“Now, baby, I don’t want to let her go, either, but Etta’s time, it’s comin’ and Lola don’t make you do nothin’ you don’t want to do. When you two women gonna stop acting like a couple of girls? Drinkin’ on a Tuesday afternoon waitin’ on your kids. I should call child protective services on you two.” How is it Aunt Viv can simultaneously make me feel old because Etta will soon be leaving me for her own life and infantile for loving my Tuesday afternoon drinking dates with Lola? “Etta, don’t you mind your mama, you go right ahead, I can tell you have things to say. And she’s gonna listen, trust me.” Aunt Viv points her chef’s knife at me. In almost fourteen years of collective decision-making the score is currently 823 Aunt Viv and Etta to my 62, and at least 50 of those times Aunt Viv was either out of town or at least out of the house.
Etta strategically moves over to the sink to lock arms with Aunt Viv. They are now a united front looking to take me down.
It’s not that I don’t want Etta to go to college and become her own person, of course I do. Since she was small, I have planned all the ways I would make sure Etta did early adulthood differently than me. I’m thinking Cornell or Dartmouth, a rural Ivy nowhere near the distracting trappings of big-city life. Etta can study engineering, computer science, or math; she has consistently shown promise in all three areas since second grade. A gorgeous, brainy, black female with that kind of academic background will play well in the job market. Then, if she wants to go to graduate school in New York or D.C. or London on her own dime I’ll be fine with it because she will be a fully cooked human being. No pasties and full-body waxes for Etta.
Etta is a smart and focused girl. I’m not saying that as her mother, I’m saying that as a professional who spends her waking days assessing the full range of human aptitude and ability, or lack thereof. The smarts I attribute to her great Fairchild education and genetics (I was a fabulous student, just a lousy decision-maker), the focus to her long-standing dance career with the San Francisco Ballet School. Etta brilliantly uses her body to create beauty and art, something neither her absent grandmother nor I could make happen. Ballet has also kept her out of trouble, healthy, and sheltered from the trappings of the world. Fairchild and ballet are all Etta knows, and I will make sure her next step in life will be as promising (and as safe) as the last fourteen years. What I want for my child is no different than any other parent: I want Etta to be happy, to have options in life, and I want to make sure she doesn’t return to my couch. I came back to San Francisco to try to end an unfortunate two-generation cycle of Bordelon women using their bodies rather than their brains to make a living. It will be different for Etta. She will rewrite our family story to be one of brains over beauty, NOT the other way around.
Admittedly, what I don’t know is how I’m going to pay for this expensive turn of family events. Even though I’m a Fairchild alum and unquestionably an extraordinary employee (minus the crank calls I make to Roan pretending to be from his favorite Japanese restaurant informing him there is actually pork in his beloved gyozas—take that, you vegan freak), this whole applying to college business is far more complicated than I remember and it’s leaving me with one feeling—overwhelmed. Historically, when I’m feeling overwhelmed, my MO is to work hard to ignore the situation that is creating the anxiety. This is a learned survival skill I refined early in my childhood. Whenever I would wonder why my mama left me, why she never came back, why she thought Aunt Viv would do a better job raising me than she could, I would compartmentalize my questions because when I tried to ask Aunt Viv she refused to give me answers. I was met with a dismissive, “Oh you don’t really want to know anything about that, you’ve got a good life with me haven’t you, child?” To this day I still don’t know if all that time Aunt Viv actually knew where my mother was but wouldn’t say or if Aunt Viv was as clueless as I was. Either way, growing up, my mother was not a topic up for discussion.
“Okay, you want to talk about next year. Do you have anywhere that you are planning on applying early admit? Perhaps prioritizing Cornell or Dartmouth would be a good idea. Living in upstate New York or rural New Hampshire will be a wholly different experience for you, one I think you would really enjoy.” (An opinion I have based on absolutely nothing.) “Tomorrow after school let’s talk to Krista in college counseling. She’ll help us get this whole early admit thing figured out.” Take that, Aunt Viv, I engaged in the post-graduation conversation and I nailed it. Clearly day drinking does not inhibit my above-par parenting skills.
I pull out the cushioned chair at my usual spot, excited that the dining table is crowded with a menu of catfish, greens, and cornbread tonight. Digging into my fried fish I notice Etta shoot Aunt Viv a look of panic. I put down my fork and turn a hard gaze on Aunt Viv.
Aunt Viv takes her time dabbing the corners of her mouth with her napkin and looks to Etta. It occurs to me that Aunt Viv is conveniently wearing her power wig—straightened chin-length bob with a front-bang sweep. She named this one her Queen V one day after she mistakenly heard me call it her “Queen Bey” look. All business—no bullshit.
“You go on, baby girl,” Queen V says, smoothing her manufactured hair.
“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 sheer idiocy 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.”