The Goodwill Mission

By Pari Forood

In 1982, a young girl joins an elite chorus called the Singing Pines from a high school in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. After performing at a Miami Dolphins football game, the group catches the attention of the CIA, who invite them to appear on the Today Show. The group is soon sent on a State Department-sponsored goodwill mission to Poland, unaware of the ulterior motive behind their tour.

As they perform for captivated audiences, the Singing Pines encounter challenges from Polish authorities, student unions, and hostile regimes. Despite the language barrier and danger, the group realizes their strength and what they can accomplish.

Based on a true story, this novel follows the journey of 16, 17, and 18-year-old American teenagers as they unwittingly become part of a plan to help Poland achieve democracy through the subtle art of influence and music. Narrated by the 17-year-old heroine, Jordan Davis, the story is set in Florida, New York, Washington, D.C., and various cities in Poland. Interspersed throughout the narrative are historical references to real events, giving an accurate picture of the U.S. government and Vatican involvement in the first cracks in the iron curtain.

With themes of bravery, diplomacy, and the power of music, this is a captivating and inspiring story of how a group of young Americans helped to bring down the iron curtain.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Aug 18, 2023
• ISBN: 9798886936018

Pari Forood

Pari Forood was born in San Francisco and attended schools in Florida and New York. After graduating from Vassar, she served as the Press Secretary to Congressman Hamilton Fish, Jr. in Washington, D.C., where she was inspired to write her first book, The Gates of Light. She holds a Master’s in Public Administration and currently serves as the Executive Director of a foundation. Her articles have been published in numerous newspapers and magazines. The Goodwill Mission is inspired by true events from her youth. Website address: pariforood.com

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Dedication

This book is lovingly dedicated to my grandson, Henrik.

Copyright Information ©

Pari Forood 2023

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Ordering Information

Quantity sales: Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address below.

Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data

Forood, Pari

The Goodwill Mission

ISBN 9798886935998 (Paperback)

ISBN 9798886936001 (Hardback)

ISBN 9798886936018 (ePub e-book)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023908674

www.austinmacauley.com/us

First Published 2023

Austin Macauley Publishers LLC

40 Wall Street, 33rd Floor, Suite 3302

New York, NY 10005

USA

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This story is based on actual events.

Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable.

– Paul’s letter to the Philippians

Prologue

August 1982

Poland

We huddle in the lobby of our hotel in Zakopane, Poland, shocked, shivering, and frightened, despite the fact that it is summer and there is no air conditioning.

What are we supposed to do now? asks Robert, the self-appointed leader of the baritones. He looks at our accompanist, Mrs. Palmer, with terror in his eyes.

Mrs. Palmer, in her bathrobe and flip flops, shakes her head and rubs her face in exasperation. I have no idea! They came in the middle of the night, broke into his room, and just took him away! I heard it through the paper-thin walls of my room, and I was too scared to move from my bed!

Can’t we call the State Department or something? I decide to speak up even though I am persona non grata and no one but Kip, my best friend, is speaking to me.

Sarah, who still curls her hair in hot rollers before every performance, hugs a blanket tightly around herself. Yeah, where’s that guy Mike? Isn’t he supposed to be looking out for us? Are we all going to jail for singingOklahoma to a bunch of school kids?

They were student unions, Sarah, and we were singing the pre-communist national anthem now banned by their government. No wonder people flock to our concerts, they want to see if the police will haul us away after we sing! Lewis, who is headed to Harvard in the fall and our one element of color in the group, sinks into a chair and puts his head in his hands.

Don’t panic, they can’t take an entire American high school singing group to jail without causing an international incident or something, Kip states flatly. Where’s Kasia? She’s our Polish guide and interpreter! Did she sleep through all of this?

Mrs. Palmer waves her hands in denial. I think Kasia is at the jail trying to convince them that Mr. Milten is innocent. She told me that she may be arrested herself if she continues to interfere even though she is our state-appointed chaperone. Her room is cleared out too.

Mrs. Palmer looks around the room at the lobby of the youth hostel where we have been staying, the shabby furniture, the worn rugs, and the weary faces of her self-appointed teenage charges.

I should also tell you all that I have some more bad news. Our temporary mother figure looks around the room with compassion.

We are under house arrest and not allowed to leave the hotel, city, or this country until this is cleared up.

Six months earlier…

Part I

United States

Chapter 1

Christmas in South Florida

December 1981

Florida

Merry Christmas in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida is an oxymoron, a study in contrast: towering palm trees and eighty-degree weather do not make you think of Santa Claus or reindeer much less the North Pole or snow. And yet it is celebrated here, and throughout the south, just as casually as St. Nick donning a t-shirt and shorts.

Since I came from the northeast, being in Florida for the holidays always depressed me. How can I feel cheery when I’m surrounded by fake Christmas trees and plastic, silver decorations to beat the heat? Now that I live here full time, it is somehow worse. And yet I get into the spirit of things by singing my heart out for the pure joy of doing something well.

