Easy Street, page 26
Joanna lets me know she is not impressed with a simple grunt.
As we pass a small bakery on the grounds—run, Aliya told me, by the residents—a scent of cinnamon and baking pastries wafts through the air.
“Mmm,” I say. “Smell that? What do you think? Cinnamon buns, I bet.”
Joanna says nothing, and when I look over, I see that she’s fallen several steps behind and is stooping to pull up her socks, which have puddled loosely at her ankles.
To the side of the path a small play area, featuring a modest climbing structure, a metal slide, and swing set, has been set in a bed of wood chips. A vigorous red-haired girl whizzes down the slide, whips around, bounces up the steps on hands and feet, and whizzes back down.
“Look,” I say to Joanna. “Some of the residents here are moms with children, so kids will be around the place. Won’t that be nice?”
The red-haired girl stops at the top to peer down a yellow, plastic telescope, which she directs at our position on the path, and I wonder what she thinks about this odd couple that has stopped to watch her play.
I have an impulse to wave to the girl but think better of it, and with a sharp breath I’m back on the path. “C’mon, let’s go.”
Aliya is a tall and athletic, with a smooth complexion that almost shimmers. The primary colors of an enameled flower pendant stand out against her skin, and the casual formality of a pressed blouse tucked into comfortably fitted jeans projects warm authority. “Welcome to Good Shepherd,” she says with a smile that is broad, extending to the corners of her eyes and offered exclusively for Joanna. I feel shunned by the narrow greeting, but then I imagine this is exactly how Joanna must feel when she meets people with me: slightly beside the point.
Joanna is wary, but she meets Aliya’s gaze. “So . . . you’re . . . then you’re . . .”
Aliya nods, with a complete lack of Los Angeles speediness, waiting for the words to come to Joanna.
“Then you’re . . .” Joanna seems to internally review the recon I’ve given her on Aliya. “. . . you’re a nun?”
“Oh no, Miss Joanna,” Aliya answers, without judgment or personal offense, “I’m not a nun, but I do work with the sisters here at Good Shepherd.”
“Oh.” Joanna taps her fingers one at a time with her thumbs as if counting, reviewing, figuring what this might mean.
Aliya allows time for Joanna’s process to unfold.
Past Aliya’s shoulder, pale, skinny fingers wrap around a doorframe. A knife-blade-thin woman with stringy, sand-colored hair swings into view. “Look,” the woman pipes sweetly. “I know I didn’t sign up for stove privileges tonight and all, but I just wanna cook some noodles. It’s not like pasta or anything, just noodles, so—”
“If you didn’t sign up, then no privileges,” Aliya responds decisively and without hesitation.
“Oh c’mon,” the woman pleads with a flirtatious smile, making no effort to hide two missing front teeth. “You’re my girl. I got these noodles at the pantry, and I just wanna cook ’em tonight real quick.”
“Next time put your name on the sign-up sheet, and then you can prepare your noodles. You know the rules.”
The woman groans, her chin thrust toward the ceiling, before staggering dramatically from the office like a teenager protesting her chores.
“Have a nice night, Miss Sarina,” Aliya calls with good humor.
“’Night, Aliya,” Sarina grumbles without looking back, her sneakers sliding on the linoleum into a squeaky complaint.
Aliya is not a people pleaser. She did not take a job at Good Shepherd for these women to love her. She took it, I assume, to serve, and this commitment affords her a clarity and firmness that ironically does win their love, or at least respect. In her place, in my anxiety to please, I’m sure I would have put on a cutesy, sympathetic face and caved. “Oo-oh, okay, Sarina, but you’ll sign up tomorrow, right? Enjoy your noodles,” I would have said, and then Sarina would fail to acquire the essential life skills I had been tasked to impart. She would fall back on old habits when her time at Good Shepherd was up, and eventually lose her way completely before dying somewhere outside, alone—all because a self-involved people pleaser couldn’t stand to experience herself as someone that might not be nice.
Aliya interrupts my self-critique by suggesting we take a look at the room they have for Joanna, “just to see if it seems like a good fit,” as she puts it, “to see if it’s the kind of place Miss Joanna might like to stay.”
