The Look

By Merle Harton, Jr.

I have just completed a major sociological study whose results are so astounding as to invite immediate publication, my receipt of every important award for scientific excellence in the field of projective statistics, at least six months' worth of rounds on the television talk-show circuit, solicitations to lecture at each of the ivy league colleges, and critical discussions in all international scientific journals. Famous photographers will surely bicker among themselves over who will be first to snap a black-and-white portrait of me in some candid pose, or at least with my hair mussed up. Journalists will camp out on my front lawn, hoping for a chance to jot down some quotable words from me. My friends will pass each other in the supermarket and comment on how they knew all along that I had it in me. Old men will drink beer in VFW halls and pass my name around the room like a chum, and the tabloids will make up fantastic stories about me (as told to them by a close friend, or a reliable source). Not only will I have the key to the city, but the White House guards will know me on a first name basis. The phone calls will not stop and my mailbox will be full every day, and I may even have to hire a harem of secretaries and a dozen Xerox machines just to satisfy the demands from every Who's Who and encyclopedia publisher in need of a copy of my curriculum vitae. Indeed, my findings are that impressive, as they ensure my immortality. For on the subject of my study, using my own proprietary calculus to achieve these results, I have determined, with an insignificant margin of error, that, regardless of the exact date you may wish to determine your outset, at the end of another fifty years nearly everyone will be more confused than they are now.

For having completed my statistical analysis of this timely phenomenon, I can with confidence also say, of the subject of my study, that if anything can be said to be worse than going through adolescence, it is the experience of it a second time. And every parent is condemned to have that second experience.

The horror of that experience came to me when my daughter, Kimberly, fell head first into the pit of adolescence. Puberty was not a fun time for her, and she wanted to be sure that I knew it. To add to the pain of the experience, my new interest in a new business did nothing to help my extremely delicate relationship with Kimberly.

Our problems started, I think, when we made our move to the new house. I know this because of the look she gave me when Christine and I announced the move. Oh, it was not just the house. It was the timing of it all. At the time, she was 13; she had already started shaving her legs, she had already had her first period, boys were an interesting species to her, and she was finishing the eighth grade and planning on going entering the local high school, with all of her friends, as a freshman. Moving to a new house, a new town, a new neighborhood, a new school—add to that the hormonal juices that were flowing freely inside of her, and you get a very unhappy teenager. It was THE LOOK that gave it away.

She had given me numerous immature versions of THE LOOK several times as she was growing up, but it was never so clearly maturely defined and punctuated as the time I took her—she was about 8 or 9 at the time—to a candy factory in New Orleans on a free tour of the facility. It was a factory that specialized in jellies that were "made with real fruit!" These jellies, called Elfkin Fruit Snacks, were in vogue for a good part of Kimberly's childhood; they were good for snacks and great for lunches carried to school, since they came wrapped about 10 to a packet, and they won our parental approval because, unlike candy, these were "made with real fruit!" To her, though, they were just another snack, but she liked them and seemed to take comfort in the thought that we cared enough to include in her diet a snack that was "made with real fruit!"

