Goodbye, Mrs. Palmer

Maybe they will.

I won't be missing the 6am wake-up call from the school secretary: "Can you do gym today?"

I won't be obsessing over printing my name on the whiteboard in blue erasable marker, after six or seven attempts to write in the neat practiced cursive of the classroom teacher; I won't be sharpening any more pencils, or pointing to my own eyes stupidly while reciting, "One, two three, look at me," only to be corrected by a 7-year old. 

I won't be wondering if it is okay to kick a soccer ball innumerable times against the wall during math to practice counting; I won't be ducking the hand-flung candy on Valentine's day. I won't be having to determine which twin truly does belong in my classroom.

I won't have to send anyone else to the principal, only to be told by a circle of somber middle school students that this was the offender's last chance.

I won't have to stand outside on the playground ankle deep in snow, beeper in hand, feigning authority.

I won't be baffled by classroom directives having to do with something called Elmo.

But, I will miss the conversations of second-graders.

"My mom went to Yale."

"What's Yale?"

"One of the best schools in Vermont."

"Well, it sounds like jail, so it can't be that good."

Pause.

"I wish I was graduating from college right now."

"Why? I like being little."

I'll miss sentence practice: My mom stores melk in the panther. 

I won't be fending off the demands of one particularly challenging little lady during reading.

"I only get to read the title of the story?"

Me: "Yes, that way everyone gets a turn to read."

"How come I only get to read the title?"

Me: "If there's time, maybe you'll be able to read again."

Little girl: "But, I only got to read the TITLE!"

I will remember one sparkling spring day when I (once again) had recess duty. Two small girls grabbed my hands and dragged me to a far corner of the playing field to inspect a spider web.

"The spider is not at home now," Claire said. Wearing a yellow dress and pink crocs, she squatted close to the crystalline web.

"Where do you think he is?" I asked.

Claire shrugged. "I think he is on a journey."

"Look, the dew is like diamonds!" Rosie exclaimed. "Like my birthstone. Diamonds are extremely rare, you know."

"You are the horse, and I am the master," shouted Violet. Danny, galloping by, had a green plastic jump rope stretched across his chest. He whinnied and pawed the grass.

"I order you to pull the reigns!" Violet said.

Then, Kevin and Rachel and Carson and Moriarty raced up to us. Kevin's small hand was closed around something. He opened it to reveal a tiny red salamander.

"Moisten your hands!" Carson urged. "There's poison on them and it can kill the salamander!"

"No," Rachel interrupted. "The salamander has poison on its skin. You need to wash your hands after you touch it."

"Why don't you carry the salamander over there and place him gently on the other side of the fence," I suggested. "Then he won't get hurt."

"Or get tramped on," Moriarty added, giving a little jump.

"Or get tramped on," I repeated.

At the end of this particular day, Skye approached me shyly as the other second graders were lining up for music class.

"Can you make an announcement?" she whispered.

"Sure, " I said. "What is the announcement?"

"Can you make an announcement that we all be nice to the music teacher, because he isn't going to be here much longer."

When the bell rang, I watched them trail off down the hall, back packs dragging, minding each other's business, their comments punctuated with, "No, he did not!" and "Yes, he did too!" 

Maybe I'll miss them just a bit, too.

Recently, I was jogging around the track at the park in town, when a small boy wearing his baseball uniform, mitt in hand, waved as he raced toward the diamond.

"Hi, Mrs. Palmer!" he yelled. "It's me, Joey!"

"Hi, Joey!" I called, somewhat thrilled to be recognized.

Later, I was walking out of the bank and nearly collided with a gaggle of scruffy middle schoolers.

"Hey," one of them said, tossing his sweaty bangs, "Didn't you used to, like, sub, or something?"

"I did," I replied.

"You were kind of dumb," he said. 

Beauma Goes to Quebec City: Part Deux

When Tripp awoke from his nap, he let me know immediately that he was hungry. 


"Aaaa-AN!" he told me, babyspeak for "Where the hell is my food?"


"Hold on, buddy," I said, "Let's get you changed."


Tripp does not like to be changed, nor confined by an inept grandmother with vaseline on her fingers and a diaper in her teeth. It's sort of like wrestling a baby otter, but with me proffering shiny things like my watch or his mother's tooth brush to keep him from flipping his nakey butt off the end of the bed.


As we shared lunch, I played mama bird to my fledgling. I picked apart strawberries, peeled kiwi, bit blueberries in two, peeled grapes, diced bananas and shredded turkey.


