30 Days, 30 Stories

Day Seventeen: Getting to Know You

"When did you know you wanted to be an architect?"

"I guess it was the summer I was working with my dad on a construction site," he said softly. "My dad was talking to this guy in a hardhat and they were looking over the plans for the house we were building, and the guy was so passionate about his design that it made me want to be him."

"Wow..."

"Yeah, well I told my dad and he said I ought to have more realistic dreams."

"I thought you said your dad supported your goal."

"He did, it just took him a while to sign on."

"Why didn't he want you to be an architect?"

"We're as working-class as they come, Erin," Milo said a little roughly. "College is just something that costs way too much money and doesn't guarantee anything. At least, that's how most of my relatives see it."

"I just always figured white parents were gung-ho for college. That's what my parents always told me."

"Not mine. They wanted me to go into construction. Said it was a guaranteed paycheck."

"Mine wanted me to become a lawyer," Erin admitted. "I barely survived one year of law school and then I quit."

"My parents would have had a field day with that," Milo said. "If you made a big deal about getting an education, then you finished it even if you hated every minute of it."

"Money wasn't really so much an issue with my parents." She said this reluctantly. "We weren't rich...but we were comfortable."

"I thought you and I were from similar backgrounds."

"Not really, no."

"You're embarrassed."

"It's...weird. My parents made me go to these black debutante balls, I went to a country day school..."

"Oh man! I'm trying to picture this," Milo grinned at her. "Did you wear a uniform?"

She nodded and rolled her eyes. "It was awful. We had to wear straw hats with ribbons, blazers with the school's emblem on it...little pleated skirts and knee highs."

"Do you still have it?"

"The uniform? God, no. It would be too small anyway. I was like a stick figure back then."

"Too bad. I'll bet you'd look hot in an outfit like that."