A Sisterhood : Four women. Four car-poolers. Four <i> friends</i> . It’s not just the ride that bonds theseteachers. There’s also the caring, the laughs, the secrets.
Usha Sampath is the first arrival, driving her burgundy sunroofed Honda past yawning bus riders. Tailgating her into the Lakewood supermarket parking lot is Arbella Malong in a shiny BMW, followed by Janice Tamehiro in a red Lexus.
The caravan of car-poolers--teachers at Woodlawn Avenue Elementary School in Bell--exchange “good mornings,” hugs and kisses as they gather their briefcases, tote bags filled with graded homework, lunches of leftover dinners and boomboxes that students will enjoy on this particular May Friday.
They huddle in the lot, eager to see Corene Peterson, designated driver of the week, who has been ill with the flu for the last three days. Twenty-two years ago, Peterson started this car pool, which has led to a unique union. Four women of diverse origins--an Indian Hindu, a Filipina Catholic, a Japanese American Methodist and a white Mormon--a rainbow coalition of ride-sharers who have become more than girlfriends.
“In our hearts, we’re sisters,” Sampath says.
Together, they’ve been through life’s ups and downs, the birth of their children, terminal illnesses in their families, the death of a husband. In the confines of their cars, at least a dozen through the years, there are no limits, a free-for-all chat fest without judgment or personal attacks.
Through it all, they are there for each other, not just in the mornings or afternoons.
Call them Wheel Magnolias.
They’ve shared their innermost secrets--secrets not even their mothers, husbands or children know--from problems at home and at school to their thoughts on sex, politics, education, violence, parenting, gardening, football, multiculturalism, red or green salsa, cloth or disposable diapers, Las Vegas, Gingrich, Clinton, Madonna.
Because of their cultural differences, they have learned from each other. Sampath learned about the tooth fairy and the Easter bunny from Peterson. Tamehiro explained to Malong why kids who dressed like Freddy Kreuger knocked at her door on Halloween. In return, Sampath has dressed Peterson in a sari who has baked carrot cake for Malong who has cooked Filipino cuisine for Tamehiro who has invited the entire car pool to help celebrate her father’s 77th birthday, a custom among the Japanese.
At 6:30 a.m., like clockwork, Peterson, who teaches fourth and fifth grades, drives up in her Buick Skylark, smiling and waving. The trunk pops open, doors unlock. Sampath, a fifth-grade teacher, and Malong and Tamehiro, who teach second and third grades, load their gear and take their seats, ceramic coffee mugs in hand. Peterson, known for driving with both feet--one on the gas, the other lightly resting on the brake--hits the road: a 17-mile trek along Interstate 605 that will take 40 minutes.
Never mind the timely haul. There’s plenty to blab about: Will Malong be placed on a different teaching track at the year-round school next year, separating her from the other three for at least four months, a first for the car pool? They’re hopeful that won’t happen.
The ages of their children--whose names for the car-poolers are Auntie Janice, Auntie Usha, Auntie Corene and Auntie Arbella--is brought up by the interviewer.
“Can you believe Steffanie is 15?” asks her mother, Tamehiro, who was born in Torrance and is a Sansei, a third-generation Japanese-American.
Sampath, who was born in Bangalore, India, and studied in Bombay and Delhi, nods. Her son, Ashvin, also 15, grew up with Steffanie. The two attended the same preschool, elementary, middle and high schools. As young children, they hunted for Easter eggs and trick or treated as a duo, and later traveled to Arizona for karate tournaments. “Supreeta is 20,” Sampath says about her daughter, a student at UC Berkeley who will journey throughout India this summer in a dance troupe.
“How old is Jason now?” Sampath asks Peterson, who hails from Eden, Ariz. “Twenty-three and still growing,” she says of her son.
Malong, born on the island of Panay, says her daughter Emy “is also 23. Milo is 18.” Tamehiro looks puzzled. “Arbella,” she says politely, turning toward her friend, “Emy is 22, honey. She’ll be 23 in July.”
“Oh, yes, you’re right,” Malong says. “See, we know each other too well.”
“This is the best ride in town. In a way car-pooling has become our special sanctuary,” Sampath says, laughing, her friends joining in as if sharing an inside joke. But they’re not spilling the beans.
Nothing ever leaves the car.
Fellow teachers often wisecrack to the Car Pool, as they are collectively known, that one day they’ll plant a tape recorder in the car.
“Sometimes when we get to school, we don’t get out of the car,” Tamehiro says. “We park in our spot, and we sit and talk for half an hour before school begins. In some car pools, you just get in and go. Everyone’s silent. Not this one. We never stop talking.
“Teachers will look at us and ask, ‘What do you talk about in there? You’re having too much fun.’ ”
*
How this foursome got together still amazes and amuses the group.