"Dickum," proclaimed Tripp with approval.

Next, we played Stack the Plastic Containers of Coffee and Creamer.

We cleaned the carpet with mama's toothbrush, played Where's Beauma? (Behind the door.) Then, "Bu," said Tripp and it was time to read Baby Baa Baa, Moo Ba La La La ("And three singing pigs say la la la,") Truck Duck, and Carl's Crane. We read the books, stacked the books, toppled the books, then read them all again. And again.

We made faces.

And cracked each other up.

Then, we donned our outside clothes and strolled the Promenade des Gouverneurs boardwalk, waving to passersby; while Beauma made a few expensive phone calls, Tripp decided to inspect the grit inside these fascinating screw things.

When Tripp's mama heard about it, she was not happy.

"You let the baby play on the sidewalk?" 

"It's not a sidewalk, it's a boardwalk," I said. "There's a big difference."

"People spit on it, don't they?"

But, she didn't stay mad for too long, because we invented a game called EEK, the rules of which involved Beauma crawling into her room and hiding behind the bed, then squeaking to be found. The baby grabbed his mother's fingers and followed. 

"Eek," I hinted.

"Eeek," squeaked Tripp. And then he discovered me, and we giggled and played again and again. And again. 

We had a little Perrier break.

Then, the really exciting thing happened. We sort of knew it might happen, but still. We were just hanging out in the tonier of the two rooms, scruffling around on the floor, me just back from my single allotted hour at the gym, and I said to Tripp, "Go give your mama a kiss," and he WALKED over to her just like that, and licked her face or sort of nibbled her with his new teeth.

"Tripp!" We exclaimed. "Tripp, go give Beauma a kiss," Katherine said, and he toddled over a few steps, then a few more steps, and I got sort of teary, and sort of squeaked a few teary "eeks" to help him forget he was walking.

Katherine filmed her precious son with her I Phone, and she sent it to Tripp's Daddy immediately so he could feel all excited too, and not mind Beauma squeaking in the background all that much.

Beauma Goes to Quebec City: Part Un

"You've become a hotel snob," my daughter remarked in an accusing tone. We were ordering lunch in the terrace restaurant of the Hotel Frontenac in Quebec City, a mighty four-star fortress rising above the St. Lawrence River.

Perhaps I had made a disparaging remark about the lack of spa facilities, closed for renovation.


"Since you've been to the Breakers nothing is good enough," she continued, referring to my earlier stint as nanny to my grandson, Tripp, at the luxurious resort in Palm Beach nearly six months earlier. While Katherine organized events and off-site activities for 60 of her company's top employees, we kicked back in our suite, sporting our HOWL onesie and ordering room service.


"That's not true!" I protested. I watched my grandson in his borrowed highchair playing with brown paper cylinders of salt, and perused the menu. This time we were on a wining and dining scouting trip for the company's fall outing.


When the waiter bustled over to take our orders, I told him, "I'll have la salade Cesar avec les shrimps, s'il vous plait."


"Avec les crevettes?" The waiter repeated with that soupcon of disdain peculiar to the French.


Katherine ordered a junior club sandwich and fruit.


"Avec les shrimps?" she teased me after the waiter had departed.


"It says shrimps," I countered.


Katherine snorted and began to tear pieces of warm baguette into morsels the size of Tripp's pinky nail for her son.

My role as sherpa/nanny had begun stateside at 4AM that morning. I had been permitted a quick shower, and was then instructed to collect the luggage and proceed to the car. For a three-night stay, we had between us one baby, three suitcases, a stroller, a car seat encased in its own unwieldy cover, and 2 carry-ons each. Two flights, many hours, and countless verses of Eeensy Weensie Spider later, I was plucking organic O's from my hair and splattered with purple organic squeeze food. While Katherine strode majestically into the hotel lobby with the baby, I was responsible for piles of luggage, passports and tips.


We had adjoining rooms on the 12th floor facing the river. 


"Your room is sort of dark," my daughter noted, sailing through the connecting door into her own luxurious quarters with its five windows and fireplace.


We spent the remainder of the day unpacking and playing with the baby. Tripp and I sat on the floor while I read aloud from Dan's Dump Truck, and Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? Tripp dexterously flipped the pages of his books with the finger of one hand, while using his other hand to windshield wipe the rug. Holding two of my fingers, he walked the perimeter of our rooms, then crawled off to lick his mother's bathroom floor. 


