Her Own House Read online

  All of these thoughts finally led to “Notes on a Video Honey,” which is told in first person from the daughter’s perspective. I chose this point of view largely because it is the one I can most relate to. An onlooker observing, trying to figure out for herself why another woman would put herself in such a situation, and ultimately promote a stereotype. By using this perspective, I felt as though I was using the same lens that Spelman College is using.

  I chose to tell this story in vignettes because I thought it would be an effective way to illustrate how specific events impact the narrator’s view of her mother. Ever since reading Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street and Ana Menéndez’s Loving Che, I had wanted to tell a story this way—to pack a lot of emotion and complexity into one vignette. One thing that impressed me about Cisneros’ work is the endings to her short pieces. They wrap everything up in a way that leaves you thinking and is sometimes unexpected. The vignette “Alicia Who Sees Mice” opens with a father telling his daughter not to be afraid of the mice she’s imagining and explaining his view of the woman’s place in society. It ends, “[Alicia] is afraid of nothing except four-legged fur. And fathers” (Cisneros 32). As a reader, you get the impression her father is contributing to her unhappiness, but the ending makes it seem as though he may be guilty of something more egregious than sexism. Both authors succeed in making their vignettes feel complete by using language that creates powerful images. Here’s the last line of a four-sentence vignette written by Menéndez: “The first kiss is more intimate than the naked bed; its small perimeter already contains the first submission and the final betrayal” (91). The way she strings words together make a powerful sentence that provide a lot of information. The detail helps us understand more about the relationship between the two characters involved in this kiss. Vignettes by these authors are so successful because they take a single moment and unravel it through careful attention to word choice and small details that reveal unique aspects of their characters. While I do not profess to be as poetic as these authors, I worked to make my vignettes surprising, honest and revealing by using situations that force the narrator to think about her world and her place in it.

  “Tide,” my other traditionalist piece, is the story of a young, single black woman working a dead-end job who is deciding whether to keep the baby she had just given birth to. She knows that she wants to make a better life for herself and her baby but she’s not sure how to do it. During the time I wrote this story I was influenced by two things: my pregnant sister who was the opposite of this young mother in that she had a loving husband and had been wanting a baby for a long time, and frequent news reports of young women giving birth by themselves and abandoning their babies in locations, like the side of a highway or a trashcan. I became curious about the person who had the potential to be another girl in a news report, but ultimately wanted more than that.

  I wanted to write a beating the odds story, but I tried to make it fresh through the character development. The main character, Jené, works at a newsstand in the airport, and has access to books and magazines that affect her views on life. They give her access to places and lifestyles that she has never experienced, helping her realize that there are other options. When she’s in labor, she starts imagining the life her doctor leads. She imagines that the doctor’s wife is a chef in a restaurant that serves fancy bottles of wine: “The kind that writers took the time to describe in terms like woodsy and piquant.” These internal insights relating to her literary influences did not exist in the original draft. I incorporated them into the revision to flesh out Jené’s character and to make her story more unique to her.

  Unlike “Notes on a Video Honey,” I decided to use third-person limited point of view in “Tide.” Jené interacts with and is more affected by more characters than the narrator of “Notes.” While I wanted to be able to stay in Jené’s head, I also wanted to be able to pull back when necessary. For example, when Jené is giving birth, I use that as an opportunity to show how Jené’s situation represents a larger phenomenon in society. I use the narrator to describe another young woman, unnamed in the story, who is giving birth by herself somewhere else in the city. “The baby was just coming out and she couldn’t stop it. She had just come home from school and her parents were at work. Girls like her never seemed to do a good job getting rid of their babies after they were born. They’d wrap them up in a bath towel and leave them behind a bush in their own backyard or in the dumpster in the apartment complex.” This section also serves to illustrate something about Jené; she could have been that girl, but she chose not to be.

  Conclusion

  As I have indicated, I write largely to reflect on my personal experiences and societal issues that impact me. As I worked on my thesis, I was making major transitions in my life—ending a marriage, finishing school, turning 30. And I saw major transitions and followed ongoing sagas happening in the world—a black man as a serious contender for presidential candidate, the steadfast efforts of the family values camp, and various portrayals of minorities in the media. These issues evolved into the common theme of nonconformity and self-acceptance apparent throughout the stories. I have enjoyed using magical and satirical elements to do so because you really have to stretch the mind when creating a world so different from our own. I have to develop my own rules in these worlds, which allow me to explore common themes in extraordinary ways. I enjoy the idea of making the ordinary not seem so ordinary, and I hope to continue to develop that in my writing. The thesis process has been challenging, but it has helped me produce a body of work that feels complete and worth sharing with others.

