Gemini (13 page)

I then decided to try something. I suddenly grabbed the iPad from Callie. She finally looked at me…like I was pointing a gun at her.

I quickly typed into the You Tube search bar:
Anderson Cooper.
Hundreds of search results displayed on the screen and I selected one that said
Anderson Cooper Cracks Up During Newscast.

I pressed play.

Callie spotted Anderson right away and yanked the iPad from my hands.

Upon the first sight of Anderson losing control and laughing hysterically in the clip, Callie started jumping up and down on the bed frantically, with a look of utter excitement. She began to smile and then…a volcanic eruption of laughter came out of her.

I stopped the video, barely containing my own laughter at her response. And she
looked at me.

“Callie, what do you want?” I asked holding the device.

“Anderson,” she said looking at the iPad.

“Ask better,” I said.

“I want Anderson,” she replied, her eyes still glued to the screen.

“Good!” I said and played the video again.

Each time the video played, Callie’s reaction was bigger than the last. And each time, I asked more of her before playing it again.

“Callie, what do you want?” I asked.

“I want Anderson,” she said.

I pointed to the still of the video. “Callie, this is Anderson Cooper. What do you want?” I asked.

“I want Anderson Cooper,” she said.

I played the video again and paused it mid-way. Callie, frantically curled her fingers and rocked back and forth, obviously wanting the video to continue. I had paused the image on Anderson’s smiling face.

“Callie, what is Anderson doing?” I asked.

“Smiling,” she said.

“Who is smiling?” I asked.

“Anderson Cooper is smiling,” she said with a grin.

“Good girl.” I resumed the video.

When the video stopped, Callie looked at the screen and said, “I want Anderson Cooper smiling.”

I held the iPad and wouldn’t budge.

“I want Anderson Cooper smiling!” Callie laughed staring away from me.

I held back and did nothing.

Then, what I had hoped for happened.
She looked at me.

I immediately played the video to reward her for the eye contact to send her a message that looking at me would be a requirement for getting what she wanted. When the video stopped, she
looked at me again
immediately and said:  “I want Anderson Cooper smiling.”

I played the video and stopped it mid-way, turning to her.

“Callie, my name is Allison. Ask me for the video.”

“Allison, I want Anderson Cooper smiling,” she said looking at the iPad.

I waited.

Waited some more.

She looked at me.

“Allison, I want Anderson Cooper smiling,” she said
with eye contact.

I played the video. When the video ended this time, she looked at me without my having to say anything.

“Hi Callie,” I said.

“Hi Allison.” She smiled.

“It’s nice to finally meet you, Callie.”

***

Almost three weeks into my new position working with Callie, she had become more and more aware of my presence. When I would enter the house, she would look at me unprompted and say, “Hi Allison.”

We developed a good routine each shift.  At the start of each afternoon, we would play some of her favorite videos, but she would need to request everything with eye contact and answer any questions I asked her before I let her continue watching. Then, we’d move into the rest of the house and I would assist her with various chores, like sweeping the floor, folding laundry and taking out the recyclables.

After the chores, we would go back to her room and work on some reading and trying to get her to read aloud. Last, we would head to the dinner table and I would sit with Callie while she ate and made sure she fed herself properly and cleaned up.

Bettina insisted that I join them for dinner on the nights I worked, so I, too, would get fed, which worked out great, since by the time I got back to my apartment it was quite late. Bettina was a great cook and every night was a different Italian dish: things like lasagna, gnocchi or eggplant Parmesan. Thank goodness it was only two nights a week or I would need a new wardrobe.

Some nights if dinner was early enough, I would help Callie bathe and dry her hair before bed. I would marvel at the fact that someone with the mind of a child had the body of grown woman, voluptuous in all the right places. It saddened me, because I also realized that this would be a curse for a girl who could so easily be taken advantage of. No wonder Bettina only allowed women to work with Callie and never considered putting her in a group home, since many were male dominated.

Bettina told me that when I wasn’t there, Callie would ask for me. That made me so happy to hear. I could tell she liked being with me, too, because I was getting more and more eye contact, smiles and sometimes she would hold my hand when we sat together. It warmed my heart.

***

Get your dancing shoes ready, dearest Gemini, because celebration is in the stars. You will be jubilant in the very near future and you are going to party. A good time will be had by all.

One Thursday evening, just a few days before Christmas, Bettina asked if I would be willing to stay a bit later since she was having some friends over for a pre-holiday dinner party. She wanted Callie to be occupied and someone to keep an eye on her. She offered to pay me extra, but I insisted that she pay me in the form of the delicious holiday treats she had spent most of the day baking and that I would surely nosh on at the dinner party.

I helped Callie get into her plaid party dress and then we set the table together.  Having advanced warning about the dinner party, I decided to wear a red sweater dress today.

Together, we placed a red and green table cloth over the oval table in the small dining room and followed that with my showing Callie the order of the place settings.

I felt nervous about not knowing exactly who was coming over. The guests were expected to arrive at 7:30. Of course, it dawned on me that it could be Cedric walking in that door, but he hasn’t shown here yet and I really didn’t feel comfortable asking Bettina who she was expecting, although she did mention that it would be ‘some friends’. Or maybe I didn’t really want to know if he was coming. I would find out soon enough.

