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Los Angeles Times Valley Edition | Glendale News-Press | March 25
Melancholy Priscila
(Desire to take root is evergreen)
BY PATRICK AZADIAN
Last December marked the second Christmas I was without my father; his death was sudden. As the year before, I had no intention of buying an evergreen for my apartment. Suspecting this to be the case, my mom showed up at my doorstep right before Christmas with a perky little tree firmly rooted in soil. I immediately decorated it with a simple string of white lights and a photo of my father. I hastily replanted it in a large and shiny golden pot and placed it at my window.
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Flavia Baioco noticed a petite Christmas tree at a second-story window while on her way to meet her eight-year-old daughter's new teacher at a Glendale public school. She walked under the open window, stopped, looked up at the tree, and got a glimpse of a man's silhouette in the background. She resumed her walk and disappeared from the man's frame of reference.
She was dressed in a gray pinstriped suit complemented with her authentic Blahnik sling-backs and a fake Prada purse; a tiny wooden pendant with a hand painting of baby Jesus and mother Mary decorated her fair chest. She was particularly proud of her $30 purse. Only a handful of fellow moms recognized it was a knockoff; they roguishly extrapolated that her blonde hair was counterfeit, as well.
Flavia was from the southern Brazilian town of Pelotas. Born into an Italian immigrant family, she had been rushed to marry a man couple of decades her senior. After going through a thorny divorce, she managed to escape the heavy hands of her ex-husband. She had moved to Glendale, where her older brother had already settled.
Priscila, her daughter, was the only gem left for Flavia from her marriage. Flavia carried the heavy burden of not shielding her baby girl from recurring turbulence. The frequent displacements, the family arguments, the loss of friends, and the premature detachment from her father, had taken their toll on Pri.
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As Flavia marched across the school's parking lot, her golden locks and wooden pendant bounced up and down in unison with her every step. Her oceanic eyes were resolutely pinned towards the entrance door. It was 8:15am; Mrs. Clemence was awaiting her. She approached the glass entrance, pulled on the brushed silver rectangular handle and threw herself inside by the momentum generated by her short-lived struggle with the heavy door. The ground she walked on had been transformed; the shiny tan linoleum floor replaced the asphalt and provided her a new launching pad to burst forward. Her pace picked up.
She walked straight down the first hallway, turned right at the water fountain and anxiously entered room 104's waiting area. She knocked on the door.
"Come in, please."
The lady behind the desk walked up to Flavia and extended her hand.
"You must be Mrs. Baioco; I know all about beautiful Priscila."
"It's nice to meet you."
"I am Mrs. Clemence. I will be Pri's new teacher."
"You know about my daughter's condition, yes?"
"Yes dear, Mrs. Carling has told me all about sweet Pri."
Flavia felt relieved, she immediately pulled out a tape from her purse, placed it on the old desk, and pushed it forward against the wood grain.
"We have been practicing the upcoming lessons. I wanted Pri to have a head start this time. "
Mrs. Clemence's mind wandered off to some of her students with special needs. There was the little native boy with ADD, the raucous Armenian girl who had missed two years of school while spending time in refugee camps in Germany, the subdued Albanian boy who managed to flee Kosovo on his father's shoulders through the Montenegrin highlands, and of course, Pri, the fragile, olive-skinned Brazilian girl with the melancholy eyes.
Pri had chosen to be a selective mute from the day she set foot on American soil. For two years, she had defiantly refused to utter a single word to anyone. She only spoke to Flavia in private. Every time she had been displaced, she had let herself believe this would be her new home. She believed no more.
During this period, Flavia had been orally recording Pri's homeworks on tape and had been delivering them to Mrs. Carling every Monday morning.
"You know, Mrs. Clemence, Pri had a small breakthrough recently."
For the last month, a school district counselor had been visiting the Baiocos at their home every night. Pri was eventually convinced the friendly lady was a long lost Armenian aunt with relatives in Pelotas. In spite of her muteness, Pri had absorbed plenty from her multiethnic environment. Just before the holidays, Pri had curiously approached her newfound aunt and uttered a word: "Barev" ('Hello' in Armenian).
"Mrs. Baioco, I think of my students as my own children. We'll find a way to overcome Pri's condition."
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My tree did not make it past Armenian Christmas. It never grew roots in the golden pot. It sits on my balcony, brown and brittle.
Copyright 2004 Glendale News Press
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