REALITY SHOW
Sheila Kirkland arrived in September of 1970 at Fish Eating Creek High School with solid academic credentials: M.A. from UWB (3.8 GPA), B.A. from FPC (3.95 GPA, magna cum laude). Those degrees made my stints at community college and state university seem shabby. Her specialty covered medieval literature through neoclassical literature. She was an expert on Sir Edmund Spenser (St. George and the dragon, faery queens), whom I had read only enough to pass my 17th and 18th century English literature finals.
She looked smart, too, if a little dated, with her prim white blouses, dark calf-length skirts and practical-seeming low-heeled pumps. She had an elegant neck like an ostrich’s on top of which rested her head with its broad mouth with slight overbite, petite nose and large gray eyes with a kind of faraway gaze – all surrounded by curly, mousy brown hair. Her voice was well-modulated and her aspect friendly, just as every co-ed had been educated to speak in speech class.
The first thing she asked me was what my specialty was. I said, “Well, I’m big on the Beatniks.”
“Ah, Ginsberg and Kerouac.”
“Yeah.”
“What brought you to Fish Eating Creek?”
“The war; it’s a deferment.”
“How so?”
“Disadvantaged students.”
“Oh, how do you like teaching the ‘disadvantaged’?” She made the quote sign with her fingers when she said “disadvantaged.”
“I have some suggestions. Don’t smile at the students for the first six weeks; they’ll misinterpret it as weakness. Lay down the law and stick to your guns. Then you’ll survive.”
“Oh, I have a different view of how to teach.”
“I’m just telling you from my own experience.”
She moved right across the street from me in the retirement community in which we lived in stucco row houses. Elysian Fields (EF) was a thirty minute drive from Fish Eating Creek High School (FECHS), but no suitable housing existed in the migrant community where we taught. So we carpooled with the bandmaster, Fred Mulray, who had escaped a wife and child in the north after a miserable divorce.
For the first few weeks, Sheila aired no word of complaint either in the car to and from school or in the teachers lounge or when we ran into each other on the weekends. Although I had noticed her spreading reticence, the first inkling that I had that she was in trouble was when I passed her classroom door one day and the door flew open and out she burst, bawling, tears streaming down her cheeks. I stopped and said, “What’s wrong?” She took one look at me and her bawl increased like an ambulance’s siren approaching an intersection. She fled past me toward the teachers lounge.
I stepped into her classroom and found students lounging about, jiving, playing, and a couple smoking. I glared at them, barked orders, and soon had them all glumly staring at their books, butts stubbed out on the floor.
Sheila returned a little later, her control regained, her eyes and cheeks dried but still a little red. I left her to her students. Her weeping explosions from her room happened at least once a week.
I doubted that she would survive the year, but I underestimated her will. She was still there in November, and she had not been just grimly holding on; she had attended area educational conferences (something I never did) where she had met a history professor from the closest community college, and she had made a friend named Lulu with whom she hung out on the weekends. Besides, she and I had become neighborly friends; I fixed a broken porch light for her and showed her how to light the pilot light in her oven, and, on a hunch, inquired when she had last changed the oil in her car. She said, “Do I have to do that?” She was an “educated” academic, but she was quite unschooled in everyday necessities.
One day when I drove the carpool and after we had dropped Fred off, Sheila mentioned that Lulu was coming over the next weekend and I would get to meet her.
“Great. Got no plans.”
“Winston, I have something to tell you. Promise you won’t tell anyone else, not even Fred.”
I hated my moniker because so many people had launched into the commercial ditty “Winston tastes good like a cigarette should” as soon as they heard the name; no one but historians associated it with Churchill or the bewitching in Massachusetts, but it was the only one I had. I said, “Promise.”
“I’m a virgin.”
“Ok.” Actually, that statement didn’t surprise me. If anyone could have made it to twenty-four years old as a virgin, Sheila was the one. She shone innocence. But the statement prompted questions. “Sheila, didn’t you date in college?”
“Of course.”
“Did you have a serious boyfriend?”
“Yes, in fact, I was engaged.”
“And nothing happened?”
“Joe respected me, so we didn’t go all the way.”
“Ok.”
“I’m saving myself for my husband.”
“Admirable. What does Lulu think of your virginity?”
“She’s a virgin, too.”
“Oh. You sure?”
“She said she was.”
“Where did you meet her?”
“At a bar on the beach.”
“What does she do?”
