“Ursula Owens, I don’t want to hear anything about you gettingtwisted.”
I cringe a bit at Nana’s reprimanding tone. I don’t like to disappoint her either, but she should face the truth at some point. Adults drink alcohol. Including me. It’s crazy how they all still see me as the baby.
“Sorry, Nana, but I haven’t done any of the things that women in their twenties do because of this job. It’s a rite of passage for me to get drunk and party once in a while, and I didn’t do it while I was in college. Not really. I was too worried about keeping my scholarship to party.”
I was an acting major in the fine arts department, and because I had a major role in every theater production at my high school and because my stepmom dutifully pays her tithes; our church awarded their annual “full ride” scholarship to me. The only thing I had to make sure to do was to keep my GPA up.
The look on my family’s face when I was awarded it was not only filled with pride but loaded with pressure. Neither of my sisters have degrees. Monica went to a community college for a year and then quit to work at the post office, and Carla married Dexter young and does medical billing from home. I was expected to go to school, do well, and most of all graduate with a degree. There was no room for failure.
“She’s right,” Monica concedes. “This job has been her whole life.”
“But look at what she has to show for it,” Nana says. “She’s traveled all over the country and even overseas. She has money in the bank. A nice apartment. That’s way more than I even dreamed of having at her age.”
“But …” I use my fingers to make a point of listing the drawbacks of my job. “No friends. No pets. No boyfriend. No auditions.”
“No debt. No moochers. No whiny husbands. No dog hair in your bed,” Carla counters. “But let’s not play the game of whose grass is greener on the other side. Dexter and I are fighting to make ends meet and we are both working. In my opinion, this just doesn’t seem like the right time to make such a risky move.”
“I’ve got quite a bit saved,” I say with a bit of a cocky tone.
“Ooh, someone’s bragging.” Carla takes a light swat at my butt.
“Well it sounds like you’ve made your decision,” Monica interjects. “When are you going to tell him? How are you going to tell him? I imagine it won’t go very well, if you remember that I’ve overheard some of your phone conversations, and you two don’t seem to have a normal boss and employee relationship. You guys, I don’t know, play around a lot. And he seems extremely … dependent on you.”
“I’m going to tell him this week. I just have to tighten up a few things I’m apart of with his foundation before I go.”
“Oh yeah, he’s opening that school for boys in September, right?”
“Yes.”
“Why would you leave before he opens the school? That seems kind of a big deal.”
“There’s never going to be a good time to leave,” I say defensively. “He always has something important coming up. I want to do it now because it just seems like the right time to do it.”
“You mean before you lose your nerve.”
“No, that’s not what I mean at all.” I sigh in exasperation.
“Are you a hundred percent sure about this?” Carla asks with concern.
“Trust me, when I tell him, he’ll be fine. He’s always saying thateveryone is expendableand replaceable.” I mimic Coop’s deep voice. “He’s not going to care as much as you all seem to think he will.”
“Speaking of the awards … that after party was killer. Thanks for the invite, baby sis.”
“You’re welcome.”
Carla sticks out her tongue at us. “Boo, I should have been the plus one.”
“You can’t drink. You can’t dance. What would have been the point of you going?” Monica says dismissively. “You would have been like a wet blanket.”
“You should be on bed rest anyway,” I add. “You shouldn’t be out partying and to be honest—not bowling either.”
“You’re just mad because you’re losing.”
“I’m thinking of the health of my future niece or nephew.”
“Well I couldn’t sit in the house another damn minute. Nana said it would be good for me and the baby to get out and move our bodies. Didn’t you, Nana?”
Carla has already had two difficult pregnancies that resulted in late miscarriages. We’re all being extra cautious about this pregnancy. Some of us are being more cautious than others. In fact, my brother-in-law, Dexter, would probably kill us all if he knew we were out bowling instead of in the house watchingCSIreruns like Carla told him we were.
