To cool down, I peel off my sweater and consider the nextmove.
The best thing to do is to ignore Lenny’s comment entirelywhile trying to get back on track with Doug.
I find Doug’s text, which asks whether I’ve seen hisglasses and if I think the eggs are too old to eat.
No and Yes! I write back. I try to be friendly butfirmly dismissive. Need to get into court ASAP—will be unreachable all day.Have a great one!
I drop the phone on the empty seat next to mine and take adeep, cleansing yoga breath, stretching my head back to rest against the seat.I close my eyes and count to ten. Then I ask myself one question: What are you doinghere, Lauren?
Talking to an old high school friend? Yes.
Escaping a little bit from real life? Indeed.
But is there more to it?
Or is this behavior innocuous? Just a married woman’sreinterpretation of feeling like the childhood daredevil by going to anamusement park and screaming with terror and glee on the newest, craziestroller coaster?
And when the ride ends, you walk off the dizzy feeling,eat a Sno-Cone, win a stuffed bear, and head back home, tired but content.
Sounds plausible. Right?
I pick up where I left off and write back to Lenny.
Me: Viral? Define please.
Lenny: When a video or website gets over one millionhits, it has gone viral. That’s my goal—to knock one of these videos out of thepark, and launch into a career that requires more singing/dancing/writing/rapping/ass-shakingthan accounting does.
At age forty? I want to ask. Isn’t that a bit, well, overthe hill in the entertainment world? Not to be a killjoy or anything. But maybeit’s different for guys, who can start families in their forties and becomeleaders of nations in their fifties and win golf championships in theirsixties. For women, power comes from being young and glamorous, and so, as youage, you lose more and more strength every year. Unless you’re Hillary orOprah, in which case, even as you change policy and make the world a betterplace, people still remark on how fat and old you look.
Anyway.
I decide not to bother Lenny with my delusions of hisdelusions. He didn’t sign on to this virtual courtship to be bogged down by abrooding midlifer with no sense of humor, and I didn’t sign on to be the voiceof reason. I read back our exchange from the morning and try to get back intofunny mode before I hit Beantown.
Me: It’s a shame that there’s so little ass-shakingin finance these days.
Lenny: A lot of ass-kissing, though. And plenty ofpeople still getting fucked by their banks.
Me: My train’s pulling into the station. Literally.Gotta go. Good luck spreading disease across the Internet.
Lenny: You in NYC? Can I do you for lunch?
Me: In Boston. Got plans with Georgie.
Lenny: Who is Georgie? Am green-eyed.
Me: Friend from grad school.
I disembark and put my phone in my bag. Best to keep himguessing.
Chapter 11
Georgie is actually Dr. Georgina Parks, Professor Emeritusat the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She was the head of the Languageand Literacy program when I was a student there, and from the first moment Iheard her speak, I was inspired. Actually, I was inspired even before I mether, having already read her two seminal books on education, not to mention allof her related articles.
Georgie is one of the country’s leading educationalfigureheads, a political mover and shaker. She’s an inspiration to Americaneducators everywhere, having influenced national policy and changed the way wethink about teaching children to read. She’s been on Oprah, discussinginequities in urban and rural areas of America. She’s been on 60 Minutes,promoting Literacy Speaks, her nonprofit program whose mission is to eradicateilliteracy in this country. She’s larger than life, and she’s my professionalguru. Every speech she delivers carries with it the authority of the ages, asif she’s speaking not from personal opinion bolstered by factual data, but fromholy, ancient sources of wisdom.
You just don’t mess with Georgie’s ten educationalcommandments.
I haven’t seen her in several years, since before I gotpregnant with Becca.
There was this popular education tome from the 1990s,called Other People’s Children, that I read in grad school and thatprompted Georgie’s first commandment, “Loyalty to other people’s childrenfirst,” so I’m a little bit nervous to tell her that I now have two of my own.
Another commandment is “Lying only hurts you in the end,”though, so that one makes me feel more at ease. I mean, I can’t lie to her andsay I don’t have another child when I do, right? Based on Georgie’s philosophy,that will only come back to bite me in the ass.
Not sure what she’d say about my wholelying-about-jury-duty thing, though. Best to come up with an excuse right nowabout the reason for my trip.
By the time the train pulls into Boston’s Back Bay, I haveread half a novel, maintained the highly inappropriate level of my onlineflirtationship, and kept my husband from getting salmonella poisoning, whilesidestepping a close call. All in all, I’m feeling pretty good.
I push open the heavy wooden doors to the lecture halland quietly find a seat in the back of the room. Because of the train delay, Ihave missed most of this morning’s lecture. The auditorium is filled witheager, fresh-faced twentysomethings, laptops glowing, fingers tapping to takedown every word being said. Georgie is up at the podium. Her black hair isstraight like Michelle Obama’s, her body solid like Jennifer Hudson’s duringthe Dreamgirls phase.
Working without notes, she discusses a recent interventionmade by her team at Literacy Speaks, in which a whole school in New Orleans wassaved.
Georgie’s voice is filled with a deep, southern timbrethat carries up the aisles like an evangelical preacher’s. “These children wereat risk of drowning twice. Twice. Once from Hurricane Katrina.And, then, after being saved from that deluge, they were almost flooded againby inequities in our educational system. These children were left to drown intheir own ignorance. Right here in America, people.
“This is not okay,” she says. “It. Is. Not.”
She bows her head and the lights go down. An image of ablack child reading a book is projected behind
