“Okay,” Etta starts, barely above a whisper. “Mama, what if I was thinking of maybe, uh, ah, well... a less traditional type of college, but still one of the best, I promise?”
“Huh? Take that fork out of your mouth, I can’t understand you.”
“What if I was thinking of, you know, a less traditional college than the ones you’re talking about?”
“I’d say stop thinking.” I knew I was not up for this conversation after a two-champagne Tuesday. Aunt Viv needs to learn to mind her own business. I could rip that wig right off her head. Where is this coming from? Etta has never been a kid to stray from the norm, from the expected. I did too good a job making sure of it. The number of times I’ve tried to get her to skip ballet and come to the movies with me are too many to count. She refuses to miss a day of dance, not wanting to disappoint her master teacher, Jean Georges. Five days a week for the past ten years, Etta has always done exactly what she was supposed to do and that has included not ditching dance class for the movies with her mama.
“Now, Josie, don’t be so quick to judge. Your path was not so much of a straight line.”
“Exactly, Aunt Viv, and I’m going to save Etta from the sheeridiocy she may be genetically predisposed to when it comes to making big life decisions. Learn from your mother’s mistakes, Etta. The less traditional path—I’m here to say, not so glamorous. Unless you define glamorous as standing butt-ass naked in a crowded changing room as two assistants pull the skin around your kneecaps up to your mid-thighs with duct tape so your knees look unnaturally bony like a nine-year-old boy’s.”
“Hear her out, Josie. This is Etta’s life, not yours.”
“Oh, Etta’s life is my life as long as I’m payin’ for it.”
“You shush, Josie Bordelon, and listen to this child. Imagine if you had had half an inkling to call me and tell me what your twenty-one-year-old brain was thinkin’ before you marched into that college office and dropped out of NYU tryin’ to cash in on a modeling career.”
“If I had called and told you my plan you would have ripped me in two like an old rag.”
“You got that right, but I woulda listened to you first before I’d gone and done it. Etta baby, go ahead, you say your piece. Tell your mama what you’re thinkin’. And then let’s get back to dinner. God help you two if my fish goes cold.” There’s no greater offense in Aunt Viv’s world than when people around her dinner table allow her food to go cold.
Etta takes a deep breath and sets a steely stare on me. “MOM.”
“Before you go down this road, remember: I gave you life. And save that white girlMomtalk for your friends. I’m your mama and don’t you forget it.”
“Seriously, Mama?!?!?!” Etta whines, too easily thrown off her game in my humble opinion. The kid needs to toughen up before she flies the nest. She wouldn’t survive a day in New York.
“Alright, alright. Tell me what you’re thinking, I promise to have an open mind.” Under the table I cross my fingers.
“I want to apply to Juilliard.”
“Juilliard? Juilliard, Juilliard? Like in New York City, Juilliard? Like where students dance or sing or strum a guitar and hope they can audition for an understudy role in an off-off-Broadway production that pays literally nothin’?”
“Yes, that’s the one,” Etta confirms, twisting her napkin around her index finger, not meeting my eyes.
“Etta, my fondest memories of you as a child will always be you on stage, your grace, your beauty, and yes, your talent. But, OVER MY DEAD BODY will you be going to a four-year university, if Juilliard is even considered a university, to focus on dance when I have been paying thirteen years of tuition for you to get a first-class education. That is not part of the Bordelon family plan.” I’m feeling ambushed by my family. How long has Aunt Viv known and whose idea was it? And how far down this road have they gone?
“Discounted tuition,” Etta shoots back. Oh no she did not! I grip the edge of the table to hold myself back from yanking Etta out of her chair and tossing her into her room.
“Your dead body,” Aunt Viv considers, passing the collard greens. “That can be arranged. Now eat, you two. Y’all are acting a fool at my dinner table and this conversation ain’t goin’ nowhere good tonight.”
“This conversation ain’t going nowhere ever,” I mumble under my breath.
“I heard you,” Etta says, not looking up from putting vinegar on her greens.
Good, I think to myself.
FIVE
FROM:Randy Chavez
DATE:October 3, 2018
SUBJECT:School Tour
TO:Josephine Bordelon
Dear Ms. Josephine,
