Anywhere But Here, Chapters Ch 31–33
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AWBH is a work in progress and an experiment in serial posting + annoying my inner perfectionist. I wrote the first draft during NaNoWriMo 2012.
I love notes, highlights, and taking pictures of San Francisco.
Chapters 1–3 | Chapters 4–6 | Chapters 7–9 | Chapters 10–12 | Chapters 13–15| Chapters 16–18 | Chapters 19–21 | Chapters 22–24 | Chapters 25–27 | Chapters 28–30 | Chapters 31–33 | Chapters 34–36 | Chapters 37–39 | Chapters 40–42 | Chapters 43–45 | Chapters 46–48 | Chapters 49–50 | Chapters 51–53 | Chapters 54–57 | Chapters 58–60 | Chapters 61–63
Chapter 31: Sandra
“I didn’t expect you to be my savior,” Dana said, smirking as they stood in the office lunch line to fill their plates with Thai curry and noodles.
“What?” Sandra asked.
“You heard me,” Dana said, “How did you know I was so overloaded? I’ve been telling Cesco I need help for two months now but because everything isn’t completely falling apart and lunch arrives on time, he doesn’t think I need help.”
“I hope I didn’t get you in trouble. I just thought…”
“Don’t apologize. Cesco needs me too much to fire me. I know we need a better process for new hires, any sort of process, really, but between my three roles I barely have time to keep offer letters straight and get their HR paperwork ready,” she sipped her vibrant orange Thai iced tea. “ Have you created a new hire process before?”
Sandra shook her head no, embarassed. “Maybe I’m not so much help as I thought.”
“Okay, how about your last job. What was their new hire process like?
“What do you mean?”
“Never invent from scratch when you can copy and improve on what’s already been done. See what you remember of their process and we’ll take what we like from it.”
“The orientation went on forever. I was in a week of really boring training about why it’s such a great company then we had instruction about how to answer the phone and be the pleasant voice of HealthCo. So much of it was a waste, but the computer and phone were set up and mostly I knew what my job was by the time I got my desk. That was helpful.”
“Let’s skip the boring bit — if anyone we hire needs a week of training on how to do their job, we shouldn’t have hired them.”
Yikes, Sandra thought.
“Let’s go find a conference room for some privacy,” Dana continued. They found a small vacant room and sat down. Dana opened the spiral notebook she had carried under her arm.
“It might be nice if the new hire understood more of the company and what we’re doing…” Sandra started, nervously.
“Company intro — good. We’ll make Cesco do that on day one. Could be tricky with people starting on different days, though. Maybe we’ll do that once a week.”
“Is this a bad idea?” Sandra cringed.
“No, it’s a good idea, but maybe I was ambitious to think we could get this planned during lunch,” Dana grinned. “Remember all ideas are good ideas; later we’ll edit and cross out what’s not realistic.”
“That must be a startup mantra. All ideas were suffocated at HealthCo unless it came from a VP,” she paused, and looked at her food. “Do you think we could do something fun?”
“Like a team building activity? Now you’re talking. Would be good for the whole company and shouldn’t cost too much.”
“Everyone seemed to have fun at the pre-launch party with the karaoke,” Sandra offered.
“Yeah, that’s not so good for the introverts though, who usually don’t show. Something that gets everyone involved is good.”
“I can come up with a few ideas and maybe we can meet again in a couple days?” Sandra asked.
“Great; let’s figure out what else would be good during a new hire’s first week.”
“Could we have their desk set up and ready to go? I felt useless being handed a computer in a box and going through the setup process, not knowing the any passwords, and didn’t want to bug Tad. I know he’s busy and all, but maybe he needs help?”
“Touchy subject, but we can try. Tad’s good, but hates doing internal IT, but also is a control freak who wants all the keys to the IT kingdom. I think we could get someone in part-time to handle the laptop setup for new hires, maybe the phones, and he wouldn’t be so threatened. Unless you want him to train you to do the easy stuff?” Dana grinned.
What have I signed up for? Sandra wondered, poking at her food.
By the time their plates had been cleared of Pad-Thai and yellow curry, both of which Sandra surprisingly liked, they had created a checklist for what had to happen to have a new hire’s first days be easier.
