"Wow. What's a ‘Venus Workshop’?" Joe said.
“The monologue or the class?” Maya shoved another chai cup at Alice, who absently drank some, trying to regain her cool.
Joe persisted, "Is this a class where you build giant pink and purple Venus De Milos out of clay and papier maché?"
Alice choked and sent a mouthful of chai in a wide arc.
Joe pressed on. "Or do you construct voluptuous prehistoric Venus of Willendorf figurines out of cupcakes, frosting, and cherries?"
Maya passed out Kleenexes. "Very funny, Joe. Actually, it's where we daughters of Venus find our Venus essences in the flesh." She mopped her desk. "With the help of mirrors and mood music and lighting, of course. You okay, Alice?"
Alice, coughing furiously, blotted her skirt.
Joe rubbed his hands in glee. "Oh, goody. Can I enroll? I'm a master at finding Venus essences. Man. My department seems so stuffy and out of date now. I mean Botticelli, Picasso, and Ingres are one thing, but this is genius.”
Alice coughed harder.
Maya brought her some water. "Honestly, Joe. You're like a little kid."
Joe smiled. "Fascinating curriculum. You teaching the workshop Alice?"
Alice sipped. "I wouldn't—" cough "—know where to begin to teach it. Well, actually, you'd have to be pretty—" cough “—dumb not to be able to find your own—" cough, cough.
Joe rocked on his Birkenstocks, eyes watering, beard quavering.
Alice drank more. "I mean, I just teach English grammar, writing, reading, oral presentation. The only body part I teach my students to—uh—find is their alveolar ridge." She pointed to the roof of her mouth. "Where you put your tongue to make English T, D, and J. And how to put teeth to tongue to make the /th/ sound, and teeth to lips for … " Babbling in the spotlight had gotten her through school. Sooner or later, the teacher would cut in just to shut her up.
Joe started convulsing. The Groucho eyebrows were just all over his face. "Yes, correct tongue position. Important for so many things." His face worked furiously, but mirth finally won and he blew like a Yellowstone geyser, laughing loud enough to topple Kali off her shelf.
"Enough, Joe." Maya threw a pencil at him, and he ducked into the hall. "I'll have a sexual harassment lawsuit on my hands." She turned to Alice. "Sorry. He's a Neanderthal. Want to come discuss monologues over lunch? Without him?"
Joe yelled from the hall, "Make sure to get your hydraulics checked before you perform, Alice!" He dodged another pencil. "I'll be there opening night to watch you plough through your piece." Howls echoed down the hall as he left.
Alice just shook her head. Despite fifteen years of marriage, she was about as likely to discuss private female body parts in public as her kids were to ask her if she needed help with the dishes. "I have to go. My kids will be home soon." In three hours.
Maya became a car salesman. "So which piece are you reading with us at the audition on Monday?"
"Uh, how many people come to see this? Ten? Twenty? Women only?"
Maya smoothed a few stray hairs into her bun. "The theater holds four hundred, and we were sold out last year. We made over ten thousand dollars for the local women's shelter. That's our mission—to help women in crisis.”
Guilt hit Alice like a cold washcloth. She'd eaten all this free food and taken up so much of Maya's time without any intention of helping the cause. She sighed and skimmed reluctantly through more pages, rejecting the graphic “Venus Erycina,” goddess of prostitutes. The poetic “Venus Libertina” about a black incest survivor was just too sad. The profane, funny, “Venus Victrix,” goddess of war and victory over men's hearts? Not familiar ground for her in this lifetime. Then there was “Venus Cloacina.” Cloacas? Chicken eggs and bird poop and Venus? Please. But “Venus Obsequens”—an adulterous romp in lurid color—yeah, right. She wasn’t in the mood for adultery. The last one in the pile, “Venus Genetrix,” was about mothers and domestic goddesses. That was Alice, all right.
She leafed through the story of a woman giving birth to triplets eight weeks early—a vaginal birth, of course. No Caesarian births for Venus.