Both he and his mother became a bit distraught at bedtime, so I suggested a warm bath.


"That was a really good idea, Mom," my daughter told me. 


"Well, I have done this before," I said. "Twice."


We tucked into a hearty petit dejeuner early the next day: croissants and oeufs benedict and cafes au lait and le petit bucheron ("the little lumberjack") for le bebe, as well as a large platter of fruit.

While Katherine made her coiffeur and otherwise readied herself for her day: a private tour of the Parliament Building, a visit to an organic farm to tickle her taste buds with foie gras and confit, a guided walk to Montmorency Falls, lunch at a trendy bistro, and her ascent in the Funicular, Tripp and I twirled like tornadoes to All Around the Mulberry Bush, jouncing with each pop!


"So, do you know what you're doing?" my daughter asked.


"I think I've got it," I said, jouncing. "Nap, play, lunch. Nap, play - or was it lunch, play, nap...?"


"I'll have my phone and I can always come right back," Katherine told me, and then she was gone with a flip of her hair.


"We'll be fine," I called after her.


The door had barely clicked shut when I had Tripp buckled into his stroller, snuggled in with his blankie and Mortimer the Moose. We walked the streets and observed the sights, practicing our Francais.

le cheval

le canon

 

Winnie

And then we napped.

A Day in First Grade or Why You Might Not Want Me to Be Your Sub

After

"Help," I cried, within the first moments of opening the classroom door to a passel of first-graders. I fled into the adjoining teacher's classroom, three single-spaced typed pages of teaching plans sweaty in my hands. I had only checked off 1. Take Attendance, and bedlam reigned.


"I don't think I can do this," I declared.


The other first grade teacher, a tall, kind-eyed man with a reddish brown beard smiled. "What do you mean?" he asked.


"I mean I can't do this!"


He followed me back into my classroom. Eleven children tumbled on the grey carpet in the circle area like manic puppies. One little brown-eyed boy bounced on a large blue exercise ball. Blocks were strewn about. Plastic baggies containing slim reading-buddy books were heaped by an easel upon which was written the Morning Message. There was a tumbled pile of homework folders, papers spilling out.


A cacophony of tiny shrill voices greeted us.


"He's not supposed to be on the ball!"


"It's the teacher's ball."


"No-o," the little bouncer Pierce, said, bouncing higher. "Mind your own business."


"First graders," my fellow adult, Eric, chanted in a dulcet-toned Mr. Rogers voice, "We have a guest teacher. Can you be kind and helpful today for our guest teacher?"


"No-o!"


"Okay!"


"You'll be all right," Eric said, patting me on the arm. He walked over to a white wall phone by the door, and pointed out an extension number.


"If you have any trouble, just call Mr. C in the PFS room, tell him what the situation is, and send the child up to see him."


"Thanks," I said.


I slid atop the teacher ball, and promptly slid off to a chorus of giggles. Chris sat on Jack, who burst into tears. Quinn, Mikala and Sophie climbed onto a bookcase, dislodging an arrangement of building blocks.


"They're not supposed to sit there!" Sierra alerted me.


"That was my castle!"


"Mind your own business!"


"No-o, mind yours!"


Some children spun in mini purple camp chairs. Someone was doing sit-ups. A few bucked like burros.


Nevaeh, or as had been loudly explained to me, Heaven-spelled-backwards lay on her tummy, yellow sweatshirt hood covering her curly head.


"Dear God," I said.


"So, can everyone please sit up and we can begin with ah, (I consulted my plans) a High 5 Hello. Er, how exactly does that work?" I whispered to Sierra, who was perched on a T-shaped green wooden structure.


"You give your neighbor a high 5 and say Good Morning," Sierra explained patiently.


The children went around the circle high 5-ing like mad until Jack got to me.


"What's your name?" he asked.


"I'm Mrs. Palmer," I said.


"Good morning, Mrs. Popper," Jack said, whopping my hand with gusto.


"Good morning, Mrs. Pom!"


"Good morning, Mrs. Pooper!"


"Mrs. Po!"


"Mrs. Poo!"


"Good morning," I answered, desperately scanning my body for signs of the flu.


"Can I go to the nurse?" Sophie asked. She proffered a pinkie.


"What's wrong?" I asked.


"My pinkie has an ache."


"Sure, go ahead," I said generously.


Just then, I became aware of a Gollum-like presence worming its way across the floor on its stomach. 