“She’s a salesgirl in a boutique.”
That Saturday, while I was listening to Jimi Hendrix chase his devils to extremities and writing a lame poem imitating a raga, Sheila knocked on my door. “Winston, it’s Sheila!” I could see standing next to her another woman of her approximate age, but the other woman seemed worn around the edges as if she had been to sea and seen the beasts in the ocean. I turned my embarrassing writing pad face down, turned off Jimi’s plaint and let them in.
“Hi, this is Lulu.”
Lulu had straight black hair and brown eyes, and when she walked in, her eyes flicked for an instant down to my crotch, checking out my package. I smiled at her and got them beers. Sheila sipped hers, but Lulu drew hers down in four swallows and belched, but covered her mouth with her hand. We chitchatted for a few minutes and then they scurried off on their weekend adventure to the beach.
The next time Sheila came over, I said, “I don’t think Lulu’s a virgin.”
“Of course, she is. How would you know she isn’t?”
“Don’t get angry. It’s just that if someone were taking bets on whether Lulu was a virgin, I’d give four-to-one odds that she wasn’t.”
“You men are all the same. You think every girl is just ready to give it to you.”
“I don’t think that. I don’t think that of you.”
Once driving to work, she had mentioned the history professor, so the next time I saw her outside her house and stopped to chat, I asked, “How’s it going with . . . uh . . . what’s his name . . . the history teacher?”
“Tim Hensley, the history professor.”
“Right. So, how’s that going?”
“We’ve been out a couple times.”
“So, what’s he like?”
“A gentleman. He’s very educated, a good conversationalist, and not bad looking. And I think he’s getting serious.”
“Really?”
“Yes, in fact, I’ve invited him over for dinner this Saturday.”
I had never known her to cook, so I asked, “What’re you serving?”
“I saw a recipe for a marinated blade roast, so I’m serving that.”
“With what else?”
“Caesar salad . . . English peas . . . baked potatoes . . . dinner rolls . . . red wine . . . and ambrosia for desert,” she said, ticking off a list she had read.
“Nice dinner.”
“But, Winston, I’ve never done anything so elaborate. So, could I ask a favor of you?”
“What?”
“Go shopping with me and make sure I get everything I need.”
“When?”
“Now?” Her voice pleaded.
I went with her, and that she had never done much grocery shopping soon became apparent: She trailed after me as I showed her where everything was located. She had brought the recipe, so we first ran down all the spices needed; she didn’t even have salt and pepper and had no idea what parsley, thyme, rosemary and sage might look like. In condiments, I picked out a Caesar dressing, even though she said, “Shouldn’t I make it from scratch?” In baked goods, I selected appropriate rolls, simple white ones that would brown easily. In produce, two brown Idaho baking potatoes equivalent to size 8 shoes; then, we found Romaine lettuce and chives. At dairy we collected butter, cream, and sour cream. Then I led her to the meats and located a four-pound roast that was red and not too marbled. With the main course in the cart, she asked, “How do I make ambrosia?” I said, “You don’t,” and towed her to the fruit department to show her quart jars already prepared with citrus fruit, cherries and shredded coconut. “You just chill and serve.” She picked out a jar as if it were a catalyst for alchemy and placed it in the cart. Finally, we went to frozen foods and I found some green peas with pearl onions in butter sauce and showed her the package. She said, “Wouldn’t fresh ones be better?” I said, “Do you have time to shell the peas, skin the onions and make the sauce? This will do fine and it’s easy to prepare. Just drop the plastic bag in boiling water.”
“Ok, now where do we get the brandy?”
“Not here. We’ll have to stop by a liquor store.”
The liquor store was in the same strip mall. We stopped and I selected a pint of cheap brandy and two bottles of red burgundy. She said, “Are you sure he’ll like these?” I said, “No, I can’t be sure, but the wine is a good average table wine, and remember, you’re not drinking the brandy. That’s your marinate.”
I even helped her carry everything into her house and put it in the refrigerator or on the shelves to await the weekend.
The next Friday, she called. “Winston, how does one marinate?”
“Just take the roast and . . . never mind. I’ll come over and show you.”
I wound up rubbing in the spices and herbs, setting the roast in a low baking dish and pouring on the brandy and covering all with cellophane while Sheila watched entranced. I also put the ambrosia in two serving bowls and set them in the refrigerator. “Now, just let everything set overnight. By tomorrow, the roast will be ready for cooking and you can put the ambrosia in the freezer a few minutes before dinner, so it’ll be nice and chilled.”
