I hate to admit it, but the day I graduated from college was the worst day of my life. Actually, it wasn’t so bad except for like the last two hours. So I guess those last two hours must have been pretty bad, right? I graduated from the University of Maryland with about 3,000 other kids in the middle of August, and afterwards I went out to dinner with my parents to this seafood restaurant I had read about in the Post, which turned out to be not such a great idea. Both my parents hate seafood, and so does Amy, who’s my little sister. Jeannie (middle sister—I’m the oldest) stood up for me and had some fish, but I don’t think she liked it so much. Seafood is like foreign for us, because we’re from Georgia—I mean real Georgia, not Atlanta. Atlanta people think they’re pretty smart, and they’ll eat just about anything, but I grew up in Rome, which is like this little town that’s north west of Atlanta, and Valdosta, which is way south, and they’re both pretty rural, like life is more basic there. We eat things we can see, like pigs and cows, and chickens. I don’t think you can tell I’m from the country, because you can’t hear me talk, but if you did you probably could, especially if you were from Atlanta. Atlanta people think we’re pretty funny, even though, as I say, they really aren’t from Georgia at all. But of course they don’t look at it that way.
Anyway, I had my first lobster that night, at little old Giuseppe’s. I guess I had to be different because it was my graduation. That lobster turned out to be the first of many, I might add, because if you read my book you’re going to find out that I kind of changed once I left Georgia. I ended up at the University of Maryland because Dad got this job with Coca Cola in Silver Spring, which is like right on top of Washington, right in the middle of Yankee land. But working for Coca Cola was like Dad’s dream, so we had to go. I had trouble with my lobster at first, because they come in like this armor, but the waiter showed me how to do it, and it was really good, especially the tail, which is like all meat. But I could hardly enjoy it because my Mom and Dad kept giving me advice on what I was supposed to do—that is, that is what they argued about. My parents will argue about anything, because no matter what one of them says, the other will disagree with it.
I wanted to have wine with my lobster, but of course I didn’t, because Mom would get upset, because we’re southern Baptists. Dad would have let me, because he would do almost anything that made Mom mad. The Saturday before, I went to the supermarket near us that sells wine and bought a little bottle. It was really cute, sort of heartshaped, only round all around, and I took it out to this park I know that has a lake and I drank it. No, not the lake, the wine. I found a bench that was in the shade because of course it was really hot and I just sipped from the wine bottle until it was like empty. I kept it in a little paper bag and afterwards I put it in my purse. I sat there on the bench for a while like I was a wino and then I got up and went for a walk. I felt sort of dizzy and silly at first, but I had to walk a long time, because I was afraid to drive back until I felt normal again. I didn’t want to be arrested for like, driving under the influence. So I walked all around the lake two times, just to be sure.
So anyway, I had to have my wine before I had my lobster. Afterwards, we just drove home from Giuseppe’s and watched TV, which is what we usually do. Then Jeannie’s boyfriend Michael came over, and they left. That was kind of awkward for me, because I didn’t have a boyfriend, so after that I went to bed. I liked to lie in bed and listen to the radio before I went to sleep, so that was what I was doing, and it was then that I started feeling bad, like I realized that tomorrow I would just get up and go to my job at Jones & Bailey, which was this law firm I worked at as a secretary, except I would be working full time instead of part time, and then I thought, well, is that all there is? Is this all I get for graduating? And then it was like irritating, because I was three years older than Jeannie and she had Michael, and they had been like co-captains of the aerobics team in high school and were really popular, and I was a college graduate, and what did I have? A job that I didn’t like so much.
What I used to do back then when I got upset was go for a drive, which is what I did that night too. I used to drive out past the suburbs and past all these old farms, which weren’t like the ones we had in Georgia, until I came to this big stone house that was like near a mountain. Then I’d turn around and go back.
On graduation night I drove a little bit past it, but not too far, because I was afraid of getting lost. I felt okay until I started heading back, and then I started feeling bad again, like I didn’t want to go to Jones & Bailey the next day. I liked the people there, except the lawyers, even though they were like totally different from people in Georgia, but I was kind of mad at my supervisor, who was this fat woman, because she had like intimidated me into taking a low salary. And when I was driving back I thought, well, Alice, since this is your graduation, why not do something different? Well, that sounded good, but I wasn’t sure what, but then I thought, well, why not a new job, like I could teach old Simon a lesson. And I thought if I get a job that pays better I could buy some new clothes and maybe a car, which I didn’t have back then. Of course I didn’t have to leave Jones & Bailey to do that, but the more I thought about it, the more I liked it. And when I got home I went to bed and fell right to sleep.
