I Was a Towel Girl

At 7am the heavy glass doors of the Stratton Mountain Sports Center swing open and an angry gym bag heaving, boot stomping mob bursts through.


"What's the weather supposed to do today? Do you know? Why don't you know? When is the snow starting? Well, what does it say on the weather report right there on the wall behind you? Isn't that today's snow report? This is Vermont, isn't it? Where's the snow?"


I am wearing my white long sleeved LL Bean shirt neatly tucked into my khaki pants, and my Stratton issue red fleece pullover. A gold magnetized name tag is affixed to the left side of my chest.


My name is Amy, and I'm a front desk girl.


For the past few weeks I have been fed front desk girl duties in incremental doses. I have learned how to make hourly pool and hot tub checks, how to monitor the PH and something called ORP. If the PH level is higher than 8.0, it could result in someone's hair falling out. I learn how to fill the hot tub with a heavy white rubber hose. I hold the hose above my shoulders to drain it, like Atlas balancing the world. I stretch it alongside the bubbling hot tub to eke out each remaining droplet before coiling it and putting it back. I learn how to perform a strip test.


After pool and hot tub checks, I am to cast an appraising eye around the pool area, toss out empty paper cups, organize green, red and yellow kick boards into neat stacks, wipe spilled coffee from the round patio style glass table tops. I mop droplets of water from the green plastic chairs. I am to check for foreign objects at the bottom of the pool.


I am instructed to close all the lockers in the ladies locker room, empty the garbage, wipe the counters, inspect the steam room. A few years ago Maintenance discovered the pink boiled body of a man in the men's steam room.


"He was poached," Chuck from Maintenance reported.


I pick up used tissues, replace paper towel rolls, and remove wads of dripping towels. After I have worked a few days Laura says, "You're not wearing any rubber gloves? Think where those towels have been!"


"So, Mom, exactly what do you do at Stratton?" my daughter Katherine asks me.


"Oh, you know, things."


"What sort of things?" Katherine laughs. "You sound as though you mop out toilet bowls or something."


"Mom? Mom, you don't mop out toilet bowls, do you?"


My job requires good people skills and communicative ability.


"Hello, Stratton Sports Center, this is Amy. May I help you?"


"Yeah, what's the temperature of the pool?"


"84 degrees." I sing all my responses.


"Are you sure?"


"Pret-ty sure," I trill.


"Because yesterday it was 80."


"Well, I'm sure it will be fine today. Thank you for calling." I have adopted a cute little upswing at the end of each sentence.


"Hello, Stratton Sports Center, this is Amy. May I help you?"


"Yeah, how long is the pool?"


"Pret-ty long."


"How many laps does it take to swim a mile?"


"Quite a few."


"Good morning, would you like one towel or two?"


"I'm here for Nicholas," the burly dark-haired man snaps. His biceps are the size of basketballs.


"Are you here for a massage?"


"Look, uh...Amy," he says, leaning over the counter and peering at my magnetized name tag. "I know you're new, so I'll do this once and then we won't have to waste my time with any more chit chat."


"What's your name, sir?"


"Honey, I been coming here for five years. You want to know my name? You want to see my membership card? Here it is. What does it say? Never mind, I better read it to you, so there's no mistake."


Yeah, and you can go fuck yourself, I think.


I can retain no new information. I can't tell which little boxes in the massage schedule book mean hours, and which mean half hours. I am convinced everyone is stealing sneakers. I have begun to pocket the change left behind in the lockers, even though I know it is to be saved for Jack, whose job it is to sweep.


"What is it?" I shout, when I answer the phone.


My co-workers wait a few more days before they try to teach me how to use the cash register.


"Push enter," instructs my supervisor, Sonya. I am ringing up a customer, a loud nasal voiced individual from Massapequa, Long Island. He sports an enormous off white plastic cowboy hat, a fringed leather vest and an I phone.


"Now add the item," Sonya resumes. Sonya is 22 years old. I could be her mother.


"No, add the item!"


"Now push escape, good, now add again. Yes, again. Now close. Now escape. Got it?"


I nod my head. I push a key and the computerized cash register freezes. Sweat dribbles down my temple. I jab at keys, willing the cash drawer to pop open with its reassuring silver-toned bing.


"Is there a problem here, little lady?" the Massapequa Cowboy drawls. He holds his cell phone away from his mouth, takes up a pen and starts rat-tat-tatting it on the wooden counter, heaving loud exaggerated sighs of annoyance.


"No, no, no problem. It's nothing. I'm just new, trying to learn the ropes, but it might help if you would just stop tapping that goddamn pen!" I punch the keys and little blinking yellow lights flash Error! Error! Error!


"What's wrong?" Sonya asks. She moves in. Her brows are furrowed. Not a good sign.


Beyond speech, I wave my arms. I squawk.


"Oh, my God," the Massapequa Cowboy groans into his cell phone. "Where do they get these people?"


"I can do this if people would just keep quiet so I can think!" I tell Sonya.


"I'll do it," Sonya says calmly, icily.


"No, I've got it!" I wave her off.


"You need to stand over here," Sonya says. After prying my fingers from the counter, she presses my arms to my sides and propels me by my elbows to a corner by the dressing room.