Around ten o’clock the next morning, Sheila called again. “Winston, if I cook the roast in my oven, I won’t be able to bake the rolls. Would you mind baking the rolls in your oven?”
“I can do that for you. I’ll come over later and get them.”
“Tim is arriving around six. He’s always on time.”
“Don’t worry.”
At four I went over to pick up the rolls. A head in rollers and a face plastered by pre-make-up emollients greeted me. Shelia was in a housedress and robe and slippers. She tried not to smile so her plaster wouldn’t crack. I said, “How’s the cooking?”
“I . . . I haven’t started yet.”
“What! And you’re not even dressed.”
I went into the kitchen, put the roast in the oven and set the temperature at 400 degrees. “That’ll cook it faster than it should be cooked, but it should be ready just before six.” I carried the rolls back to my place.
Now I was worried. I knew she’d never get both herself and the dinner ready by six, and I thought since I was in far already, I might as well go all the way in. So, at five, after I had put the rolls to bake in my oven, I returned to her house.
When she let me in, she looked exactly as she had an hour before except she had removed two or three of the curlers, so flags of hair waved about like desperate semaphores. I said, “Do you have an apron? You better get ready. He’ll be here in less than an hour.”
She got the apron and handed it to me. It was white with ruffles around the edges, but I strapped it on and went to work. I wrapped the potatoes in foil and popped them in next to the roast. Chopped the romaine and made two salads in small bowls. Set a pot of water to boil. Set the table: plate surrounded by utensils, water glass and wine glass beyond, napkin folded under the fork. Stuck the bowls of ambrosia in the freezer. Plopped the bag of peas and onions into the boiling water. Turned off the oven. Ran back to my place, turned off my oven, pulled out the browned rolls, put them in a plastic container, and ran them back to Sheila’s. Pulled out the potatoes, took off the foil, slit them vertically, buttered them, sprinkled chives on them, and stuffed sour cream into the smiling gashes. Turned off the boiling water. Set the salads on the table.
The doorbell rang. I looked at my watch: 6:02. Hearing a gasp from Sheila’s room, I went to the front door and opened it. Shiny pate gleaming, Tim Hensley in brown slacks and a burgundy shirt stood there flowers in hand, but when he saw me in my frilly apron, his smile turned into a baffled, open-mouthed look.
I said, “Hi, Tim. I’m Winston, Sheila’s neighbor. I’ll be your server tonight. Come on in.”
He stepped in. “Is Sheila here?”
“Sure. She’ll be out in a minute. Here let me take those flowers. Have a seat.”
I found a vase, put in the flowers with water and set the vase in the middle of the table. Pulled the package of peas and onions out of the pan of still steaming water, opened it, poured the contents into a large bowl and set that on the table. Pulled out the roast, sliced half-inch slabs, put one on each plate. Put a potato on each plate. Put the container of hot rolls on the table.
My nose told me that all had turned out as hoped. I smiled. Poured ice water into the water glasses. Popped a bottle of wine. Poured each wine glass three-quarters full. Returned the ambrosia to the refrigerator. Tim had watched me perform. I gave him a glass of wine to taste.
Finally, Sheila emerged, her hair curled about her faery-queen features, her body sheathed in a soft blue dress that complemented her eyes, her feet in sliver sandals. Tim stood to greet her, but his eyes were full of questions. She said, “I was running a little late, so Winston agreed to help me. He’s such a good neighbor.”
I said, “Dinner’s ready. Come. Sit.”
They sat. I pushed in their chairs, and said, “Is there anything else before I leave?”
Sheila said, “No, you can go. Thanks.”
I whipped off the apron, set it on the counter and said, “Enjoy your dinner,” and left them, the puzzled professor and the tardy ingénue, to their dinner debut.
I think the dinner led to the demise of their relationship, although it continued fitfully through the Christmas holidays until Sheila had a barbeque party at which she insisted on cooking unaided the hamburgers, onion-filled orbs of beef crisp on the outside, bleeding inside. I admired her tenacity, but I ran my sandwich to my house and ditched it. When Sheila saw me standing hamburger-less, she asked, “Another?” “No, I’ve had enough.” Sometime in the New Year, I guess Tim also had enough and called off the relationship.
Crying after she told me of the breakup, Sheila said, “He wasn’t much fun anyway.”
