Wilson - Tunneling to the Center of the Earth

t he key to this job is to always remember that you arent replacing anyones grandmother. You arent trying to be a better grandmother than the first one. For all intents and purposes, you are the grandmother, and always have been. And if you can do this, can provide this level of grandmotherliness with each family, every time, then you can make a good career out of this. Not to say that it isnt weird sometimes. Because it is. More often than not, actually, it is incredibly, undeniably weird.

I never had a family of my own. I didnt get married, couldnt see the use of it. Most of my own family is gone now, and the ones that are still around, I dont see anymore. To most people, I probably look like an old maid, buying for one, and this is perfectly fine with me. I like my privacy; if I go to bed with someone, it isnt a person who has to spend his entire life with me afterward. I like the dimensions of the space I take up, and I am happy. But its not hard to imagine what it would have been like: husband, children, grandchildren, pictures on the mantle, visits at Christmas, a big funeral, and people who would inherit my money. You can be happy with your life and yet still see the point of one lived differently. Thats why it seemed so natural when I saw this ad in the paper: Grandmothers WantedNo Experience Necessary.

I am an employee of Grand Stand-In, a Nuclear Family Supplemental Provider. Its pretty simple. With so many new families popping up, upwardly mobile couples with new children, there is a segment of this demographic, more than you would think, who no longer have any living parents. So many of these new parents feel their children are missing out on a crucial part of their life experience, grandparents. And thats where I come in.

I currently serve as a grandmother to five families in the Southeast. Each role is different, though I specialize in the single, still-active grandmother archetype, usually the paternal grandmother, husband now deceased, quite comfortable but not rich, still pretty, fond of crafts. I am fifty-six years old but I can play younger or older depending on what is needed. The families work out the rest of the details with the company. Old photos are doctored to include my image, a backstory is created, and phone calls and visits are carefully planned. For each project, we call them fams , I am required to memorize a family history that goes back eight generations. Its difficult work, but its fairly lucrative, nearly ten thousand a year, per family; and with Social Security going down the tubes, its nice to have spending money. But that alone cant keep you interested. Its hard to describe the feeling you get from opening your door, the inside of your house untouched by feet other than your own for so long, and finding a little boy or girl who is so excited to see you, has thought of little else for the past few days. You feel like a movie star, all the attention. They run into your arms and shout your name, though not your real name, and you are all that they care about.

I go by Gammy, MeeMaw, Grandma Helen, Mimi, and, weirdly enough, Gammy once again. At the beginning, I had trouble responding when someone said my fam name, but you get used to it.

Tonight, while Im writing birthday, congratulations, and first communion cards for the month, all for different families, I get a call from my family arranger, with offers of new jobs. The first is easy, he says, just a six-week job, a not-dead-yet, one kid.

A not-dead-yet is when a family purchases, in weekly installments, a phone call from a grandparent who has, still unbeknownst to the child, recently died. It allows the parents time to decide what to say to the child, how to break the news to them. Its a hundred dollars a call, no face time, but its morbid and I try to avoid them. Still, I have a fairly easy phone schedule for this upcoming month, and its useful to practice your voice skills, so I take it.

The next one, he says, is a little different than usual. We need somebody with good disconnect skills, so of course I immediately thought of you.

Face time? I ask.

Lots of face time, he says. Were looking at weekly face time.

The more face time, the more preparation required. On the plus side, it makes it easier to establish a bond with the children. It pays a lot more too.

Okay, I tell him. I can handle it. What makes it so different? Do I have a husband?

No, he says, Its not that. Its a switch job.

A switch job means the child already knows the actual grandparent but a switch is needed due to an unforeseen death. It has to be done just right, usually with situations where the family rarely sees the grandparent. A switch job with lots of face time could be a problem. You dont want to make it worse on the child, add insult to injury.

Let me think about it, I tell him.

Well, think about this too, he says, and then he is quiet for three, maybe four, seconds. Shes still alive.

I am the queen of disconnect. Stand-ins must remember that fams are the client. You work for them. And yet you have to love them as if you have known them your entire life. The job requires you to spend large amounts of time not thinking about your fam, and then throwing yourself into the moment as if you havent stopped. Stand-ins must not, under any circumstances, intrude upon the lives of their fams beyond the agreed-upon situations. You cannot surprise them with a call when you are feeling lonely. You cannot arrive at their house because you just happen to be in the area. People who actually are grandparents seem to have the most trouble with this, this belief that family is forever. For stand-ins, family is only for the moment, for a few hours, and if you are good, you do not forget this.

And I am the best. I get the highest approval ratings from my families, lots of monthly report cards that read, I wish she really were my mother or Can we adopt her? , but I dont miss them when they are gone. I love them, but I know what kind of love it is. Disconnecting may seem cold, but it is what is required. And I am, as I have been told many times, so damn good at it.

Later that night, I call the arranger back. Ill take it, I say. I have lots of love to give.

A few days later, at the community center, I tell some of the other stand-ins about the situation. Community centers are good places for stand-ins, free classes on subjects that are necessary to be effective. Every week, I take classes on many of the so-called granny skills that are so prized by clients: cooking, knitting, sewing (which I am particularly bad at), and flower arranging. The more skills you have, the more jobs you get. After a few classes, you can spot the other stand-ins, taking copious notes, and now we have a book club made up only of stand-ins, though we never read and only ever talk about our fams.

So this switch job, whats wrong with the real granny? Martha asks. Martha specializes in multiple-husband, slightly alcoholic grandmothers who come from money. Martha does the opposite of disconnect; she works the families so well that she erases the need for disconnect, which allows her to show up, unannounced, at any of her families houses, usually around dinner, and they will welcome her inside. She has been doing this longer than anyone else I know, and she is very good at what she does.