“NOW MIGHT BE A good time to practice what you preach.” Jason’s words raced through my mind long after the students had left for the day. I sat, elbows on table, forehead cupped in hands, unable to dispel images of Angelina sick, maybe dying, and Jason living his life afraid to touch or be touched. As if to mock me, Bruce Springsteen crooned the lyrics to “The Price You Pay” from the CD in the distance.
Damn. Why was it so cold in here?
The warmth of someone’s hand seeped through the yoke of my blazer and traveled to my heart, which felt like a bruised fist. Instead of tensing at the intrusion, I relaxed into it. The warmth was more than physical; it exuded care and concern.
“Bad day?”
I nodded, wondering how Granny Max had entered the room without notice.
“I brought all the fixings for oatmeal raisin cookies, dear, thought I’d give one of the old kitchens a try.”
When I didn’t respond, she withdrew her hand. “Are you okay with that?”
I twisted around and studied Granny Max’s face, glad her aviator sunglasses were propped on her head instead of covering the serenity of her brown eyes. “Sure, why not?”
“Let’s go then. I preach better with my hands busy.”
I followed—comfort food, like the warmth of a hand, an irresistible draw.
“Sit,” she said when we reached one of the dated but fully functional kitchens. “No assistance required.”
I sank onto a chair at the small table in the kitchen’s dining area, tempted to lay my head down and take a nap.
“Looks like you need some refueling. Consider this your pit stop.” Granny Max pulled bowls, measuring spoons, and cookie sheets out of cabinets and drawers as if this were her kitchen instead of one in a chilly old classroom. “Maybe we should give this place a modern twist by calling it a ‘food lab’ where kids can learn some basic life skills… Like how to put out a kitchen fire.”
While she measured butter and sugar into a large plastic bowl and creamed them together, I watched mesmerized, as if this were the first time I’d ever seen someone bake cookies. And when she beat in the eggs and vanilla and started singing, “Shake, Rattle, and Roll,” she could have been waving a magic wand and singing “Bibbidy Bobbidy Boo” as far as I was concerned. She blended in the dry ingredients and, when done, lifted the wooden spoon to her lips, microphone style, and swayed her hips. “Baby, let’s shake, rattle, and roll.” Then finally, while stirring in the oats and raisins, her voice quivering with the effort, she said, “Your kids may be unique because of their Indigo status, but basically all kids are alike. Could you handle another thousand?”
“Dear God, no.”
Granny Max dropped mounds of dough onto the cookie sheet. “Don’t look so glum. Most of our students will grow up to become well-adjusted and content citizens despite what we do, or do not, teach them, to which I say, ‘Thank the Lord,’ or I wouldn’t be able to stand the guilt.”
My back and shoulders slumped, and I couldn’t manage to straighten them.
After she’d put the sheet of cookies into the oven, Granny Max pulled out two mugs, dropped in tea bags, and put water to boil. “Once we’ve had our fill, you can give the rest of the cookies to the kids, you know, to stimulate their reward centers.” She frowned. “Hang in there, hon.”
I rested my chin on my hands and sighed.
“Cream? Sugar?”
“Black, thanks.”
She puckered her lips as if tasting something nasty. “Never could figure out how some women get all the brains, good looks, and self-control, doesn’t seem fair, somehow.” A pause. “Sorry for pointing this out, my dear, but women like you” —she glanced at the acoustic ceiling tiles as though deliberating a connect-the-dots puzzle for her response to be revealed— “how to put it, let me see now… I don’t think people with special gifts know what they’ve got, if you know what I mean. Since it’s just been handed to them, they, well…they take it for granted.”
If her aim had been to snap me out of my funk, she’d succeeded. Plus, the aroma of warm butter and vanilla created such a mind-numbing turbulence in my taste buds and stomach that her words turned into white noise.
She brought two mugs of steaming tea to the table and winked before adding three heaping teaspoons of sugar and at least an eighth cup of milk to hers. Then she headed back to the oven, pulled out the sheet of cookies, put in another, and returned with a platter of mouthwatering delights. “Are you catching on?”
My mind was as mushy as the warm cookies.
“It’s all about distraction.” She edged the oatmeal raisin treats my way. “Part of your job as a teacher is to distract the students from the mundane and open their eyes to possibilities.”
The sugary, buttery concoction tasted heavenly as it melted in my mouth. “Dr. Matt should’ve picked you to take on this class.”
“Dear God no, you’re better qualified by far; your youth alone a definite asset. Those kids can wear a person out, if you know what I mean, and I’ve heard you’ve got other talents, as well.”
“More like curses.”
Granny Max’s face showed neither surprise nor disapproval. “My guess is that extrasensory abilities are like any other aptitude or skill. If not feared or abused, they can lead to great things. It would be sinful not to use them, think of the good you can do.”