"Who are you?" I called out.


"That's William!"


"Why are you crawling on your stomach, William?" I asked. Clearly not comfortable with a direct question, William beat a hasty retreat by propelling himself backwards with his arms like Anansi the Spider to a far corner of the room. I spied pillows and a hooked rug.


"Can he be there?" I consulted Sierra.


"Yes, it's the Quiet Corner."


"How long should he stay there?"


"As long as he likes."


"Can I join him?"


"No-o!" said Sierra.


"It's sharing time!" Six voices announced.


"Okay, who'd like to share?" I asked.


Mikala's hand shot up.


"No-o! She shared last time!"


"I can share again," Mikaka said.


"That's not fair!" 10 voices yelled.


"Can she share again?" I asked Sierra.


"Yes," Sierra intoned, a pint-sized King Solomon.


Mikala's share was an overly long tale about having supper with her family at a place in town called The Firefly. She and someone else, a cousin, sister, or possibly an uncle were playing a game called "Dummies." Three children were allowed to ask a question or make a comment.


Jack raised his hand. "What was the game, anyway?" 


"I don't get it," Chris said.


"We were playing "Dummies," Mikala repeated, "at The Firefly -"


"She doesn't get to say it all again!" Pierce shouted.


"Okay, okay," I said. "I think people might be a bit confused," I explained to Mikala.


"I'm confused!" Pierce shouted.


"I'm confused too," Nevaeh sighed. 


"Since everyone is confused," I interrupted. "Let's just move on."


Next, Chris shared his Lego instruction book.


"That's confusing," Mikala commented.


Pierce, who had somehow resumed possession of the Teacher Ball, bounced on Ian, who began to wail.


"That wasn't kind or respectful," I said. "You'll have to go up to the PFS room." Then there were 10, I thought, or 9 if William stays in the corner.


Muddled memories of the rest of the morning mayhem are all that remain. I read a book called Amazing Grace, which prompted Nevaeh to break into song. There was seat work: cutting and pasting sentences that depicted the beginning, middle and end of the story. There was a fact or opinion page, which I explained 11 times. Children wearing headphones appeared for reading groups, reading aloud simultaneously something about a dragon, which was really a line of children going to the library, perhaps in China. During handwriting, children practiced writing F's. 


"Who can give me a sentence using a word that begins with the sound of ph?" 


Chris leaped to his feet from his sanctuary beneath his desk.


"William farted on me!" he proclaimed triumphantly.


"No-O!" William bleated from the corner. "I did not!"


I made for the phone.


"Another one is on his way," I said into the receiver.  


Mikala gave me two paper snowflakes. Sierra offered to hold my hand. Ian approached me just before lunch, hunch-shouldered, to mutter that he just wanted to have a good day. "Me too, buddy," I agreed. "Me too."


I ate my lunch in my car while plotting my escape.


"Can't I just go home now?" I begged my friend Diana, a Pre-K teacher in the hall outside my classroom.


"No," she said. "You can't."


"WHY-Y?" I whined.


"Because you just can't," she said.

Ladies' Luncheon

"Are you sure I'm invited to lunch?" I asked my mother. After two weeks of accompanying her to a seemingly endless round of social events, I was pooped out. I had nothing left to say.


"Of course you're invited!" Mom enthused. "It's a mother-daughter lunch!"


"Why do your friends have to sit all the way in the back?" I complained. I had my mother's elbow as we trudged painfully through the dining room, slow as snails.


"You're pushing me!" My mother said. "Stop it. I'm walking as fast as I can."


"If you'd just try to take big - "


"Don't say it! Don't tell me to take big steps!" Mom shot back.


"It would help your balance if you took longer steps," I explained. "Those halting, mincing steps are dangerous."


"They're NOT halting!"


"They're not steps," I growled. 




When we arrived at the table I saw that it wasn't a mother-daughter luncheon at all. It was me and Mom and her two dear old friends, two sisters, Rosie and Mare. I gazed at the ocean, several hundred tantalizing feet away. I looked with longing at the rows of inviting lounge chairs by the pool.


Oh, well, I thought. I remembered when there had been a table of 12 every Friday; now there were 3. And me.


"Tell me, Amy," Mare said. She was wearing a beautiful pink flowered blouse and white slacks. A cloud of curled white hair framed her face with its clear blue eyes. "How much longer will you be staying?"


"We have to leave on Monday," I replied.


