The Lunch Lady
It wasn't until I began attending school that I learned that not all youngsters had a childhood like mine. Not everyone's mother had her photograph on magazine covers, dined with heads of state, owned seven homes on three different continents or had five ex-husbands. But mine did.
Danielle Piedmont, who could trace her roots back to the Mayflower, was wealthy in her own right in addition to being an heir to the Piedmont fortune. Educated at Oxford, she became a successful and well-respected journalist. Her work took her to every corner of the world, from the Middle East to the Far East, from North Carolina to South Korea, from New Orleans to New Delhi and from Red Square to the White House.
And where, you may ask, was I, her only child, while Danielle was pursuing the next big story or the highly sought-after interview? I was at home in my mother's fifteen-million-dollar Midtown Manhattan high-rise apartment, with a live-in nanny and my maternal grandmother for company. Rosemary, my nanny, was no Mary Poppins. She was a budding socialist who resented everyone with wealth. She took care of me because she was paid—and paid well—to do so, but she felt not warmth toward me, no doubt seeing me as an avaricious capitalist in training.
I could understand Rosemary's antipathy toward me—somewhat. By simple accident of my birth, I was able to enjoy luxuries and privileges that most hard-working Americans could never hope to experience. It was my grandmother's feelings I couldn't fathom. While Nanny Rosemary's deadly sin was envy, my grandmother's was vanity. Because she would not admit to being old enough to be a grandparent, I was instructed to refer to her as Aunt Ingrid, not Grandma, Granny or Nana. Needless to say, she was not the kind of woman who baked cookies for me, took me to the park or shared my baby photos with her friends.
Living in such a cold, lonely environment, I longed for those rare times when my mother had a break in her hectic schedule and came home to New York. I was then able to bask in the attention of the only person in the world I ever loved. However, since such mother-son moments amounted to fewer than a handful of days each year, I had to content myself with the photographs of her I had pinned to my bedroom walls, the sporadic postcards and letters she sent from around the globe and the occasional long-distance telephone calls. In retrospect, what I felt for my mother was less like the love of a child for a parent and more like the adoration of a fan for a celebrity.
At age six I began attending the prestigious Woodington Day School, the same one my mother went to when she was a girl. In its hallowed halls of learning, I realized just how unsatisfactory my home life actually was. Most of my classmates lived with both their parents, several were byproducts of divorce and bounced from one parent to the other and a number were being brought up by single parents. There were even a few who had been adopted by same-sex couples. I soon grew to envy every one of these children, for I could truthfully admit that I was being raised by no one. Instead, I was simply being "looked after" by an envious nanny and a woman too embarrassed to admit she was old enough to be a grandparent.
Not even my father, my mother's third husband, wanted to play a role in my life. An international playboy, he had been married seven times and was the father of twelve other children.
My life at that point would likely make for an entertaining reality program.
* * *
Author Robert Fulghum contended, "All I really need to know I learned in kindergarten."
I have to agree with him, although the lessons I learned were far different from those Fulghum learned. The niceties of sharing, living a balanced life and saying you're sorry did not impress me. Rather, I learned to resent the women in my life who were blind to my emotional needs because they were so fixated with their own.
Had I felt this resentment only for Nanny Rosemary and my grandmother, I could have lived a normal, stable life, but my antagonism extended to the woman I loved: my mother. Psychiatrists would undoubtedly claim that this set up a personal conflict deep in my psyche and that I unconsciously transferred the anger I felt toward my mother to other people. I suppose they would be right. What else would explain the horrible events that later happened?
But I don't mean to get ahead of myself.
As I said before, I began attending the prestigious Woodington Day School. Not only had my mother gone there when she was a child, but the list of former attendees includes a host of prominent doctors and lawyers, three congressmen, two bestselling authors, a well-known talk show host and even a vice president. The teachers and administrators included some of the best educators in the country, if not the world.