The room is just lovely, like the advertisement of a Vermont bed and breakfast brochure. There’s a wooden rocking chair with a tasseled pillow, a small desk set up with office supplies, and a single bed covered with a patchwork quilt so delicately beautiful, so Laura Ingalls Wilder couture, that I’m sure that with no connections in the textile market whatsoever, I could sell it this weekend for $1,500.
“Look at this!” I say. “Oh my goodness!” Then I add to Aliya, “This is just beautiful. Wow. What a stunning place.” I expect Aliya to . . . well, if not melt at my praise, then at least like it, but she shows no interest in my feedback, and her attention remains entirely on Joanna.
Shit, I think. She sees through my act like a pane of glass. She recognizes my Hollywood flattery for what it is, a hustle, one she’s seen many times before. Aliya knows exactly what I am.
Joanna, oblivious to my insecurities, stalks around the room suspiciously, inspecting every item. She sees a basket wrapped in crinkled sparkly-purple cellophane on top of a chest of drawers and exclaims, “An Easter basket?”
“It’s a welcome basket. No Easter bunnies involved,” Aliya says with an understanding laugh. “The young lady who decorated this room left it for you. I’m not sure what’s inside, but it’s awfully pretty, isn’t it?”
Joanna eyes the basket greedily, but then looks up at Aliya as if she might be the kindly seeming witch luring her with sweets down the path to a walk-in oven.
“Alright,” Aliya says brightly. “Miss Joanna, would you like to meet Sister Louise?”
“Oh, I—” Joanna lifts her hands and begins flattening her hair over her ears.
“Sister Louise would like to meet you.”
“A nun? Sister Louise is a nun?”
“That’s right.” Aliya says, “You know what’s going on.”
In a plain room with a small conference table, we find a petite woman in a full nun’s habit seated next to Jim, who gives us a little salute. When Joanna sees Jim, she appears to be utterly transported. “Jim!” she gasps in the voice of a newly rescued Disney princess, “Oh Jim, I can barely believe my eyes.”
“Hello, Miss Joanna.” The pint-sized nun pops up from her seat, shoots over to Joanna, and offers her hand. “I am Sister Louise.”
Joanna’s arms remain loose, dangling at her side. Sister Louise reaches down and wraps her fingers around Joanna’s right hand, then pumps the limp appendage firmly up and down several times. “It is wonderful to meet you.” She turns to me and reaches out to give my extended hand one firm shake.
“Please sit down,” she says to us both, pulling out a chair for Joanna before returning to her seat. “What do you think about Good Shepherd so far, Miss Joanna?”
“It’s alright.” Joanna grips the edge of her chair with both hands and looks quickly from Aliya to Sister Louise, then down at the table in front of her seat.
Interlacing her fingers on top of the table and leaning forward, Sister Louise takes Joanna in quietly and then asks, “Do you know why you’re here today?”
“Yeah.”
Sister Louise waits for a moment before asking again, “Why are you here today, Miss Joanna?”
“Because Jim won’t let me live at his house,” Joanna answers matter-of-factly. “Because I’m not family.”
“I should probably explain,” I say with a nervous laugh. “Jim and I would love to have Joanna stay with us. It’s just that we don’t—”
“I see,” says Sister Louise, quieting me. She is polite but clearly does not find my input relevant. “And so, Miss Joanna, you are looking for a place to live? Is that right?”
“I can’t live on Van Ness anymore.”
“Van Ness is where you have been living?”
“With my mother.”
“But your mother is no longer with us, is that right?”
Joanna is silent, but the sadness in her eyes answers yes.
“When did your mother pass, Joanna?”
“Five months she hasn’t been here.”
“And you need to find another place to stay?”
Joanna nods shyly, her eyes straying to her hands.
“We understand, Miss Joanna. Isn’t that right, Aliya?”
“That’s right,” Aliya answers, and I see that these two have walked frightened women through this process many times before.
“And so,” Sister Louise continues, “based on what you’ve seen, do you think Good Shepherd might be a good fit for you?”
Joanna’s eyebrows bunch together.
“I’m sorry, Miss Joanna. Let me ask that another way. Do you think you’d like to live here?”