Sandra also found out that Dana was engaged and getting married next April, had been born and raised in San Francisco, and had one older sister.
“Nieces or nephews?” Sandra asked.
“One of each, seven and nine. Della, my sister, is only three years older than me, but she got a jump on marriage and kids.”
“Plans for more kids?” Sandra hated that was the question that leaked out of her mouth.
“No, actually I’m surprised she had more than one,” Dana said, “How about you? Have any kids? Is there a husband in the background? How far back do you and Parker go?”
“What was the question?”
Dana smiled. “What’s your story, Sandra? I know Cesco hired you at our pre-launch party, you moved here from Sacramento, and all the other bits I’m supposed to ignore from the HR files I manage, but how did you get here?”
Sandra sighed. She had no desire to trample the pre-nupital hopes of someone engaged to be married with her tragedy.
“Come on, I’m waiting…”
Sandra hoped she could answer enough and evade questions about Drew. “I have one daughter, fourteen, Emily. Shy, stubborn, super-smart, with a new talent for sarcasm I don’t know how to manage. She’s pretty but wouldn’t believe me if I told her. I met Parker in high school more years ago than either of us will admit.”
“High school? Seriously! What was Parker like in high school? Was he geeky with braces? Was he ever in the closet, or was he born wearing a rainbow boa?”
“Rainbow? I don’t remember braces and I never thought of him as gay, if that’s what you mean, but always knew he was. He never had girlfriends, but back then in Yuba City he didn’t make a big deal out of liking boys. We were in theater together.”
“And you’ve kept in touch all these years? Wow. I barely talk to my sister who lives two miles from me, much less anyone from high school.”
“Well, not exactly,” Sandra briefly explained the customer service call from Parker.
“Now that’s a story,” Dana said, “No husband? Are you a single mom?”
Crap. She didn’t evade the question after all. “Sort of.”
“Sort of?” Dana repeated.
“It’s complicated,” Sandra said, “Next question?”
“How about your daughter, then, is she going to high school in the fall?”
Oh shit. Sandra had completely forgotten about high school. “Yes, she’s supposed to. That reminds me, I need to head down to the school district office tomorrow, do you think I can take off at lunch?”
“You haven’t done that yet? From my sister’s complaints, you’re in for an interesting ride.”
“Why? Emily would just go to the school closest to our house, right?”
“No. Not in San Francisco. There’s a school lottery, but I have no clue how it works. And yes, go at lunch tomorrow.”
Chapter 32: Emily
Emily arrived at the library and fast-walked up to the teen section, visibly relieved to see Livie sitting on the floor, eyes closed, in the teen section.
Livie’s eyes open as Emily approaches. “Fun with Muni today?” Emily nodded, relieved. “I had a feeling you’d be late, especially with the transfer. Happens to the best of us. I packed lunch if you’re hungry?”
“Yeah, thanks.”
Emily followed Livie out of the teen area to the elevators and walked down to the Café in the basement.
Livie led her to a table in the dining area and pulled out containers out of her seemingly bottomless satchel. Fruit, vegetables, and something that looked like baby food, pale tan and thick. Still more containers of food appeared: dark brown crackers and a sandwich thick with cucumbers, alfalfa sprouts, tomatoes, and what Emily thought was cream cheese.
“I don’t eat meat, only plants, and things produced by cows, and chickens, like eggs and milk, but no meat. I’m an ‘ovo-lacto-vegetarian.’”
“Huh?”
“Never mind,” Livie said, smiling.
“Is that hummus? I don’t like that stuff.” Emily said, pointing.
“Yes,” Livie said, “would you try it first though? You’re not allergic to anything are you?”
Emily shook her head no, suddenly jealous that Livie’s parents sounded like they were still together. “Okay, good, try it with a tortilla chip or a carrot stick.” Emily bravely picked up a triangle tortilla chip and submerged a small corner.
“Oh you’ve got to try more than that,” Livie responded. She took a chip and scooped up a spoonful of hummus. Emily was afraid for a moment she’d have to eat all of that, but Livie popped it into her own mouth.
