Spin Doctor (13 page)

“What's the ‘j'ouvay'?” I asked, mimicking Meriel's pronunciation, and she explained the predawn celebration of J'Ouvert, or jour ouvert, meaning “daybreak,” which traced its origins to Trinidad. Throwing colorful powdered paint at one another was part of the tradition, as was blowing a whistle to complement the rhythm section of the bands. “Oh, you know, we have to keep de pahrty going, no matter what,” Meriel said, laughing again. “Don't quote me on dis, because I'm not sure, but de paint come from de old days when de slaves would paint dere skin white on j'ouvay to imitate dere mahsters. Now we got all sorts of colors. Blue for de blue devils. And in de old days, on the islands, de slaves would wear dere worst clothes and cover demselves in mud to dress up for Carnival and de j'ouvay. It's when de creatures of de night come out, and de boogeymen too. Like Halloween and Carnival all rolled into one.”

“It was scary!” Julia avowed enthusiastically.

“You let her stay up that late? Or get up that early?” I was surprised.

Meriel nodded. “She was too excited today to sleep anyway. Dis is so much bigger dahn de kids carnival she did on Sahturday. It's her first time marching in de pahrade and she love to see all de excitement.”

“Ah, here you are!” Faith exclaimed when we practically bumped into her in front of the “No Problem” Jamaican food booth. She shoved a plastic plate under my nose; it was loaded with cubed meat spooned over a generous helping of white rice. “Smell this, isn't it divine?” I inhaled a snootful of aromatic spices. Faith took a bite of meat, then speared another cube and
in an excited, aggressive manner that was entirely new to me, she practically pushed the fork into my mouth. “You must taste this!” she gushed. Compliantly, I chewed the meat. It tasted a bit like beef goulash smothered in a delicate curry sauce.

“Isn't it delicious?” Faith crowed. I'd never seen her so giddy over anything.

“What did you just feed me, Faith?”

She beamed triumphantly. “Curried goat!”

My brain considered spitting it out into a napkin, but my taste buds rather enjoyed it, surprisingly. I didn't have the chance to do more than swallow the bit of goat meat anyway, because Meriel turned around and said, “Oh, you're eating William's specialty! How you like it?”

Faith answered for both of us. “Delicious! Susan, I think this is my biggest breakthrough yet!”

“Of course I make it even bettah,” Meriel said, winking at us. “But my son, he's not so bahd in de kitchen!”

“Did you know it was goat when you bought it?” I asked Faith.

She pointed to the hand-lettered menu and nodded emphatically. “I wanted to try something new that never in a million years would have been assayed by the old Faith. Although,” she added hesitantly, “I didn't have the guts to try the oxtail stew. Please tell William I want to taste the sorrel too,” she said to Meriel.

“Sorrel?” Suddenly Faith the inflexible Yankee stalwart was an international gourmand.

“Oh, you'll love it,” William told us. He was a very nice looking, muscular man who still managed to look cool and collected in a bright white tee-shirt emblazoned with the Jamaican flag. He had his mother's smile. “And you met my little Princess, right?” He gestured to Julia, who was sucking down a lemonade
next to the cash box. William poured two glasses of a bright red liquid from an enormous plastic jug. “Sorrel is made from the brewed leaves of the sorrel plant, which give the beverage this color,” he explained. “It's usually mixed with ginger, and sometimes with spirits like rum, but we can't sell alcohol at the parade: New York City law.”

I toasted Faith's courage and tasted the cool drink, which resembled a stronger version of ginger beer. “Yum.” It packed a bit of a kick, even boozeless. The ginger in it burned the back of my throat like a good swallow of brandy.

“Give dehm a slice of my black fruit cake,” insisted Meriel, and William handed over a Saran-wrapped slab of what looked and felt like a very dark, dense pound cake.

“Wait, let
me
taste it first,” demanded the gustatory adventuress once known to me as Faith Nesbit. After this display of bravado, she unwrapped the slice of cake and took a small, tentative bite. I guess I was a teensy bit relieved to learn that her baby-steps method of change, while having quickened its pace somewhat during the afternoon, was still behaviorally consistent.

“Umhnh,”
she murmured, gracefully dabbing at a corner of her mouth with a paper napkin. “Lots of prune. You know,” she said, addressing Meriel, “you could really market this cake to seniors with a sweet tooth!” She broke off a piece and offered it to me. It did taste very prune-raisiny. With maybe a hint of rum. Or perhaps that was merely wishful thinking on my part.

“So, you tink my William can run his own restaurant?” Meriel asked us, leaving no room for any response that was less than wholeheartedly positive.

