Korê in New York

What happens when a kid refuses to leave the past behind? What happens when the past won't go away? Read on and don't worry about the emotional damage.

1. Social Intelligence II

   I did not eat breakfast or what passes for my breakfast Monday morning at the General Cafeteria. Instead, I stopped at the Patisserie des Quartres Vents to get a large Oolong tea to go and walked slowly with my prize down to the beach from the above ground levels of Building 2 to the Teen Pavillion. My watch said 8:56am. I was just going to make it.

   I felt tired and out of sorts. I realized this morning that I did not even qualify as the world’s suckiest spy. Ninty-five percent of my activities were involved in arranging my life for my self preservation and comfort. I took pains to avoid my villa mates whose inane conversation tuned ugly within seconds to minutes. I studied to keep from falling behind. I sought out good restaurants that served what I enjoyed eating. I swam, worked on my dives, helped out with the social dancing at night all to have a pleasant time at worst and get a bit pampered at best. That’s not what a spy does. A spy risks her life and reputation to get really good information.

   Well, I wasn’t getting much chance to spy this morning, I thought as I nearly tripped over the crying boy from last night who wat with his companion. Both boys at nearly cold scrambled eggs from paste board containers which meant they had been out for breakfast and recently dropped by their guardians who wanted rid of them. They were just from the wrong school no matter how much good they  had done. I wondered what all the disillusioned ECBAS members would one day do. The thought made me very happy.

   “Come on inside!” called out Amanda. I climbed the stairs.

   “What you got there?”

   “Oolong tea,” I answered.

   “Is it any good?”

   “It will be when it cools down. It’s very, very smooth and mild black tea.”

   “You’re a bit of a gourmand. I guess it is good we don’t have to worry about feeding you.”

   “You just take me to the food court,” I commented. “What’s the big deal.”

   “You’d get sick of that fast. Oh well, you seem pretty good at looking after yourself. That’s a plus. Some teens still want company or feel intimidated.”

   “It helps to have a map,” I responded.

   “No. It helps to have parents or guardians who care. Now those boys outside, showed up just after I did at 7:30am. The girl had on a spa robe which meant she didn’t even bother to dress. The boy was probably wearing the bathing suit in which he was dancing at one of the beach clubs. They dropped the boys. I took them for breakfast, but they were afraid to let people see them eating in the food court, so we brought them back here with their food.

   “This doesn’t do us any good.”

   “I could have told you that,” I smiled and took my first sip of morning tea.

   “It’s amazing how many kids we’ve had to feed because the people who bring them here, just dump them on us or just dump them period.”

   “Are those boys coming on the tour today?” I asked.

   “If they want,” Amanda answered. “They get the same choices as any other kid.”

   Just then Haley pushed open the door followed by three more kids. She gave Amanda a thumbs up and asked. “Don’t you ever sleep? You’ve got late night shift again girl?”

   “I was doing some supply inventory and two boys showed up who needed breakfast. How was breakfast this morning?”

   “I had four guests,” Haley smiled. I recognized only two of the kids, the girl with horn rim glasses and a the very tall macho boy who liked the high dive.

   “All set for your tip into town?” Amanda asked Haley.

   “Not really, but let me get a census and we need to make that shuttle.”

   The red haired girl who came in with Haley was on the tour and so too was the girl in hip huggers and the crying boy and Jean. The crying boy’s name was Jared and the red head was named Melody, and no I didn’t ask if she got that carrot top from a bottle. Most of the other folks on the town tour including Haley were adults. They were older adults, including several comfortable old couples who almost purred to eachother. I hoped they were oblivious to the younger generations’ doings.

   We rode the ferry back to the mainland. In daylight, the ride was enjoyable, no make that fantastic. If I could let my guard down, Rialitee would be paradise. Paradise naturally does not really exist except in our minds or after we die and there is a reason for that.

   We walked into town, up from the hotels and warehouses and toward stores, restaurants, and some interesting old architecture that had not yet been torn down. I did not remember any of this from my late night arrival.

   “If you want to use a bank Kore,” this is your chance my couneslor told me. I went up a flight of stairs and managed to pull open the heavy door to the ATM booth. Then I realized I did not need twenty dollars in local currency. I went out and entered the bank’s office proper. The teller was very nice about giving me seven dollars in local currency. i figured seven dollars was enough to buy lunch and have a bit left if I wanted it for a pack of postcards.