Emily cautiously submerged her chip further and bit off the end. “Not bad,” Emily said.
“Excellent, eating my hummus is a friendship requirement. I make it myself.”
“What is in hummus? It’s better than ones I’ve tried before.” Emily braved.
“Garbanzo beans…” Emily made a face, she had never liked garbanzo beans.
“See, that’s why I didn’t tell you!”
They ate in silence for a few minutes, Livie opening containers and offering each in turn to Emily. Emily tried carrots, mushrooms, snap peas, dipped in hummus. She accepted half of a meatless sandwich on bread that was a more fibrous cousin to whole wheat. It was the most unusual lunch Emily had ever had, but she wasn’t complaining. At least she wasn’t stuck in Parker’s house.
“So when did you move to my fair city by the bay?”
“A week ago.”
“From where?”
“Folsom, outside Sacramento.”
Livie made a fake grimace followed by a grin.
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Relax! It’s just that if you looked up ‘suburb’ in the dictionary, it would list Folsom as a prime example. Endless rows of identical houses. I have cousins that live in suburbs. But hey, maybe I’m the messed up one. What do you love about it?”
Emily’s eyes bored holes in the floor, exposed and irritated. “Never mind.” This was worse than answering questions about her Dad. Maybe.
“Hey, Emily, don’t go away! Okay, so you didn’t move by choice, unless you’re emancipated, which I doubt, you got towed here by a parental unit? Sorry if I forgot to take the edge off of blunt, as my Mom reminds me.”
Emily wouldn’t look up, and after a long pause, blurted out, “Divorce. Mom New boyfriend. Misery. Abject despair. End of story.”
“The fog is lifting.”
“What?” Hopeful, Emily thought she meant literally, except there were no windows in the basement café.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to get you excited. It’s pretty much foggy the whole summer in the city. Sometimes we get breaks in the fog, during the day, but then it creeps in from the ocean and blankets the city at dinnertime. I think it’s a covert op to sell more sweatshirts to tourists.” Livie smiled at her own joke. “But I meant that I understand why you were alone in the library with your head buried in a stream of endless books.”
“Well, you’re here too!” Emily blurted out, offended.
“I like it here. I can meditate in the teen area for hours and nobody bugs me, and I can count on the librarians to shoo off any creepy old guys. Plus, I am a big time bibliophile.”
“A what?”
“Lover of books…”
“I know what a bibliophile is, but what did you say you do in the library?”
“Meditate?”
“What’s that?”
Livie paused for a moment, thinking. “It’s a way of slowing down and clearing the crazy thoughts in my head so that I can be happy.”
“Sitting makes you happy?”
“Not just sitting. There are many ways of meditating; today I repeated a phrase in my mind while coordinating my breathing.”
“That’s it?”
“Well, that’s the easy part; the hard part is ignoring the millions of thoughts that jump up and down like grasshoppers.”
“Millions of thoughts?”
“Just like nearly every other person on this planet, my brain is teeming with thoughts.”
“You sit and do nothing for an hour every day?”
“I wouldn’t call meditation doing nothing. That’s like when someone stares dumbly at the television for hours, comatose. This is more like brain exercise.”
Emily pictured her brain lifting a dumbbell and restrained a giggle. Thoughts fired rapidly about why not thinking was odd, bad, and foolish. Brains don’t need exercise, brains were just brains, and thinking is what they do.
“It took me a while to get used to the idea, and even longer before I started. But if you’re curious, set a timer for one or two minutes and just breathe. Do that until the timer is up. As thoughts march by, try to lose interest in them, don’t beat yourself up, and just go back to breathing.” Livie smiled, “And report back.” She checked the clock on the wall, “Wow, is it 3 already? I have to get home. I won’t be here tomorrow, but I’ll be back on Wednesday, want to meet then?”
“Okay,” Emily said with a smile. She liked having plans with someone other than Orbit, even if her new friend was super-weird.
Chapter 33: Sandra
A bored security guard pointed with his finger, towards a sign displaying “school placement.” Sandra stood in line, watching three little girls, with kinky-curly hair in identical pigtails, one out each side of their heads. Put those three girls in a line, and they’d be stairs, Sandra thought. The woman corralling them didn’t look related, and noticed Sandra’s gaze.
