Play Dates (7 page)

45

as well be happening in Cleveland. Charles would be far better off asking Zoë.

He tells me that the road to guide-dom isn’t the cream puff it used to be. After too many complaints about the dissemina-tion of fraudulent information, New York tour guides must now be licensed by the Department of Consumer Affairs. They administer the 150-question exam, which is a carefully guarded secret. But Charles still remembers a lot of the questions from the test he took, which he promises won’t be too dissimilar from the one I’ll be taking.

“ ‘The House that Ruth Built,’ ” he says, firing a sample question at me.

“Easy. Yankee Stadium.”

“What train line takes you from Inwood in upper Manhattan all the way out to the Far Rockaways in Queens?”

“The A.”

“Good girl,” Happy Chef applauds.

For extra credit I hum a few bars of “Take the A Train,” but then he asks me a question about Brooklyn and I am completely stumped. I haven’t a clue what avenue, once known as Swedish Broadway, is now one of the main arteries of the Arab community. How arcane can these people get? I give Charles a blank look. “Atlantic Avenue,” he says. “Don’t forget that you need to know about all five boroughs of the city, not just Manhattan.”

I blanch, becoming anxious. Maybe I didn’t have such a great idea after all. I think I know my hometown pretty well, but this isn’t the old “meatball down the plate.” “Are they going to ask me that one?”

“They might. They asked me. It was one of the ones I blew, which is why I remember it.”

“I can’t do this,” I sigh. “I thought I could, but I can’t.”

“Sure you can,” he urges energetically. “I’ll give you an easy one.

‘How much does Shakespeare in the Park cost per ticket?’ ” He rattles off three prices and a fourth option: none of the above.

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Leslie Carroll

I give him a funny look. “D. Nothing. That’s a trick question.

It’s free.”

Happy Chef grins and makes ding-ding-ding sounds. “Bonus round. Who drank himself to death at the White Horse Tavern and where is it located?”

“Dylan Thomas. Hudson Street in Greenwich Village. See, that’s the stuff that appeals to me. The human interest stories.

The tortured souls.” I’m now beginning to get back into it. “Hey, maybe I can get my license and then give a tour of Macabre Manhattan, with Halloween coming up.” This sounds more Mia’s speed than mine, but she did urge me to take risks. Even though I was really pissed off at her for saying so and hung up on her.

I embellish my tour idea, running the concept past Charles for his approval. “You know, I could hit all the places where people were murdered or killed themselves. Dylan Thomas. Sid Vicious at the Chelsea Hotel.” I feel my voice rising, my deliv-ery becoming dramatic. “Madison Square Park, where the original Garden used to stand and where Stanford White was gunned down in his own rooftop restaurant by the insanely jealous Harry K. Thaw—because the lecherous White had been passionately knocking it off with Thaw’s wife, the famously sexy chorus girl Evelyn Nesbit—and it became like the O.J.

trial of 1906 or whenever it was. Thaw got acquitted, too,” I said, shaking my head. “Oh, and of course, the murder every visitor to the Upper West Side wants to know about: Mark David Chapman’s assassination of John Lennon right in front of the Dakota.”

I’m getting into this idea more and more. At least I know I’d get it right. Not like Kathie from Trina’s Tours, who, in referring to the tip of Manhattan in an electrifyingly wrongheaded remark, claimed that “it’s called the Battery because it’s where the center of power used to be in the early days of the colonies, and PLAY DATES

47

where the power brokers still are today, over at the New York Stock Exchange.” Obviously she got her job before they tough-ened up the test, or as Gayle had surmised, forgotten everything she’d ever learned for it.

“I think you’d do really well at this,” Charles says. “You’ll be a very popular tour guide, too particularly for European

,

crowds. You’ve got a real understated glamour. It’s very Grace Kelly. Just wear all your old Prada and Calvin and Ralph Lauren things and you’ll be perfect.” I begin to relax until he casually adds, “There’s more to qualifying than looking beautiful and passing the test, though. You need three character references, witnessed by a notary, and none of your references can be from relatives. One can be from a friend—I’ll be happy to do it—and one should be from a former employer.”

Uh-oh. I’ve never had an employer.

