Written in the Sand

By Mary Casella

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 19, 2005
• ISBN: 9781469102153

Mary Casella

Mary Casella is an educator and an award-winning playwright (New Jersey State Council on the Arts). Mary Casella’s latest endeavor is to translate some of her plays to novels. Written in the Sand is a novella that had its original life as her play, A – Is For Andy. This play had a staged reading at the Urban Arts Theater in New York City, sponsored by the now defunct Forum of Italian American Playwrights (Past-President, Mario Fratti). Also, she was chosen for a brief stay to be a visiting playwright at the acclaimed Actors Studio. Recently VSA New Jersey, State Organization on Arts and Disability, produced two of her plays Between First and Third and A is for Andy at the George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Here a scene from Scampolo (her translation from the Italian) had a workshop presentation.

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Copyright © 2005 by Mary Casella.

Cover photo by Mary Casella

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form

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information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright

owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of

the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons,

living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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Contents

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

EPILOGUE

BETWEEN FIRST AND THIRD

To my daughter Ann

and

To all those who have contributed to the well-being of

special needs children.

One ship sails east another west

With the same strong winds that blow.

It’s the set of the sails and not the gales

That determines the way they go.

Unknown

CHAPTER I

Susan Borgese hurried through the underground passages of Teachers College to get to the cafeteria. She needed coffee to activate her tired brain, and ponder why she had just signed her summer away. Teachers College had been her home for the past year while she earned her Masters degree in special education. The year had been exciting, rewarding, and exhausting. Why then had she scrapped her plans to spend the summer with her mother at their cottage in the Jersey Pine Barrens? She wondered.

The perplexed traveler was still pondering when she got to the cafeteria. Susan had to sort out the events of the last two days. At the self serve, she poured herself a cappuccino, paid the cashier, and took her drink to the fireplace in the dining area. It was a cozy spot even without a fire. Luckily, today it was empty, cool, and delightfully quiet. Susan sipped her drink, stared at the empty fireplace, and scanned her brain to come up with some answers.

The saga began with Masters’ course TC 50091. Here, as part of her training, Susan had participated in the educational and behavioral evaluation of Andrew Philip Andretti, heir to the famous Andretti Art Galleries. The Andretti Case proved to be one of the most interesting in which Susan had participated.

Other graduate students had participated in Andrew’s testing to determine the nature and needs of his disability. But Susan was the only one invited to observe the postevaluation meeting with the Special Education Department’s Evaluation Team and Mrs. Felicia Andretti, Andrew’s grandmother and legal guardian. At that meeting, the members of the Team explained in detail the results of their findings and then offered an excellent Individualized Education Program for her grandson. When asked if she had any questions about the testing and the Education Program for Andrew, Mrs Andretti did not respond. It was evident to the Team and Susan that the grandmother did not like what she heard, and hostile to the most important recommendation the Team proposed. The Team strongly recommended that Andrew attend a public or private school in the fall. Again, very valid reasons were given. His educational and emotional growth depended on his interaction with other students in a school environment. Andrew had lived for six of his nine years on Long Beach Island, a barrier island off the New Jersey coast. According to the Team, this had contributed to his lack of educational growth and atypical behavior. The psychologist on the Team was especially forceful about this recommendation.

Without asking any questions or so much as a thank you, Mrs. Andretti got up, dismissed the Team as if it was her Board of Trustees, picked up the folder given to her, and stormed out of the room. She intended to keep Andrew on Long Beach Island. Period. The hours of testing and team meetings to plan for Andrew’s future were for naught. This was not the result the grandmother wanted, and Mrs. Andretti accepted nothing less. That was yesterday.

A few hours ago Susan received a phone call in the Special Education Office from Mrs. Andretti outlining a sweet deal. Susan was offered one thousand dollars a week for ten weeks to tutor Andrew that summer on Long Beach Island. Her first reaction was, Absolutely not—I’m too tired, and I don’t particularly like you, Lady. Instead, Susan told her that she needed some time to think about it. The answer from Dragon Lady was, Call me in two hours. Susan knew that a dozen graduate students would jump at this opportunity. So, she called Mrs. Andretti and accepted the job of tutoring Andrew. Emotions had played a big part in her decision, and, of course, so had the money.

As she finished her cappuccino, there were two things that Susan questioned: Why was she chosen, from the other graduate students, to tutor the grandson? and What were the reasons that the grandmother was granted guardianship? The pre-evaluation documents provided the information that the parents were divorced. The grandmother provided the Team the additional information that the father was at their Venice Gallery, and the mother vacationing in Nice. Oh well, she thought as she got up with a sigh and started to leave for her room in Whittier Hall. The time had come to stop her machinations, and get ready for the next chapter in her life. Her job did not include worrying about the adult members of the Andretti family. Susan soon would learn how wrong she was. She drained the last drop of her cappuccino, threw her empty cup in the trash bin, and headed for her room in Whittier Hall. Time to get the show on the road. She said to no one in particular.

Her room was a sorry sight, thanks to her ex-roommate Cynthia; she ignored the mess and started the tedious job of packing her things. She folded the sweater her mother had knitted for her twenty-sixth birthday last year, and added it to the pile of cloths she had decided to leave Cynthia. It was the most bizarre sweater her mother had knitted to date; it was a strange shade of mustard and, as usual, the sleeves were much too long. Just right for her X. She held it up, changed her mind out of loyalty, and packed it into her already overstuffed suitcase. Luckily, she had forwarded her textbooks and winter cloths to her mother. Thank God, that’s done, she said with relief.

She took one last look about the room and kicked an empty Styrofoam cup under Cynthia’s bed, disgusted at the remains of last night’s farewell party. It was hard to believe that almost thirty people had partied here till three in the morning. She knew that Sweet Cyn, as she was called, would not clean up the mess, so Susan decided she wasn’t going to do it either. I don’t live here anymore! She shouted.

Susan picked up her heavy suitcase, locked the door to the infamous room and went to the elevator at the end of the hall. It arrived without the usual long wait. Everyone had either gone to the commencement exercises at the Columbia University Quadrangle, or had left campus after the last spring semester classes. The empty hall echoed to the clank of the