“With Mama in the kitchen?” I asked her.

“Oh, no,” Meriel laughed. “I tink I'm the bettah cook, but we kill each other in de kitchen. Only one chef at a time in dis family!”

“And this one is my dream,” added her grown son. “Right, peanut?” He turned to his four-year-old daughter for confirmation.

“I'm tired, Daddy,” came the nonsequiturial reply.

“I think the sun has bested me,” I said, realizing how red my chest and arms had become. “Maybe we'd better head back,” I suggested.

“Wait. Not until I find out what jerk chicken is,” insisted Faith, reading the No Problem menu. “It sounds like what the nasty boys used to call each other when I was growing up.”

William laughed and gave Faith a taste of the drum-grilled chicken. Meriel helped herself to a taste and told William that it was good enough but that his sauce needed a little work. “Mama knows best,” he said, miffed that his mother kept openly critiquing his recipes, particularly in front of a couple of white women who were clueless when it came to Jamaican cuisine.

“Oh lookit!” Julia exclaimed, perking up at the sight of a cluster of colorfully attired stilt walkers making their way along Eastern Parkway. “The moco jumbies, Nana!” They were dressed like ninjas. Either that or Iraqi war survivors in endless swaths of bandages. I wasn't quite sure. They were dancing and swaying in unison, and their choreography—let alone the sheer ability to get up on the stilts and stay there—blew me away.

“It's a good way to top off de ahfternoon,” Meriel told us. “De moco jumbies are a big tradition at Carnival in de islands. A lot more mas bands be passing by for a while, but you've seen de best one,” she laughed, pointing to her chest and mopping her brow with one of William's paper napkins. “Mrs. Amy gonna be very annoyed wit' me next week because I'm dragging like a rusty beer can on a cat's tail.”

So Faith and I said good-bye to Meriel, William, and Julia; and with an eye toward the subway station, we threaded our
way through the thousands of others still enjoying the Labor Day festivities.

“I'm so glad I tagged along today,” said Faith as we boarded the train. “Didn't you just love all the dancing? So spirited, so free. I wish I could have joined them.”

“A ‘tough old Yankee bird' as you call yourself, who resembles Marian Seldes? Yeah, you'll blend,” I joked.

“A lot you know,” Faith shot back jovially. “I can dance the ‘jerk chicken'!”

I'm convinced that all school guidance counselors are churned out of a mold: balding—including the females—a bit stooped in the shoulders, Coke-bottle lenses, generally out of touch with both the student body and their parents. That said, Molly and I shared pretty much the same reaction when we each received a summons to meet with Mr. Bernstein, Fieldston's guidance counselor, to discuss Molly's college prospects. It was the summit meeting we'd both been dreading.

I met Molly up at the school's bucolic seventeen-acre campus in Riverdale. We mounted the stairs of the Administration Building with our game faces on and were greeted at the second floor landing by the school receptionist, who led us into Mr. Bernstein's sanctum with its healthy ferns, Kilim carpet in tastefully muted earth tones, mahogany office furniture, obligatory Vermeeresque sunlight streaming in from a window situated to the left of the desk, and Rothko lithographs on the wall. In short, it resembled the traditional Upper West Side psychotherapist's office.

After the initial pleasantries were exchanged, Mr. Bernstein opened with, “Well, you know that SAT scores aren't every
thing.” From watching the sweat stains on the counselor's pale blue shirt grow the way Pinocchio's nose did when he was caught lying, it was clear that even Mr. Bernstein didn't believe a word he was saying. “What schools are you considering?” he asked Molly.

She mentioned NYU and Bennington, then made a crack about applying to Manhattan Community College as her “safety.”

Bernstein burst out laughing. “God, that's funny. You have a terrific sense of humor, Miss Lederer. It's a shame we won't be seeing you in the senior class comedy this semester.”

“The senior class
is
a comedy,” muttered Molly dryly.

“She wasn't really kidding about MCC,” I said.

“Oh, you don't have to worry about ending up there,” Bernstein said cheerfully.

“Good,” sighed Molly, feigning relief. “Because they never ended up mailing me the application after I asked them three times. I really don't want to go to a school that doesn't want me
so
much that they don't even send me the application.”

“You can always apply online,” I said grimly.

“Well, I think you can shelve the community college fail-safe,” said the college counselor. “I can always make a phone call and they'll take you
somewhere.
Fieldston graduates
always
go on to a respectable college.”

“Nice to know,” Molly said. “That
some
college
somewhere
will accept me—not to save my lousy SAT-scoring ass, but to save yours.”