So there we were in the factory, and our guide was someone from the marketing department who was on the factory's speaker's bureau, which meant that he had to rotate with others in the department on giving these tours through the factory. It was something new his department head had conjured up, and the statistics that he planted in individual piles on their conference table and displayed graphically in pie, bar, and line charts all indicated an increase in the fame of the products when such tours are given. I learned this when I commented on how nice it was that he had given up his Saturday to wear a suit and tie and lead total strangers around a noisy factory. In any case, we were shown how 5 or 6 different candies were made, from their start as milk and sugar and flavors to the chocolate coating and wrapping and their final run down a conveyor to boxes. And then with obvious pride our guide led us to another part of the factory, where the Elfkin Fruit Snacks were prepared. The first part of this sub-tour started with the washing of various fruits they called the "pastel fruits," perhaps because of their color, or perhaps because of their commonness. These were oranges, grapes, lemons, strawberries, and cherries. They zipped by in groups on a conveyor and were washed with jets of water, and then disappeared in to another room where, said our guide, they were peeled and sliced and "prepared for special processing into Elfkin Fruit Snacks." We got to spend a lot of time watching the fruit go around and around in the washer and then disappear into another room. From their we were taken to a room where several aromatic liquid boiling in large brass vats. These, said our tour guide, was the final processing of the Elfkin Fruit Snacks before being poured into molds and then cooled and placed in wrappers. As we stood watching the cauldrons boil, smelling the great smells of oranges, grapes, lemons, strawberries, and cherries, a man walked slowly over to one of the cauldrons. This was the quality-control taster, said our guide. He must have weighed over 350 pounds and his stomach tested the durability of the buttons of his white lab coat. He had an enormous round face, with a few sprigs of hair on the top, and a fat flabby lower lip that dribbled saliva. He came right up to the vat and pulled from the side a large ladle and then he waved aside some of the steam and dipped the ladle into the liquid. He pulled the ladle up, blew on it a few times and then took a sip. He rolled his eyes around in large exaggerated circles and then swished the liquid in his mouth a few times. Suddenly his eyes bulged. He spit the liquid back into the vat and shouted—"So you think I got everything in here? Who's the joker? Where's the fruit? Well, where's the fruit? Get Joe in here!"

The fat man stood there until Joe came in. Joe was a thin black man, somewhere in his twenties, who carried with him a small plastic bag full of a powder resembling flour. The big man said some angry things to Joe, raising his short arms up and down like a baby bird on a first flight, and then screamed—"This can't go out like this! You forgot the fruit!" He then grabbed Joe and put him in a headlock, his stubby arms barely making the circumference about the man's head. He pulled him over to the vat, but at such an angle from where we stood that all we could see was a mass of white with a black anguished head emerging from the bulk. "When you get to be a taster," the fat man shouted, "you'll come to appreciate what real fruit can do to the taste of this broth! If you ever get to be a taster! And you can bet your black ass that you won't make this mistake again!" He let Joe loose and the black man jumped back. "Now, where's the measured quantity of fruit that should be in this vat?" At that, Joe, moving quickly, reached into his pocket and pulled out a teaspoon and threw in 3 small scoops of the white powder from the plastic bag. The fat man responded with a look of contempt and reached for another object, a long wooden stick, and with that he stirred the boiling liquid a couple of times and then started drooling again and stuck the ladle in and tasted the concoction once more. He rolled his eyes as he had done before, and then swallowed loudly and shouted—"Ah! The fruit! Now that's the stuff of Elfkin Fruit Snacks!"

We all stood stiff with mortification. At this point the guide collapsed on the floor. We shuffled around and tried to revive him with slaps to his cheeks, some of us using more vigor than others, until he finally got up. With a face the color of chalk, and to our relief, he announced the end of the tour. I looked over at Kimberly. She was standing to the side, staring at me—giving me THE LOOK.

Not only did she give me THE LOOK when we announced the move, but she gave me THE LOOK again when I announced that she would be matriculating in his first year in high school in a reputable Catholic school for girls, the exclusive (and expensive) St. Jeanne D'Arc Academy. The tuition was high, and we had to squeeze some items from our budget in order to accommodate the expense, but she was worth it. She did not like it, however, no matter what the expense.