And then there was Edna Nugent, the school dietician, or as the students referred to her, Edie the lunch lady. Although there were a number of people on staff to help her prepare and cook the students' lunches, Edie was the one who planned the menus, oversaw all work in the cafeteria and was ultimately responsible for seeing to it that those in her care were receiving nutritious meals.
Edie had been at Woodington for more than forty years, taking a position there right out of college. In all that time, she touched the lives of the thousands of children she had fed. She knew which students wanted barbecue sauce with their chicken and which ones wanted honey mustard, who liked white milk with their lunch and who liked chocolate, who hated broccoli and who detested spinach.
The pleasantly plump (to use a euphemistic term), bespectacled old woman reminded everyone of Mrs. Santa Claus not only in appearance but also in personality. Keeping within the boundaries of good nutrition, she always managed to come up with creative recipes to please even the most discriminating sweet tooth.
"There's nothing wrong with young ones getting a treat now and again," she would often say as she added a chocolate cake or cinnamon cookies to the scheduled menu.
Understandably, Edna Nugent was popular with the students at Woodington and not just because she catered to their young palettes. The old woman, who always wore her salt-and-pepper hair tucked under a black hairnet, was a genuinely nice person who no doubt went to the same kindergarten as Robert Fulghum.
I was the only exception to the rule. For some reason I couldn't quite understand at the time I took an immediate dislike to the lunch lady. It was certainly nothing she had done, for she was always nice to me. Perhaps that was why I disliked her. If a mere lunch lady, a school employee, could be so warm and friendly, why couldn't my nanny or my grandmother?
Still, we often meet people during the course of our lives that we don't like, whether we understand the reason or not. It's simply a matter of human nature. After all, this isn't the I-love-you, you-love-me fantasy world of Barney the dinosaur. Reality is much more complicated. Who knows? I might have eventually come to change my mind about Edie, to appreciate her for what she was: a lonely widow whose job was her life; who, not having children of her own, took delight in watching over other people's offspring. Under different circumstances, our common bond of loneliness might have brought us closer together, but hindsight is pointless. The past is what it is and cannot be changed.
* * *
Unfortunately for all those concerned, the annual back-to-school night at the Woodington Day School the year I was attending kindergarten coincided with one of the rare days my mother was in New York. Just think of how surprised I was when she walked through our front door and moments later announced that she was going to attend the event with me.
"Since it doesn't start until seven, we'll go out to dinner first, just the two of us," she announced as she kicked off her shoes and sat down on the sofa. "I doubt school functions are Aunt Ingrid's sort of thing."
That was fine with me! I didn't want my grandmother there. I wanted my mother all to myself.
As usual, the French restaurant my mother chose was one of the most exclusive in the city. It was not a kid-friendly place where the waitresses handed out crayons to entertain the young customers. There was no children's menu offering hamburgers, hot dogs, grilled cheese sandwiches and chicken fingers. My mother ordered for me: a meal I couldn't pronounce and one that tasted even worse than it sounded. But I ate every morsel of it because I was with my mother, and I was delighted to be in her company.
"This place hasn't changed much since I went here," she declared when we walked through the main entrance of the Woodington Day School. "Although what they say is true: things in our childhood are not nearly as large as we remember them."
It seemed to take forever for the two of us to travel from the front doors to my classroom because every adult in the building recognized my mother. Some knew her personally while others had only seen her on television. Either way, they all felt compelled to say a few words to her in passing.
"Danielle Piedmont!" my teacher exclaimed when we finally arrived at Room 107. "I'm so happy to meet you."
For the next twenty minutes—more than twice as long as she spent with the other students' parents—my teacher discussed my educational progress with my mother and showed her samples of my work.
"See how legibly he writes his name," the teacher noted. "And how neatly he colors. He has no difficulty staying within the lines."
"And what about his conduct?" my mother asked.
"He's an exceptionally well-behaved child. Very polite. Respectful. Perfect manners."
"And how does he get along with the other students?"
Here the smile on my teacher's face froze for a moment, and her complexion became a little paler.
