just as a normal family might.

  “How’d your meeting at the police department go today?” Donnie asked. “Are you allowed to talk about what you’re working on?”

  “You’re working for the police?” Davison interrupted, in a tone one might use to ask whether an acquaintance has taken up murdering kittens.

  “It’s not anything to do directly with criminal investigation. It’s more HR stuff. How do you guys like the bacon Spam? I think it’s pretty good.”

  “I like the plain kind better,” Davison said.

  “So you’re not working on anything dangerous.” Donnie appeared to relax.

  “Not at all.”

  “Sounds boring,” Davison mumbled with his mouth full.

  “Davison,” Donnie turned to his son. “Did you get any interviews today?”

  “I got stuff to keep me busy,” Davison speared four more slices of Spam with his fork and transported them to his plate. He didn’t look at Donnie.

  “I want you to come in to the Drive-Inn with me tomorrow. You didn’t really answer me the last time I asked. What happened your last semester at school?”

  “I got other things on my mind besides school, Dad.”

  Donnie and I exchanged a look. I was certain “other things” meant Sherry Di Napoli. I wasn’t sure what Donnie was thinking, but I could tell he wasn’t happy with Davison’s deflection. I quickly changed the subject.

  “Donnie, do you know what I forgot to tell you? I met your Uncle Brian. Davison introduced us. You never told me you had an uncle in town.”

  “Oh, yeah, that’s right. Dad, he doesn’t look too good. He got all skinny, and he’s looking real old. Maybe we could—”

  “We all get old,” Donnie interrupted. “Molly, with all of the things you’ve been taking on this summer, have you had a chance to use your new guitar? I’d really like to hear you play one of these days.”

  Donnie didn’t want to discuss Uncle Brian. I chatted about my sore finger pads and some of the challenging guitar pieces I was looking forward to learning. There was no point in pushing Donnie on the topic of his uncle. I’d have to wait until he was in a more talkative mood.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The next morning I awoke as Donnie was leaving for work.

  “It’s not even six.” I squinted at the clock. “Donnie, you poor thing. You’ve been going in early and working such long days. No wonder you come home exhausted. Listen, I can put something in the slow cooker for dinner.”

  He popped his head back in the bedroom door.

  “It’s okay, Molly. I can make something. I don’t mind cooking.”

  “You didn’t like the Spam and rice?”

  “No, no, the Spam and rice were terrific. Davison seemed to like it.”

  “Don’t worry. I won’t make anything too adventurous. I’ll fix the tomato beef soup. You like the tomato beef soup, don’t you?”

  “I like cooking for you, Molly.”

  “And you’re an amazing chef. I just feel like I should pitch in once in a while.”

  “Thank you Molly. Very thoughtful of you.” He popped out again. Seconds later, I heard him descending t
he front steps.

  Sometimes I suspected Donnie didn’t like my cooking, although he seemed okay with the tomato beef. I got the recipe from Emma. She’d been trying out an amino-acid-optimizing regime. It was supposed to boost her paddling performance. She was never able to stick to the part of the diet where she was supposed to give up beer, though, so she eventually gave up.

  I got dressed, went into the kitchen, and pulled out six big soup bones from the meat drawer in the fridge. I placed the meaty bones on the bottom of the slow cooker, dumped a jar of spicy arrabiata sauce over them, and then added enough water to reach the top. I sprinkled in some garlic salt and turned on the heat. Easy.

  The soup could simmer in the slow cooker for anywhere between twelve and twenty-four hours. Toward the end I’d throw in some vegetables or leftover meat, serve it over rice or noodles, whatever. It tasted good and it kept well. According to Emma, it was full of glycine and proline, which are supposed to keep you limber and springy. She had warned me to fish out any bone fragments before serving.

  “You don’t wanna get hit with some ungrateful guest’s emergency dental bill,” she’d explained.

  Once the soup was on, I still had a couple of hours to kill. I started a load of laundry, balanced the checkbook, and mended the torn seam on a blouse. I checked over my handouts several times, then went back into the bedroom to practice my introductory remarks in the closet mirror.

  I checked the soup again before I left, and made the short drive to the Motor Vehicle Department. I got there early so I’d have time to settle in, but everyone was already in the break room by the time I arrived. I smiled at everyone. Only Andy De Silva smiled back, and then went back to doing paperwork. I stood and paged quietly through my handouts until it was time for the session to start.

  “An important part of interacting with others,” I began, “is understanding ourselves. First, if you don’t mind, you’re all going to sign a release form, indicating you consent to participate in these activities, and we’ll fill out a couple of self-assessment instruments. After that, we’re going to do a simulation. It’s like a game.”

  The “game” was the behavioral experiment covered in my book chapter. In addition to the undergraduates already in our sample, I’d now be able to include results from working law enforcement officers.

  “What are we signing here, Miss?” one of the young officers asked, as if I were his high-school teacher.

  “An acknowledgement that the results of this exercise could be archived, and might at some point be published. Without any identifying information, of course. These consent forms are a requirement of our Human Subjects board.”

  The young officer looked at Andy De Silva. Andy De Silva shrugged.

  “What’s the N-Scale?” someone else asked.

  “I’ll debrief you when everyone’s done. Just answer the questions honestly and to the best of your knowledge.”

  If participants saw what the instrument measured beforehand—for example, if they knew the “N-scale” measured narcissism—I’d be unlikely to get honest answers.

  After everyone had finished their self-assessments, I chose two of the officers at random as negotiating partners, and we ran the first “game.” I was afraid they’d think it was a waste of time, but they seemed fine with it. They were probably relieved the session wasn’t me lecturing the whole time.

