ABSTRACT
A colleague of mine-let’s call her Zoe-recently retired. She had just become a grandmother, and the department decided to celebrate the two events with a party in her honor, to be held late in the afternoon on the last day of term, just after all the grades had been sent to the Registrar. Only minutes before the celebration was to begin, Zoe finished making the last supportive and encouraging comments on her students’ barely literate, hastily manufactured papers. After the first two rounds of drinks and cheddar cheese bits, the rituals of such occasions began: appreciative, flattering speeches and jokes were made; toasts to her future joys of grandmothering were offered; gifts-flowers for her, toys for her grandchild-were proffered. In truth, Zoe was a grim, crotchety, lantern-jawed codger who had never minced words, speaking her mind ever since she began talking at 15 months … and continuing to do so without stop ever since. Although her colleagues knew that she matched W.C. Fields in her animus against children, they cooed and gurgled at the great delights of grandparenting. Instead of accepting all this with the grace and gratitude customary to such occasions, Zoe flew into a rage. She called her colleagues hypocrites for pretending that she had been an affably cooperative companion and for projecting a detestable vision of her future. With some embarrassment,
everyone said their good-byes, wished her well and went off to supervise their children’s Little League games. The story quickly became the focus of much discussion. It entered departmental lore and everyone, even newcomers who had never met Zoe, had their own plausible theory-some called it a narrative-to explain Zoe’s behavior. Some thought that Zoe’s origins-her being the tenth child of a devoutly Catholic Haitian familyfeatured in her reactions. Others thought that although her origins-and her experience of the prejudices commonly directed to Haitian immigrants-were deeply formative, they played virtually no significant part in the events of the party.
