Just when I thought nobody was looking

Wednesday I took my final bow, Thursday I went to Jackson to confirm I was right to quit, and Friday I primped to go to my family reunion.

My plan was to go tabula rasa.  A cousin in Connecticut had hunted down 600 relatives all over the country who went back four generations and forward three--all with New Orleans origins. That makes us pretty fancy around here, tracking to before the Civil War. We weren't going to put on matching T-shirts and picnic in the park. We were going to eat an elegant buffet at the Wyndham Hotel, overlooking the river and listening to a jazz quartet. No one would know anything about me except for what my dress looked like.

I walked in and a third cousin a few times removed walked straight up to me and said, "I was going to get Newman to select you as Distinguished Alum of the Year, but you blew it!" Newman.  Newman School. Where I suffered the agonies of adolescence more painfully than most by being in an exclusive private school the year that the class coming through was filled with unusually pathologically bitchy girls. One in particular was so disturbed she eventually was hospitalized, but not before destroying at least one very sweet sixth-grade classmate.

After almost 45 years, I had written a very fine--if I must say so myself--short story about that experience, and it was included in New Orleans Noir. (The collection I've been out hawking alongside my novel A Little Bit Ruined.) It was a dead-on, powerful story, but it didn't make the experience of going to Newman in the '60s look good. It had a universal quality to it, so it didn't make going to Newman at any time look good. (Or, really, going to high school anywhere, ever, look good.)

What could I say to my cousin? I saw a nearby wall. I banged my head against it. A chance to go back to my high school, recognized, "distinguished," and I had blown it. My cousin will vouch for me. I really banged my head against the wall. "Has anyone really read that story?" I said. "Everybody," she said.

And so it comes to this, now that it's all over with. What did I want all along? As a writer, I mean. I've often been honest enough to try to sort out vindictiveness and vindication in the motives behind some of my stories.  But what about my general posture as a writer? Here I have two works out there before the public, and the one getting the screaming attention in New Orleans is the short piece. Yet it's terribly misunderstood. If read correctly, it's sensitive and honest and doesn't malign Newman at all. Instead, everyone's buzzing that I've pilloried the institution and in turn wants to pillory me.  "Go for negative publicity: any publicity is good publicity" is what I've heard. But who wants this?

I know why I'm bothered. Because I was a cut-up in school. I was one of two people in the history of the school voted down by the faculty for the National Honor Society. (The other served as Chief of Protocol in the Bush White House; talk about ignominy.) I've already been badly behaved. I might not be the most distinguished alumna, but they might give me a shot at Most Improved.

Comments

[Rosalind]

What loonies! The story is beautiful. I remember when you sent it to me...I recall an NPR moment...you know...when you're listening to something so good, so fascinating that you can't bring yourself to get out of the car even though the folks whose house you're visiting are staring through the blinds or standing at the door sill beckoning you in...well, reading that story was like that for me. I'd pulled up to my destination, but couldn't be pried away from the girls. The conclusion was extremely satisfying and broke my heart to its marrow (yes, my heart has bones). So eff Newman! You belong to the people who get you. Love, me