Confounded by her naiveté, I said nothing.
In the spring, Sheila and Lulu returned to bar-hopping.
One Sunday, I had gotten up early, had breakfast at a diner and picked up a newspaper, so I could learn the latest body counts of the Vietnam War. On the return home, I saw Sheila coming out of her house heading to her car. She wore dark church clothes, including a small hat.
I braked and shouted, “Good morning!”
She looked at me and started bawling as if she had just burst from a classroom.
I parked, ran over and asked what the matter was.
She could barely talk, but she got out, “I . . . tell . . .you . . . later.” Sobbing, she drove away.
That afternoon, she called me over.
Now dressed in jeans and a pullover, she, between sobs and whimpers, told me. “I’m not . . . a virgin!”
I said, “Worse things can happen than that. It’s not the end of the world. How’d it happen?”
This is the story. She and Lulu had gone to the beach, picked up a couple shrimp fishermen just returned from weeks at sea. The drunken foursome had returned to her place and had paired off, Lulu and her beau in the bedroom, Sheila and her pickup on the couch in the living room. Sheila’s guy passed out, so she stumbled to the bedroom and discovered the other fisherman driving deep into Lulu and Lulu in ecstasy.
“So, she wasn’t a virgin.”
“No, she wasn’t.”
She sobbed some more, then said, “But then Lulu went out and her guy took me into the bedroom and forced me.”
“So, now you’re not a virgin?”
She wailed, got her composure and said, “He said after, ‘You’re . . . not a . . . virgin.’”
“You weren’t?”
“No, I haven’t been for years. Joe lied to me. He said there was more to it, that what we did was not ‘it.’ I believed him.”
She bawled. I was dumbstruck.
After that weekend she stopped hanging with Lulu. Sheila got a prescription for tranquilizers and supplemented them with over-the-counter blue pills called Quiet World.
And her world did seem quieted.
She rode in the carpool as if she were in a dream state, rarely speaking. Her ethereal silence was fine with Fred and me until one foggy morning when she drove. The otherworldly mist was so thick that we could see only twenty feet in front of the car. Unfortunately, we got behind a produce truck that was poking along. Sheila pulled out as if to pass, got the car alongside in the opposite lane and drifting apace beside the truck as if they were companions in a cloudy pilgrimage. I gripped the door handle in a grip of death and said loudly, “Sheila, what are you doing?” Fred yelled, “For god’s sake, Sheila, pass the goddamn truck!” She came out of her trance, passed the truck and pulled into the right lane just as two haloes appeared heading toward us in the fog.
Gasping, Fred said, “That does it. You can ride, but you can’t drive. You pay us for gas.”
She agreed, but the next Monday, she wasn’t ready when I honked, so I had to go on without her. She arrived to school about a half-hour late for her first class.
The next Wednesday night, we had one of the worst thunderstorms of the spring, the black night flickered and glowed with jagged streaks of lightning. On Thursday morning from the wet pavement, I honked for Sheila. She looked out of her door, her hair mussed, her body wrapped in a robe, her face scrunched in obvious annoyance.
I yelled, “I can’t wait!”
She screamed like a dam in front of her lair and came out of her door. “Are you trying to drive me crazy? Why are you here so early? I don’t appreciate these tricks! They’re not funny!”
I said, “What time do you think it is?”
“Six a.m.”
“Your electricity probably went out last night. It’s seven-thirty.”
She turned abruptly and staggered inside her house.
She called in sick; a substitute took her classes.
Sheila withdrew from the carpool, saying it was best for all of us.
However, she had ceased bursting into tears from her classroom. Curious, one day I opened her classroom door and peeked in. In her quiet world, she turned her oblivious face to me, smiled, and her lips formed “Hello.” Paper airplanes and spitballs flew around her, students were laughing and roughhousing, some in the back were smoking tobacco or marijuana. I closed the door on her concession to reality.
She made it to the end of the year, resigned and moved north. I envied her escape, for I had no way out.
End of "Reality Show."
"Reality Show" was first published in the collection
A Collection of Nickel-plated Angels, 2008. The story is based on someone I knew. She was a baseline romantic in denial of the sordid reality of other lives. I hope that she learned enough that one year to build a solid foundation for the future, but that one year was a kick in the face that exposed her naivete, so predicting its effect on such another human being is nearly impossible. Some get tough and work their way out to more suitable situations. But not all do.
