I have no one to blame but myself for the three extra hours it took to navigate winding roads coated in ice with the fumes of my frustration sputtering out of the exhaust. Marcela warned me not to make the six-hour expedition—that’s without the scenic slowdowns and my curses wrapped in prayer—by myself. We drove my car up after New Year’s, and in the spirit ofI got it, I flew back solo, rented a moving truck, and was on my way.
Tall pines bordering a long stretch of two-lane roads finally gave way to the Rust Belt city that’s home for the foreseeable future. It’s much colder than the six months I spent in Panama after graduation.
The decision to trade Baltimore for Buffalo wasn’t rooted in logic or theory. I did some preliminary research, but the truth is, I wanted a change after earning my PhD.
I’m starting a new chapter, and it comes with wings and a mafia of football fanatics who hurl themselves into tables in subzero temps.
Marcela and her constituents can take turns rolling the dice on whether or not their next stunt will land them in the ER with internal bleeding and unnecessary co-pays.
The tailgate leader in question sifts through my collection of dish towels. She’s in a deep squat, like her knees won’t crackle from the wear and tear of tossing all that booty we inherited in the club. Her slim-thick frame, E-cup breasts, and five-eleven height are compliments of our mother, who’s living her best life in Panama City.
“Is there something you want to tell me?” She lifts a “When in doubt, pull it out” towel. It was a gag gift from a white elephant party years ago. There’s an oven in the center, not a penis.
I shrug. “It adds personality to the room.”
“For all the entertaining you do, right? Nobody but you and Jesus will see this.”
“If I recall, I’m not the one who keeps the lights in front of her house off so people won’t know she’s home.” You’d think she was dodging a process server the way she video called me in the dark. “At least I can sit in my living room with the blinds open.”
“It was one time!” I dodge a swat to my overalls.
Marcela broke Buffalo’s longstanding legacy of men in power as the first female city councilmember. She still goes toe-to-toe with fragile egos, but she’s smashing the patriarchy one pair of stilettos at a time.
If she’s anything like how she was growing up, her colleagues will learn not to question her authority. She got it from our parents before they split when I was eight. Now she bosses hercolleagues around in a city with potholes deep enough to touch the earth’s crust.
Cussing out the last Jefferson District councilmember—in English and Spanish—is how she won her seat. Her complaints about city budget allocations and a lack of community investments on the East Side fueled a growing resistance to the status quo. Her seventeen years of living here after graduating from Buffalo College had her fed up, and she left the corporate world for public service.
It’s a third of her old pay and longer hours, but she loves it.
Fresh Marley twists sway across her backless sweater as she disappears into the kitchen. The space is a small swatch of natural oak cabinets and banana-colored walls, but it’s mine.
“Have you considered my offer?”
“For you to boss me around more than you already do between nine and five? No thanks,” I say.
A cork pops. “Don’t forget the occasional evening and weekend for community events,” she adds. “It’s something to hold you over until you decide what to do.”
Jobless with a PhD. That’s me.
Walking across the stage for the last time changed something in me. I was done, yet all I thought about was turning thirty-four and not fully knowing the real me.
School was my safe space for so long, it became my shield. But you can’t live life out of a textbook. It will still pass you by, with or without a curriculum and an advisor.
My graduation dinner was a feast of shock and tension. I waited until after my mother flew up from Panama for my commencement ceremony to tell my family that the youngest Beckford daughter turned down three job offers because she was tired. You could have cut the fruitcake with my father’s glare.
Every offer was in Northern Virginia and dangled a meaty six-figure salary. On paper, they were perfect. In my gut, they didn’t feel right.
I wanted a fresh start, to find the part of myself I put on hold.
“You picked a cute spot.” Marcela’s eyes glide over worn hardwood floors and blank white walls.
The two-bedroom, two-bathroom house I’m renting is a canvas of charming quirks. There’s wainscoting, reclaimed doors, and a backyard space buried beneath accumulated snow. I lived in an apartment on campus that was more of a rest stop, a place to wash and eat. This will be home.
“It is.” I smile and sip red wine from one of the glasses she brought from her house. Mine are carefully wrapped in one of the many boxes lining the living room I plan to unpack.
Marcela spins in a circle to manifest a couch that isn’t here and lands on a blanket of newspapers. She stretches out her legs in distressed jeans. “No regrets?”
“None,” I say.