  Flying at 30

  According to my skydiving instructor, you’re not living until you’re on the edge of death. That’s all I need to hear to brave the leap out of the plane. Yes, it’s one of those clichéd things to do when you just feel like doing something big. And should I go spiraling to my death, vital organs oozing out of me on the hard ground, so be it. Today I turn 30. I’ve never been married, still haven’t enrolled in my company 401K, and continue to get lost even though I’ve got GPS in my car.

  So, it’s my turn to jump. I’m tandem with the instructor—the ugly one, not the cute one. I really don’t have to do anything except put my life into a stranger’s hands.

  He tells me that we’re going to jump on the count of three, and I’m not nervous. I’m ready. 1-2-3. And we’re free falling from 4,000 feet in the sky. I refuse to let the nerves kick in and just feel the cool air around me, keeping me afloat as if I’m on one of those blowup rafts. I’ve tried meditation before, and it didn’t work. Too many thoughts of the day kept entering my mind, but up here I’m in touch with my spiritual side. I’m lost in nothing. The air pressure squeezes out the negative vibes and I just relax. I feel a slight jerk when the parachute opens, and I open my eyes. An eagle is looking directly at me.

  “What are you doing up here?” he says.

  “Turning 30,” I say.

  “Wannabe,” he says and flies off.

  So when you make it as high as a bird, they talk to you. Who knew? I don’t like what he has to say, I’m up here because I need to mark a milestone, not because I want to be like anyone or anything else. I kick him out of my mind and continue to enjoy the ride. I’m safe up here. But it doesn’t take long until we’re on the ground. We stumble into the landing, but remain on our feet.

  The instructor, who’s 23 and has nothing to worry about, starts working to de-strap us. I expect him to ask what I thought of the jump. But he doesn’t.

  “So, now what?” he says.

  “Good question,” I say.

  I go to my 30th birthday party, which I have to share with my sister, Zoe, because she’s my twin. The party’s at her house, of course, because her life is perfect. She lives with her handsome husband and little boy and little girl in their big house. They had a white fence once, but I knocked it down when I accidentally ran into it with my car.


  When I arrive at the party my niece and nephew greet me at the door like two cute annoying puppies. Chloe, whose name was selected specifically because it rhymes with Zoe, jumps up and down and reaches for a hug. Her older brother, Jaden, and I have a mutual agreement to stay away from each other. He’s typically too sticky for my taste and I’m too smelly for his. The poor boy couldn’t recognize high-quality perfume if he took a class on it.

  “What’d you get me for my birthday?” I say.

  “Nothing!” they yell and run off.

  “Figures, you cheapskates.”

  I walk through the foyer with its marble floors and antique furniture and make my way into the less ostentatious, but roomy family room that opens into a modern kitchen with stainless steel, commercial-grade appliances. There’s a large photograph of Zoe’s family above the mantle in the family room. If you look closer, you’ll see it’s actually made up of hundreds of tiny pictures of their lives together—trips they’ve taken, family and friends who’ve influenced them, holiday portraits. It took me two years of bi-monthly Sunday dinners to discover a single picture of myself in the bottom corner. Zoe swore there were more pictures of me in there, but was never able to point them out to me.

  My parents, aunt and uncle, and a few of my sister’s friends are here among the balloons and confetti and Happy Birthday banner. I didn’t invite my own friends. I’ll celebrate with them later so I can freely talk about how the birthday with the family went.

  Zoe looks perfect in her skinny jeans and silk halter-top.

  “It’s about time you got here.”

  I look at my watch. I had been told to arrive at 6:00. It’s 5:59.

  “How’s the librarian gig going?” says Joe, who’s parked in front of the plasma TV in the family room. Joe’s one of those people you’d call a good-looking older man. Tall, still chiseled, with close-cut gray hair that makes him look distinguished.

  “When are you going to step it up and apply for president of the university?” he says.