"We need more towels," she says.


"But, I..."


Sonya places her index finger over her lips to indicate that not one more word is required. Not one.

The Road to Tassajara Isn't Paved (Part 3)

A smell of straining engine wafted in through the open windows.

Wayne peered at the rpms.

"What gear are you in?"

"Creep," I said.

"I think you'd better put it in a higher gear or we'll overheat."

"But, then I have to ride the brake."

"Just put it in 2nd," he instructed. "I have a feeling the road is going to get better."

"You saw the sign, right? Danger?"

A stream of water ran down the mountain near the sign. Mounds of gravel filled in the washed out areas replacing what had been packed dirt. There was evidence of recent (possibly within minutes) rock slides.

"This reminds me - " I began.

"Of what?"

"Being on a horse whose foot slipped over the edge of the trail 3000 feet above a rocky chasm in Ladakh."

"No scary stories about heights! You know I don't like them. And watch that rock!"

"What if this road just keeps going?" I wailed.

"It has to end somewhere."

"What if it's closed or what if they're just building it now?" I demanded, pointing to a stack of orange and black striped wooden sawhorses heaped around another blind curve.

"Keep your hands on the wheel. Look, we're getting down into forest again. I think that's a good sign."

"Do you?" I said, as we skidded nearly sideways through mud and gravel for several hundred feet.

A bit farther on another sign appeared, one featuring a hiker with a staff and a pack on his back. The number 13 was painted in white on the rock face. The forest thickened. A solitary figure appeared, jogging slowly uphill towards us.

"Oh, look, a person! Now, we can get directions!" I cheered.

"Absolutely. I have no problem at all asking for directions," Wayne said. "None."

I stopped the car and leaned out the window as a tall, slim young man wearing a watch cap and navy blue sweats jogged up.

"Where are we?" I asked.

"I was hoping you could tell me," he smiled.

I gaped. "Is this the road to Tassajara?"

"Yes. It's just down there," he pointed, "About 500 yards."

"Really?" Relief flooded me,warm as maple syrup.

"But, it's closed now."

"Closed?" repeated Wayne.

"Yeah, until April 1st. There was a sign. We're on retreat."

"Closed? But, we're here for meditation instruction," I said. "We drove all this way. We risked our lives."

"You'll have to come back in April," he said.

"What if we don't make it back before dark?" I whined. "What if we're stranded?"

"Oh, you'll make it," he smiled. He inclined his body from the waist and formed his fingers into the anjali mudra.

"Namaste," he said, and jogged off.

"Fucking namaste?" I said to Wayne. "That's it?"

"I think he might have at least offered tea," Wayne commented.

"So, now what?"

"We turn around and go back."

I drove the car to an obvious turn-around where other cars were parked. There was a stone path and a long, low brown building, wrapped in mist. Shadowy figures moved about.

"So much for the monks," I said.

"Yeah, and I'm driving ," Wayne said.

We bounced back up the mountain in silence. Wayne seemed less concerned with his personal safety once he was behind the wheel.

"Watch it!" I growled occasionally. Dusk fell and the sky purpled as we barrelled along, the cavernous ruts easier, somehow, to negotiate. We slid and slipped, but the boulders remained suspended miraculously above us; the road intact.

"You know," I said. "I think we had our Zen experience."

"We're still having it," Wayne said, "Now, shut up, please, I need to concentrate."

"Fine!" I said, "but, I still want that pine cone."

The Road to Tassajara Isn't Paved (Part 2)

The big wooden sign read: Tassajara Zen Buddhist Center Closed September-April 1st at a cluster of dilapidated outbuildings as we turned onto Tassajara Road.

"What do you think that means?" I asked as we drove by.

"Who knows," Wayne said.

"Do you think that was it?"

"No, I think it's about 13 miles in, unless there was a trail that led to the Center, but I doubt it," he said.

"So, let's keep going," I urged, lured by the vision of lowering my tired and slightly stiff self into burbling hot springs, and receiving meditation instruction from a Zen master, possibly a disciple of Suzuki Roshi himself. The road arced sharply upwards through forest for a few miles before precipitous cliffs fell away on the passenger's side of the car.

"Slow down!" Wayne said.

We had borrowed Pete's shiny, new blue Honda Fit, which could be squeezed into 3-foot openings in San Francisco, but its low undercarriage now bumped ominously into ruts on the unpaved road.

"We can't tell Pete about this, right?" I joked. Pete was Wayne's son-in-law.

"Right! Watch it!" Wayne barked. I had lurched close to the road's edge to avoid a canon ball sized rock. The road shifted beneath the wheels.

"I am watching, and you can't say a word!" I warned. "Not one. No flinching either."

"I will say something if I feel unsafe," he retorted. "It's my life."

"It's my life too," I growled. Sweat broke out on my neck.

"What the hell," I said, as the road narrowed and sank into a series of pot holes deep as sand pits.

"Careful!" Wayne warned.

"Shut up!" I snapped, guiding the car up and over the next series of rubble-filled bunkers. "Do you think this is the right road?"

"Who the fuck knows?" Wayne said.