The school was, at least in my opinion, the best opportunity for a young woman. It was sexually segregated, giving her fewer distractions than if she were in a co-ed school; she had to wear a uniform, thus reducing those tensions that fashion forces upon the peer-impressionable young; the school was all college preparatory, encouraging a scholastic excellence and interest in learning that could only aid Kimberly in a competitive world; the school had a strong female teaching force, which gave her a large pool of possible role models. The principal, Mrs. Olivette Skiverson, seemed the perfect model of what the school could do: She was not unattractive, with bright green eyes and a complexion so clear and smooth as not to require make-up, perhaps a clean result of chastity or formative years spent in a nunnery. She wore dark-frame glasses to suggest a scholarly inclination, and shoulder-length natural brown hair with a natural curl, suggesting modesty, a decent upbringing, and an unpretentious life-style. A perpetual but warm smile added a genuineness to her manner, which was always friendly; and joined to this was an administrative talent, which she had to have to keep such a school in the top ranks of girl's academies for 5 years straight. Mrs. Skiverson was a woman so well-planned as to be almost molded for perfection.

And then there was Ms. Weils, the assistant principal, a woman of charm, intelligence, and physical beauty—surely this was a role model if ever there was one. After a moment's meeting with Mrs. Skiverson, the three of us—two wall-eyed parents and one young woman in tow—went to the small office of Ms. Weils, who proceeded to interview Kimberly on why she wanted to attend St. Jeanne D'Arc Academy. Because she gets to wear a uniform and she would not be under pressure to dress in the latest fashions, and because the school will prepare her for college. Kimberly sounded like someone who had been coached, like a beauty contestant answering one of those intellect-testing questions before a panel of judges. What were her hobbies? She had no hobbies, it seemed, but she liked to read, and had started (but never finished) Gone With the Wind. That was good, said Ms. Weils, because they encourage reading at St. Jeanne D'Arc Academy. Here, for that matter, was a reading list for the year, and Ms. Weils produced a scroll on which was etched every classic ever written since the dawn of western civilization, some of which I did not even recognize, but then I had to look fast as the scroll slipped from Ms. Weils' grasp and unrolled, sending a twenty foot sheet to the floor, out the door, and down the hall. As I offered to gather the document together, Ms. Weils took Kimberly's school records, which were part of the registration packet, and questioned Kimberly on her favorite subjects. English was on top and then Algebra, which came out of the blue. Ms. Weils instructed us to follow the hall down to the registrar's office, where her courses would be scheduled and final paperwork would be completed. We thanked Ms. Weils, and with the 2-pound scroll under my arm I followed Christine and Kimberly out the door and down the hall.

The school was small, matriculating only 150 students each year, so it was not as though any girl could just walk up and register there. Once there, though, the competition was keen, but it was competition among peers, competition among young women eager to excel in studies and to challenge themselves and to strengthen those talents which would be needed in a modern arena that was not professionally encouraging to women. Over 98 percent of the graduates of St. Jeanne D'Arc went on to college, and 50 percent of those continued into graduate school: so said the pamphlet Christine and I studied as we planned our daughter's future, before I bravely, stalwartly, with my chest thrust forward like a Canadian Mounty, marched through the tangled thicket of future defeat and cut a swath with wide exaggerated thrusts of my machete—my pen, I mean, for I really was excited as I signed my name twice to the 8 1/2 by 14 inch three-part tuition loan form, not even considering the cost, for my daughter was worth any such exertion. And what did dear Kimberly think of the new school? I was thankful at the time that she did not give me THE LOOK. "Oh, we'll see," she said with a sly grin.

And see we did. Within the very 1st quarter at St. Jeanne D'Arc Academy, Kimberly went from a straight-A student to a submariner, that is, someone delving deeply below C-level, and then deeper to the dark Ds, and then to the horrible depths of the Fs. As she sank, or swam along the bottom, as the case may be, it became clear that someone with her preparation was not working at her potential. In fact, she was not even trying. Really, if it were in my power to do it all over again, and to do so knowing what I know now, and if I could possibly do so with wide-alert, superhuman, knowledgeable but uncaring detachment—if I could alter things for my own thoroughly selfish satisfaction, I would then be in a position to offer to every new parent this advice: Before your children reach adolescence, seriously consider selling them to the highest bidder; or try to work out some sort of lease-purchase arrangement; or, at the very least, have them spayed.