How had she heard about my psychic abilities? If she knew, so did others, which could lead to trouble—if past experience was anything to go by. “Hope you’re right.”
“I know I’m right, and I’m not even psychic.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure about that.”
In what seemed like no time, she shoved back her chair and made for the oven, just as the alarm beeped.
“See what I mean?” I said as she took out the cookies and put in the last batch.
“Only a matter of much practice.” She reset the timer and winked— “Just in case…” —before returning to her seat at the table.
I rolled my eyes, Codi style.
“Don’t get too cheeky, hon, you’ve got dish duty when we’re done.”
“My forte, cleaning up.”
Granny Max stared at the single cookie left on the platter as though it were imparting its own particular wisdom. “What do you want, Marjorie? I mean, here at West Coast. What do you hope to accomplish?”
When I didn’t answer, she said, “If you don’t believe in the outcome, it won’t come to pass.”
She was giving me a dose of my own medicine, making me realize what a hypocrite I was. “I’m trying to think big.”
“What do you want,” Granny Max repeated.
Words didn’t come. At least not right away. But Granny Max’s kind expression suggested there was no rush, that sometimes talking just got in the way. Enjoy the company, she seemed to say, relax into the topic. Moments of insight need time to sink in.
“For the kids and me…” I started, then regrouped and started again. “For the kids and me to step into our own life stories.” It came as a surprise that I’d included myself, though I’d suggested something similar during my interview with Dr. Matt. The need to control my own narrative. “And for me that isn’t easy, because… To tell you the truth, I’m a follower, a wuss, can’t even stand on my own two feet.”
Granny Max stood, headed for the stove, and right on cue, the alarm went off. She grabbed the oven mitt and pulled out the cookies, then closed her eyes, as though, she, too, needed a measure of silence for insight to sink in. “You have a special light, Marjorie, and it pulls things out of the darkness towards itself. Believe me. I don’t bake cookies for just anyone.”
“Did I pull you out of the darkness?” I asked, chuckling at the very idea.
“You’re helping me express and utilize my energies in altruistic love and service.”
“Does that mean you’ll do the dishes?”
She threw the oven mitt at me, actually threw it. “I wouldn’t think of depriving you of the chance to utilize your energies in altruistic love and service.”
I caught the mitt, tempted to throw it back, but didn’t. Which seemed wrong somehow, as though I weren’t playing my part in the game. Then it struck me; commitment meant involvement, which meant going solo wasn’t an option. I wasn’t playing solitaire but bridge, drawn into the game by seven thirteen-year-old slight-of-hand artists. Jason was right. It was time to forgo the affirmations and crafts. These kids were beyond that.
What card was I in the new game we were playing? Two of Spades: Tendency to willfulness with consequent self-undoing. Wants home roots, but often obliged to work away from home. Looker after lost souls.
“Your Indigos need training to face the unknown and give voice to their inexplicable experiences,” Granny Max said. “They need to learn to live in the world in a spiritual way, integrate and open their hearts for the deepest kind of freedom.”
Give voice to their inexplicable experiences? Isn’t that what they’d done today? As far as opening their hearts, how did one teach that?
Granny Max took the oven mitt and put it back in the kitchen drawer, giving me time to formulate a response to her comment.
Reorder cards by suit and rank. Set terms of the hand.
“That’s what I meant, I think, when I said I wanted my students to step into their own life stories.” I’d been concentrating so hard on providing them with a safe, nurturing environment that I’d neglected to allow them to fail, dust themselves off, and try again. Starting tomorrow, I would urge them to hone the psychic skills in the part of their brains that had been allowed, if not encouraged, to atrophy; the part of their brains that was dying.
“Now that you’ve put your intentions into words, put them into action,” Granny Max said on her return to the table. “Sounds like you’re being put to the test, so you need to prepare.”
“I think I’m getting the picture.”
“I’m sure there’s a fancier way of saying this, but I’m tired, so I’ll give it to you straight. Follow your gut and use your damn powers.”
Was this what Jason and my class of Indigos had been trying to tell me? “You’re as bad as the kids,” I threw back at her.
“Yeah, and proud of it. Maybe you should take a lesson from me and step out of that ivory tower you’ve erected for yourself. Ivory towers are built from the brittle bones of the past.” She pointed to the kitchen counter. “You have work to do, because, to be quite honest, it’s late and, even though I like you and all, I don’t plan on spending the night here.”
I nodded and stood. Ivory towers are built from the brittle bones of the past. Had I, in an attempt to feel safe, stable, and secure, erected an ivory tower from the bones of my dead sister? Had I been using her death as an excuse for avoiding what it was in me to do?
“Don’t take yourself too seriously, Marjorie, or you won’t last another month, let alone four. The kids need you. Their behavior can be outrageous, but seen from a different perspective, well, there’s almost something sacred about it.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Energy coursed through me as if I were about to run a marathon. Step out of the ivory tower? What a relief that would be.