I leaned over and whispered to her that it might be a good idea to can the attitude; that Mr. Bernstein was trying—in his dorky way—to be helpful. The poor schmuck was just doing his job.

“Well, let's talk about Bennington,” said Mr. Bernstein.
“Assuming—‘in the best of all possible worlds,' to quote Voltaire”—this is when Molly dramatically rolled her eyes—“that Bennington decided to accept your application. Why do you think you would fit in there? And how would you complete a foolproof application?”

Molly visibly squirmed. “I'd fit in because they encourage freedom of self-expression. In our society, convention is winning out over individualism. And convention is so not me. The application thing? I haven't a clue. Am I supposed to second-guess what they want from me?”

Mr. Bernstein leaned forward and rested his hands on his immaculate green desk blotter. “Well, I hate to break the bad news to you, but Bennington isn't quite the flakes and nuts school it used to be in your mother's day. They don't even offer a Creative Writing major anymore.” Molly's face fell. “Although if you got accepted, you could always major in English.”

“That's like majoring in unemployment,” replied my daughter sulkily.

“Well, what's your favorite subject here?” Bernstein asked.

“English,” admitted Molly, blushing for the first time in years.

“I like to write.”

“Fiction? Essays? Plays? Poetry?” I could see that the counselor was struggling to hook into something that made my daughter's bells and whistles go berserk. I wished him luck, because her father and I had yet to discover this silver bullet.

Molly shrugged. “Whatever I feel like. I dunno. I just write. Whatever's on my mind?” she added, with the annoying upward inflection that makes statements sound like questions. If it were in my power to ban “uptalking,” I would.

“Do you blog, then?” the guidance counselor asked helpfully.

Molly rolled her eyes again at Mr. Bernstein's pathetic attempt to appear hip. “That's
so
everyone-else-and-his-ferret-is-
doing-it. But at least I don't write sucky poetry like my mom used to.”

My jaw dropped. “How do you know…?”

“Get a grip, Ma. I found it when I was sneaking through your desk drawers like a hundred years ago.”

“Ugh. Busted,” I said, trying to make light of it, but wishing I could crawl under my chair. I knew I should have tossed my angsty college efforts at free verse. Either that or locked them in our safety deposit box over at Citibank.

“Please don't try to sound like a teenager, Mom,” Molly said, in the loudest stage whisper I've ever heard. “It doesn't work.”

“I'll have you know that angst is a manifestation of one's acknowledgment that all's not right with the world—or at least your world—and
that
acknowledgment is the first step on the road to enlightenment.”

“Yes, grasshopper,” Molly muttered mockingly.

Bernstein sought to regain control of the meeting. “Well, Mrs. Noguchi says you're doing very well so far in her Faulkner, Fitzgerald, and Hemingway class.”

“We've only been in school three weeks,” Molly replied tartly.

Undaunted, Mr. Bernstein continued. “I understand you got an A on your first paper, though. The one where you were supposed to write the next chapter of
The Sun Also Rises.
”

“I'm glad Mrs. Noguchi didn't think it was too much of a stretch that you had Lady Brett Ashley decide to stay in Spain and learn bullfighting,” I said to my daughter. “So, Mr. Bernstein, how can we parlay Molly's talent into a successful college application?”

“Well, I have to say, Molly's going to have to have a lot more going for her than good grades on a couple of English papers and a moderately respectable showing on the essay section of her SATs. All of her competition does. Have a lot more going for
them, I mean. With her otherwise lackluster test scores and equally uninspired grades in every subject except English, she'll have to find a way to stand out from the pack, and I'll admit that it won't be easy. Her math and science grades are very weak, even for a typical liberal arts major.”

“We have to film our new Hemingway chapter, next,” Molly said. “I'm going to do it with my cell phone.”

Mr. Bernstein winced. “Weeellll, I'm not sure that'll cinch it. Even if you somehow managed to get real bulls.”

“You're the expert,” I said to him. “What suggestions do you have that will get Molly into a college of her choice—not
your
choice?”

“Well, I'm afraid there are no quick fixes,” the counselor sighed, and I briefly flashed on a few of my lowest-functioning clients who expect a quick fix from me as well. “You can't just whitewash years of underachievement by suddenly doing something grand at the eleventh hour, like winning public office or writing a Pulitzer prize winner.”

“Although classic underachievers have gone on to become president,” I muttered.

Bernstein ignored my editorializing. “I don't need to tell you that it's a very competitive market out there. Molly's classmates have been building their résumés since pre-K.”

“While Molly's just enjoyed her childhood. You poor kid,” I said sympathetically, patting my daughter's knee. “You poor, somewhat normal kid.”