“Kids have a hard time waiting, don’t they?” Sandra volunteered. At least Sandra only had one child to worry about enrolling in school. Dana’s story still shook her; how could it be possible that SF had a completely different method of enrolling kids than anywhere else on the planet?
A petite, pretty blonde woman pushing an infant in a stroller was called to the desk. Sandra hoped she had another child, and wasn’t signing up that one for kindergarten already, before he could crawl. She knew moms like that, back in Folsom, planning their toddler’s college entrance exams.
Two women worked behind the counter, an older Asian woman with brown freckles across both cheeks and oval glasses without frames. Her straight black hair, a lifeless bob, hung to her jawline; soft rather than severe and strung with gray. Her consonants were slurred by a native Asian accent, Chinese? Sandra wondered. Her l’s and p’s melted into her vowels.
The other woman at the counter was younger and befuddled. She asked the standing crowd a vague question that Sandra assumed didn’t apply to her. Fifteen minutes of her lunch time ticked away; she thought this would be quick. She was grateful she had followed Dana’s advice and sent Cesco a message and let him know her lunch plans. He had sent a quick two word reply: Good Luck.
Sandra was finally called to the desk, assisted by a new employee. She stood authoritatively rather than timidly at the desk. Thank heaven it’s my turn, Sandra thought, and asked the woman how to register her daughter in high school. The woman handed her a folded map, a booklet on schools, and a pre-printed ticket with the number 68. She pointed Sandra towards a doorway to wait for an Education Counselor.
Through that doorway, there were five rows of chairs, with gray plastic backs and green fabric covered seats that looked uncomfortable. Three clusters of people waited, families, Sandra guessed, if she was right in pairing kids with guardians. Sandra looked around the neglected room, at screws still in the wall, where something used to hang, and computer wires slithered under a doorway into the next room. Should she look at schools close to Parker’s? She didn’t know how much longer they’d be living with him.
How did kids get to school if it was across town?
Sandra just hoped that Emily would be able to make some new friends. It had to be easier as a kid. As an adult there were so few opportunities for friendship. Dana was nice but how did one go about making a grown-up play date? Did you go for coffee, or a drink? What would she even do with a friend if she had one, Sandra thought. Parker had his own life; she couldn’t always tag along on his adventures.
Sandra thought about all she loved about being in San Francisco, everything she thought she’d love, before moving meant divorce. Not driving was great, but parking tickets were a poor compromise. Having a job where she felt important was fabulous, but having to depend on her income was scary. She couldn’t help thinking she’d made the biggest mistake of her life, one from which there was no return.
Sandra heard someone call her number. “I’m 68!” Sandra called, a little too loud as everyone turned to look at her. A petite woman beckoned, friendly. But friendly could mean helpful, Sandra thought, sitting at a chair in front of the woman’s desk. Filtered light lit up the window behind the counselor.
“I have a fourteen year old daughter,” Sandra started, “and we just moved to San Francisco.” Sandra pointed at the map, “We live here and I only vaguely know about the lottery, but I have a smart kid who was signed up for AP classes before we moved, what are my options?”
The woman typed into a computer for a couple minutes, and unfolded Sandra’s map. She began pointing at schools, “Here, here, and here, there is room…”
Sandra started circling, six circles in all, and none of them close to Parker’s house. “Oh no,” Sandra said, dejected.
“The lottery was in February,” the woman said.
“What is the lottery, exactly?”
“You fill out a form in January, listing schools you want. You can list any school in the city. You get a response back in February.”
Sandra looked at the circled schools. The two closest schools were four miles south, and three miles west. The woman looked almost apologetic, as if she’d heard the unspoken questions before from newcomers past. “Is there a school bus?” Sandra asked finally. The counselor shook her head no, “Students ride Muni or their parents drive them.”
Emily would have to take the bus, and find yet another reason to hate me. “When do I have to decide?” Sandra asked, finally.
“Really, today. There’s only a few spots left in either of the two schools you’re looking at.”
“Okay,” Sandra said to the woman, after a pause. “Which school is in an area with more sunshine?”
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<hypnotism>
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