MADISON: Omg, I’m fine! Just had to block out the night to take an everything-shower. Speaking of, gotta go rinse off the self-tanner!
I lock my phone as the dean calls my name over the microphone. I stand and make my way up the stairs as a sea of strangers watch me cross the stage in my white chef’s coat, shake hands with the dean, then receive the chef’s hat that I don’t deserve but am awarded anyway because I disinfected the counters a few times.
There’re only a few sparse claps in the audience for me from a few of my classmates since I lied and told my family that the Culinary Institute of New York doesn’t do a formal graduation ceremony. If I had told them the truth, they would have flown out and cheered obnoxiously loud for me. Probably with a glitterized poster board displaying the phraseYES CHEFin bold font. But I didn’t want that. It would have been too difficult for me to fake my way through a night of celebration that I hadn’t truly earned.
Yes, I technically graduated, but it doesn’t mean the same thing for me as it does for everyone else who has walked across this stage tonight. In my case, it only means I get to leave this place with a sliver of my dignity still intact.
I exit the auditorium, breaking away from the graduating students who will go prepare their last meal in the school’s kitchens and then present it to their loved ones. It’s tradition—one that I won’t be upholding.
I find a back door and follow it out into an alley that takes me tothe street. When I pass a public trash bin, I take off my undeserved cap and shove it onto the mountain of rotting fast food bags and god knows what else before walking away as quickly as possible.
The more distance I put between me and the building, the more my eyes burn. I can’t cry yet. Iwon’tcry yet. I need to get through a four-minute walk to the station, take two quick trains, and then a five-minute-ish walk back to my old brownstone apartment—andthenI can let the tears fall.
All I want is to remove my contacts from my eyes, sink into some stretchy pants, curl up in a little ball, and sob my way through the night—and tomorrow I’ll figure out what the hell I’m going to do with my life.
Rome, Kentucky, however much I want it to be, is not an option. I can’t bring myself to sleep on my siblings’ couches while I figure out how I’m going to make money. I can’t look any of my wildly successful sisters in the eye as I tell them I have to start over again because all I gained from school is a meaningless diploma and an aversion to industrial kitchens.
Finally, I make it back and get through the door of my small, old Brooklyn brownstone apartment. I drop my purse on the counter, feeling a fresh sob cooking behind my eyes. And that’s when I notice my roommate’s closed door and signature black scrunchie around the knob, indicating she’s got a guy in there, and if I’m around, I should wear headphones all night.
One point for Paper-Thin Walls. Zero for Madison Walker.
Even the loud hum of our leaky window unit usually isn’t enough to drown out the sounds of her sexual escapades.
I wish I could say I was happy for Bryce, but she’s a terrible roommate (which says a lot, coming from me). Works from home as a graphic designer, so she’salwayshere. Never picks up after herself. Listens to her reality TV shows at full volume. Leaves clumps of hair in the shower drain and pasted to the tile walls. But by farthe worst thing about her is that she has a guy over almost every other night. Normally I’m the first person to celebrate a woman’s sexual fulfillment, but after two long years of this, I’m ready to bust into her room and scream,Can you watch HGTV for like one night, please?!I guess this is what I get for taking the freakishly cheap lease in the better part of town.
Bryce owns this apartment (her grandfather paid it off before leaving it to her) and I rent her second bedroom. Apparently, she’s had issues in the past with other renters complaining about her . . . lifestyle. But instead of changing her ways, she lowers the rent a little more each time since that money is just a bonus for her.
Tonight, I only needed a few hours to fall apart in my room without hearing her mating with some guy who grunts like a caveman, but I guess that’s too much to ask. So I retreat to my own space, hoping that—for once—it will feel like home. But when I shut the door behind me, all that greets me is claustrophobia. Opening the window won’t help either. It faces the wall of another faded brick apartment building.
For the millionth time this week, my heart aches to go home. To the place I took for granted. To the green grass and blue sky and fresh air. To my sisters and our Audrey Hepburn movie nights.
I see Sammy, my tortoise, chomping leaves in his plastic enclosure with a hot-pink ventilated lid, and wonder if he’s as claustrophobic as I am. But supposedly, living in his enclosure is what’s best for him right now while I help him heal. The unfortunate irony is that New York is what cracked both of our shells. If neither of us ever stepped foot in this damn city in the first place, we’d both still be whole.
A familiar rhythmic thumping sound beats against my wall, shaking my dresser, where Sammy lives. His enclosure becomes a mobile home as it bumps its way across the surface. I reach it right before it plummets off the edge and catch it like a newborn baby.
I can’t live here any longer.
A breath trembles from between my lips and I know what I have to do. It’s time to call my sister and fess up. The pep talk didn’t work. I still hate it here, I’m not sure I ever want to cook again, and I don’t know what to do with my life now.
There was a time when cellphone calls wouldn’t connect in Rome, Kentucky; but thankfully, service has come a long way in the last two years and you can reach almost every corner of my hometown now.
I plop down onto my bed with Sammy and his plastic house perched on my lap as I dial Emily’s number. It rings and rings, and when it goes to voicemail panic wells in my chest. I’m drowning in here and I need her tether to pull me back to dry land.
With blurry, tear-filled eyes, I try calling her boyfriend, Jack. He’ll answer, and most likely she’s with him anyway, since they spend every waking second together now that they live under the same roof.
It’s going to be okay. Emily will fix me.
The call rings several times, and just when I think there’s no hope, the line connects.
I’m greeted with a deep “Hello?”
But . . . that’s not Jack’s voice.
I form my mouth around the wordhi,but then decide to double-check my phone screen.
Shit—shit, shit, shit!
I called the wrongJname.
