This was not good. I had barely even researched that statement before making it. In fact, it was never supposed to make it into the final video. Before I could tell that to my editor, the entire shit show with Nicki had happened, and I’d gotten a bit distracted.
And now, it appeared I was going to have to pay the price.
6
Sarah
“I just want to make sure I have the facts right,” my father said.
Again.
In fact, it was probably his favorite sentence to say. I’d heard it countless times growing up, mostly whenever I made a mistake, and he was attempting to make me see what I’d done wrong before he had to spell it out for me.
I’d heard it a thousand times when I told them that I was dropping out of college since I didn’t want to have to take on loans to pay for the next three years.
And now, I was going to hear it a thousand more times, I could already tell. This absolutely befuddled me, since I figured they would have fallen to their knees and thanked the gods above when I informed them that I wasn’t planning on going to Thailand anymore, and had instead found myself a very well paying job right here in the city.
But unfortunately, nothing was ever able to satisfy my father. He wasn’t a bad guy, of course. He was just vastly different than me. Katy was like his twin in most respects, including the fact that they both shared a strange love for learning that I could never quite wrap my head around.
My dad leaned forward and steepled his hands on the kitchen table, allowing a tiny lock of his salt and pepper hair to fall across his forehead. He scrunched his nose, pushing his glasses up as he did so, and then leveled me with an icy blue gaze that was identical to my own.
Across the table, my mom sat back, biding her time to figure out who’s defense she would need to jump to. My mom was like Switzerland- if Switzerland had jumped into the fray but constantly switched sides.
“You’ve got the facts right, Daddy, I’m sure,” I told him, even though I knew he’d lay them out for us all anyways.
“But I just want to make sure,” he replied. “You lose your job at that big real estate firm, drain your savings to buy a ticket to Thailand, and announce that you will be going there indefinitely, in order to find yourself. Which, I’ll admit, is something that I believe college was for, but I digress. We come to terms with that decision, and now you are informing us that you have reversed it. You will be staying to work as the office assistant to some celebrity real estate agent at a firm that I have never even heard of.”
“Do you know all of the real estate offices that exist within the borders of San Francisco?” I asked, picking at semantics. It was really the only way to communicate with my dad, though. You had to speak his language.
“Fair enough,” he nodded, tilting his head to one side. “I do not. But that doesn’t negate the fact that I don’t see what benefits this job brings to you.”
“Uh, money, for starters,” I replied, not able to keep the annoyance out of my voice.
My parents weren’t rich by any stretch of the imagination, but they’d never been broke, either. They’d gotten married straight out of college, right at the beginning of the tech boom here in the Bay Area. And since my father was an engineer and my mom was in marketing, they both had fantastic jobs straight out of the gate.
Of course, that was before a decent college education cost an arm and a leg, even if a person opted to go to community college for two years, and before the market became absolutely inundated with every Tom, Dick, and Harriet with the same fantastic degrees from the same schools, and the ability to intern for years for free because they lived on their parents’ money.
In short, my own parents had no idea how hard it was to grow up a millennial in the Bay Area.
“Well, money isn’t everything,” my mom chimed in, completely betraying me and siding with my dad when I’d been absolutely convinced that she would be on my side.
Dammit.
“No, it’s not, Maggie, thank you,” my dad nodded in her direction.
“To you, maybe,” I replied. “But for me, right now, it is. I don’t have a husband or kids to take care of. And how am I supposed to afford a house in this market on a minimum wage salary? At least this way, when I do find that special someone, I won’t have to worry about scraping together a down payment from my two thousand dollar paychecks.”
“And besides, her boss is awfully cute,” Katy chimed in, completely unaware that she was being outrageously unhelpful.
I glared at her while giving a well-placed kick to her shin. I felt myself make contact and settled back in my seat, satisfied.
“Ouch!” She screeched, bending down to rub her leg like I’d just chopped the whole thing off.
“Girls,” Mom warned, using the same tone she always did whenever she was just a little too fed up with our antics.
“Look, Sarah, all your mother and I want you to understand is that we don’t think being an assistant or a wife is all you’re meant to do,” my father said, changing the conversation easily.
“And we’re back to this again,” I sighed, rubbing my temples to try and stave off the headache that I already knew was coming. “Look, I love you guys, but I really hate it when you question every single decision I make like I’m some idiot who can’t take care of herself. I know what I’m doing.”
“Al, maybe we should put a pin in this conversation?” My mom asked, swiping a piece of auburn hair out of her face.
“That sounds good,” I told her. “As long as the pin is actually a bomb, and it explodes the moment we tuck away this tiny little tidbit. Because I am so tired of having the same conversation over and over again.”
I hunched over my plate of roasted chicken, picking up the knife and sawing away at the lump of white meat, attempting to take all of my frustrations out on the meal so I didn’t end up accidentally blowing up at my parents again.
“That’s not how the expression works,” Mom pointed out.
I sighed and stood up, knowing that if I sat there any longer, I would start saying things I regretted, thanks to my complete lack of a normal adult filter over my mouth.
“Look, I appreciate you guys trying to help, but I could really do without it tonight,” I said. “I’m going to take a breather on the patio.”
I knew they wouldn’t argue with that. It was one of the first coping strategies I could remember them teaching me. Taking a breather was code for needing space, and it was meant to be respected in my household.
Which was really helpful when I did not want to have a certain conversation.
I folded my napkin next to my plate before I slipped off through the kitchen and out the back door, plopping down in the hammock that was strung between two trees. It had been there for as long as I could remember, and I loved to lay in it and look up at the stars, imagining what was out there.
Sometimes, it was helpful to feel small.
“So, that was fun.” Katy’s voice interrupted my star gazing after a few minutes, and I turned casually toward her. She sat down, cross-legged, on the ground in front of me, playing with a fallen leaf.
“Your definition of fun is very different than mine,” I replied, rolling my eyes.