Picturesque

Chapter 7: The World

I raced home filled with excitement and glee. I was being offered the best opportunity that I could have ever dreamed of. I was going to travel and meet new people. I was going to put my degree to use and establish a foundation for the rest of my career. I was going to get so much money and give so much to Mama to repay her for raising me all by herself and working herself to death my whole life.

Mama was not as happy.

Dr. Marlar said that Mr. Donnelley wanted me to come as soon as possible, and, given that I had nothing to wait for, I decided to leave on Sunday, two days after I was given the offer. The Donnelley's had offered a plane, but I had never flown before and was not at that level of adventurous yet to get on a plane. They were sending a chauffeur immediately who would arrive at ten in the morning that Sunday.

Two days of being berated had me itching to leave.

"You can't even go to church today?" Mama scoffed as she stood in the doorway of my room. I was packing way more than I had packed to leave for college. "When's the last time you went to church, huh?"

"The dorm held devotionals on Sundays, Mama, you know that," I murmured, agitation raising my blood pressure. Ever since I came home and instantly told Mama the news, she had been treating me like a delinquent and barely speaking to me. When she did speak to me, all she said was that this was crazy and dangerous.

"Damnit, Becky, you don't even know these people. What if they're crazy? What if they're in a cult? God knows what goes on over there."

Biting my lip, I pushed past her to go into the bathroom and grab my toothbrush. She scoffed at me again, and I thought to myself that if she were to scoff anymore, she would simply run out of air.

"California ain't like here, Becky. It's full of hippies and weirdos. Is that what this is? You want to be a hippie?"

"Stop it," I snapped as I passed her to come back into my room. Shoving my toothbrush into my bag, I tried to zip it closed, but it was packed so full it wouldn't zip shut. I tugged at the zipper as my anger started to consume me. "I thought you'd be happy for me. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity, and all you're doing is being negative."

"I'm being negative? Really, Becky? I'm being negative because I don't want you to move across the country and be gone for four months doing God knows what?"

"French!" I screamed, and with a forceful tug on the zipper with a strength I didn't know I had, the zipper ripped completely off the bag. The detached zipper in my hand, I turned to Mama who was looking at me in shock. Never had I raised my voice at her, ever. "I'm teaching French to kids, Mama! That's what I'm gonna be doing! And I'm gonna make a hell of a lot of money doing that!"

"Money," she echoed. "So it's about money. You know what happens to people who let money control their life?"

"Oh, God," I sobbed, tossing the zipper to the ground and moving to my other bag. "I'm so fed up with your paranoias. Everything is a threat, everything is a problem, everything is dangerous or crazy. You act like if I cross the street, I'll surely get hit by a car."

"You're naïve," she mumbled, placing her hand over her mouth. "I thought you were a lot smarter than this."

I ignored her, packing up my other bags before sitting on my bed to put my shoes on. There were so many things on my mind. I had been so excited to come home and see Mama before I left, but now I couldn't get out of that house soon enough. She had changed since I'd moved out. She'd become even more anxious, even more paranoid. I wasn't around to tempt her anxieties, and she had shut herself off from everything even more.

"Remember what I told you about the world?" she said more solemnly, and I looked up at her as I tied my shoes. Her face was red now, and so were her eyes. "I thought you had listened to me. Now here you are, letting the world take you away—take you away from me."