I realized that Cedric probably didn’t know I was working here, since his mother never mentioned anything to me about her son acknowledging that he knew me. She never asked me if I was the same person her son had inquired about the job information for, so I knew she had no clue I had ever met Cedric.

I was doing a good job letting go of the whole Cedric fiasco, aside from the fact that being in his mother’s house twice a week assured that I couldn’t exactly forget about him altogether.

Not to mention the fact that Callie looked so much like her brother.

I decided that I needed to be strong and prepared for whatever walked through that door, even if it were Cedric and his girlfriend. Oh God, I really hoped that didn’t happen.

But Bettina needed me here for Callie and that’s all that should matter.

At 7:25, the doorbell rang as Callie and I sat in the living room reading.

My eyes nervously followed Bettina as she opened the door and let in a couple who appeared to be in their sixties, hugging and kissing them.

“Allison, this is my dear friend Maria and her husband Kurt,” Bettina said.

I got up from the couch and shook their hands.

“Allison is Callie’s new therapist. She is going to join us for dinner tonight.” Bettina smiled.

“It’s great to meet you,” I said, holding out my hand to greet them and then quickly returned to my seat next to Callie on the couch.

White Christmas
played softly from a cd player.

Bettina brought her friends into the dining room, as I continued to wonder who would be arriving next. There were two additional place settings. My heart started to pound as I thought about the fact that it could very well be Cedric and Karyn. That would be so incredibly awkward.

The doorbell rang. My heart pounded faster.

Bettina clicked her heels as she rushed from the dining room to the front door, which was off of the living room.

“So glad you could make it!” Bettina shouted.

I couldn’t see who was coming in because they were lingering and it sounded like they were wiping snow off their boots.

Relief consumed me as I saw an older man who also looked to be in his late sixties or early seventies walk in the door.

“Allison, this is my friend Bruno…Bruno, meet Allison, Callie’s newest therapist.”

Bruno walked toward me and startled me when he grabbed my face. “Hello, sweet, Allison. My goodness if I were fifty years younger.” He winked.

“That is very sweet. Great to meet you,” I said and sat back down.

Bettina grabbed the bottle of wine that Bruno carried in and they both disappeared into the dining room.

“Allison, why don’t you join us with Callie in here?” Bettina shouted from the other room.

This Christmas
now played on the stereo as Callie and I entered the dining room.

Callie went straight for the chips. When I spotted her licking the salt off them and sticking them back in the bowl, I immediately stopped her.

“Allison, can I get you some wine?” Bettina asked as she opened a bottle of red.

“Oh, no, thanks. I am on the job.” I’ll help myself to some soda later, Bettina.”

The guests picked at the appetizers that sat on a buffet table at the corner of the room. I counted the place settings again and thought to myself:
Bettina, Callie, Me, Bruno, Maria, Kurt…and one more.

I would likely not be able to relax until the last person arrived, so that I could be sure it wasn’t Cedric.

A half hour passed, as I sat with Callie while she ate a plate of appetizers that I gathered for her to deter her from attacking the chips.

Bettina began setting some food that had come out of the kitchen on the table: a roast surrounded by potatoes and carrots, French style green beans, salad, a rice casserole and a chicken fettuccini alfredo dish.

Then, I jumped as the doorbell rang.

My heart started pounding furiously again.

“Allison, would you mind answering the door for me? I think that’s my son,” Bettina shouted from the kitchen.

Oh God.

Oh God.

Oh God.

Without having time to think or prepare, I got up from the chair, took a deep breath and slowly walked to the door and opened it.

Peggy-Rose Kim was an aspiring news reporter, a few years out of Columbia University’s journalism school. Her father was the general manager at one of the stations I consulted for in Chicago. Peggy-Rose lived in Boston now and as a favor, I agreed to a coaching session after hours at the agency, where I would meet her, look at her resume reel and critique it.

              When she walked into the office, I was immediately drawn to her exotic look. Her mother was Korean and her father was Caucasian. But she used her mother’s maiden name—Kim—on her resume.

Her vanilla perfume was really strong.

“Hi Cedric. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. You have quite the reputation,” she said flirtatiously holding out her tiny hand.

             
“Peggy, the pleasure is mine,” I said as I shook her hand, not exactly sure which
reputation
she was referring to.

She batted her eyelashes. “I brought my demo disc; it’s mostly stuff I did in school and footage I was able to put together while interning at one of the Boston news stations. I have no real experience on-air. That’s why I am hoping for your advice, so I can land my first real job.”

I nodded, staring her up and down. “Ok, Peggy…let’s get to it.”

I closed the door, then slid the disc into the machine and we both stared at the screen.

The video started with a shot of Peggy in front of a building talking in an uncomfortably high pitched voice: ‘
This is Peggy-Rose Kim reporting live from the scene of a fire on Broad Street.’
It then cut to a clip of her reading the news from what looked like an amateur college TV station news desk: ‘
Police are investigating a homicide in Boston’s Roxbury neighborhood...’

If I could have chucked the video into the garbage then and there, I would have. In the second clip, Peggy was actually smiling on camera when talking about the murder.

She sucked ass
.