"Oh, that's a shame," Mare said. "Have you had a good time?"


"Yes," I said. "It's been wonderful."


I looked over at Mom, who was swiping at a palm leaf that drooped over her head.


"Do you want to move?" I asked.


"What?"


"The palm tree?" I pointed. "Is it bothering you? Do you want me to move you closer to the table?"


"What?"


"THE PALM TREE! IS IT BOTHERING YOU?"


"No, it's fine."


"Tell me, Helene," Mare said, turning to my mother. "How long can you stay?"


"We're leaving Monday," Mom said. "I wish we could stay longer, but Amy has to go back to work, and the girls seem to feel that one of them has to be with me while I'm here."


"And how long will you be staying this time?" Mare asked, turning to me.


"Until Monday," I sighed.


"Did you like The Music Man?" Rosie asked Mom. We had gone to a matinee the day before, and had nearly come to blows.


"Can't say I did," she answered. "All the music seemed repetitive somehow and boring, but Amy liked it."


"I loved it," I said. "And I saw it twice. You kept falling asleep."


"I did not!"


"Did too."


"Did not."


"Did too."


"Tell me, Amy, where do you live?" Mare interrupted.


"I live in Vermont."


"Oh, Vermont. We used to ski in Vermont years ago, up north somewhere..." she mused.


"Was it Stowe?" I ventured.


"Yes! It was Stowe."


"I'm going to The Music Man next Saturday," Rosie said. Her sleek blonde hair was swept to the side and she flashed an engaging smile. 30 years before, she and my young daughter had blown a ping pong ball back and forth across her dining table.


"It was hard to understand," Mom stated, pouring a packet of brown sugar on the table a good few inches from her tea cup.


Despite myself, I began to giggle.


"It's not funny," Mom said crossly.


"What, dear?" Rosie asked. "What's not funny?"


"Can I help?" I said to Mom, little remorse darts spiking my heart.


"No!" Mom retorted. "I can do it!"


"Amy, where do you live?" Mare asked.


"Vermont," I breathed, chomping down on a piece of rosemary cheddar flatbread.


"Oh! Vermont! We used to go there years ago..."


"Stowe?" I asked.


"Stowe!" Mare said, delighted.


"Do you know what Amy did?" Mom said, apropos of nothing.


"No," Rosie and Mare answered, turning to me.


"She walked on live coals!"


"Why would she do that?" The two sisters looked confused.


"Shall we order?" I suggested, holding up my menu. I had decided on a beet salad.


"Oh," Mare beamed. "Will you be joining us?"

Saturday Morning Conversation

"Amy!" Mom calls, the instant my sneakered toe crosses the threshold. I am crimson-faced and sweaty from an hour at the gym, worrying about a small terrier that yipped at me from a car in the parking lot.


"Yes!"


"I can't get Lynn! When I dialed the phone, a man came on and told me the line was no longer allegated. It made me think an alligator had eaten the phone or something!"


"I think you mean allocated," I giggle. "I'll dial it for you."


"I did dial it!"


"Well, maybe you just missed a number or something."


When Lynn, my mother's invaluable administrative assistant/driver/"4th daughter" answers, Mom and I are laughing and Lynn begins to laugh too.


"I can't wait to hear this one," she says.


"Allegated," my mother repeats, as I leave the room. "Made me think an alligator..."


"Amy!" she yells a minute or two later. "Do we have time to have lunch with Barbara Longfellow before The Music Man?"


"No!" I yell from my room. Even though I have already seen The Music Man just last week, I'm taking Mom to a matinee. I'm looking forward to it. I know all the words to all the songs. Mom took me to Broadway to see Robert Preston in the starring role when I was a child, and even though I dropped my toy derringer pistol with a clatter during Gary, Indiana, I still tremble and thrill when the curtain goes up.


"Who is coming for dinner tonight?" she asks, appearing at my door.


"Lulie," I remind her. "Your niece."


"Oh yes, of course. Did I ask Rosie?"


"I don't know."


"Oh! I asked the McIlwaine's, but, they think they have a previous engagement. The couple may be sick or something, so they may be able to come after all. I guess I should wait to hear from them first before I ask Rosie. Although, if they can't come and I haven't asked Rosie, it would just be you and me and..."


"Lulie."


"Yes, Lulie."


"We could just wait awhile and see what the McIlwaine's say, and we're having lunch with Rosie tomorrow anyway," I sigh. I'm knackered and not just from my workout.


