Winning Submission / "Pink Slip"

~Recently, I entered a writer’s contest for Memoirs, Ink.  I did not win.  But the winner blew my socks off.  I looooooove when my socks can be blown off, don’t you?   What a thrill.  What exhilaration.

Anyway, Dody Williams won the prize for her essay, “Pink Slip.”  No, I’m not jealous.  Well, perhaps a teensy weensy bit! 

Dody, you deserved the entire trophy for this superb, excellent, surprising piece of brilliance.  And when I find something I like, NO LOVE, I go CRAZY & WILD….. And I want to share it with all of my girlfriends.   

Here is “PINK SLIP” for your reading pleasure:  

Pink Slip by Dody Williams

The first day of kindergarten my very dour teacher, Miss Gardner, (whose complexion was the color of day old oatmeal) made the following proclamation: “The principal, Mr. Matka, wants to meet all of you NEW students personally. He will send a pink slip on the day you are to meet with him in his office. You will walk down the hallway with Miss Duffy, the school secretary, to your meeting. You will be going in al-pha-bet-i-cal order according your last name.”

For some reason all the other kids sitting around me on the kindergarten rug started to murmur in fear “The principal wants to see us? Were we naughty?”

Unlike my worried peers, I was transfixed. Miss Gardner (who looked exactly like the old maid in the deck of cards) had said two magic words: pink slip. After pink slip, I lapsed into a reverie of anticipation. I fervently hoped the pink slip Mr. Matka sent me would be silky. All my plain, boring white slips were cotton. None were adorned with even a single pink satin rose bud positioned in the center of the bodice like one I had seen in Girl’s Department at Marshall Field’s.

Yet, here was the promise of a pink slip from of all unlikely sources, Mr. Matka, the gruff, large, grumpy looking man with the Frankenstein head who had made announcements standing on the stage during the First Day of School Assembly. Like my mom said, you just never knew.

Miss Gardner (whose mouth was wrinkled from too much frowning) had made it clear that the pink slips would come according to the letter that our last name started with. My last name started with L. I looked up to the signs displayed across the top of the blackboard with all the letters doing funny things and scanned them to see where L was. It was kind of in the middle. Not as good as A or B (Jeff Abbott or Lori Bromowitz) but certainly better than W (Vicki Wilson). I glanced sympathetically at Vicki. Poor Vicki.

I kept my anticipation to myself. No one else seemed to act as elated as I felt. It never occurred to me to wonder what the boys would do with their pink slips. Maybe they would give them to their sisters. It just didn’t raise a red flag. Each day I came to school eagerly. Throughout the next few weeks kids would be summoned to the classroom door by gray, wrinkly mouth Miss Gardner. On these days, the lucky pink slip recipient would dutifully hold Miss Duffy’s hand and disappear down the hallway to Mr. Matka’s office. I was always careful to observe them on their return. No sign of the pink slip, but I knew it had to have been put in their satchel or maybe it was sent directly from Marshall Field’s like the packages that came for my mom when she ordered something directly out of the Chicago Tribune. That was it! I imagined the white delivery truck with the distinctive green script writing pulling up to our house and the man in the delivery suit ringing the door bell. I would answer, and the puffy brown paper package, (squishy like a pillow) smelling all papery and fresh would come with my name on the top line: Miss Dody Landgren.

The days of kindergarten seemed to move at a crawl. It was almost Thanksgiving and I had yet to visit the principal’s office. Looking up at the alphabet signs I tried to calculate where the hold up was. Weeks earlier I had taken an inventory of the kids in my class and asked them what letter their last name started with. Lori Finklestien had already been. I scanned the alphabet, F is for Fire. I couldn’t read the word Fire but the top of the F was ablaze and a smiling Fireman was trying to hose it down. F looked like it was halfway between A and L but not every kid in the class had a last name that started with every single alphabet letter. Miss Gardner had explained this to us at the beginning of the year and I got the impression she was disappointed by this; almost like we planned it on purpose to make her mouth wrinkle.