She read: "And my v-v-vagina expanded enough for one ecstatic, pulsing p-p-penis, then two, then a hundred, before it wound around a life, a real, round, warm, wet, thinking life with eyes that had seen only God's before mine. Then it bloomed and became a sacred passage, a blessed hallway to accommodate blossoms and carriages and joy from a pre-world of soulful images into this hard, angular, black and white plane of five seething senses. Three living, thinking, feeling people, my loves, my soul, my legacy, the kings of tomorrow, paraded, stomped, and gouged their way through my vagina, leaving deep permanent ruts for later travelers like the Oregon Trail. And finally my vagina became a throughway, a channel, a many-laned highway that brought squirming life to a whole nation of solid Roman souls.”
Ouch. Alice did an involuntary Kegel.
“Wait. I think that one’s taken. How about Venus Cloacina?" Maya said, “The Roman goddess of the sewer! Goddess of purity! The Romans really valued a good sewage system as key to their success.”
That seemed innocuous enough. Or was it like Aunt Beth referring to her period as "draining the cesspool", way before women's lib and Our Bodies, Ourselves? Alice was skimming through the selection for lurid poetry and vaginal vocabulary when Maya said, "Sold! To the lady with the chai on her shirt."
How to back out politely? "Um, Maya, my kids can't come. They're just the wrong age and they fight a lot. I'll need to check with my babysitter, Juanita. She's so busy. And everyone says teenagers need an adult at home, and I'm already gone two evenings a week teaching." She smacked her forehead. "And the relatives are visiting in two weeks. I'll miss too many rehearsals.”
"No problem," Maya gushed, "I can see you doing this part. Your voice is perfect." Her black eyes charmed like snakes. "And last year we even had some Hollywood talent scouts here in the audience. It was so exciting."
Under Maya's spell, Alice suddenly saw herself earning millions doing voice-over parts in Hollywood films. Well, maybe thousands. But, if she buttered Maya up now, when the next full-time ESL teaching position opened up, Maya, who seemed to live on all hiring committees, might simply usher Alice straight from the hand-to-mouth world of the part-time freeway flyer to the nirvana of full-time, tenured community college faculty with her own office, a grown-up salary, and—part-timers only whispered this word reverently late at night under the covers—benefits.
Alice looked down at the chai on her shirt and the twenty extra pounds around her middle. She lunged with her virtual epee. "But don't you want students? Young, skinny, pretty things?"
"Oh, no," Maya parried. "This production is a joint effort of students, faculty, and staff. We need you older, more mature women for the more mature parts. “Venus Cloacina” is about a spinster in her seventies, mourning her sad, dry vagina. Perfect for you.”
Older? Mature? Seventy? Alice had just turned forty-one! And was the fact that she hadn't had sex for eons now stamped on her forehead in big letters: USED AND DISTRESSED? Or worse: CAN'T REMEMBER HOW?
En garde. "I've never acted before. I'll be awful. And memorizing? I forget my own phone number. And my kids' names.”
"Relax, it's reader's theater," parried Maya. "You sit on a stool in front of a mike and read your part off cards,"
"Won't the costumes be expensive?" Alice thrust.
"Just wear dressy black with jewelry. The cosmetology department can do your hair and makeup. Maybe add a feather boa. You'll look smashing, believe me." Counter-parry and riposte.
Alice made a final lunge. "Are you going to read a part, too?"
Maya disengaged. "No, no. I'm the producer. I have plenty to do coordinating everybody and running this office on a microscopic budget." Touché.
How bad would Alice look if she turned this thing down now, with the “I'm-volunteering-why-can't-you?” card sitting there?
Maya
pushed a DVD into Alice’s hands. "Here. Watch last year's show. It was so wonderful. And be here on Monday at 12:30 to read for me and Rita, the director."
As Maya locked the office behind them, a resigned Alice asked, "What did you do to your wrist?"
A gold tooth showed in Maya's grin. "I arm-wrestled my three teenage sons, and I won."
CHAPTER 2
On leaving Maya's office, Alice once again faced the rabbit warren of hallways. Still hoping to find her dean's office, she tried another room on that corridor, but inside, instead of her dean, she found a group of five women she knew sitting around a table: the ESL full-time faculty in a meeting.