Yes, yes! I will Joanna to answer, balling both my hands into fists under the table. Say Thank you! Thank you so much. Say Oh my goodness. Say This place is amazing for me!
But Joanna says nothing.
“It’s a big decision,” Aliya offers. “We understand that.”
“Yeah, yeah,” mumbles Joanna, beginning to rock back and forth.
“Change can be very scary.”
“Yeah.”
“Being scared can be very scary.”
How true, I think, as Joanna’s movement grows into overt rocking and she starts roughly rubbing her hands over her face as if trying to scrub something away. “Yeah, yeah,” she repeats, “yeah, yeah.”
“Take your time,” Aliya says.
I have to hold my breath to keep quiet as Joanna gives no sign of coming to a conclusion. If this were a scene in a movie, the hands of the clock would be whirling around. Aliya and Sister Louise sit quietly, with even breaths, focusing interested but not overly prying eyes on Joanna’s face. Eventually, the women’s calm, well-intentioned presence seems to reach through to Joanna. Her scrubbing gesture softens, and the rocking becomes less urgent. When her movement has come almost to rest, Sister Louise looks over at Aliya and nods.
Aliya picks up a blue folder and hands it to Sister Louise. “This is an agreement, Miss Joanna,” Sister Louise says. “It says you understand the rules of living at Good Shepherd. I’m going to tell you what all the words in this agreement mean so you know exactly what you’re signing. Does that sound alright to you?”
Joanna nods.
“Okay, then. The first rule, right here at the top, says that there are no drugs or alcohol allowed at Good Shepherd, not at any time or for any reason.”
“But, but, but,” Joanna sputters, suddenly animated with excitement, “I’ve never done a drug in my whole life! Not in my whole life!” She’s smiling and shaking her head in astonishment, as if she’s just found out she passed a test she is unaware of having taken with flying colors. “I’ve never even had a beer!” she rejoices. Then, turning to Jim: “Isn’t that right, Jim? Tell them! Tell them, Jim! Tell them I’ve never done a drug in my whole life, not even a beer.”
“That is right,” Jim says, turning to Sister Louise and Aliya and holding up his hand like a Boy Scout. “Joanna Hergert is, I can attest, a 100 percent drug-free zone. She has never even had a beer . . . or even coffee . . . or gum.” Jim delivers just about everything he says in the rhythm of a joke and people tend to laugh whether they want to or not, but Aliya and the Sister remain focused on Joanna without cracking a smile.
Jimmy turns to me with his “tough room” face.
“Or even gum,” Joanna repeats, laughing. My husband’s number one fan comes through.
Then Jim starts laughing too, a laugh he’s perfected on sitcom sets, a laugh that lets everyone else know it’s time to join in. I dutifully follow my husband’s lead, thinking we’re demonstrating to the Good Shepherd ladies the mirth of our merry ol’ crew.
Sister Louise’s cleared throat, however, lets us know our quite obvious attempts to ingratiate ourselves can be put to rest. We settle down immediately and listen with exaggerated focus as she continues. “Two. Good Shepherd has zero tolerance for racism.”
“Oh,” Joanna says brightly, in a second rush of self-confidence, ready to ace another test. “You don’t have to worry about that with me either. I think Black people are just like you and me. My mother and I have always thought that. Jim will agree with us because he . . . he . . . he wrote on My Wife and Kids with Damon Wayans. Damon Wayans is Black and . . .”
Oh dear God.
“Right, Jim? Right?”
“I . . .” Jim looks over at me helplessly before offering a shrug of shame to Aliya and Sister Louise. But surprisingly, Aliya is nodding, and her warm smile remains unchanged.
“Good, Joanna,” Sister Louise says in a voice as even as Aliya’s countenance. “It sounds like number two will not be a problem for you, then.”
Joanna nods, pleased. A wave of relief washes through me.
“Three. All residents must return to the center by 11:00 p.m. and sign in. If you choose to stay out overnight, you will be asked to leave Good Shepherd. No exceptions.”