"He's shy, but I'm sure he'll get over it."
She used no glowing adjectives to answer that one! It wasn't that I had problems with my fellow students; I just didn't consider any of them my friends. Despite all attempts to get me to socialize with my peers, I kept my distance. I didn't want to hear Dylan talk about vacationing in Disney World with his father and stepmother, Caitlin brag about taking dance classes with her two mothers or Edward boast that his father was going to take him to the World Series.
Finally, the parent-teacher interview came to an end.
"Thank you for coming tonight," Miss Bigelow said, shaking my mother's hand. "There are refreshments being served in the school lunchroom."
"I don't want anything to eat," I quickly told my mother as we exited my classroom. "I had a lot to eat at dinner."
"I could use a cup of coffee," she replied.
One of the drawbacks to my mother's travelling the world was that she lived in a constant state of jetlag. In between her naps—she never got full nights of sleep—she lived on caffeinated beverages like coffee, tea and Diet Coke.
"I don't believe it!" my mother exclaimed, her face lighting up like a Christmas tree. "Edie! I didn't know you were still working here."
"Danielle Piedmont! Let me look at you," the lunch lady cried. "Aren't you a sight for sore eyes!"
My mother threw her arms around Edna Nugent and hugged her tightly—hairnet and all! She seemed genuinely delighted that Edie remembered her.
"Are you kidding? I watch you on TV all the time. It's more amazing that you haven't forgotten me!"
"Never! I was such a picky eater at home but never at school. You knew just what I liked."
"Your favorite meal was spaghetti with one meatball and extra sauce. Then you took your Italian bread, with three pats of butter, and dipped it into the sauce."
"You're amazing! And do you remember what I always liked for dessert?"
"How could I forget! Strawberry shortcake."
While my mother and Edie were taking a trip down memory lane, I was feeling left out. My dislike of the lunch lady grew exponentially. This was to have been my night to be with my mother, my opportunity to be the center of her world, yet here was this creature with disposable polyethylene gloves, a blue apron and a black hairnet usurping my attention.
My mother stifled a yawn and immediately apologized.
"I'm sorry. I'm still on Paris time. Do you have any strong coffee?"
"Wait right here," Edie said.
When the lunch lady returned a few moments later she was carrying a large cup of coffee and a slice of strawberry shortcake.
* * *
Early the following morning my mother woke early, kissed me goodbye, hurried out of the high-rise apartment, took a taxi to Kennedy Airport and boarded a plane for some foreign country I had never heard of to cover a story I knew nothing about. Not only was I an insignificant part of her personal life, but I was ignorant of her professional life, as well. With my beloved parent gone, I retreated to my bedroom, a playland filled with every conceivable form of entertainment geared toward a child my age. I would have gladly given them all up to have my mother home with me every day, to be able to eat breakfast and dinner with her on a regular basis, to have her read stories to me at bedtime.
But no, I had an unsmiling nanny who dutifully told me when to eat, when to dress, when to bathe, when to do my homework and when to go to sleep. Oh, and I mustn't forget my grandmother, also known as Aunt Ingrid, who behaved more like an absentee landlady than a close relative. However, their aloofness had ceased to bother me; I was at the point where I was as indifferent to them as they had been to me.
Other than my mother—who I could not bring myself to find fault with—the only person I felt anything for Edie. While I had disliked the lunch lady before back-to-school night, afterward I absolutely loathed her. How dare she steal my mother's attention from me even for a brief period of time!
Despite my young age, I was familiar with the concept of a person loving another from afar. To that person the emotion remains buried in the heart; it is never spoken of or acted upon. I imagine hatred is much the same. I could hate Edie from afar, and no one would be any the wiser.
