Episode 6: Back to the USA
Welcome to MOONDAY CAFE a podcast that’s posted every month on the day of the full moon.
MOONDAY CAFE is devoted to the mind-expanding, mind-bending magical power of story.
After meeting her spirit guides on the mountain of Kuai, Dovey returns to the USA, to California. It is time to reinvent herself. She learns that she is not alone.
Our guide is author, inspired performer, and barefoot cowgirl, Dovey Conlee.
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Episode 6: Back to the USA
Dovey finished the vision quest. The time alone in the rainforest restored her. She felt purified and, in so many ways, much more safe than she had felt for most of her life. It was a neutralizing experience. She felt like she had found her own fulcrum. She found a peaceful balance and now, it was time for her reinvention.
The helicopter transport took her to the airport and from Honolulu, PanAm Airlines took her to San Diego.
The Marine Corp base in San Diego offered a legal division that helped wounded or unhappy wives make easy exits. Not all matrimony with trained assault veterans can survive, so the protocol for dissolution had its own division. Dovey and the attorney assigned to her both agreed that her decision to annul the hasty marriage was the right choice. The process was simple, swift and complete. A waiting time in California was required, but her strength was there. She felt powerful.
She took a cab to a small, mid-century hotel by the water and dropped her bags, then took a long walk on the beach. There were life-changing decisions to make and she needed the time and freedom to evaluate her options.
Inside her clean hotel room, she found the yellow pages phone book that published all the advertisements for businesses in the area. She turned to the section that listed employment agencies and made notes.
The next morning, after a Southern California breakfast of fruit and cereal, she made some calls and landed 3 appointments with 3 agencies. She dressed her best and took a yellow cab to the first agency.
The employment firm was located in Mission Valley, a stunning section of the city just past the Old Town Village that was a mission-style wonderland of restaurants and upscale shopping with astonishing landscape designs and the fascia explosions of bougainvillea that draped arbors and stucco walls.
The cab ride through the area felt like Dovey was in another country and the agency was there on the edge of the valley.
When she entered the offices, the other applicants in the lobby and the receptionist stopped their breath as she entered the door. Her Texana fashion stood out. She never thought much about wearing a black sheath dress with a silver concho belt and matching bracelets, but within a nano-second, she felt the energy of discrimination. She carried a blazer and donned it immediately.
In a few seconds, an attendant handed her a clipboard with forms to be filled out, the receptionist asked for an ID and offered her a cup of coffee, which sounded like good medicine. She moved through the forms, daunted by the query asking for an address and a phone number, clearly something Dovey had neither of at the moment. On those lines she wrote TO BE EXPLAINED.
She could list past employment and previous accomplishments. She could list references back in Texas, but she had no references in California. She boldly listed the Mama San’s international phone number and, again, added a footnote that read TO BE EXPLAINED.
She returned the clipboard with her Texas driver’s license, which caused the receptionist to visibly raise her eyebrows, then stared at Dovey with deliberate intimidation.
She did not take a seat; she took her complimentary coffee and walked to the window of the lobby and drank it proudly as she looked at the unspeakable landscape. Butterflies were working the blooming hedges and she sunlight was playing on the Mexican fountain in the courtyard outside the door.
Preparing for what she felt was an inevitable, and fast dismissal, she reflected on the Hawaiian vision quest and grasped at the thought that Indian and the paint horse were with her, somehow, giving her strength, even if she could not see them in this tangible world. She took her last sip of the coffee and turned as she heard her name called. She returned the mug to the receptionist and was directed through some massive double doors and down a long, long hallway and ushered her into a waiting conference room. THIS SHOULDN’T TAKE LONG, she thought to herself and she was right.
Within a minute, a lovely short German woman with a German accent entered the room and extended her hand. She was holding the clipboard with Dovey’s application.
Over the next hour, which started with a warm and welcoming, even soothing, conversation about the fact that agencies like this OFTEN see women like you in this very situation; our applicants are often displaced from their homes and trying to make a go of a life on their own. The kindness was so unfamiliar to her that she vacillated between not trusting the feeling and wanting to cry like a child. She stayed with her breath.