The Singing Pines, elite chorus of the Pine Crest School, holds auditions once a year for one man, our director. He listens to us sing, notices our deportment, knows of our social status, and makes decisions based on all three factors. If you are very popular with a mediocre voice, you may be chosen; if you are the quiet, shy type with a great voice, you still may be in luck; if you are popular and can make yourself sound like Karen Carpenter, you are his doll, his muse, the reason for his ulcer, and you are me.

I’m certainly not anyone’s ideal of a perfect high school student, but I can sing, and I am attractive in that sort of brown hair, brown eyes, medium build sort of way. To get selected for this enviable group, I made myself fit every criteria Mr. Milten was looking for: I smiled politely but not too broadly at my audition; I wore the preppiest clothes I could find in my closet; and I sang my heart out with emotion and personality.

The Singing Pines perform at Miami Dolphins halftime shows, public and private schools up and down the Florida coast, and Disney World. I want to be a part of all of that glamor and not only that, I want to lead it. I’m dying for excitement and drama outside my small private school environment, and I am sure that Singing Pines is my ticket.

My divorced mother relocated us from Westchester County, NY when it became too claustrophobic after someone inaccurately accused her of sleeping with her husband. So, we moved to this place where we had always vacationed and I was stunned to learn that people actually live here year-round. We arrived at summer’s end, just in time for school and I waited and waited for it to get colder. Aside from the few days in January when you have to wear a jacket or raincoat, it never gets below fifty degrees. That may sound refreshing and it is for two weeks in March, but experiencing that monotonous weather feels static and unsurprising, just as wearing the same exquisite jewels everyday will diminish their luster.

In that stark sunshine where things either grow out of control or wither in the heat, we struggle to thrive amidst the commercialism of a tourist town. The kitsch and clutter of beach, surf, and suntan products are everywhere. The lines at the supermarket are epic in the winter and non-existent in July. Every retailer caters to the snowbirds escaping the frozen north and their home state income taxes, making for ghost-like populations wandering through town then disappearing at the first sign of summer. I want to go with them, back to New York or Toronto or Chicago or wherever they are from because, truth be told, I am bored with everything my life has to offer. To combat my feeling of ennui and restlessness, I study hard so that I can get into a good college at least one thousand miles away.

And I sing.

I sing during field hockey practice, I sing running laps around the track, I sing in my head in the swimming pool, I sing in the car, shower, beach, and locker room. I sing with friends in four-part harmony, I sing on the beach at night with the surf and waves as accompaniment, and I sing for Mr. Milten so that he will take me on all of those exotic trips, out of town, into the world and what I am otherwise missing.

December 21, 1981, and we are still reeling as a country from choosing a charismatic actor as our president. The Wells Fargo Bank on Las Olas Boulevard decides to celebrate this phenomenon with a patriotic Christmas and hires the Singing Pines to entertain their customers for a few hours. Not only are there tacky, fake wreaths and roping everywhere, they also have red, white and blue bunting attached to every light fixture, as if Christmas and Independence Day somehow got mixed up and exploded in an unsuspecting bank lobby.

The bank manager advertised the holiday open house with carols, cookies and punch. The invitation brings in the bank’s regulars and the free food brings in every hungry, opportunistic freewheeler off the street. Plus, we are billed as the World Famous Singing Pines so anyone who hasn’t heard of us is compelled to show up by dint of our inflated international status. I usually find that carols and kids at Christmas are enough to ensure a crowd but throw in the rainy day and sugary baked goods and it explains why we can barely move in that packed, humid space.

There are thirty-two of us if no one is sick or studying for an exam, eight in each singing part: soprano, alto, tenor, and baritone. I sing alto because I can read music and prefer the company of the other altos who are fun and daring and smart, unlike the sopranos who just try to please everyone all the time like well-bred golden retrievers.

The travel group consists of sixteen people, four in each part and I always try to get on Milten’s good side to be chosen for it. After Christmas, he is taking us on a Florida tour with a stop at Disney World’s Tomorrowland Café and I want to sing whatever solo he is planning in that intergalactic coveted space. So, I smile and greet people in the bank and pay attention to last minute changes in the program and make our client happy so that they will pay our director the money none of us ever sees, as it goes to cover expenses.

We are not really a chorus in the traditional sense. We dance with each other, with people from the audience, with our delighted clients. We sing at gatherings of women’s groups, retirement homes, retail store openings and schools. We act out numbers from well-loved musicals complete with choreography and mimic the popular groups with yesterday’s Billboard hits. I don’t know how our small private school keeps churning out so many good singers, but we are in demand and booked solid through the holidays.

And now ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce the Singing Pines’ own answer to Karen Carpenter, Miss Jordan Davis.