Unfortunately, the lunch lady decided to take an interest in the quiet, friendless little boy at school. She would smile at me whenever I went into the lunchroom and then try to discover my taste in foods. Was I partial to chocolate pudding or tapioca? Did I like butter or cream cheese on my bagel? Did I like my meat well done, rare or somewhere in between? Even more irritating was that she would ask me about my mother. I considered this particularly insulting since she obviously knew more about Danielle Piedmont than I did. I wasn't even aware that my mother liked spaghetti and strawberry shortcake.
Despite my lack of friends, my dismal home life and the unwanted attentions of the school dietician, I managed to make it through kindergarten.
After a boring summer, spent at an exclusive boys summer camp in northwestern New Jersey, I was actually glad to get back to Manhattan and resume my education at Woodington.
Entering the first grade, I had a new teacher and a new classroom. Also, some of my classmates were different. One thing that hadn't changed, however, was the lunch lady. As always, Edna Nugent reigned supreme as the school nutritionist. Still pleasantly plump, she continued to wear her salt-and-pepper hair tucked in a black hairnet, her signature blue apron and her sanitary polyethylene gloves.
"How was summer camp, young man?" she asked, smiling from ear to ear, during my first lunch of the new school year.
"How did you know I went to camp?" I asked, stunned by her knowledge of my personal life.
"Your mother told me."
"You saw my mother?"
"No, but since last September, we've been staying in touch via email."
"Why? Does she want to make sure I'm eating right?"
"There's no need for her to worry about that," Edie said with Mrs. Claus-like laughter. "She trusts that I won't serve you any junk food."
"What do the two of you talk about then?" I persisted.
"All sorts of things: the teachers and students she knew when she attended school here, the fascinating places she visits, the famous and important people she interviews. She even goes on at great length about Barton Toliver."
"Who's he?"
"Didn't she tell you about him?"
"No."
"I'm sure she will when she comes home next month."
Suddenly I lost my appetite. Leaving my meal, plastic tray and all, on the lunch line counter, I ran out of the lunchroom.
So many questions ran through my head. Who was this mysterious Barton Toliver? Why hadn't my mother told me she was coming home next month? Why was she confiding in Edie and not her own son? How could she betray me like that? No, I quickly convinced myself, it wasn't her fault. She wasn't the one who betrayed me. It was all the work of the insidious lunch lady.
For the next month I managed to avoid the creature with the black hairnet, blue apron and polyethylene gloves as much as possible.
* * *
"Hello, darling!" my mother exclaimed as she swept through our front door one month later—just as Edie had predicted.
Normally, I would have been overjoyed at her visit, but this time my eyes went past her to the man who accompanied her.
"There's someone I want you to meet," my mother announced, encircling the man's waist with her arm. "This is Barton Toliver. He's your new stepfather."
While Nanny Rosemary and Aunt Ingrid stepped forward and congratulated my mother on her marriage, I stood, unable to move, staring in horror at the happy couple.
"Hello, son," Barton said to me in his crisp British accent. "I have a little boy named Alfie who is just about your age. I think the two of you are going to get along famously."
"Won't it be wonderful having a brother!" my mother exclaimed.
NO! a panicked voice screamed in my mind.
"Barton and I are going to get another apartment, a larger one, and we're all going to live together."
"Are you going to quit your job?" I asked eagerly.
"No, but you'll still have Nanny Rosemary to look after you and your brother when your stepfather and I are away working."
And so I continued to lose my mother, piece by precious piece. Her job got the lion's share of her time, but others nibbled away at what was left: Barton, his son Alfie and—worst of all—Edie the lunch lady!
* * *
Christmas. The word always brought a smile to my face, for it was the one time of the year I could count on seeing my mother. This year Christmas was to be different. My stepfather and his son—I refused to call him my brother—would arrive from London on December 23.
Nanny Rosemary and I, along with a recently acquired full-time housekeeper, were waiting at the new apartment to greet them. The two women had decorated the place for the holiday including a seven-foot Douglas fir in the living room. There were dozens of wrapped presents beneath the tree, half of which bore my name on the tags. I wonder who actually took the time to buy them for me. I no longer believed in Santa Claus, and I knew my mother didn't have the time or the inclination to go Christmas shopping.
