Queen Bee Goes Home Again (7 page)

So much for the chance to ask them how they liked it there.

If you ask me, “smart” phones and electronic tablets will be the death of real human communication. At the first opportunity, kids dive into their world of games and texts, remaining isolated from any real relationships and hiding behind their user names. Not to mention causing car wrecks.

Bossy as I am, I couldn't resist asking them in a loud voice, “Hi. When y'all go out, do you just text your dates, or actually talk?”

Both girls briefly glared at me as if I were dog-doo, then resumed what they were doing without comment.

“I thought so.”

Half an hour into the hour I waited, the receptionist rose to tell me, “Miz Scott, if you'll please follow me, you can fill out our application on our computer and the FAFSA before Miz Brady sees you.”

I approached her, leaning close to her to whisper, “I'm sorry, but what's a FAFSA?”

“It's the form all students have to fill out to apply for assistance,” she blared out cheerily for anyone and everyone to hear.

Scalded by embarrassment, I straightened to my full height and looked down my nose at her. “I thought such things were confidential,” I said softly. “Would you please lower your voice?”

“Sorry,” she said without feeling, then led me to a hall alcove with a computer. “Let me just pull this up for you.” Standing, she typed away at blazing speed with her black, acrylic talons, going through several screens till the registration form came up. “Just fill in the blanks. If you make a mistake, you can go back and correct it. Until you hit the ‘completed' button, so don't hit that till it's ready to go.”

She stepped back, and I sat with trepidation. I knew how to do basic word processing and e-mails and Facebook; that was it. But I'd croak before I bared my ignorance by asking that
chiquitita
for help.

It was a good thing I had to wait so long, because it took every minute for me to complete the registration form. I mean, who the heck remembers when they “graduated” from elementary school? I hadn't thought of that since I'd filled out an application for the temp service when I'd first moved back home ten years ago. As it had then, it took some serious mental math for me to come up with the dates they were asking for. I knew when I'd graduated from high school (1968) and the year I'd been at Sandford College: from fall of 1968 to May of 1969, when I'd met and then married my ex, Phil.

And as for my job history, I'd had nine menial jobs in my teens and first two years of marriage before I got serious about infertility therapy and finally gave birth to David four years later. I knew how many jobs because Phil had needled me about it forever, but I could only remember four of them: Teen Board; sales associate at Baker's Department Store in Mimosa Branch; receptionist and tester for a temporary service; and being a very bored private secretary for one of my father's surveyor friends. So I put those down and spread the dates to cover the whole time, despite a gasp of horror from my inner Puritan.

It wasn't as if they could check the dates. All three companies were long since out of business, something I had nothing to do with, I swear.

My Puritan hopped to my shoulder and scolded me for not being completely honest, but my Practical Self gave her the raspberry.

I mean, it wasn't a lie if I couldn't remember, was it? And I definitely didn't think a big question mark would impress the admissions committee, so there you are.

Oh, gosh. Could it be the beginnings of Alzheimer's that I couldn't remember?

I shuddered, stuffed the idea into a mental cubbyhole and slammed the door, and went on.

I filled the next twenty-eight-year span with “homemaker and mother.” Last, but by no means least, I listed my career selling and appraising residential real estate, then added my professional degrees and qualifications.

Then I filled in the rest of the form.

I had just reread it, then clicked the “completed” button, setting off the printer beside me, when the loudmouthed receptionist snuck up behind me and blared, “Miz Brady is ready to see you, now.”

I jumped half out of my skin. “I'm just old, not deaf,” I grumbled as I stood.

Unfazed, the girl handed me the now printed application. “It's the last door at the end of the hall.” She pulled a yellow handout from the stack file on the wall. “I see you didn't get to the FAFSA, so here's one you can take home and fill out.”

One? I made a mental note to pick up several more on my way out, just in case I made mistakes, which I always did when filling out forms—a perverse bit of masochism that sprang from I knew not where.

Inside the office at the end of the hall, a kind-looking black woman (correction: African American) rose behind her desk with a welcoming smile, then closed the door behind me.

Good. I didn't want my business spread all over campus.

“Hi.” Her smile was warm and open. “I take it you're the ‘mean woman' who insulted my two previous appointments,” she said with wry humor. “They told me what you said.”

Heat pulsed up my neck to bloom in my cheeks. “Guilty as charged.”

She grinned, extending her hand in greeting. “Good for you. Welcome to Ocee. I'm Pam Brady.”

I shook, finding her grip firm and dry. “I'm Lin Breedlove Scott. Thanks for seeing me without an appointment.”

“Things are a little slow in the summer, so we could fit you in,” Pam Brady explained as she sat. “Please have a seat, and we'll go over your application.” She scanned the printout as I perched nervously in the chair facing her.

I was relieved that she didn't snort or laugh in derision while she read.

When she finished inspecting the registration form, she leaned back with an affable, “It's too late for fall semester, but you're right on time for winter/spring applications. That quarter starts in January, the sixth. You can finish filling out the FAFSA at home and bring it back, along with an active passport or official copy of your birth certificate, your driver's license, and a copy of the last year of your tax returns.”

She glanced at the printout again, then turned her attention back to me. “To give me a better idea of your qualifications for aid, would you mind my asking you a few financial questions? Strictly confidential, of course.”

She must have seen that I was skeptical, because she told me, “All our information is confidential and accessible only to qualified staff, not student aides.”

“Thanks. That's a relief.” I relaxed a bit. “What would you like to know?'

“What was your AGI for last year?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Sorry,” she said. “We get so used to the acronyms around here. Your adjusted gross income from your tax return.”

“Oh.” I thought for a minute, picturing the screens of my online tax prep program. “I'm an independent contractor, so I have lots of expenses and health insurance to write off.” My mind finally got to the AGI screen. “To the best of my recollection, the AGI would be about twenty-six thousand. But my taxable income was only twelve.”

