What We Were There For

She revealed a sweet temperament over and over again. Her companion kept showing her respect.

I interrupted the two of them once, before they stood to take their turn. “Mrs. Gackenback!” the secretary called.

So that’s who she is! The thought expelled itself with such force from me that it startled me.

I had startled Mrs. Gackenback when I interrupted her and her companion. I interrupted Mrs. Gacken­back to ask, “Was it the Pointer Sisters?”

Mrs. Gackenback told her companion, not me, that she was not sure if it had been the Pointer Sisters.

I had heard Mrs. Gackenback say to her companion just before I had interrupted them, “It wasn’t the An­drew Sisters.”

After being startled, Mrs. Gackenback appeared to me uncomfortable, perhaps upset, not ruined.

Mrs. Gackenback had to be helped to stand. She had to be helped to walk. Her companion did that for her.

When it was my turn, when the secretary called me, when the secretary examined me up close, she said, “You should have been a Balinese dancer.” Then she said, “You do with your eyes what they can do with their hands.”

I paid no attention to the secretary’s hands. Her shoes were not white nurse’s shoes. Her mint-green nylon dress had buttons up and down the front. Some­thing momentous was being revealed to me which goes up and down over and over again. It was being revealed. I had to put my head down between my legs. There is nothing I can think of that is fair. There is nothing I can think of that is fair. There is nothing I can think of that is fair. There is nothing I can think of that is fair there enough. There is nothing I can think of that is there enough.