"Well, let's keep going a bit more," I said. Teetering at cliff's edge held a certain adrenaline junkie juiciness that made my palms tingle. We inched on.

"Whoa! Did you see that huge pine cone?" I asked.

"Forget pine cones! Keep your eyes on the road!" Wayne ordered.

"But, I want to to take it for my collection."

"If we make it, you can get it on the way back. Just keep watching the road. I'm concerned for my personal safety."

As we climbed higher, the rock-strewn road shrank to a width exactly the dimensions of the Fit. The mountainous Ventana Wilderness stretched infinitely before us, the ruddy brick-colored cliff face on one side, blazing blue sky overhead, an abyss on the other. Boulders the size of VW bugs loomed above us, wedged precariously among scrubby roots.

"I wonder if we ought to turn around," Wayne mused.

"Where?"

"Good point."

"And there's no backing down," I stated.

The spine of the desolate mountain road was lined with charred, skeletal black tree stumps from a past forest fire. A rusted truck was pulled off the road amidst a littering of spent red shotgun cartridges.

"Serial killers, no doubt," I muttered. I pictured our two bloated, maggot-encrusted carcasses, throats slashed, entrails slung from the rear view mirror.

"Yeah, the mountains are full of 'em," Wayne said. "Watch the fucking road!" Giant rocks like the teeth of angry gods rose in every direction. We blundered around blind curves with no idea if the road simply ended with a catapulted launch into space.

"I'm having a Thelma and Louise moment!" I blurted.

"What do you mean?" Wayne demanded. He flinched.

"Relax," I said.

"No, you relax!"

"I am relaxed!" I snarled, my stomach clamped in a vise of steel.

"Oh, look, there's a sign!" Wayne interrupted.

"So, at least we're somewhere."

"Of course we're somewhere."

Danger! I read loudly. Flash Flood Area!

The Road to Tassajara Isn't Paved (Part 1)

You'd think a day's hike up 2000 feet and about 2.5 miles to Snively's Ridge to an enormous view that took in Carmel Valley's tawny hills and Monterey Bay and the Pacific coast and Garland State Park would have been enough. I was secretly hoping for a mountain lion or at least a couple of dusty rattlers, and the chance to suck venom from Wayne's leg, but all I got was one lone hummingbird with a scarlet chest and forest green markings. Then, as I poised to click my Canon, Wayne coughed or sneezed or choked and the little fucker flickered off. Yes, there was (yawn) magic among the oaks with gnarly burls and mossy trunks up muscle churning switchbacks, chomping clementine cuties and trail mix and guzzling water and exclaiming every ten paces over views and scarlet holly berries and leaves the size of a man's head. There was the old corral evoking horses long gone, and a literal X drawn in the dirt marking the summit, and a fire tower like Rapunzel's castle separated from us by a chasm, Wayne's 'gravity run' back down, and we'd been hiking in the sun for hours, yet there was the allure of fabled Tassajara Zen Monastery just a bit farther down the highway into the valley, and we were here after all, and we weren't sure where Tassajara was, which made looking for it slightly mysterious, so off we went, exhausted and sweaty and looking for enlightenment.

Getting to Know Them...All

I bolted from my first encounter with my friend Wayne's grandchildren. We had only known each other a few months and suddenly there was a confusion of three-year-old twins and a daughter, a son-in-law, and visits from not one but two ex-wives.

"I'm having a problem with woodchucks," ex-wife #1 announced. She had planted herself across from me at the kitchen table and was fixing me with an appraising glare.

"Vermonters?" I stammered, "Or, you know, the animals?"

"Woodchucks in my garden."

"Oh," I said.

"They're eating my plants. One was standing up on his hind legs reaching through the chicken wire to get to my raspberries," she said.

I giggled.

"It's not funny," she said.

Later, we all went to her house for dinner, and I found myself on my hands and knees in her soil, exchanging banter, digging a circular trench in which to plant marigolds, while she reigned above me beneath a floppy straw hat, hoe in hand. I threw small rotten green apples into a plastic bucket with the twins, Maggie and Ollie, while everyone else milled around, knowing each other and sharing years of history.

When ex-wife #2 arrived with her boyfriend the following day, I broke out in a paroxysm of panic. I was new to the all-embracing Buddhist concept of family. I hid in the bedroom.

"Are you ok?" Wayne asked, when he came to find me.

"Sure," I chirped. I was part way into a chartreuse linen dress.

"You look beautiful." he said.

But still. It was a question of place. After bocce on the lawn, endless platters of food, and cocktails (I don't drink) came dinner. Exes 1 & 2 knew where the plates went. They had a system.

"Hi Mollie," I sang to one of the twins the next day.

"It's Maggie," Samantha corrected gently, again.

I fled after pancakes. But, after a few days, and yes, everyone had left by then, I came back. Maybe my perception of family and relationships could stand a tweaking. Just because you're no longer married to someone doesn't mean they turn to smoke. After all, I have a few exes myself. There are one's children to consider and, in my case one's future grandchildren. There are bocce balls to roll on a summer lawn and fireflies to collect and stories to tell and future history - years of it - to share.