I looked around the class sitting on the carpet square. There was Carolyn Hall, (H is for Ham with a great big fat chef sticking a knife into it,) and then the names skipped all the way to Mark Kohman, (K is for Kite.) I was after Carolyn and Mark. Surely I would have the pink slip by Christmas.

Finally the moment came. Miss Gardner stood at the door and called my name. I looked up at my alphabet sign with reverence. L is for Light, a bright yellow light bulb with black flashy lines shooting enthusiastically. This proved to be prophetic for me. I rose from the kindergarten carpet. I carefully smoothed my dress of smocked black calico sprinkled with red rosebuds. I walked to the door as if I was Miss America walking up the runway. I even smiled up at that old sourpuss Miss Gardner who put a pink piece of paper in my hand with my name written in large letters. When I arrived at Mr. Matka’s office, Miss Duffy indicated that I should sit in the brown leather chair usually reserved for delinquents. Then Miss Duffy said the words that reverberate in my ears to this day:

“When you go into Mr. Matka’s office, be sure to give him your pink slip so he will know your name.” Panic rose in my throat and my ears felt very hot. The pink piece of paper in my hand started to feel damp “But Miss Duffy” I croaked “um, I haven’t gotten my pink slip yet.”

Miss Duffy looked confused. She cocked her head to one side and said “well yes dear, you have it right there in your hand!”

“But this is just a piece of pink paper!” I blurted out. And then, just like L is for Light, the light bulb went off in my head as Miss Duffy said, “It is a hall pass with your name on it.”

A large, painful lump lodged in my throat. My eyes felt bulgy and hot. Somehow I managed to walk into the office. Somehow I was able to sit and answer Mr. Matka’s questions. “How many brothers and sisters do you have? When is your birthday?” Blah, blah, blah. Somehow I managed not to cry, not to mourn the passing of my beautiful pink slip.

Many years later when I was a college student who lived in faded blue jeans embroidered with my boyfriend’s name on the back right pocket, I wandered by the window of a very pricey lingerie store. I was dumbstruck by what I saw. Displayed on a headless plastic torso was my pink slip. It was the exact slip that I had imagined 15 years earlier in kindergarten. I stood before the window dazed. I felt a little shaky as I placed my hand on the door and entered the store which obviously catered to wealthy women owning more than 2 bras (one in the wash, one out) and the ubiquitous three pack of Fruit of the Loom bikinis.

The woman behind the counter looked up at me and her left eyebrow arched quizzically as she scanned my appearance. “Yes? May I help you?” My voice sounded kind of squeaky as I asked, “Could you please tell me how much the pink slip in the window costs?” Scanning my frame with a sniff she responded, “I’m afraid it costs $75.00.”

This was two weeks of my work-study pay. “Can I look at it?”

The woman’s left eyebrow was permanently stuck in the arch of disapproval but she went to the window and removed the slip and carefully laid it out on the counter in front of me. Ever so gently I ran my hand over its length. It was deliciously silky, like you would imagine satin sheets in old 1930’s movies to feel. I took one of the straps in my fingers and I closed my eyes as I rubbed the slippery softness between my thumb and index finger.

“It is silk charmuse,” the woman said.

“I’ll take it,” I said.

After she got over her shock, the woman folded my slip carefully. Laying the slip on tissue, she affixed it with a gold seal of a faux coat of arms and placed it in a sliver thin box. At some point the arch of her left eyebrow softened and I could see that she was touched by my obvious devotion to the slip.

“I’ve been waiting since kindergarten for this.” I said. Relaxing her eyebrow, she nodded her head as if she understood.

________________________

~Dody Williams is a wife, mother and graduate student living in Greensboro, NC. The first class she took in graduate school was titled "Writing for Readers" and it rekindled her love of writing. Pink Slip is just one of many pieces she has written since taking that class. Other stories have appeared in The Rambler Magazine and Read This Magazine. Dody writes Fairy Newsletters as well. You can see them on dodyjane.blogspot.com. Dody hopes to pursue an MFA in creative writing after she finishes her Master's of Arts in Liberal Studies. She invites you to friend her on Facebook, because "writers need to stick together."