All of them were single, between forty and sixty, and they ate, drank, and slept ESL. They were constantly revising curriculum, and they attended every national and state-wide English teaching conference and presented popular seminars at each one. Now, Karen Nakuta and Susan Sanderson looked up over their half glasses and adjusted their beige suits. Pudgy Mara Hassanian smiled wearily and sipped her diet Coke.
Jane Rohmer spoke. "Alice. What brings you this way?"
"Um. I was just talking to Maya Singh, and now I'm looking for the…"
The women's eyes got big. Karen said, "She didn't try to get you to do one of those monologues, did she? I went in there yesterday, and I mean really. Shocking!"
There was general tut-tutting.
Karen said, "Did you see Maya's Venus show last year, Alice? Oh. My. God."
"No." Alice had avoided the monologues before, assuming them to be intended for more artistic, adventurous, sexy types than she. Like soft porn in mythological clothing.
Mara stood. "Well, they did it in the little theater without much advertising, but some people were really up in arms. Thought it was offensive, didn't see the educational value to the students involved. The college nearly shut them down.”
Susan took up the tale. "Finally, Maya had a little private chat with the college president, Dr. Hamilton Smith, and convinced him of the campus women's right of free speech. Long and short, he let them do it, but he didn't even come and see it!"
“Oh, my.” Alice said, while internally screaming: Controversial? Offensive? Free speech? What if her stuffy colleagues found out Alice had agreed to be in the show? Well, she was only an adjunct. What could they do to her? Take away the low-level classes that she taught because they hated teaching them? Hardly. And it wasn't like she was trying to get tenure or anything.
"Guess what?" Mara changed the subject. "Blanche is retiring!"
"Uh, congratulations, Blanche." Alice's mind reeled. Oh, joy!! Blanche's full-time job would be open. The job of Alice's dreams. Happy dance!
And Alice would be making a fool of herself onstage next month, smack in the middle of the hiring process. A cold hand gripped Alice's chest. If she was seen by this crew spouting private words and sporting a feather boa on stage, how could she possibly turn around and charm them into giving her this plum of a full-time job? She needed this job. She wanted this job. It was her turn to get the job.
Jane said, "Would you like to join us, Alice? We're about to dole out committee positions for the state-mandated accountability standards group. Part-timers are always welcome."
Blanche Lamarck, tiny and graying, got up to throw her coffee cup away and leaned in to whisper to Alice as she passed. "This committee will live forever. Years of weekly meetings. Run while you can." Then Blanche raised her voice to the group. "You know, I think Alice would be a perfect division representative to the new Campus Safety Committee." She whispered again, "Meets once a semester. Still gets you brownie points."
Alice said, "Absolutely! Sounds great! Thanks! Ooops! Must run! Dental appointment." Then she backed out the door and sprinted down the hall, her book bag and purse flying behind her. After years of ducking campus-wide involvement of all stripes on any of her three campuses, she’d managed to collect a monologue AND a committee this afternoon. Forget finding the dean. She was heading home.
The earth-tone campus was almost bare of people under a cool, cloudy March sky. It resembled a huge concrete block city, built by a giant concrete child. Today these blocks were heavier and duller than usual, ready for their weekend nap. Alice usually loved the feel of college campuses, but her mind was elsewhere today.
Money and tenure and monologues and mortgages. Money and tenure and monologues and mortgages. Money and tenure and monologues and mortgages. Crap. Mortgage payments on her new Lakebrook home were way too steep for her present hourly wages, even working at three schools. Her savings would be gone soon, unless Dirk started paying his share of child support and she got this full-time job.
A long shot.
She shuddered, picturing the alternative: she and her three loud kids crammed into a tiny apartment in a seedy low-rent district miles away, with no TV or computer. No ballet or braces. Her kids, uprooted from their school friends, would become vandals or salesmen. Ungraceful ones with underbites. Full-time community college instructor openings were rare, but her seniority gave her a good shot at Blanche's job. And one thing she knew: she just had to have it, despite the required beige attire and endless meetings. And reading to the world about Venus Cloacina during a hiring process would simply be suicide.
She’d reached the edge of the parking lot. She was about to turn back toward the mail room and shove the Venus Monologue DVD and script in Maya's mailbox with a conciliatory note. But then she saw someone leaning against her gold Honda Odyssey. Students? Hanging around her car? Doing what? She marched over and found two Vietnamese men there. One tall, one short. The usual suspects. She sighed.