Mr. Milten always introduces me this way and I think if I don’t pull it off with a good impression of her, people will be disappointed. But sometimes it’s easier to sing like someone else, use their inflections and intonations rather than invent your own, so I try to hear her in my head when singing Merry Christmas Darling just as she would.

I sidle up to the microphone, not really in the holiday spirit and concentrate on my introduction played by Mrs. Palmer, our accompanist, on the piano and the small band of students who fill out our sound. Milten hisses at me to smile and my face bursts into performance mode as I sing with thirty-one voices behind me doing their best imitation of the Carpenters’ back-up singers.

At the end of the song, as with most of the Carpenters’ hits, there are several bars of music with the most intricate, blended harmonies that when sung correctly, make your breathing slow and your shoulders relax. Milten makes us practice them until they are perfect. It is more of a melting of voices than harmonizing. No one part can be distinguished from the other as a cloud of sound envelopes the audience’s heads and echoes in their ears.

There is a silence right after the music stops and before the audience reacts that is a complete evacuation of sound and movement. It is the peace of stillness after such a powerful aural force. When the resonance is as full and multi-dimensional as our singing can be, the silence is, in itself, a beautiful thing, and the people who hear us are thankful not only for our voices and harmonies but also for the echo of what music or the memory evoked by its momentary absence can bring to the soul.

This is what we leave an audience with and why they keep asking us back.

Chapter 2

Rehearsal

February/March 1982

I’ve decided what my new year’s resolution should be. I roll over from my back to my stomach to look Kip in the eyes.

Don’t tell me, it will make me feel guilty that I don’t have one.

I want to be cleverer, I admit.

Clever? Sounds like something Franny Glass would say.

Kip doesn’t look up from the magazine she is reading. We are sitting in her bedroom in the grand house belonging to her mother and plastic surgeon stepfather. It is so close to the beach that you can hear the waves breaking on the shore if the windows are open. Her mother has decorated Kip’s bedroom all in pink and I seem to remember that most of her clothes are that color as well, most with the tags still attached and hanging in her closet untouched. Both of her brothers are older and living on their own in neighboring states. Kip once told me she’s angry with them for abandoning her.

Yes, I want to be just like her, on the train from Vassar to Yale for thebig game"; meeting my date who thinks I’m divine, shedding my fur coat in the quaint New Haven coffee shop, drinking martinis at breakfast." For a girl living in South Florida on borrowed income, mimicking the J.D. Salinger heroine from his novel, Franny and Zooey is a tall order and Kip’s eyebrows rise to meet the challenge.

I’m not sure where to begin decanting this one, she says, always impressing me with her vocabulary. But I’m starting with the obvious – you realize Franny was headed toward a can’t-get-off-the-couch breakdown, right? Most of Salinger’s heroines were either victims of their own brilliance or crippled by the indecipherable flaws of others.

Is that a quote from your AP English essay? I can’t help but tease my best friend who seems smarter than some of our teachers. There is always a book in her hand or backpack and at least six on her bedside table. She told me that she reads a few at a time and compares protagonists. I admire and resent her all at the same time. It feels like a privilege to be her friend and I take comfort in the inexplicable fact that she likes and appreciates me.

I think she finds it amusing that I am perpetually swimming around in a cloud of romanticism and escape. She chides me, indulges my fantasies, and provides a grounding influence. My discontent actually amuses her. But to my restless soul and even more overactive imagination, longing for change powered by excitement to upend my static and safe life makes even literary instability seem desirable.

Karla, or Kip as we call her, is a year older, practical and affable, the perfect big sister to a sibling-less friend. We are similar enough in coloring and athletic figures but Kip has a pug nose that is her trademark. Her whole face explodes into a wide smile whenever someone makes her laugh. We are allies, the coy and crafty altos as Milten calls us, in a sea of prissy sopranos elbowing for his attention.

Three years ago, when I was in eighth grade and Kip was in ninth, we decided to try out for the cheerleading squad. I was still in that awkward stage of braces and glasses and a few extra pounds hanging around my middle. Kip was a dancer from the time she could stand and had graceful poise even when walking down a hallway. When she made the squad and I didn’t, she met with the judges and told them they were making a mistake, that I had ten times more personality than she did and that they had chosen the wrong person for the wrong reasons. The judges didn’t change their minds and Kip lasted two weeks before she quit. ‘Not our kind of people, dear,’ she joked, mimicking a Park Avenue snob.

Thank God we are roommates on this Florida tour, Kip admits. I don’t think I could bear rooming with Cindy or Sarah.

We regard each other with the mutual sympathy we always feel.

Considering they are sugary sweet, unfailingly nice, obnoxiously perfect, I can’t stomach either of them for more than a minute at a time. Plus, both sight read better than anyone in the group and as we both know, I suck at that!

Our other comrade in arms, a Cuban-born, eleventh-grade tenor named Marco,