Church was her solace and it was in church that she met Isaiah Gomez. His quiet demeanor and shabby clothes brought out something soft in her. His job was dying sheets of fabric in an East L.A. plant, leaning over steaming vats, inhaling toxic fumes, trudging home pale and weary in the early-morning hours.
They married and when Irma became pregnant with Little Isaiah she knew night-work would no longer do. Acquiring false papers, she registered with an agency on Larchmont Avenue. Her first boss, a film director living in the Hollywood Hills, terrified her with his rages and his drinking and his cocaine, and she quit after a week. God was good to her the second time, delivering her to the Lattimores.
Midway through the ninth year of Irma’s employment, Dr. Marilyn Lattimore came down with an uncharacteristic cold and was home for two days. Perhaps that’s why she noticed the expression of Irma’s face. For the most part, Irma labored in solitude, humming and singing and setting off echoes in big, vaulted rooms.
It was in the breakfast room that the conversation took place. Dr. Marilyn sat reading the paper and sipping tea and dabbing at her red, drippy nose. Irma was in the adjoining kitchen, had removed the covers of the stove-burners and was scrubbing them single-mindedly.
“Do you believe this, Irma? A week of surgeries and I come down with this arrogant little virus.” Dr. Marilyn’s voice, normally husky, now bordered on masculine.
“Back in medical school, Irma, when I rotated through pediatrics, I caught every virus known to mankind. And later, of course, when I had the children. But it’s been years since I’ve been sick and I find this positively insulting. I’m sure some patient gave it to me. I’d just like to know who so I could thank them personally.”
Dr. Marilyn was a pretty woman, small, with honey-colored hair, who looked much younger than her age. She walked two miles every morning at six A.M., followed that with half an hour on an elliptical machine, lifted free weights, ate sparely except when she was in Paris.
Irma said, “You strong, you get better soon.”
“I certainly hope so… thank you for that bit of optimism, Irma… would you be a dear and get me some of the fig preserve for my toast?”
Irma fetched the jar and brought it over.
“Thank you, dear.”
“Something else, Doctor Em?”
“No, thank you, dear… Are you all right, Irma?”
Irma forced a smile. “Yes.”
“You’re sure?”
“Sure, yes, Doctor Em.”
“Hmm… don’t spare me because of my cold. If there’s something on your mind, get it out.”
Irma started to head back to the kitchen.
“Dear,” Dr. Marilyn called after her, “I know you well, and it’s obvious something’s on your mind. You wore that exact same look until we had your papers taken care of. Then you did it again, worrying about whether or not the amnesty would take effect. Something’s definitely on your mind.”
“I fine, Doctor Em.”
“Turn around and look me in the eye and tell me that.”
Irma complied. Dr. Marilyn stared at her. She had sharp brown eyes and a determined mouth. “Very well.”
Two minutes later, after finishing her toast: “Please, Irma. Stop sulking and get it off your chest. After all, how often do you have anyone to talk to, what with Dr. Ess and me always gone. This is such an isolating job, isn’t it- Is that what’s bothering you?”
“No, no, I love the job, Doctor- ”
“Then what is it?”
“Nada. Nothing.”
“Now you’re being stubborn, young lady.”
“I- Is nothing.”
“Irma.”
“I worry about Isaac.”
Alarm brightened the sharp brown eyes, turned them vulpine, vaguely frightening. “Isaac? Is he all right?”
“Yes, he very good. Very smart.”
Irma broke down in tears.
“He’s smart and you’re crying?” said Dr. Marilyn. “Am I missing something?”
They had tea and fig jam on thin toast and Irma told Dr. Marilyn all of it. How Isaac kept coming home from school crying with frustration and boredom. How he’d finished all of his sixth-grade work in two months, taken it upon himself to “borrow” seventh- and eighth- and even some ninth-grade books and had sped through them as well. Finally, he was caught reading a prealgebra workbook slipped out of a supply room and was sent to the principal’s office for “unauthorized study and irregular behavior.”
Irma visited the school, tried to handle it on her own. The principal had nothing but disdain for Irma’s simple clothes and thick accent; her firm suggestion was that Isaac stop being “precocious” and concentrate on conforming to “class standards.”
When Irma tried to point out that the boy was well ahead of class standards, the principal cut her off and informed her that Isaac was just going to have to be content repeating everything.
“That’s outrageous,” said Dr. Marilyn. “Absolutely outrageous. There, there, dry your eyes… three years ahead? On his own?”
“Two, some three.”
“My eldest, John, was somewhat like that. Not quite as smart as your Isaac seems to be, but school was always tedious for him because he moved too fast. Oh, dear, we had some dustups with him… Now John’s the chief resident in psychiatry at Stanford.” Dr. Marilyn brightened. “Perhaps your Isaac could be a physician. Wouldn’t that be fabulous, Irma?”
Irma nodded, half listening as Dr. Marilyn prattled.
“A child that bright, Irma, there’s no limit… Give me that principal’s number and I’ll have a little chat with her.” She sneezed, coughed, wiped her nose. Laughed. “With this baritone, I’ll sound positively authoritative.”
Irma didn’t speak.
“What’s the number, dear?”
Silence.
“Irma?”
“I don’ wan no trouble, Dr. Em.”
“You’ve already got trouble, Irma. Now we have to find a solution.”
Irma looked down at the floor.
“What?” said Dr. Marilyn, sharply. “Ah. You’re worried about repercussions, about someone taking this out on you and your family. Well, dear, don’t be concerned about that. You’re legal. When we arranged your papers we were extremely careful about buttoning up every detail.”
“I don’ understand,” said Irma.
Dr. Marilyn sighed. “When we hired that attorney- the… abogado- ”
“No that,” said Irma. “I don’ understand where Isaac come from. I not smart, Isaiah not smart, the other two not smart.”
Dr. Marilyn pondered that. Nibbled toast and put it aside. “You’re smart enough, dear.”
“Nah like Isaac. He always fast, Isaac. Walk fast, talk fast. Ocho- eight month he talk, say papa, mama, pan, vaca. The other two, was fourteen, fifteen- ”
“Eight months?” said Dr. Marilyn. “Oh, dear. That’s astonishing, even John didn’t utter a word until a year.” She sat back and thought, leaned over, and took Irma’s hands in hers. “Do you realize what a gift you’ve been given? What someone like Isaac could do?”
Irma shrugged.
Dr. Marilyn stood, coughed, trudged to the kitchen wall-phone. “I’m going to call that fool of a principal. One way or another, we’ll get to the bottom of this mess.”
Dr. Marilyn confronted public school bureaucracy and fared no better than Irma.
“Astonishing,” she exclaimed. “These people are mindless cretins.”
She conferred with Dr. Seth and the two of them took it upon themselves to confer with Melvyn Pogue, Ed.D., headmaster of the Burton Academy, where John, Bradley, and Elizabeth Lattimore had earned nearly straight A’s.
The timing was perfect. Burton had come under fire from some of its progressive alumni for being lily-white and elitist, and though plans had been drawn up to increase diversity, no steps had been taken.