   “What was that all about?” asked Haley.

   “I wanted to get less than twenty dollars worth of local currency,” I explained, showing my loot. I showed my loot to all the other kids some of whom pretended to look unimpressed.

   We found our way to a field of jitney cabs. “Everyone stay where they are,” announced Haley. “I’m going to get a cab to take us across the island to the conch farm.”

   “This tour sucks,” began Jared as soon as Haley was out of earshot.

   “You said it,” sighed Melody. “You know where my roommates are?”

   “Mine are probably still asleep,” I decided to see where this would lead.

   “Mine are too,” answered hip  huggers. “I’m just too hyper for them.” She laughed.

   Jean glanced at Jared. I looked to see Haley but she was lost in the crowd. “Who wants a soda?” I asked.

   “I don’t do soda,” hip huggers whose name was Klarice told us.

   “Diet soda,” I said.

   “That stuff is poison.”

   “Boys,” I suggested.

   Jared and Jean made faces. Maybe they feared to eat anything away from the resort. I walked toward the soda concession, a cooler filled with cans of assorted flavors and counted out some local currency. I returned with my prize.

   Haley did not even notice. I drank my soda in the cab and decided to save the can for a souvenir. When we reached the conch farm, the owner greeted us and then took us around to show us the tanks, cleaning tables, and lots of  interesting diagrams and finally we ended up on a porch covered with pretty tropical plants.

   “I don’t think I’ll ever eat clam chowder again,” sighed Melody.

   “Clam chowder is gross anyway,” answered hiphuggers.

   “Clams are not conches,” one of the old people replied. “Besides, I had fried conch at dinner last night. It was delicious.”

   “You really ate one of those?” asked Jared.

   “I certainly did. I even eat it when I’m home,” answered a man with hair artificially dyed raven black. “It’s called scungilli and calamari. You can get it in the finest restaurants. Here in the islands they make conch chowder and I would recommend it.”

   “Yeah and end up looking like you,” snorted Klarissa, the hip hugger girl.

   I waited for Haley to intervene. She didn’t so one of the old women stepped up to the plate. “Do you have a problem young lady?” asked a white haired woman in a sleeveless turtleneck shirt the color of spat out bubble gum.

   Klarissa did not get it. “You old people are just so obsessed wtih food. You spend your whole lives eating garbage and you can’t give it up. It’s like your addicted to it. You even build museums to it and then you wonder why you are fat.”

   “Excuse me,” answered the old lady in the bubble gum shirt “but how tall are you and what do you weigh?”

   Klarissa gave the figures and then confessed she was trying to slim down just a bit and tone up. It was very important to tone up and be healthy.

   The old woman gave back her height and weight and then lifted her blouse to expose a slightly saggy old lady stomach. Though the stomach had grown a bit slack with age, there was just not that much of it. “See no Spanx and no girdle,” the old woman boasted “and I enjoy sandwiches, soups, different types of meat, vegetables…. but only occasionally sweets. I don’t call other people’s food garbage. That young lady is rude and it doesn’t help you eat a healthy diet to help you lose weight and keep it off over the course of a lifetime, understand?”

   “Are you a teacher or something?” Klarissa was not going to give up. All the  kids watched her. They were not embarassed for her or fearful as  kids in another place and time might have been. They were probably on her side because when you thought about it she was  kind of brave. She had also been a quick study,  using the tools she had learned to master this fall.

   The ways to take down an ECBAS representative like Klarissa were not the traditional overawing adult tricks, not the threats of a beating, but something else. I knew the softspot. I was glad bubble gum did not know it, or so I thought.

   “I’m a retired personnel administrator. Now young lady, do you dance regularly at Club Tiqi?” The blow was swift and sure.

   “Club Tiqi is a dive!” answered Klarissa. “Our disco is much better. We have video  night and everything.” Klarissa had the most wonderful poker face. I could have kissed her.

   “I’m glad you like it,” answered Ms. Bubblegum. Then she reached into her wallet and handed Klarissa a business card. I felt my face burn with shame at the boldness of the move. I just wished I knew what the business card said. Klarissa showed it to no one.

   On the way back to downtown in our cab, Klarissa and the rest of us said nothing. I thought of that business card over and over again. Then I decided that there was no way I could ask Klarissa to let me see it without everyone else in the van knowing. “I want to eat some conch chowder,” I finally said.