I can’t imagine Joanna leaving to go anywhere once she settles into her quarters and gets used to the TV room, and I begin to lose focus as Sister Louise reviews a few more basic rules. “Respectful,” I hear, clean and tidy, weekly meeting, and something about “courteous manner of address,” but the majority of my attention turns to the paper in front of Aliya, the pen she holds in her right hand, and my silent urging that she pass it to Joanna. Let her sign it, I think. This place is perfect for her. Let her sign it now.
“By signing the document, Miss Joanna,” Sister Louise finally concludes, nodding to Aliya, who slides the paper across the table, “you will be saying you agree to these rules.”
We are so close to finding a solution to the Hergert Housing Crisis. I look over at Jim and know he and I must be thinking exactly the same thing: Just pick up that pen, Joanna. Just pick up that pen and sign that paper. Just do it, Joanna. Just do it, now. Joanna, however, doesn’t move. She remains still, both hands pressed flat on the table on either side of the paper.
“Would you like to do that, Joanna?” Sister Louise asks gently. “Would you like to agree to these rules?”
Joanna stares at the piece of paper, then swiftly retracts her hands and stashes them out of sight below the table, as if in their absence nothing could be required of them.
“Do you have any questions?”
Joanna shakes her head, then gnaws at her lip. She begins again to rock.
After ten seconds or so, I can bear the tension no longer and hear myself blurt with excessive brightness, “So then. You can just go ahead and sign it, can’t you, Joanna? You can just go ahead and sign it right now.” I nod vigorously and smile in that way that raises your eyebrows and crinkles your forehead and makes you look like an idiot.
Jimmy almost immediately cracks as well. “Joanna, c’mon,” he says, nodding along with me like a perfect moron. “These nice ladies have work to do.”
“We’re fine,” Aliya snaps with an edge to her voice that Jim fails to pick up on.
“C’mon, Joanna,” he repeats, adopting for some reason a spaghetti-western-posse leader’s growl, “Let’s git ’er done. Let’s get ’er done ’n go get some grub at one a’ them IHOPs they got round here.”
The bit clearly hits Joanna wrong, because she squeezes her eyes shut, bunches her lips into a pout, and draws in the deep and ragged breath of a child about to cry.
“But I don’t wa-a-a-anna!” she wails. “And you can’t—you can’t—you can’t m-a-a-ake me! You can’t make me si-i-i-ign it.”
Joanna raises her wrists to her shoulders and flaps her hands like she’s trying to shake off a stinging liquid. “What if—what if—what if—” she rushes, casting her eyes about the room, “what if I have a rich relative who wants to take me in?”
“A what?” Jim asks, impatience disrupting his cowboy act. “What are you talking about?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. What if . . . what if . . . what I have a rich relative and I . . . don’t know it?”
“C’mon, Joanna.”
“I might! I might have a long-lost rich relative and not know it. A long-lost rich relative who—who—who wants to take me in because I’m family.”
“Joanna.” I put a hand on her shoulder, but she pulls away and looks directly at Jimmy. “I know I can’t live with you, Jim, because I’m not family. But—but—but . . . a rich relative might find me like on The Golden Girls, like Blanche and Uncle Nunzio. Remember Uncle Nunzio, Jim? Uncle Nunzio—”
Jim snaps flatly, “This isn’t The Golden Girls.”
“Uncle Nunzio!” Joanna insists, working through the thought as her words race ahead.
“Uncle Nunzio is a made-up character!” Jimmy snaps. “There is no Uncle Nunzio. There’s no Sophia or Dorothy or any of it. It’s a story, Joanna.”
“I’m not signing it. No. I’m not. You can’t make me. It’s my choice.”
“Joanna!” Jim shouts, bringing the flat of one palm down on his thigh. “There is no decision to make. If you don’t sign this, you will be homeless. Do you understand that? There will be no apartment. There will be no place to sleep. You will be living on the streets! Is that what you want? Is that what you want, Joanna, to live on the streets?”
Sister Louise shoots to her feet. “May we please speak outside?”
Jim looks up at her, suddenly aware of himself. His shoulders collapse.
Sister Louise nods once and heads for the door, indicating with an articulate eyebrow that Jim should follow her. Jim trails behind, obedient, throwing a backward “Sorry I fucked up” look toward me.