"Teacher, we bring homework for you." The taller one, Luu Huynh (which rhymed with queen) held out a sheaf of papers. He had been a soldier in Viet Nam before the fall of Saigon in 1975 and still held himself like one. Probably over fifty, but looking forty, he wore a black leather jacket and had a lot of collar-length black hair and fancy reflective sunglasses, which he now lowered. Saucy brown eyes laughed at her and his long black mustache quivered like he knew a joke she didn't.
Her eyes narrowed. "Why weren't you guys in class? You'll never accomplish anything if you mess around like this." She stopped and reworded to match their comprehension level. "You both need to come to class every time, okay? You learn English faster, better when you come to class."
The shorter student, Van Tran, grinned and nodded. But then he nodded at everything. Eight years in a jungle prison after the war had made no dent in his good nature. Round features were rare among the Vietnamese, especially on an ex-army officer, but Van's round face made him look like a little kid, except for the graying hair and hairy mole on his cheek.
Luu, on the other hand, sometimes seemed to understand every nuance of her speech. Now he grinned widely, and the creases that fanned from the corners of his eyes got deeper, as did a couple of long laugh lines connecting the ends of his mustache with his chin, like parentheses. Unfortunately, one of these ended in another nasty chin mole with its own evil sprout of black hair. Strong cologne and smoker's breath kept Alice at a distance.
"How did you know which car is mine?" she asked, getting out her key.
"We know you, Teacher. We follow you and look her car, Teacher," Luu smiled.
"Thanks. You mean your car."
"Not my car, Teacher." Luu shook his head at her car. "I not like minivan."
"No, it's my car, but you say your car to me." At their blank look, she sighed and bent to put their papers in her bag. "Well, have a good weekend, guys. And come to class on Monday. That's an order, army men." She started to pick up her book bag, but Luu bent over and got there first and hefted it into the car. The blast of bad cologne sent her back a step and she lost her balance. He immediately caught her arm with a steadying hand. A nice-looking hand, tan and long-fingered. With a gold band. A bolt of something warm shot up her arm.
Oh, God. First she was noticing men’s rings, and now she had tingles with a student? Good grie
f. She stared at the hand for a split second before he dropped it. They both laughed. Funny. That type of communication required no grammar at all.
The guys waved happily as she took off for home, her arm replaying that warm bolt from Luu's grip. Must have been static electricity. Or arthritis. Surely not menopause. Was she that old? Ack! Going southbound on the 405 freeway, she made a long mental list of things to do instead of reading a monologue on stage in mid-April: Celebrate two kids' birthdays, write and grade seventy-two mid-terms, ninety-four essays, and forty-one book reports, go on a Boy Scout campout, help with two PTA functions, re-grout the bathroom tile, mend her window screens.
The Odyssey headed into a well-manicured suburban area of Orange County. The sky was gray and a light mist spritzed down. Eucalyptus trees and jacarandas were swaying like Alice's grandmother in a Baptist church. The homes here were in shades of Boringest Beige, Octogenarian Gray, and Illegally Poached Ivory. Alice had a momentary flash of Dirk coming up with these terms when they'd first moved into this conservative town. But then the lead curtain crashed down on her shoulders again, the one that had settled there almost two years ago when Dirk, a university professor, had gone off with a twenty-three-year-old psychology graduate student who never wore makeup. Or a bra, according to some sources.
Now, thanks to him, Alice lived a cliché. She parked in her carport and grabbed her school bag. Rats. The dreaded DVD and script were poking out the top of it. Well, she'd return them to Maya via campus mail on Monday. Inside her beige townhouse, the phone message light blinked. She pushed the button.
Her heart leapt just a little at Dirk’s familiar voice. "Sorry, Alice. I'm busy all this month and next. Conferences, symposia. Can't take the kids until May.” BEEP.
Her heart got real and sat down again. Asshole. The kids would be bummed not to spend the promised spring vacation with their dad. The house suddenly felt dead empty. This was her worst time of day, when she came home alone and wanted to slap Dirk silly for leaving her. She dialed her brother Billy in his faculty office in Oregon.
Roll with the Punches Page 39