"Rosie and Roz," Mom says.


"Right."


Mom marches inch by inch back to her room and when I peek in, she's wriggling into her black flowered bathing suit.


"I'm going to sit in the sun for an hour," she tells me. She reaches for some Aquafor cream and swipes some across the fronts of her thighs and her shoulders.


"That's grease, Mom," I say.


"So?"


"So, you don't want to burn."


"Why not? I want a tan."


I bring some sunblock from my room and gently rub the white cream into her shoulders. She wrenches away.


"It's just some sunblock," I tell her. "Look," I say brandishing a freckled arm. "I have a tan, and I've been using this."


She takes a washcloth and wipes away the sunblock on her forehead.


"You used to do this to us," I tell her. "And we hated it too."


"I did?"


"Yes."


"Dick called me," she says. Dick is 96 or 97 and lives in New Jersey. He is a retired newspaper magnate, and Mom turned down his marriage proposal roughly 65 years ago to marry Dad. ("I had 7 notches on my hairbrush," she told me, beaming. 7 proposals.) They became re-aquainted a few years back, but during a visit to her in Florida, poor Dick had to call his doctor and replenish his supply of Valium. She rather tortured him on several other occasions, because she didn't want him to think she was after him for his money.


"And?" I smile.


"Poor thing, I really think he's losing it. He wants me to come over for a visit."


"Did you tell him you were in Florida?"


"Yes. I told him I'd try to go when I get back."


Mom inches toward the sliding glass doors and the sun.


"Your hair might get drippy," I tease.


"So what," she retorts. "Laurel?" she addresses her nurse, "Where's my hat?"

Travels With Gogs: Florida

From her post in the kitchen at Command Central, my mother grabs the phone. The surface of her desk is strewn with items like the small pink shell dish containing her daily pill regimen of krill oil, vitamin D, Alkazone (an alkaline booster) and PS ("the ultimate brain food.") Her address books are fanned out before her, plaid strands of Christmas ribbon serving as page markers. Her Florida friends are highlighted in yellow. There is a list of impending social events, dinners and bridge games written in red marker, columns of things to do. She's got piles of carefully scissored-out articles from the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. There's a flyer from EarthingSecrets.com.

"Hello?" she says. "Who? No, this is her mother. It's Helene! And how's himself?"

"Mom," I interrupt, "Is that for me?"

Without meeting my eyes, she gesticulates in such a way that means can't you see I'm on the phone?

We go to hear Alan Mulally, President and CEO of the Ford Motor Company tell us the Ford Story during The Five O'Clock Hour. As we inch toward the lecture room over the checkerboard marble floor, I wonder why there isn't an assemblage of wheelchairs to speed elderly people along. 

"Big steps," I urge Mom. "Big steps. Keep walking."

"I am walking!" she retorts, leaning on her leopard spotted cane.  I hold her left arm in a steady grip.

I maneuver her to the front row of a side room where there is a large TV screen so she can see Mulally,  who is in a larger room nearby.

"How did we ever get to sit in the front row?" she asks. Even though her vision is spotty, she spies a little clipboard fitted with an index card and pencil on the seat where I am to sit. She goes for it.

"Oh," she asks, "Did you get one of these too?"

Mulally is an animated speaker and Mom takes notes. Then I feel her head on my shoulder. I nudge her.

"What?" she whispers.

"You were asleep," I tell her softly.

"I was not."

I am reminded of a time when she and my father were at the opera and there was a sudden loud and insistent snore in my mother's vicinity. My father, lost in the music, became the innocent recipient of a vicious pinch.

I nudge her again. And again.

As we creep back over the marble checkerboard floor, my mother stops to tell a few dozen people that her grandfather was a friend of Henry Ford, and that her family had one of the first convertibles ever made, a dreamy shade of blue.

"Everyone wanted to go for a ride in it," she says. "I was very popular."

Over dinner at the Lemon Tree with its complimentary glass of wine and bland food, I remember the earlier phone call.

"Who was that on the phone before?" I enquire.

My mother gives me a blank look.

"When?"

"You know, someone called before the lecture and asked for me and you started talking..."

"I have no idea," she says. "What did I say?"

After dinner, as my mother slowly turns herself around so she can lower herself into the front seat of the car, she pauses and straightens up, cocking an ear.

There is a small group of people clustered on the sidewalk, chatting and moving their arms in animated conversation.

Mom waves in their direction.

"What?" she calls. "Did someone say Helene?"