As far as I knew, Mama still worked the pageant circuit. When I was in high school, Mama had opened a little studio out in the San Fernando Valley, where she taught dance and poise to pageant girls and kids who hoped to become movie stars. Pictures from Gladys's "My Special Photos" album, blown up to the size of movie posters, were hung on a wall in the lobby as proof of Mama's past triumphs. "Our Success Stories!" was painted on the wall above the photos (stenciling it had been my job). There were pictures of Gladys as a toddler with her sashes and tiaras, and framed headshots of Gladys over the years. If you didn't look too closely they all seemed to be different people, since Gladys's age ranged from toddler to teenager, and her hair went from blond to black to bald to pixie. Brochures for the dance school said that "Madame" (aka Mama) was a renowned ballet dancer who had earned a prestigious scholarship to a Chicago conservatory, which was basically true. The brochures also said, "Our students have won many pageants and have worked in various parts of the entertainment industry, such as in TV daytime dramas, and have starred on the stage alongside such luminaries as Broadway star Ana-Lucia Garcia."

Mama would dress in a bubblegum-pink leotard and chiffon skirt, with her hair dyed the color of cinnamon fireball candy and tied up in two tight pigtails. Her bangs were a half-moon that stopped an inch above her eyebrows (which were also fireball red, and shaped like commas). Mama looked as if she'd been seven years old for a long time. Mama's pageant hopefuls, who really were seven years old, wore tiered ball gowns, high heels, chandelier earrings, and bouffant hairdos. They looked like shrunken adults. It was as if everyone had been sampling potions and cakes from Wonderland.

After school and summers it was my job to be at the reception desk while "Madame" was teaching. We didn't get many people in off the street or a whole lot of phone calls, so mostly, Mama kept me busy placing ads, and sending press releases, and typing things, such as her memoirs. And when the studio was closed, it was my job to shine the wall-length mirrors and polish the wooden floors of the studio, sweeping up the broken sequins and glitter that shined like crescent moons and fallen stars.

Then one day I told Mama I had to give notice because I'd started a new job, as an aspiring poet, and aspiring was turning out to be time-consuming.

Mama said if I didn't want to work at her dance studio anymore then so be it, but she'd have to start charging me market rate rent for my room, and I was in for a very rude awakening when I saw how much that would be. She said I'd probably have to get not one job but two, and good luck finding time to "aspire" with all that going on!

Well . . . it so happened that I'd just been reading through the PennySaver to see how our ad looked and also to see if they had any Poets Wanted listings. And while I hadn't found any poetry job prospects (go figure) I had found something in the Out of State housing section that had caught my eye. It said:

FREE* HOME!!! (as-is)
on 1/3 acre CHEAP mtn land
call Ed....

And, well, you more or less know how that turned out.

Anyway, Mama told me I'd be sorry when I discovered that being an aspiring poet didn't pay much, and that furthermore, "aspiring" was not a job description. "Do you know what 'aspiring' means?" Mama said. "It's Latin for 'full of hot air.'" (Mama liked to say lots of things in Latin to me and Dougie and Gladys and especially to her dance students, I guess because she felt it sounded more official.)

Also, Mama said it was a well-known fact that most poets slowly starved to death, and those were the ones who were any good. The rest starved to death more quickly.

I tried to tell her that much to my surprise, I'd been made responsible for a white elephant, and that was that. I tried to explain that there was nothing to be done but feed it, whatever the cost.

I tried to tell her, Dulce et decorum est, pro albus elephantus mori.

But Latin or no Latin, Mama just could not believe that I had a white elephant of my own.

Maybe, because it only showed up when she wasn't around.