By the time I had written Part 3 of 'KICK, KICK......" my intern had actually finished her rotation with me and had officially graduated. It turned out to be an amazing experience for both us, and finally made me realize all the worrying I have done over my stuttering has been a colossal waste of energy. It's time for me to finally put that worry to rest, but not before one more story. This is the story that takes me back to the beginning. How my career all began and what I went through on the most nerve-racking day of my life--going on my first job interview as a new graduate at 30 years old.
It was not only my first job interview in the field of Physical Therapy, it was my first real job interview anywhere. I had worked in my family's second-hand fur store since I was ten years old, and the job interview my grandmother Sally gave me was handing me a list of groceries that I had to bring back from the deli on the corner so she could make tuna fish sandwiches in the back office of the fur store. Luckily, I got the job even though I forgot to bring back the big pickle she asked for. The truth was I was too scared that I would stutter when I asked the man behind the counter to get one out of the big jar.
When our fur store went out of business 18 years later, I knew I would be faced with having to find a new career and then having to be hired by a stranger who would give me a harder interview than Grandma Sally. I couldn't imagine that anyone who wasn't family would actually hire me with my stutter. That's why I chose Physical Therapy in the first place. I thought it wouldn't involve having to do as much talking as say, a trial lawyer, or, a telemarketer, or even worse, a ventriloquist or worse than that, an air traffic controller.
From the first day I started college, I was already dreading all the job interviews I would have to go on after the three years it was going to take to finish. As graduation got closer, my dread grew. I was too embarrassed to tell anyone, including my boyfriend at the time, Pepe, or even Scott--my first ex and best friend who I told everything to--how overwhelmed I felt about even the thought of job-hunting. It made Graduation Day one of the proudest and one of the scariest days of my life.
The school was in Miami, and both Pepe and I had had enough of the vapid beach scene and wanted to move back to New York. That meant I couldn't start job hunting until we were back up North, which I was secretly thrilled about. By the time we found a sublet in Chelsea that allowed our two boxers, Bronski and Mack, three months had passed. I still had a little money left from the fur store days but it was quickly running out. Pepe had left his job as an architect at I.M.Pei when we moved down to Florida, but could only find freelance work when we got back. Within another two months, my money was all gone and he was supporting both of us. It was starting to get obvious to him, along with my family and our friends, that I wasn't trying to find a job as enthusiastically as everyone assumed I would be. I started looking in the 'want ads' section of several newspapers and found plenty of jobs for Physical Therapists but only one for what I was, a Physical Therapist Assistant.
WANTED
PTA WITH GOOD HANDS
CAROL GREENBERG PHYSICAL THERAPY
24 EAST 86 TH STREET
885-6638
It was in the paper for two weeks which meant no one had been hired yet. I was relieved, even though I waited for the third week it was in the paper to call. Well, actually I called and hung up. It was a start. I had to hear what kind of voice would answer. Her name was Robin, and I figured she had to be Carol Greenberg's secretary. She didn't sound rushed or impatient. A good sign.
I knew I had to call soon, before someone else was hired. Without telling Pepe, on the Friday of the third week I went to a phone booth right near a construction site on 10th Avenue where the sound of bulldozers and jackhammers would help drown out my stuttering and force the conversation to be brief. I took a deep breath, put a quarter in the phone and dialed the number that I had already memorized. The background noise worked perfectly. Robin quickly checked Carol Greenberg's calendar and loudly asked if I cold come in that afternoon. I panicked and said loudly back that I couldn't, and asked if there was a time on Monday. We arranged the interview for Monday morning and I thanked her loudly, and apologized for the noise again before we hung up.
I was thrilled that I got through the first phone hurdle, and was very proud of myself even though I cheated a little. The interview, being after the weekend, gave me time to practice exactly what I was going to say. Unfortunately, it also gave me two days to totally stress out. I hardly slept on Sunday night, and was up at 5 A.M. ironing dressy pants and a shirt that I had to borrow from Pepe. I never wore ties, so he had to tie it for me before I left.
Carol Greenberg's office was right around the corner from The Metropolitan Museum in one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the whole city. As I approached the door, a UPS delivery man was leaving the office at the same time and held it open for me, giving me no time to wish myself luck before I stepped inside.