It wasn't until well past ten at night that my mother arrived with Barton and Alfie in tow. After leaving the airport, the three of them had gone out to dinner. No one thought to bring me along.
It was but the first disappointment in an excruciating four days. Christmas will never be the same again, I fear. My mother, wanting to make Alfie feel at home, fawned over him. Among other gestures of affection, she hugged him, tousled his hair and kissed his cheek. For the first time in my life, I was happy to see her go off to her next assignment.
At the beginning of January, with the holidays behind us, Alfie and I were driven by a chauffeured limousine to the Woodington Day School. To no surprise, everyone there made a fuss over my mother's cute little stepson with the adorable English accent. Edie was no exception.
"Welcome to America, Master Toliver," the lunch lady said, giving him a special treat on his first day. "I've made you fresh scones with clotted cream and strawberry jam. Your mother told me how much you like them."
Edie's words sent a shockwave through my young body. His mother! I couldn't hold my tongue.
"She's not his mother. She's my mother, you stupid old cow!"
In one moment of weakness, one carless slip of the tongue, my secret was out. The world would soon know the terrible truth: I was a jealous, angry little boy who resented my stepbrother.
That evening I received a phone call from my mother.
"I'm concerned about how you're getting along with your brother," she said.
"Why?"
"Edie said you were quite upset when she referred to me as Alfie's mother."
"But you're not his mother," I protested.
"I am now. And I want you to promise me you'll try to get along with him."
I said nothing.
"Well?" she pressed.
"I promise," I said, finally giving in.
"Good. Now I don't want to get any more emails from Edie about your behavior. Do you understand?"
I knew from her tone that my mother meant business. This was no idle request.
"Yes, Mom. There'll be no more emails from Edie. I promise."
I meant business as well.
* * *
On Wednesdays Alfie stayed after school for piano lessons from the music instructor. Usually, our driver picked me up from school, brought me home and then later returned to Woodington to pick up Alfie. This time I made up a convincing lie to give to him and Nanny Rosemary, explaining why I had to remain in school, too.
"I'm having a little trouble with math," I told them. "My teacher is going to give me some extra help."
I had even gone so far as to deliberately get a poor grade on my most recent math test so that my teacher was willing to accommodate me. I wanted to be absolutely sure that if any questions were asked, I had a legitimate reason for being on school property.
As I took my usual seat in the classroom, I looked at the clock, knowing I had to keep close track of the time. Alfie's piano lessons lasted exactly one hour. For forty minutes I had to endure a lecture on locating numbers on a number line.
"The further the distance from zero on a number line," my teacher droned on. "the greater the value of the number."
I glanced at the clock. My time was running out. I had to act quickly.
"May I go to the boys' room?" I asked.
"Yes, of course."
Once in the hallway, I hurried unseen to the lunchroom. Luck was on my side! Edie was alone in her office doing paperwork.
"Edie," I called from the doorway.
Her head popped up.
"Hello. What can I do for you, young man?"
"I wanted to apologize for what I said to you when we came back from Christmas vacation."
"Good heavens! That was weeks ago."
"I know, but I feel bad about calling you an old cow."
A warm smile brightened the lunch lady's face.
"I dare say I've been called worse. Thank you. I accept your apology."
I remained in the doorway.
"Was there anything else?"
"I ... I like ice cream. You're always asking me what I like to eat. I like chocolate ice cream."
Edie beamed with happiness.
"Would you like me to get you a dish of it right now?"
I nodded my head, and smiled—not at the prospect of getting ice cream but because my plan was working just as I had imagined it.
"I have to get some in the freezer," she informed me.
As she passed through the large kitchen and into the supply room, I followed silently behind her. She pulled on the heavy freezer door and walked inside.
Now! I thought.
I didn't hesitate. I shoved with all my strength, and even though I was only a first grader, I had little difficulty knocking the old woman off her feet.
"What ...?"