When I woke up in the morning I still felt good, so I thought getting a new job must be a good idea. I just had breakfast with everyone like everything was normal, and after I got to work I bought a paper. Of course there were a million jobs for secretaries, so I circled a few and started making phone calls. Unfortunately, most of the jobs were just like the one I had, except not so good. Even though I wasn’t making such a great salary at Jones & Bailey, the other places were paying less. The one job that sounded like it was different was at an airport—not National Airport but a little one out in Maryland. Naturally, they didn’t mention a salary, and I suspected it wouldn’t be much, but I thought, well, it would be different. It took me like an hour to get there from my parents’ house, and all there was was this little metal hut next to a hanger, with two airplanes. The office was a mess. I should have just left, but I wasn’t very good at getting out of situations then. The owner was this old fat guy with dirty fingernails. He was telling me about the job, and then he goes “You know, we could have a lot of fun out here, just the two of us.” So I go “What do you mean?” And he goes “I mean, just the two of us. You know, you really turn me on” and then he grabs my arm. I tried to twist away from him but of course he was a lot bigger than me. Most men are, since I’m basically petite, and he was pretty fat. So I kept on twisting. He was trying to come around the desk so he could grab me, but his feet were all tangled up in his chair. He tried to pull me over the desk but I put one foot up and braced myself. I guess he wasn’t really very strong, because he couldn’t pull me over. So he wrenched my arm really hard, but when he did that he banged into this little table that had a coffee pot on it. The pot sort of jumped into the air and then crashed on the floor. So of course he starts cursing but he lets go of my arm and gives me a shove. Then he throws a twenty dollar bill on the desk and tells me to get out, like that’s supposed to make my arm feel better. I didn’t take the money, but when I got in the car I was thinking my job hunting wasn’t going so good.
After that I interviewed for office jobs only, in big buildings, but all the jobs I interviewed for sounded the same as Jones & Bailey, except not so good. So now I was starting to feel depressed again, because I’d been a graduate for about a month and hadn’t found anything. You may be asking yourself why I didn’t look for a job in my major. Well, my major was sociology and marketing, with a minor in business administration, and I wasn’t interested in starting my own business. I liked being a secretary because I knew I could do it. So I kept looking.
At Jones & Bailey, I used to like to get out of the office some, so on my lunch hour I would wander around a little bit and look at the city. Our offices were right below Dupont Circle, and usually I would go towards K Street, because all the shops were down there, but one day I decided I’d seen all of them so I went up past the circle instead. There was this little bagel restaurant which I decided to go into, probably because I didn’t know what bagels were. They don’t have them in Georgia, as you probably could have guessed, because bagels are Jewish, and there aren’t many Jews in Georgia, except of course in Atlanta, which always has to be different. If you happen to be from Georgia, I can tell you that a bagel is like a roll, except it has a hole in the middle, and sometimes it has little seeds on it, and usually you eat it with cream cheese. At the bagel place they had this cream cheese with chopped vegetables in it, which looked really good, so I was having some and looking out the window and I could see into the second floor of this building across the street and there were people dancing, like A Chorus Line, but not that music. So I was thinking, why not do something different, since you haven’t found another job. I was kind of jealous about Jeannie and her aerobics, and I thought dancing would be more graceful.
So anyway I finished my bagel and I walked across the street, and I couldn’t get in the dance studio because the entrance was around the back in an alley. So I went around the back of the alley, which for me was like daring, and I went in and this girl told me about the classes, and I went up this staircase and watched the people dance for a while. There was one girl who looked just like a ballet dancer, and I thought it would be neat to look like that. I knew I couldn’t really because my legs aren’t long enough, but I liked thinking about it. Baptists aren’t supposed to dance, so it was sort of like watching sin. But I wasn’t worried about sin that much, so I decided to start taking classes.
I have to say that the people in dance class were not at all what I was used to. You would never find anyone like that in Valdosta. Actually, I sort of got used to people in stages, because before we moved to Silver Spring we moved to Gainesville, which is this city outside of Atlanta, which is where I saw my first Yankees. It was strange, because they were like everywhere, like they were just walking around like they owned the place. Our neighbor was even from New York City. So I was prepared for Maryland a little bit, but not much, because there weren’t many of us from the South, like I was a minority. But dance classes were even different from college—like a lot of the women were wearing these black leather jackets, like they were supposed to be punks, except really they weren’t so awful. There were only a few men in class, and they were like all homosexuals, which I didn’t know about back then. They were kind of gross, but of course they didn’t twist my arm or anything. Still, I found out I really liked dancing, like I was even pretty good at it, which I didn’t think I would be, since I’d never danced before. So I kept on taking classes, and I got to be a little bit stronger too, but not like Jeannie. I bought some leotards and tights and legwarmers and a pair of Capezios, which are shoes, and I carried them around in a big black bag like I was really a dancer, even though I wasn’t.
Dancing kind of took my mind off not finding a new job, but after I had been going to class for about three months I was talking with this girl in the dressing room and she goes “So what do you do?” And I go “I’m a secretary. But I’m kind of looking for a new job.” And she goes “What kind of new job?” And I go “Just a job, like a secretary job, but interesting work.” I felt sort of dumb saying that, because I didn’t know what kind of work I wanted. I just thought there was this interesting job somewhere that I would like. But she gave me the name of this guy to call. She said he had a consulting firm that was connected with futurism. I didn’t know what futurism was, but I decided to try it, because it was in town, right on K Street. I figured I wasn’t going to get raped on K Street, although I guess that happens. So I called the guy, whose name was Dr. Kevin Meister, and we set up an appointment.