Ironically, the one thing I can't remember is what the interview was actually like. At least half of it is a blur. Looking back, I don't know which I did more of, stuttering or sweating. I do remember how my hands were sweating so much when Carol had me massage and stretch her neck that I didn't even need any massage cream. I felt a droplet of sweat slide off my forehead and watched in horror as it splashed onto her pile of flaming red hair, which luckily, she didn't feel. I kept wiping the sweat from my face, praying she wouldn't open her eyes as she laid face up on a treatment table in one of the four small rooms she had for patients to be treated privately in. She didn't say anything but was sighing pleasurably when I rotated her head and stretched her trapezius in my palms.
"Madeline's on the phone. She says it's important," Robin knocked on the door.
Carol's eyes popped open and she sprang off the table. " Don't let her hang up!" Carol yelled to Robin as she grabbed her earrings and white lab coat. She moved with great comic craziness that made me smile as she struggled to get an earring on with one arm in the coat and the other sleeve still hanging. "You're hired. You better do the same thing to my patients that you just did to me," she warned me with a very serious face as she stuck the other arm in her coat and pointed at the table and then at me. "Except for all the schwitzing. The patients I get around here don't like to be dripped on. If ties make you sweat that much, don't wear one. A lab coat or jacket like mine is fine. OK?"
I nodded, too shocked to speak.
"Carol, Madeline says she's hanging up!" Robin called out from the front desk.
"I'm coming, I'm coming!" Carol yelled back, moving as fast and frantic as Bozo The Clown running from a room on fire.
I soon learned that the Madeline was no other than Madeline Kahn, Carol's best friend. That's how funny and crazy and cool Carol is. She is Jewish, of course, and divorced, of course, and was able to start her own private practice, buy her expensive office space, and support her son from childhood without any financial help from her ex-husband back in the early 70's. This was a time when none of the women she knew had her courage or self-reliance. The mortgage was huge and her office maintenance charges were high so she worked as hard as a yak plowing a potato field. Her entire livelihood depended on her P.T. business, which was also the only source of income she had to take care of her son. By hiring me as her only assistant and her only other employee, besides Robin, she was essentially gambling her entire economic future. My stuttering could have very likely made patients uncomfortable enough to stop coming, and turned her business into a morgue. Carol was putting everything on the Roulette Wheel and letting me spin it for her.
One of our favorite patients, Mrs. B. She was so proud of her hamstring stretch that she insisted we take a picture. I think she used it for her Christmas Card photo that year
Then one day I had to tell Carol I was moving to California. Pepe had broken my heart and I had to leave. Scott was waiting for me and Bronski and Mack in San Fransisco, where he and his boyfriend, Jason, were going to give me and the dogs a place to live until I found another job. Carol and I hugged each other and cried.
"What am I going to do without you, my darling? Who's going to make me laugh?" she sobbed.
"You'll never know how much you've given me. I would never have the confidence to make this move if it wasn't for you. You showed me how good I was. You believed in me from the start."
"I remember the first day you came in for your interview," she shook her head in disbelief and dried her eyes. "It seems so long ago."
I dried my eyes and took hold of her hands. "I've been wanting to ask you something all this time. Why did you ever chance hiring me with my stutter?"
She took a deep breath and looked me straight in the eyes. "Darling, when you walked in here and started with the stuttering, I was sitting there thinking to myself 'You gotta' be kidding. Not in a million years', but then you smiled that smile of yours and made me laugh about who knows what, and suddenly the stutter didn't matter to me. I don't know how you did. You cast a spell on me" she grinned, putting her hand on my cheek. "And when you rolled up your sleeves to give me that neck massage and I saw those big hairy forearms and felt your strong hands, I knew my patients would love you too."
"You gambled on me, Carol. And I'll never forget it. Thank you from the bottom of my heart," I said as I started to cry again.
"All anyone ever has to do is look beyond your stutter and it's no gamble at all," she cupped my hands in her hands and raised them to her lips for one last kiss.
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| Carol and I on the day before I left for San Francisco , May 1995 |