When the typing test and vocational drills were completed, Dovey was told that she had scored the highest typing speed without error EVER in that agency and it appeared that her childhood ranch life galvanized her abilities to shoot fair and share on the other questions. She was too that she looked like a bit of a rock star in a world of star dust. This agency could tell that she was a different type of applicant.
They had the perfect placement for her, the German woman said. It is a newly formed real estate brokerage partnership, there in the Valley. They were looking for an assistant that could help the two accomplished men move through the final stages of a building remodel. The position would require her to assist with the marketing of their lease space, something Dovey had done in college, in Texas.
Of course, she would have to interview with the two brokers to see if she would be a fit for this new firm and a call had already been placed to see if they had the time that day to receive her.
Within 10 minutes, the answer was yes and within the next 20 minutes, Dovey was in a cab on her way to that office, watching the endless California traffic and hoping for a miracle. If Indian WAS her protector and guide, PLEASE, she thought to herself, PLEASE BE WITH ME.
The mid-rise office building was new. The lobby was occupied by a few financial planning offices that specialized in wealth management. The top floor was occupied by a prestigious law firm and the interview was to take place on the second floor.
The lobby was like a terrarium; California plants and orchids were in their element there and it added a tropical feel that was Polynesian. Beautiful, but it was so intimidating. It was as perfect as a natural setting in Hawaii.
She stepped off the elevator onto the second floor, only to see that it was completely gutted. There were no walls, just support beams. There was no office. There was no one there to greet her. She checked the address again, then heard a man clear his voice behind her.
"Hello, I’m Bill Turner. You must be Dovey. I really like that name.”
She turned to see the former Vietnam helicopter pilot as he extended his hand to greet her. They exchanged niceties and he directed her to walk with him to the far side of the open space where he had a folding table set up with a very nice leather desk chair and a leather client chair. Next to that folding table was another folding table with another man, the partner, seated behind it. It was a snapshot she could never forget. The two men were well dressed in nice California-casual slacks and long sleeved shirts with the sleeves rolled up. They wore expensive shoes and both had million dollar smiles. She took a seat and the interview began.
Two hours after she stepped off the elevator, the men thanked her and asked if they could call her a cab. A car picked her up and she directed it to find the first available pay phone so that she could call the agency. The German woman advised her that she would not send her to another interview that day and that Dovey should return to her hotel room and wait for the news.
It was disconcerting.
In some ways, because of the past, she felt gutted, but took the direction.
When she returned to the hotel, she asked the front desk if there were any messages for her and that answer was no.
She changed clothes, grabbed sunglasses and took to the beach for a walk and a prayer. The sea gulls squawking in their mocking tones.
When she returned to the small hotel, the message light was flashing on her phone in the room by the ocean.
Her heart exploded. Only the agency knew where she was staying. When she received the message from the front desk, she called the agency and was placed on hold. After a few torturous minutes of music, the German woman got on the line.
She said, “Dovey. Please sit down. I want to go over what happened with your interview.”
Dovey sat and held her breath.
The woman paused for a dramatic affect.
“The firm would like for you to start on Monday at the salary we discussed. But, you will need an apartment and you will need a car. Do you think that you can make that happen in a week?”
Dovey could feel tears jump from her eyes and roll down her cheeks as she heard the woman shore her about the glowing interview, about how both partners loved her infectious spirit, about her Texas style and accent and about her skills and her unique presence, so much so that they were willing to pay for the full agency fee. The placement would cost her nothing!
She nodded silently and heard herself saying, “Yes. Yes, absolutely I will make that happen.”
When she placed the receiver down on the phone, she fell on the bed and closed her eyes. In a moment, she could feel the breath of the paint horse, she could smell his fur and she could ‘hear’ Indian, her guide and protector, ‘say to her’ YOU DID WELL. There, in that tiny room, they had manifested again in Dovey’s peripheral vision.
She opened her eyes and looked up at the ceiling, then sprang into action. She raced to the front desk and told the clerk, “I need a small furnished apartment in Mission Valley…..and I need a good, used car. Immediately.”
Dovey was on her OWN way now and she needed to collapse time. This was her new life.
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