Peterson, 57, is the car pool’s mentor. She is religious, and regarded as wise and having a great sense of humor. She has been teaching at Woodlawn for 35 years. She recollects how her husband, Keldon, suggested one day in 1973 that she and Malong car-pool since at the time both lived in Lakewood.
Malong, who now lives in Cerritos, is 53 and has been a teacher at Woodlawn for 25 years. She is known as the survivor of the group because of an arduous childhood that included taking care of a sick mother and of her own siblings at the age of 10. Later, she immigrated to the United States with $50 in her pocket, a paper sack of belongings and the address of a friend. She managed to get herself through college.
Four years later, the third member joined the car pool. Tamehiro, 43, is admired by the others for her kindness, beauty and attention to every detail of her appearance. She lives in Cypress in Orange County and has been at Woodlawn for 20 years.
Sampath, 45, who lives in La Palma, also in Orange County, is the group’s born leader, noted for being articulate, sophisticated and brainy. All agree: If the car pool were a symphony, she’d be the conductor. Sampath has taught at Woodlawn for 18 years and joined the car pool in 1980. She jokes about how she practically had to fill out an application form with references.
Now the four can’t imagine beginning and ending a day without each other. Each says that just seeing one another in the morning, before a word has been spoken, makes the day better.
The last couple of years, particularly, have tested their bond.
Peterson’s husband had hip surgery last year. A blood clot developed while he was in the hospital. His condition worsened. Sampath recalls how Corene phoned her, worried that Keldon wouldn’t make it to the next day. He did.
A few months later, Sampath’s father, M.K. Krishnaswamy, 70, had triple heart-bypass surgery. The car-poolers were at the hospital, at Sampath’s side, during the operation and later visited the man, affectionately called “Ayya.”
He wrote to the group: “My Usha is indeed very fortunate to have a close circle of friends who over a period of years have become more like a close-knit family, sharing everything.”
Malong says she will always be grateful to the car pool for its support four months ago when her husband, Nap--short for Napoleon--died of a heart attack at 60.
“That was the worst part of my life. Without Usha and Janice right there with me, I know that today I would be in a bad situation,” she says. At the time of Nap’s death, the car-poolers were on vacation from school. And Peterson was in Phoenix handling a family crisis of her own: caring for her 91-year-old mother, who has cancer.
Still, Peterson stayed in touch with Malong and the other car-poolers by phone.
*
But for all the tears the group has shared, the car pool likes to reminisce about the laughs.
It’s the end of the day, and the teachers are en route to the grocery-store parking lot. Peterson is at the wheel, both feet on pedals, when the conversation turns to their foibles.
There was the time Sampath--who admits to having a terrible sense of direction and always getting lost--tried to overtake a city bus. She cut in front of it to get into the school’s parking lot. The driver slammed on the brakes and minutes later, shouted at Sampath about her “big mistake” while the others sneaked into the school. They hid in a hallway until it was over.
In the days when they had home pickup and delivery, Malong opened the front door wearing her pajamas. “Gimme five minutes!” she told the car-poolers congregated on her porch.
Tamehiro recalls the Christmas that Sampath gave the car-poolers potted poinsettia plants. Sampath had cut blooming branches off her front-yard tree and stuck them in the pots filled with soil, not knowing the plants would not take root.
“When we returned to our cars that afternoon, the plants had drooped,” Tamehiro says. “When Usha drove away, we couldn’t help but laugh until we cried.”
Since then, the traditional 12 Days of Christmas have taken on a new character. Each year, with her three friends giving a dozen plants to Sampath, they have become the 12 Days of Poinsettias. And a birthday wouldn’t be a birthday without “the bracelet.”
Several years ago, Peterson bought a bracelet, sight unseen, from the parent of a student. “It was just hideous,” she recalls. As a joke, she gave it to Tamehiro on her birthday. “I don’t like dangly stuff and Janice kind of does. She’s kind of prissy and I’m not,” Peterson says. “We all laughed about it.”
Since then, every year, the car-poolers play “pass the bracelet.” But the trick has been in somehow coming up with a sneaky way of giving the piece of jewelry to the birthday girl of the moment.
Peterson was the last to get it earlier this month. Malong and Tamehiro slipped it into her school mailbox. “I opened the package and there was that bracelet. We all just died.”
The car pool cackles uncontrollably.
They’ve been through it all: Tamehiro’s pregnancy with Steffanie; flat tires; being rear-ended; a two-hour rainstorm and ensuing flood; even a punctured gas tank, which forced the car pool to the side of the freeway and to be delivered to school by the California Highway Patrol.
And, of course, there are those secrets that every teacher at Woodlawn is dying to know about.
“There’s a lot of trust and integrity in here. You know you won’t be betrayed when the doors close,” Sampath says. “Belonging to this car pool is like breathing. We’re friends forever.”
