“Homage”
by Sarah Bates
“Sheila, she’s dead.”
“You’re kidding!” I knew who the ‘she’ was. I recognized Jill’s husky voice immediately. My co-worker from fifteen years ago wouldn’t have thought to call me for any other reason. Our former employer, The Boss, had died of a heart attack at sixty.
“There’s a memorial at that little church on Bird’s Eye Road in Palos Verdes, next Friday. Come on up, why don’t you?” Her voice brightened. “A lot of our old friends, people we worked with, will be there. Brian’s preparing a eulogy. Maybe you’ll speak, too?”
“Of course I will,” I said.
I didn’t much care for funerals. But this one commemorated the life of a woman who’d shaped mine. During the three hour drive from San Diego to Los Angeles, I rehearsed what I would say all the way.
I got there early. A trait she instilled in us. Be prepared and be on time. It was one of her success tactics, she said it often.
Sunlight streamed through a stain glass window of the church overlooking the Pacific Ocean. It tinted the mourners faces like fractured images in a kaleidoscope. Salt breezes coursed through the open doors lifting the cloying scent of funeral wreaths up into the recesses of the balcony.
Sitting in the front of the chapel seemed like a good idea. She always told us successful people sat in the first row. Another tactic. Another suggestion that over time became part of her teaching intoned like a mantra we couldn’t forget.
We became successful, too. Respected print production managers at advertising agencies from San Diego to San Francisco. Some of her former assistants own their own graphic design businesses, some are principals in printing companies, others are vice presidents in international advertising agencies. I ultimately became a writer.
Jill slid into the pew beside me with a smile of welcome, then a hug and quick kiss on each cheek.
“You look great,” I said, meaning it. Jill was younger than me. She’d never married and spent her money on keeping herself fit and attractive. She owned a graphics company in Hollywood whose clients were movie studios.
“You do too,” she replied. “Writing must be good for you. The stress lines are gone from your face.” She looked at me carefully. “I’m sorry I haven’t called you.” I remembered that we’d once been great friends.
“Me, too,” I said. Why do I let friendships wither away? Maybe because my writer’s existence isn’t interesting to outsiders or because my needs are met. I’ve been married for years to an artist who fills my life.
Former coworkers and old friends from Los Angeles advertising companies crowded into our pew beside us, leaning close to whisper hello. As the murmur of voices swelled to announce arriving mourners behind me, I found myself turning often to look for a familiar face. There were many. Not as many as I thought would be there to honor this woman, but as they filed in, some with faces older than I recalled, I tried hard not to smile and wave. Bittersweet, that this unexpected somber event would gather these people to her side in death, when making the effort to get together while she lived was so complicated. While this woman had launched our careers in advertising print production, many of us forgot her and each other as we grew successful. Still, her stern training, patient nurturing, forgiving nature and zest for work were part of what we became. We’d come to this memorial for what she’d taught us, as much as for the woman herself.
I sat there fidgeting with the printed funeral program. On its two pages a woman’s existence had been defined in small black type. How could a woman whose eccentric influence spanned sixty years and touched the lives of so many people, be distilled into so few words?
I was her first assistant and she was The Boss. She gave me my break, put up with a lot from me. Back then, I was young, single, mini-skirted and cocky. She was older,
single too, and dowdy but supremely confident. She told me once why she had chosen
career over marriage. A simple story. Nothing more than a broken heart. To me it seemed trivial at a time when my boyfriends were plentiful.
Looking back, I know what a life-changing choice it was for her. Careers meant everything for a woman in the 1970s, the era when women's liberation became a reality. At the peak of her career, she managed seven of us hormonally charged females, keeping a tight rein on our outbursts of authority, always training, teaching and taking the brunt of our mistakes. For eight years she took me under her wing, and when I left her side, brashly taking my first job as The Boss, she launched my career with a party and warm recognition.
Two years later, when my new job dwindled to nothing, she welcomed me back. Gratefully returning with more experience, and much wiser, I humbly accepted with maturity those backward steps as career progress.
I stayed with her until the company unexpectedly closed its doors three years later, and like baby birds launched into flight, she pushed us all out of the nest to find careers on our own. Bursting with courage and apprehension, we scattered into the Los Angeles ad community, all of us ready to become The Boss ourselves. Skilled, responsible, good managers, trained by the best.
My path crossed hers over the years, at meetings, conferences, social gatherings and reunions. We chatted a bit, caught up on gossip, then slowly lost touch with each other. A phone call could have made the difference, but our careers were too consuming to keep the friendship vital.
I didn’t forget her, though. Because her influence was reflected in everything I did, the good and the bad; the tenacity and insecurity. My reach for perfection and stubborn fight to be accurate in all things. Stamina to push through long hours and cruel bouts of fatigue. Whatever I had become, she was responsible. And, though I always gave her credit for my training, I don’t know if that credit extended to my successes, too. Those slivers of limelight were too narrow for women then.
When I learned of her death, ten years had passed since we’d spoken and I couldn’t remember thanking her enough. Now it was too late.
I sat motionless while old pal Brian spoke his simple eulogy. Tears filled my eyes as he quietly described her contributions, her achievements. Then it was time for me to step forward and immortalize this woman who had influenced my life so dramatically. But I was unable to move from the pew, my mind crowded with memories, emotion making me vulnerable and fragile. My comments seemed too personal to relate, my thoughts too intimate. My carefully rehearsed words of remembrance slipped away, like ephemeral dust motes disappearing amongst the shafts of light streaming through the church windows. Lost in a gray tangle of thought, I startled as a sobbing family member rose to signal the end of the service.
“I thought you were going to get up there and say something,” Jill said, looking at me curiously. “You always told me how much she meant to you.”
“I couldn’t stand up,” I said. “No matter how I phrased them in my head, none of the words that came to mind were equal to what I felt.” I could feel the tears welling up again. Jill handed me a Kleenex.
“Yeah, I know,” she said, then put her arm around my shoulders and hugged me.
As Jill and I joined the other mourners crowding the walkway outside, the years of neglected friendships slipped away. Smiles of recognition freshened by the memory of this woman we’d lost brightened conversations and made the moment lighter. Yet, when plans for the wake and the easy details of directions and car pooling reached me, my uplifted mood faded like the brightness of a window shuttered against the sun. Suddenly longing for the comfort of my life in San Diego, I jotted down new addresses and phone numbers, promising to keep in touch, and as I started toward the parking lot, vowed to do just that. I waved goodbye across the crowd to Jill who was talking animatedly with a printing salesman I vaguely remembered. She turned her face to smile in my direction then mouthed the words, “I’ll call you.” She never did.
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