One word was all she was able to ask, for I grabbed her head with both my hands, lifted it slightly and then slammed it on the floor.
Since Edie was not moving, I assumed she was dead; but even if she was merely unconscious, the dangerously low temperature would finish her off. Leaving the lunch lady lying on the floor, her blood seeping through the black hairnet, I walked out of the freezer and shut the heavy door behind me. Then I hurried back to my teacher and resumed my lesson on the relative value of numbers on a number line.
* * *
Nanny Rosemary received a phone call early the next morning. Classes at the Woodington Day School were being cancelled that day out of respect for a much loved member of the staff, a woman who had served as the school nutritionist for more than forty years.
"What a shame!" Alfie said when he learned the news at breakfast. "She was such a nice woman."
"How did he die?" I couldn't help asking.
"It was a terrible accident," our nanny replied. "She fell and hit her head in the school freezer."
The following week, Edna Nugent was replaced with a newer and more efficient model, one who didn't know the students' tastes and frankly didn't care. She was hired to provide a nutritious lunch each day. If students didn't like it or didn't want to eat it, it was no concern of hers. It was just a job.
Unlike my peers, I found the new lunch lady a vast improvement over the old one. At least this one didn't email my mother.
For several weeks following Edie's death, I half-expected a visit from the police, but it never came.
I did it! I realized, when I was not questioned in connection with her demise. I actually got away with murder!
Not quite. Oh, there was never any suspicion of foul play. Everyone believed the old woman's death was purely accidental.
But she knew! She had seen me in the freezer. Moments after she fell, while she was lying on the ground, she looked up at me in surprise before I bashed her brains in. Yes, Edie knew what I had done, and she was not going to let me get away with it.
* * *
First grade came to an end, and Alfie and I were sent to the same exclusive boys summer camp in northwestern New Jersey that I had attended the previous year. As he had done at Woodington, Alfie immediately made friends with his peers. Once again, I was the outsider.
"We're going swimming," Alfie told me one unpleasantly warm day in July. "Want to come?"
"Nah," I replied. "I was going to take a walk."
"Okay. See you later."
After Alfie went off toward the lake with his friends, I put on a pair of jeans and socks—in case of ticks—and headed for the woods. I plugged the earbuds into my iPod and lost myself in music.
According to camp rules, everyone was to follow the buddy system. No one was to go hiking alone. Such rules were not for me, however. I was, after all, a murderer. Why would I have to follow a silly summer camp rule?
Alone with my thoughts and music, I wandered deeper into the woods, no longer keeping to the trail—oops! another broken rule. When I pushed aside a low hanging branch of a pine tree, I found myself stepping into a large spider web.
I grimaced with disgust, eager to get as far away from the web as possible. However, when I tried to step back, the low-hanging branch refused to move. I pushed, but found I was trapped—not only by the branch but also by the thick, white web. The harder I tried to extricate myself from the spider's lair, the more entangled I became.
"Help!" I shouted, but no one heard me.
I tried to fight down the panic that was rising within me, but when the white spider web turned into a black hairnet, I became hysterical.
"Help me! Please!"
I kicked; I writhed; I screamed—all to no avail. The web-like hairnet grew thicker and entrapped my feet, legs, torso, arms and hands. Only my head was free.
"Is anybody there?"
"Yes."
I knew that voice, although I believed I would never hear it again. With the hairnet slowly encircling my head, I had great difficulty moving my neck. When I was finally able to turn in the direction of the voice, I saw a large spider with salt-and-pepper hair covering its plump body. Bizarrely, it appeared to be wearing a blue apron, and at the end of its eight legs were four tiny pairs of polyethylene gloves.
"I'm here, young man."
Now, as I feel the web-like black hairnet growing tighter around my body and squeezing the final breath out of my lungs, my one regret is that the last face I'll see before dying is Edie the lunch lady's and not my mother's.
Is it a suprise to anyone that Salem took an immediate liking to his obedience school lunch lady?