   “You would,” Klarissa who had found her tongue and confidence again snapped.

   There are natural heroines in the world even when they are not on your side, I thought. I thought that as we waited on the dock for the shuttle.

   “Do you really want to eat conch chowder?” asked Haley.

   “Sure why shouldn’t I?” I asked my counselor.

   “You’ll need to find a place that serves Caribbean cuisine.”

   “Does any one else want to try conch chowder?” I asked.

   There was a deafening silence. I approached Klarissa. “If I can learn from my enemies then so can you,” I thought. “Here the rules are different.” True, my social intelligence like my espionage ability is in the toilet bowl.

   “Look that lady got some of it right,” I said to Klarissa. We all knew who that lady was.

   “Yeah but…” Klarissa let her voice trail away.

   “Let’s go get some conch chowder together.”

   “I don’t want any fucking conch chowder!”

   “Then let’s just at least eat lunch together. I’ll get conch chowder. You’ll get what you want.”

   “We all eat lunch together anyway in this dump,” Klarissa reminded me.

   “Tell me do you enjoy being a dweeb?” Klarissa asked.

   “Why don’t you save it for the old people?” I asked back.

   Klarissa raised her eyebrows.

   “I thought the old people gave you orgasms.”

   “Sometimes. Sometimes they scare me. I thought that old lady had guts and she also didn’t threaten to beat you or wash your mouth out with soap.”

   “Yeah, that would have been fucking stupid,” sighed Klarissa. “You just have to laugh at adults when they do that…and remember if they really do it, you get support. If they do it to other kids, you give support. That’s the way we’re going to win.”

   Jared and Jean grunted their approval. There was no way I was going to see that business card. I thought about that as I boarded the shuttle. I watched one of the sailors take a head count as we settled down for the trip back to Rialitee.

   Then it hit. It was like a school trip. They needed to know who was on their ship. I got up as if to use the latrine and made my way to the bow of the craft and knocked on the office where the captain and his mate were driving over the waves.

   “Yes,” asked the mate. “What can I do for you?”

   “Is there any way I can look at a passenger list. I want to know how one of the passengers spells her name?” I asked.

   “Sure,” answered the mate who handed me a clip board on which was a computer print out of ninteen names, sixteen of which had two checkmarks after them. Each checkmark meant a trip out and a trip back to the resort. There were six women. Four of them were from our group. That left the two old women, a Ms. Spiegel and a Ms. Rice.

   That was all I  needed. The old people were gathered near the stern watching the shore of an old sane world drift away. Bubble gum noticed me the  moment I approached. “Ms. Rice or Ms. Siegel,” I began.

   “It’s Ms. Marmelstein,” she told me. Someone had handed me a fake manifest. I had to laugh. That was an excellent trick, but being hastey had saved my spy’s ass. I really was the world’s suckiest spy, but at least I was that.

   “I’m Kore Bihar,” I introduced myself and I gave her one of my business cards.

   “What are you doing here?” asked Ms. Marmelstein.

   “What are you doing here?”

   “My daughter invited me.”

   “Could I have one of your business cards?” I was not above a good beg and we were nearly at the gap between Building’s 4 and 5.

   Ms. Marmelstein handed me a card. I glanced at it. She was an SAT Tutor, a Consultant, and lived in New York City.

   “Ever think of becoming an adult supporter?” I asked.

   “I’m thinking of it now,” smiled Ms. Marmelstein. “I’m in Building 4 Room 821. My daughter’s family has two adjoining rooms. My first name is Sylvia by the way.”

   “Thankyou,” I replied.

   “Do you have a cell phone?”

   “I don’t think cell phones work outside the United States.”

   “Mine does,” I replied.

   “Call my room. 4821 if you need to leave a message.”

   “OK,” I said and rejoined my group for we were back at Rialitee. “What did you talk about?” Klarissa asked me as we walked back down toward the beach. It was lunch time and I really did want a bowl of conch chowder.

   “Eat lunch with me and I’ll tell you,” I decided to see if Klarissa was ready to deal.

   “Why?”

   “Why  not? Why do I owe you anything.” I handed Klarissa my business card.

   “Oh fuck! You’re the real deal!”

   “Yes, now are you ready to deal?”

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