“And one should be from some who’s known you forever.”

Eek. Someone who’s known me “forever” who’s not a family member. I’ll have to think of something. Scott has known me sort of forever, at least since I was in high school. I can’t do it, though. Asking my ex-husband for a character reference is asking for pain.

Dear Diary:

I’m writing this in school because Mrs. Hennepin thinks I’m writing something else but I finished it already. All of the other kids in
my class are having snack. But not me. Mrs. Hennepin said I
couldn’t have juice and cookies because I was bad during recess. I
was only playing in the park with Xander and then he got mean
and threw sand at me. It’s HIS fault and he gets to have snack
and he even gets DOUBLE cookies and I don’t. Mrs. Heinie-face

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Leslie Carroll

never does anything mean to the boys. She is like the bad witch
from
The Wizard of Oz
except that her face isn’t green. I wish I
had some water to throw on her so she would melt and then
maybe we could get the nice second-grade teacher instead.

The other kids were laughing at me and they made fun of me
when Mrs. Heinie-face made me sit in the back of the class and
write I’m sorry over and over again until snack is over. Even Ashley made fun of me. And April and May don’t want to talk to me
because they think it will get them in trouble, too. They’re not my
best friends anymore. I don’t have any more friends. I don’t have
a tissue. I don’t want Mrs. Heinie-face to see me crying. That will
make her more mean. I know it. I wish Xander would be my
friend. I thought he was beginning to like me, especially since he
said he would play “house” with me at recess. We had a really
good time, too. And then he got so mad at me.

Why is every person in the whole world mad at me? Xander
and Ashley and April and May and Mrs. Heinie-face and even
Mommy.

I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m
sorry I’m sorry . . .

It’s been a long time since I’ve had to take a test. I feel like I’m back in school again, facing the SATs. Time may march on, but some things never change. I threw up before the test then, and I did the same thing this morning.

Couldn’t even keep down coffee and orange juice. Zoë was so adorable. She got up from the breakfast table—after first asking to be excused—and then lugged the two-liter bottle of ginger ale from the refrigerator, plunking it down at my place with a gushy thud.

“Y

me

ou give

ginger ale when
my
tummy is upset,” she said simply, then climbed up to fetch a glass from the cupboard.

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49

She’s delicious. This is what it’s all for. We’ve got some rough sledding ahead, but I couldn’t imagine a Zoë-less life.

The New York City Department of Consumer Affairs is down near the tip of lower Manhattan—the Battery. I start giggling to myself thinking about Kathie at Trina’s Tours and the Battery as the power center of the city. I conjure visions of the Energizer Bunny rolling down Wall Street thumping away on his little drum. Kathie’s catalog of errors gives me a boost of confidence.

Happy Chef has prepared me well. Most of these questions aren’t too hard. At least many of them look familiar. They’re all multiple choice, so I keep telling myself that the right answer is in front of me. All I have to do is select it. The Swedish Broadway question is, in fact, on today’s test, so I know I have that one right.

Good Lord, someone’s cell phone is ringing. “Nadia’s Theme,” no less. Don’t people know enough to turn off their phones when they enter the testing room? Do they have to be in touch with the rest of the world every millisecond of the day?

How can I concentrate? How are people expected to . . . ?

Oops.

Braving forty dirty looks, I reach down and plunge my hand into my purse, which is vibrating noisily, if melodically, at the base of my chair.

I flip open the phone and answer it. “Hello . . . ?”

It’s Mrs. Hennepin. I feel my stomach clench. “Is something wrong?”
Of course something’s wrong, Claire, or she wouldn’t be
calling you in the middle of the school day.
“Is Zoë all right?”

“Yes, she is, Ms. Marsh. Physically, anyway. I’d like you to come over to the school for a conference. Right away, in fact. I know you’re not working now, so—”

I try to keep my voice down. “Can’t we speak at the end of the day when I come to pick her up?” I look down at my test.

There are a hundred and fifty questions and I’m on number sixty-three. “I’m kind of in the middle of something right now.”

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Leslie Carroll

The test monitor approaches my chair. “I’m sorry, but you’ll have to take that outside,” the civil servant says.