  When an hour had passed, I called for a break. This turned out to be the most popular decision I’d made all morning. Andy De Silva sidled up to me.

  “Interesting class, Professor. So when do find out how we did?”

  I rested my fingers on the stack of filled-out forms on the conference table. “I’m going to score them tonight, and bring back your results tomorrow.”

  “I just want you to know I see myself as part of the solution,” De Silva said. “Not part of the problem. I’m an ally.”

  “An ally?”

  “Yeah. I believe in gender. I think ladies should have rights and stuff.”

  “Well, I like having rights.”

  “I mean, people shouldn’t get carried away with it or anything—”

  “Eh, Sir,” another officer interrupted him. “Something came up.”

  De Silva started to apologize to me.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “Please. Go take care of it.”

  When we reconvened after the break, half of the small class was missing.

  “They got called out,” De Silva explained. “Cockfight.”

  “They needed to send three police officers to break up a cockfight?”

  “There was about a hundred fifty guys. They counted twenty dead roosters so far. Confiscated more than seven thousand in cash, too.”

  “Oh. How awful.” I had envisioned three or four people standing around watching two roosters fight. “Can we continue the class without them? Or will they need to make it up?”

  “We don’t want ’em to miss out,” De Silva said. “We got a lot done today anyway. I think everyone’s kinda worn out.”

  The others nodded enthusiastic agreement.

  “Oh. Okay. So, class dismissed, I guess?”

  The remaining three officers disappeared so fast they practically left their Styrofoam coffee cups trembling in midair.

  I came back to a quiet house, fixed myself a cup of coffee, and sat down to score the officers’ self-assessments. I entered the results into the spreadsheet, then copied the individual scores into personalized feedback forms and sealed each one in an envelope. I’d hand back the envelopes first thing tomorrow, and we’d start the session with a discussion of what the results meant.

  That was the first hour of class taken care of. What then? Maybe I could present my dissertation research. It was related to gender diversity, after all. Although my qualitative analysis of representations of masculinities in ’zines from the Orange County punk rock scene might be a little abstract for them. Maybe I could bring in the overview of employment discrimination laws I covered in Intro to Business Management. Something practical would be a better choice for this audience.

  When I was finished preparing the next day’s workshop, I fixed another cup of coffee and then sat down to go through my email. I had learned my lesson about rushing through my inbox. What had I been thinking, volunteering to be on a roster of volunteer speakers?

  Dear Professor Barda, I just received my final grade. . .and I was just wondering if there is any way possible I could try to bring up my grade to pass the class.

  I took a sip of coffee, and clicked “delete.”

  “Oh sure,” I said to the computer monitor. “I can think of no better use for my unpaid summer than to devote more time to your grade than you put in the entire semester. And let’s not forget the inevitable complaints from all of your classmates the minute they heard you got a do-over. The decent, hardworking students who made the necessary effort to turn their work in on time. I’m sure they’d be thrilled to see you get special treatment.”

  The next email was from another dissatisfied customer.

  Normally I would graciously accept my grade with the understanding that I did not put in as much effort as others, yet had I known the written assignments would have been counted as part of my grade, then perhaps my approach to your course would have been different.

  Another one for the trash bin.

  “Oh, do forgive me. How rash of me to assume students would know they were supposed to complete the writing assignments. When the only hints provided were that these assignments were, one, discussed at length and in detail in class, and two, posted on the course website with points and a grading rubric attached to them. Hey, and here’s another hint. The class was designated writing intensive. They’re called final grades, people, not opening bids.”

  I heard a lock turn in the door. Davison plodded into the living room, his backpack slung over one shoulder.

  “Ho, Molly. You know the computer can’t hear you yelling at it, ah?”

  “No one is yelling.” I scroll
ed down my emails, keeping my eyes on the monitor. “I don’t know why anyone would think—are they freaking kidding me?”

  The student who had contacted me earlier, claiming to have earned an overall score of 347% in my class, had filed a formal grade challenge with the Student Retention Office.

  It would scarcely be edifying to reproduce my reaction verbatim. I fear I may have deployed some common (in all senses of the word) Anglo-Saxonisms as Davison disappeared into the guest room and quietly pulled the door shut.

  According to the email from the Student Retention Office, the burden of proof was now on me. I had to demonstrate the complainant, an aspiring accounting major, really had earned the D I’d recorded as her final grade. I was going to have to go onto campus after all.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  I pulled into the lower campus lot and parked next to Pat’s tan Mercedes. There was still no ticket on the windshield. With so few cars around, it probably wasn’t worth it for security to monitor the lot over the summer. I sneaked up to my office, half-tempted to duck behind pillars and around corners as I went, like the Pink Panther.

  Since I was on a nine-month contract, I would have been well within my rights to ignore my university email for the duration of my unpaid summer. I could be home now, working on my book chapter or taking a nap.

  Had I chosen the course of inaction, however, Miss 347% would win her grade challenge by default. She would then be cleared to enroll in the next level of courses in the College of Commerce. I couldn’t do that to my colleagues.

  I darted into my office and pulled the door shut behind me, sealing in the still air. (The A/C was apparently on a nine-month contract, too.) I sat down on my yoga ball (it had been years since we’d had a budget for real office furniture) and bounced a bit to get settled. The ball felt a little flabby. I’d have to re-inflate it before the fall semester started. I switched on the computer and then jiggled the mouse impatiently as my operating system updated itself. Then the computer restarted, and I waited some more. Finally, I was able to log in.