Not only did she flunk nearly every course, the exceptions being Religion and Physical Education, but the school counselor, a Mrs. Hellman, sent us a nice letter notifying us that Kimberly was being placed on academic probation and that "as demanded by our Student Handbook, page 3, Kimberly will be required to attend after-school help sessions regularly as well as a mandatory study session two days each week." Did this bother Kimberly? Not in the least. She was trying hard, she said, but there was always a suggestion of insincerity in her voice whenever she responded in that way to our entreaties for her to study harder, do her homework, let us help her with her, participate in class, read, read, read. Nothing fazed her. Two weeks after receiving Mrs. Hellman's letter, we made an appointment to talk with her.

As we made our way to Mrs. Hellman's office, we had to pass through the school library, where I got to see about ten normal SJD students (in white blouses, plaid skirts, white socks, sensible shoes) reading or studying or researching, the usual serious school stuff, at several round tables set up in the library. There was no snickering, throwing of spitballs, defacing school property—these were young women working their way into academic excellence, learning from the past so that they may make advances for the future of humankind, taking advantage of the resources of an excellent educational institution to better themselves and to lay up a store of knowledge that they can use in a satisfying, if not lucrative, profession. That, at least, was how it seemed to me as we made our way to Mrs. Hellman's office.

Mrs. Hellman greeted us at the door to her closet-sized office. Christine sat in a chair in the corner of the room and I sat near the door and the school counselor sat at her desk, which put her about a foot away from us. We broke the tension of the cozy arrangement with chit-chat. I commented to Mrs. Hellman that it was nice to see that people were still using the Apple II computer, since I could not escape the Apple IIe sitting behind her. She seemed not to think much of it, for she simply gave me a nod and then crossed her legs and responded to Christine's remark about how exciting a school counselor's job must be.

"It's hell," Mrs. Hellman said, swatting the air. "It's pure hell. It's bad enough having to help these girls with choices of universities, or local colleges, or—gag—some proprietary school, but having to lead them to make those choices, well, it's absolute hell. I tell you, you wouldn't want to be in my shoes."

I knew what she meant, but I looked at her shoes anyway. They were burgundy penny loafers, with shiny pennies in them. She caught me looking at the shoes and, with quick upright jerk of her back, planted her feet flat on the ground and put both hands on her knees and gave me the kind of look a woman gives when a man has been trying to look up her skirt.

"Well," she said officiously, "we're here to discuss Kimberly's progress, aren't we now?"

Both Christine and I nodded. Mrs. Hellman reached over and pulled a sheet of paper from a folder on her desk.

"Well," she said, waving the paper before us before holding it in front of her face, as if to study it. "I see that we have a challenge ahead of us. Kimberly needs to earn a C average in Spanish for the second semester if she is to receive full credit for the course for the year; she must earn a D average in Algebra I and English I for the second semester. I caution you that a failure in more than one subject would place Kimberly's future at SJD in jeopardy."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"No student can fail more that one course and return to school the following year. A single failure will require that she attend summer school here; I know that the public school will permit two summer school courses, but we allow only one. There have been rare exceptions, where a student with more than one failure was allowed to return the next year, but this is a matter that is to be decided by Mrs. Skiverson, the principal, according to very specific criteria." At that she gave me an exaggerated wink. "Now, as for Spanish, I think that's just a lost cause. The year is half over, the coursework is cumulative, and I think Kimberly's time would be better spent in bringing up the other grades, leaving Spanish for summer school. Now, I've asked Kimberly to join us. Let's see what she thinks of all this and whether we can get a commitment from her on her future here."

