After listening to close to a hundred of them, studying the way they sounded and comparing it to the way I read in my head, I realized I might be able to do it too.
It took me a month and a half to save up enough money to rent booth time to make a demo, but it turned out to be one of the best investments of my life.
I was hired a week later as a narrator for my first novel, and because I want to keep my law school life and narration life separate, I’ve been working under the pseudonym Elizabeth Aster—my late grandmother’s name—ever since. It’s how I’m paying for law school and my apartment and, give or take, enough food to keep myself from becoming malnourished.
It’s also my sanity in the middle of an extremely chaotic life.
Because the more involved in everything I became, the more I realized I didn’t want to give up any of it. I want to narrate books and be a lawyer. I want to put in enough hours to know what I need to pass the bar exam, and I still want to have time to read for pleasure.
And one day—one distant, fantastical, almost mythical day—I want to have a family. A guy who can’t get enough of me, a sex life to go along with it, and the support I’ve spent years giving to myself—only, from someone else.
They’re big dreams, all of which require a lot of work and sacrifice, but somehow, I know I’ll make them come true.
I always do.
Starbucks on Fifth and 32nd is jam-packed full of businesspeople and tourists alike as I squeeze my way in the door. The line is long and the baristas are busy, but I’m not here for the coffee anyway.
I’m here for the space and free Wi-Fi, plain and simple.
I weave my way through the crowd to the back of the small store and grab the only empty booth in the place before some guy wearing high-rise socks and sandals can snag it for himself.
He looks at me like he’s expecting an apology, but I’m sorry to say, he won’t get it.
There are few things I’m cutthroat about, but my booth in Starbucks to read between class and recording is absolutely one of them. I will cut a bitch and her baby should she get in the way of reading in the ambiance of a good dark roast, so you can imagine what I’d do to sandals guy if tempted.
Cutthroat? Maybe a little. But you have to have a spine of steel to live in this city.
I slide my bag onto the seat next to me, pull out my Kindle, and flip open the book I’ll be recording today.
It’s a really interesting story about a celebrity turned recluse, a bearded, hot-as-hell man who rescues a woman who gets separated from her tour group in the brush. She’s unconscious when he takes her back to his cabin, dresses her wounds, and nurses her back to health, but when she wakes up, boy oh boy, do things heat up.
She’s just what he needs to rejoin the land of the living, and he’s the reality check she needs to ground her.
They’re a great match, and I’m thrilled to be working with such top-notch material.
I scan through a page, trying to make sure there aren’t any words that are going to trip me up and make a few notes on certain emotions I want to try to hit.
I’m about to flip back to my spot in the book when an alert pops up on my phone.
I grab it from the tabletop and open the messages to see one from my mom. I roll my eyes. She only texts or calls about once a week, but when she does, I always know it’s going to be interesting.
Mom: Dateline tonight is about a girl living on her own in NYC who stumbles into the sex trade business and spends six years of her life living a nightmare in every remote corner of the world.
Connie Rockford, my mother, is a very special breed of loving, doting mother and anxiety-ridden worrywart.
From the moment I left the womb, my mom has been focused on my possible abduction at a paranoia level. When I was a baby, she was always worried I’d be nabbed. When I was a kid, she never let me even go near vans, and as an adult, she’s convinced I’m going to end up the tragic subject of a special edition of the nightly news.
It’s the kind of anxiety even Prozac can’t help.
I shake my head as I type out my reply.
Me: It’s not me.
Mom: I KNOW THAT.
I snort and type out another message quickly.
Me: So…what? You’re just suggesting it could be?
Mom: I just don’t like that you live alone.
It’s something she’s said more than once, many times in person, and I can practically picture the sigh she always makes along with it.
Me: And I didn’t like living with the girl who smelled like chicken fat, so this is how it is.
My last roommate in New York was named Greta, and she had a penchant for meal prep.
But not, like, healthy meal prep. Fried chicken and grits and gravy kind of meal prep.
Needless to say, we didn’t stay roomies for long.
Mom: But you always had fried chicken, Ruby. Can’t you see the silver lining?
Me: I appreciate your concern, Mom, but I promise, I’m fine. I’m safe. I’m not going to be pulled into the sex trade.
I chalk that up as yet another thing you’d think most people would never have to tell their mother.
Mom: Dad could at least get you one of those rape whistles from work.
I laugh. Outright. I can’t help it.
Me: Those are dog whistles, mom. He’s a vet.
Much less fearful about my minute-by-minute safety, Mark Rockford, my dear old dad, has been the voice of reason every time I’ve wanted to do something even remotely risky in my life.
Gymnastics? My dad had to talk my mom into it by making a PowerPoint presentation about how cool it would be to have a daughter in the Olympics. Although, it only took one crotch-land on the balance beam for me to realize I was not destined for Team USA.
And going to the beach for the night after prom with my group of friends? My dad told my mom he was picking me up afterward and taking me on a daddy-daughter date. He spent the night in a hotel alone, all for the cause—bless the man.
The year and a half I took off after college traveling the country? My dad made secret tapes he played while my mom was sleeping, all of him whispering that I’d be fine. To this day, with me living all the way in New York and my parents still in Southern California, I still think he plays them on occasion when she gets really out of hand.
Mom: Well!
Me: Mom, all is well. I’m in a Starbucks with seventy-five other people right now, and then I’m headed to work. Almost zero chance of ending up in the sex trade today.
Mom: There’s always tomorrow, I guess.
I laugh so hard at the glum tone of her message, the woman at the table in front of me pulls off her headphones and glares. I wince slightly, but I don’t apologize. If she’s hoping for total silence in a Starbucks in New York City, she needs to get a life.
Me: Do you actually WANT me to end up in the sex trade? Because that’s how it’s sounding.
Mom: What a terrible thing to say, Ruby!
I roll my eyes, but I don’t bother explaining that it was her texting inflection that suggested it. Instead, I try to put her mind at ease.