INTERVIEW  

what girl playing “Mother May I” with boys didn’t have to perfect the plastered smile. all I wanted in those rust tinged hours—begging for an umbrella step Cinderella step giant or baby or backward or sideways step, four steps two steps one step— was to be chosen. forget chosen. allowed, considered worthy, made uninvisible, be on the radar, on the path to arrive at the bottom step of the brick stoop first. tap my shoe. you can say I relinquished my seven-year-old pride. the demure plastered smile was my currency, but even that couldn’t buy permission. beg but don’t look/sound begging. the “mother” in Mother May I passed boy to boy, so they called it Giant Steps. let’s play Giant Steps. the bigger the step the better, got you closer sooner, but my favorite the umbrella step’s complicated footwork. look at me now, on this gray folding chair in a gray room on one side of a manila-file littered desk. knees crossed like we’re taught, and the plastered, eager, not-too-begging smile. my resumé, hardly call it that, in the hands of a woman whose eyes, drawn out the window, are reading the gray sky