Before we could say anything, before we could discuss the matter apart from our daughter's presence and intervention, Mrs. Hellman was on the phone to someone and barking to send Kimberly in. Before she could put the phone down, we heard a faint knock on the door and then it was opened and in walked Kimberly. She was dressed in her school uniform, a white blouse with plaid skirt, but on top of the blouse she wore a tattered red flannel shirt. Under the skirt she wore tight black stretch pants. On her feet, instead of the regulation saddle oxfords, she wore black-and-white canvas high-top sneakers, with something scribbled all over the white walls. Cupped in her left hand was a chunk of some huge pastry, from which she tore large parcels with her right hand and stuffed them in her mouth as she walked. From my perspective, and how I felt at that moment, looking up from the floor, she might as well have been wearing nothing at all and chewing on a 5-pound smoked salmon. She was all smiles for Mrs. Hellman, but barely glanced in our direction, as she took the last chair in the tiny room to the right of the counselor and sat down and faced all three of us. She kept smiling and stuffing her face with the pastry, which seemed to keep its size no matter how much she pulled from it.

"Well, Kimberly, your parents and I have been talking about your progress here as SJD, and it seems we have some difficult choices to make now, while we still have a chance to do something about this."

Mrs. Hellman repeated the situation to our daughter just as she had said it to us, along with her suggestion for Kimberly's course direction.

"Now why do you suppose you can bring these grades up, Kimberly? I know you have the ability to do it. Your standardized test scores certainly indicate your aptitude for them. Are you unhappy here?"

Kimberly stuck the last wad of pastry in her mouth and chewed. "I don't like it here," she announced, letting large crumbles of dough fly from her mouth. "I don't have any friends here. I want to go to the public high school—that's where all my friends go."

She continued, and I let her go on about the cruelty of her teachers and the coldness of the students at SJD, for I was back down on the floor again, looking up like a bug. Christine's face was the color of stone, and she bore a faint smile, the involuntary kind, like someone caught doing something wrong. Mrs. Hellman listened intently, but with the knowing look of someone who had heard this all before. Kimberly finished her peroration, at last, and then folded her arms, promised to try harder in her school work, and sat back in her chair with a smuggish simper on her face. I was back in my own chair again, but a weaker man than before.

"Well, thank you, Kimberly." Mrs. Hellman closed the folder and put in back on her desk. "That will be all. You may return to your classes now."

Kimberly got up and went to the door. She opened it and started to walk out; as she did, she turned with a brisk whip of her head and, staring straight at me, proceeded to give me THE LOOK. In a moment she was gone and the door was closed.

No sooner had the door shut than someone else walked in. She was blond, very thin, about 4 feet high, and obviously retarded.

"Momma," she said, coming into the room.

"Oh, hi, Kate." Mrs. Hellman hugged the child. "This is my daughter, Kate," she said to us by way of introduction. "Now, Kate, these are the Andersens and they're here to talk with me about their daughter. Now you go wait outside. We're just about finished."

Kate's pale cheeks were now flushed. She smiled at her mother and then at us and dutifully went back outside.

"My daughter is seventeen, but she has the mind of an eight-year-old, although in some ways she is very advanced and perceptive."

"She seems to have a very sweet personality," I said, expressing my first impressions.

"Oh, she's a real nice person. Well, thank you for coming. I will monitor Kimberly's progress, but I'd like you to reinforce what we do here at SJD by encouraging her in her studies, and especially in those after-school help sessions."

That elicited a harmony of nods from Christine and me, and we both agreed to do what we could to assist our daughter in improving her scholastic standing at the school. We thanked her and walked out. I left the door slightly ajar, since I expected the retarded child Kate to hurry inside. Instead, I found her right outside, standing very still, in the hallway.

"Your little girl is having problems, isn't she?" Kate said to me as I passed.

"Yes, she is, Kate." I stopped and looked down at the pale but happy face of Mrs. Hellman's daughter. "And I wish I knew what exactly is wrong."

"Oh, that's easy," she said, glowing with a smile. She bent her head forward and pointed several times to the back of her neck and then straightened up and hurried into her mother's office. Before closing the door behind her, she looked straight at me, gave me another smile, and announced: "It's called a hypothalamus!"