Staples Employee of the Month and Disappointed Mother Reunite at the Rainforest Cafe

After my daughter, Elise, stopped calling, I started taking Thursday improv classes at the JCC. I wanted to take mahjong, but that’s only on Mondays, when I get 25% off at the laundromat. There’s an old Polish woman who goes then. She lets me borrow her honeysuckle laundry beads. Elise used to hate that smell.

​

There’s another improv class. Better. With a ballerina, a bass player, and a college student. They take smoke breaks and get Italian food after. I tried to switch out of mine—just community-theater dads and laid-off accountants—but it was full.

​

Our instructor, Reggie (both a community-theater dad and a laid-off accountant), assigns us homework. We name characters, situations, and locations, and he picks one as a prompt for the day. Today, he picks Jenny’s: Staples employee-of-the-month and disappointed mother reunite at the Rainforest Cafe.

​

I’m stuck with the Staples Employee. Mateo (community-theater dad) gets Disappointed Mother. Everyone else is cast as the animatronic gorillas, tigers, and lions, or the thunderstorm that happens every 30 minutes (but Reggie tells them to do it “whenever” for “comedic effect”).

​

I go into the scene first: sitting at a wobbly, cheap table. Reggie makes his pretzel-hand gesture, meaning be more in character. Well, what would a Staples employee do differently than a normal person at the Rainforest Cafe? I sigh and pretend to scan an invisible barcode.

​

Reggie snaps his fingers. Mateo enters the scene. He parks his invisible car (probably a Honda Pilot), approaches me, clutching an invisible handbag to his chest, wiping away his invisible tears. The gorillas and tigers and lions laugh, but I think he’s over the top.

​

“Do you have any idea what you’ve put me through?”

​

Blech—still over the top. A mother would never say that. A mother would—

​

Reggie claps once: yes and! My turn to speak. Mateo is waiting. The gorillas and tigers and lions are waiting.

“Yes and. . . I’m sorry.”

​

Mateo puckers his lips, applying an invisible layer of invisible lipstick (probably mauve). “Yes and. . . It’s not enough. Dropping out of college, living with your 37-year-old boyfriend, working at Staples, you never even call!”

​

In the background, the thunderstorm begins: pshhhh pshhh. I’m taking too long because Reggie claps once. Twice: go go go!

​

But a daughter would never do that. A daughter would—

​

​