“Oh, right. I’m so sorry.” I get up from my chair, while I’m still listening to Mrs. Hennepin explain why she needs to speak to me sooner rather than later. The kids just went into Ms.

Bland’s art class and then they’ve got science with Mrs. Peabo, so she’s got a couple of hours free while her charges are in the hands of the specialty teachers.

I’ve got the phone nestled in the crook of my neck, my purse on my shoulder and I grab the test with my left hand and start to leave the room.

“You can’t take the test with you,” the monitor says. “You gotta leave that in the room.”

“But I’m not finished.”

“Don’t matter to me. You can’t take the test outside the room. That’s the rules.”

“But how am I supposed to . . . ?” The monitor shushes me and cautions me to keep my voice down. I’m disturbing the other test takers. “See, my daughter’s teacher is on the phone. I’m not trying to cheat, if that’s what you mean, and this is not a social call, it’s—”

“I don’t care what it is,” the monitor interrupts. “But you can’t be bringing the paper outside this room.” This formidable young woman definitely takes her job very seriously. She means business and I get the feeling that if I cross her, she’ll put me in a headlock, if necessary. Or sit on me.

My stomach is tying itself in bigger knots and Mrs. Hennepin is still on the phone calling into her end, “Ms. Marsh? Are you there?”

“So, what am I supposed to do?”

“Are you talking to me?” I hear Mrs. Hennepin ask.

“It’s up to you,” the monitor says. “You can finish the test. Or you can talk to your friend—”

“I told you, this isn’t my friend!” I say, shaking the cell phone at her. “It’s my daughter’s second-grade teacher.”

“I don’t care if it’s the President of the U-nited States. You PLAY DATES

51

wanna take the call, you take it
outside
this room. And you can come back and take the test again on another day.”

“Then I have to pay the fee again, don’t I?”

The monitor nods. “Every time you take the test, you gotta pay.” I frown. What a rip-off. “Hey, girl, don’t you look at me like that. I don’t make the rules. And you gotta leave the room or everyone here’s gonna file a complaint against me. I got four mouths to feed. I can’t afford to be losing my job.”

And I can’t afford not to have one either, but Zoë takes precedence over everything. I tell Mrs. Hennepin I’m on my way, snap the phone shut and rip my partially completed test into strips, dumping it into the waste paper basket on my way out the door. Oh, well. So much for knowing what avenue was once known as “Swedish Broadway.”

Chapter 4

To save some money, I take the subway up to Thackeray. A cab from the Battery would have cost me well over ten dollars. We need that for groceries. A monthly Metrocard is a godsend for people on a tight budget. You buy the card, then ride all you want for the next thirty days.

I anxiously stride in to the school’s administrative offices, all clustered at the end of one corridor on the first floor of the building. The parent-teacher conference room is a small, uninspiring rectangle, adjacent to the principal’s office. It looks the same as it did years ago. The same maple wood doors, the same musty smell, the same inset frosted glass windows lending the false appearance of accessibility, that look like they haven’t been cleaned since Eleanor Roosevelt went here for one semester.

Just as I am about to rap on the glass—I know from experience if a small hand knocks on the wood, you won’t be heard—

the door bursts open, nearly knocking me across the corridor.

Nina Osborne, her tanned skin flushed, her eyes aglow like some mythological beast we might have studied in Miss Imber-man’s fifth-grade class, bears down on me for the second time in as many months.

A teacher passes us, prompting Nina to alter her demeanor

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Leslie Carroll

and lower the volume on whatever it is she plans to say to me.

“You’re a heathen!” she spits through gritted teeth. “I’ve heard that about the Marsh girls. You’re legends in this school. And obviously, the apple didn’t fall far from the tree!”

Oh, God, does she have to resort to clichés?
My father would be appalled. He used to forbid us to use them, saying that well-educated people can choose their own words; they don’t need to stoop to shopworn phrases.

“You should be ashamed of your daughter’s vocabulary,” Nina continues.

I wonder what happened that caused this . . . this
tempest in
a teapot
. I try to suppress a smile. Where’s the fire? The big emergency? Did Zoë finally slip and call her teacher Mrs.