Molly abruptly rose. “Let's go, Ma. I feel like we're being interviewed by a parrot.”

“On, the other hand,” said Mr. Bernstein, rising, “the colleges and universities don't want you to lie or pretend to be someone you're not. They'll see right through it. They want to be interested in you, not in the person you think you need to be.”

Funny…therapists operate the same way.

“So, we're hoping Bennington is really into accepting underachieving slackers,” Molly said sarcastically. “And maybe the fact that I'm an underachieving slacker at the insanely overachieving Fieldston gives me a niche of my own, don't you think?”

“I really didn't mean to come off as an ogre,” Mr. Bernstein apologized. “But I feel it's incumbent upon me not to paint a rosy picture when, in Molly's case, there's just not enough pink on our palette.”

 

We decided to walk down the long hill to the subway station rather than take the express bus back to Manhattan; both Molly and I get dizzy from the diesel fumes. At least she inherited
something
from me besides the ability to stick out a curled tongue.

“Did you download the Bennington application?” I asked her as we rumbled past Dyckman Street. She nodded. “Did you look at it yet?” She shook her head. I figured as much. “Meet me at the dinette table after you've finished your homework,” I told her. “We're going to prove the smug Mr. Bernstein wrong!” I held up my hand for a high-five, and Molly, embarrassed, slapped it halfheartedly as the subway descended from the elevated track into the subterranean gloom.

 

Our mailbox yielded up the community college application that evening. I'm fairly sure that its ultimate materialization—more than the meeting with her college counselor, or anything else that was banging around in her rebellious adolescent head—spurred Molly to honor my demand to sit down after dinner so we could review the Bennington application together.

“Oh, my God, it's like thirty pages!” my daughter exclaimed. How she could have downloaded this massive application with
out even looking at it escaped my logic. “Were college applications this big when you were my age?”

“If memory serves, I'd say they were probably about half the length,” I replied. “Then again, college was also half the price.” Molly flipped through the pages, sighing heavily. “Well, since you found something wrong with every school we visited except for Bennington, I'd say this is your last best hope for not living at home for the next four years.”

“Let's get cracking!”

Molly can be a particularly maddening young woman when it comes to the typical teen surliness, and in not making any effort or attempt to attain her potential—as anything—but I must admit that I am so glad I'm not a high school student, especially a graduating senior. Those are years I would never want to revisit. The Bennington application, which is pretty much on a par with other colleges of its ilk, was truly daunting. And in order to keep Molly's spirits up, I tried to pretend it wasn't, which wasn't working as well as I had hoped.

“I am so totally fucked,” she said, on reading a preamble to the application that set forth its goal of encouraging individual expression within the application format, urging the student to provide the school with a sense not only of what they've accomplished thus far, but who they hope to become. “Which is worse,” she moaned, “not having accomplished anything these ivory tower people want to read about, or not knowing who I want to become? Please don't tell me I'm the only high school senior in America who feels this way.”

“I'd venture a guess that you're in the majority,” I told her, “but don't defeat yourself before you even start the process. That kind of attitude has a way of becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.” I tell the same thing to my clients.

“Don't get all shrinky on me, Ma.” Molly turned the page. The
three essay options sent her into a tizzy. The only saving grace was the ability to supplement them with other media, such as photos, poetry, artwork, or anything else a clever student might devise. One essay quoted Aristotle on the use of metaphor and requested the applicant to prove
themselves
a “master of metaphor.”

“That is, like, so stupid,” Molly commented.

“And
that
is, like,
so
like a
simile.
They want metaphor, kiddo.”

“You're not funny, Mom. You're just not a funny person, okay?”

Essay option two asked the prospective Bennington freshman to design an experiment that would prove that toads could hear.

“You could play Bach for them and see how they react, and then make them deaf with hip-hop,” I suggested. “Hip-
hop
? Toads? Get it?”

“I hate to say it, Mom, but that's probably not such a stupid idea. It's better than essay option three. ‘Select an issue about which you have strong convictions that extends beyond your family, yourself, and your friends.' This is like dork debate class. Pick something important and get the rest of the world to see your point.”

I tried to convince my daughter that not everything is “dorky.” “Molly, each one of these essay choices gives you the opportunity to think in a different way, to use the best part of your brain to its strengths, whether it's scientific, rational, or creative. Left and right brainiacs get an equal shot here. And look at it this way,” I said, giving the community college brochure a quick scan. “If all else fails, you can study creative writing
here
and take advantage of the free theatre tickets they set aside for their students. Not only that, their women's volleyball team took the City University championship. And, from
looking at their application, the clincher is that they don't seem to require any essays.”