She nodded and jotted that down on a notepad on her desk.

“And this year, to date?” she asked. “Just a ballpark estimate will be fine for now.”

I sighed, the figure sticking in my throat. I knew exactly how little I'd made in the seven months since New Year's Day. “Three thousand, seven hundred, twenty-two dollars. Gross. With no prospects pending for more.”

Her brows shot up. “Hard year for everybody.” She wrote it down. “Any assets?”

“Just my 2009 minivan. I lost my house to a short sale. My credit rating's trashed, and I'm broke, except for two hundred dollars in my checking account.” Shoot. Would that be enough for the registration fee?

She brightened. “So you're homeless?”

That was good news?

“Actually,” I said, “I moved back into my ninety-year-old mother's because I didn't have the deposit for an apartment.”

She lifted an index finger. “We have special funds for the homeless, but I'll have to check to see if your situation qualifies. Is your mother receiving any income beyond Social Security?”

“Not that I know of.” I'd have to ask her. For all my mother's gossipy phone calls, what I didn't know about Miss Mamie was a
lot
.

Maybe that was why she liked to talk about everybody else so much; it kept the focus off her.

Pam Brady made a note in the margin. “Based on what you've told me, I think you'll qualify for a Pell Grant. But things are so crazy in this economy, not to mention the whole undocumented student situation, that there's fierce competition for the assistance we have left.”

My face must have fallen, because she was quick to say, “But don't get discouraged. Since you're an overage female, I'm almost positive I can find some help for you.”

Overage female? Was that what I'd been reduced to?

She chuckled at my indignation. “That term applies only to scholarship applicants. Here, you'll be designated as a nontraditional student, along with anybody else over twenty-five.”

Better.

“And what is your life plan for after you graduate?” she asked me.

Life plan?
Please.

I started to say
breathing,
but thought better of it.

I supposed I had to get used to the jargon. “I want to teach English in high school.”

She nodded her approval. “Some systems will repay your student loans in exchange for teaching with them for two years.” I knew enough teachers to know that those jobs were almost always at inner-city schools.

I was too old and too slow for combat conditions, so I shook my head in denial. “Ma'am, I am sixty years old. The last thing I need is debt of any kind. If I can't get a scholarship, I can't go to school. It's that simple.”

She rose, offering her hand in dismissal. “Let's see what we can do, then. Take a few more of those FAFSA forms home with you. Fill one out to bring back with a copy of your last year's tax return.” Sticking to the script, she went on with, “And your driver's license and a current passport, if you have one, or an official copy of your birth certificate. And we'll need transcripts from Sandford and your high school. Please have them sent directly to us. The address is on the application.”

Noting my glazed expression as I stood to leave, she offered, “There's a checklist right below the FAFSA forms to help you remember what you need to bring.”

She'd already told me twice: filled-out FAFSA, official birth certificate or passport, driver's license, tax return, and high school and college transcripts.

Thanks to Georgia's crackdown on voter fraud, even renewing a driver's license required all that documentation, plus two proofs of occupancy, like utility bills.

I nodded, amazed by the possibility that this might actually happen.

“Why don't we meet again in, say, three weeks?” she proposed. “That should give you time to get everything we need.”

That would be at the end of the first week in August. “Three weeks sounds good to me.”

It wasn't as if I had anything else to do. Besides visiting the General and helping Miss Mamie scour all five thousand square feet of the main house, but there was no deadline for that. I had already decided to leave the behemoth attic till cooler weather—assuming we got any.

Last winter had been so warm, we never got a good, hard freeze for more than a day or so, so the bugs were walking away with us all.

“The receptionist will make the appointment,” Pam Brady told me. “And please accept my compliments on having the courage to come back to college. We rely on technology a lot more than we did when you last went, but with your intelligence, I'm sure you'll do very well.”

What did she know about my intelligence? We'd just met.

Of course, I probably made a good impression compared to the pierced sluts who preceded me.

Judge not
— Oh, shut up.

I wished I could be as sure of my success as Pam Brady was. “Thanks.”

I picked up my FAFSA forms and documentation checklist on the way back to the front desk, then made my appointment for ten
A.M.
in three weeks.

Then I headed home to do battle with the records departments of Sandford College and Mimosa Branch City Schools. I'd lived long enough to know that getting my transcripts would take twice as long as it ought to. Once the transcripts were ordered, I'd fill out the FAFSA. Then I would drink wine and go to bed with my head under the covers.

Lord,
I prayed from my bed that night,
please help with this, if it is Your will. If it's not, please show me
Your
life plan.

The next morning when a call from my ex-broker Julia woke me up, God delivered, in spades.

 

Seven

Julia's voice crackled through my Walmart drop phone at eight
A.M.
“Lin, I know you said you were through with real estate, but your license is still active, and I have just one last customer I need you to take. He's new to town, and you're the only one I can trust him with.”

I yawned. “Why don't you take him?” Much as I could use a commission, I knew Julia was almost as hard up as I was, except she owned her fancy house free and clear. “I'm helping Miss Mamie scour the big house, top to toe.”

“This'll help her even more, if everything works out,” she said cryptically.

I moaned. The last thing I needed was to haul some transplant around, only to have him decide he'd like to see everything on the market from one end of Metro Atlanta to the other, then buy a foreclosure or a fisbo (for sale by owner) behind my back. Been there, done that.

“I'm asking you as a special favor for me,” Julia said, reminding me that I owed her, bigtime, for a lot more than hiring me after my divorce. A PK (preacher's kid), she'd been the total Goody Two-shoes of our graduating class, then gone off to college and turned into a flashy, anything-goes party girl. Three husbands later, she still was, dripping in real jewelry, without apology.