  “We don’t say librarian anymore. I’m a media specialist. And I don’t work at a university. I work at an elementary school.”

  “You know Zoe works at a university,” Joe said. “Youngest assistant dean in the history of the institution.”

  “Yes, Joe. I’m well aware, seeing as how she’s my sister and all.”

  “I’m just saying, if you dream big, you get big things,” Joe said as he raised his arms in the air and scanned the room. “I always told you girls to dream big. That’s what I did.”

  Thanks to Joe’s Burger Hut franchise, we grew up in a house even bigger than Zoe’s. But knowing Zoe, she wouldn’t be in her 5,000-square foot starter home for long.

  I look into the kitchen and see my Aunt Natalie roll her eyes as she and my mother toss ice cubes into glasses with palm trees painted on the side. She could never understand why I called my parents Joe and Flo. But it just fit from the beginning. I was never interested in calling them anything else.

  I walk into the kitchen and offer to help.

  “I thought you were bringing your husband,” Flo says. “Where is he?”

  I roll my eyes at my mother.

  “I’ve never been married and I haven’t been on a date in two years. You know that.”

  Again, I offer to help even though I don’t really want to. I’m just hoping that a menial task will lead to someone telling me that I’m not doing it properly, and therefore distract them from personal questions I don’t want to answer.

  “No, no. We don’t want you to mess it up,” Natalie said.

  Flo makes eye contact with Natalie and gives her a “Don’t go there” look.

  “How could I mess up ice cubes?”

  “That’s not what she meant,” Flo said. “We’re fine. It’s your birthday. You don’t have to do anything.”

  It’s 6:09 and I’m ready to go. I make a beeline to the family room.

  “She just hasn’t been the same since…” Natalie whispers to Flo.

  “Well, she’s always been fragile. Some children are just like that.”

  Flo seems to be trying to comfort herself with this statement.

  Everyone loves to whisper about since... Since refers to the day I came home from a summer at You Can Change! camp when I was 16. I was supposed to be on my way to Family Values Camp when my parents read my roommate match-up questionnaire, a form that was supposed to connect me with the perfect summer roommate based on my responses. One question was, Would you like to get married and start a family when you grow up? I circled “not sure” and Flo and Joe could not understand how I could not be sure about something that clearly deserved a perfect, unbroken sphere around the word “yes.”

  The next thing I knew I was off to You Can Change!, which in retrospect probably wouldn’t have been that different from Family Values Camp. The camp was intended to return teenagers assumed to be homosexual by their parents back to their natural heterosexual essence.

  Weird things happened at You Can Change!, which was out in some campgrounds I had never heard of. We were made to do things backwards, so that we could go back to the time before we made the decision to turn gay. We walked backwards out of our cabins to the public bathrooms every morning. We wore our clothes inside out. We prayed like Yoda: To be natural again God show me the way.

  When we weren’t walking backwards, we were talking in metaphors. During the daily nature lesson, the camp counselor in a baseball cap with the word “Change” embroidered across it would say something like, You’re as natural as a leaf or newborn baby, untainted, not processed and distorted like plastic formed into a cup. See where I’m going with this? We would all stare, and say nothing and he seemed to interpret this as if he had succeeded in reaching us.

  There were also the usual talks about abstinence and saving yourself for your impending marriage (because you would get married). It, too, was not only perfectly natural, but also pretty much required by God.

  It went on like this for about three weeks until our parents picked us up. I remember my parents’ ancient station wagon had barely come to a stop when Flo jumped out and grabbed me by the shoulders. Flo looked different from when I’d seen her last, clothes a little wrinkled, highlights growing out. Her mascara was running and I knew she’d been crying in the car, nervous about my condition. Joe, dressed in a business suit, still sat in the car, talking on his cell phone.

  “Would you like to get married and raise a family when you grow up?” Flo said.

  I knew that I was supposed to say yes. A simple one-syllable word that would only take a second of my time. But my mind was clouded by images of leaves and my equilibrium was off from all the days of walking backwards.

  “Uh, uh, uh…not sure.”

  Flo’s mouth opened as if she wanted to scream, but couldn’t. She reached for me, but then her arms dropped. Her eyes closed and her body began to sway a little. I grabbed her right arm, but couldn’t keep her from falling on the ground.

  “My god,” Joe said, and finally got out of the car.

  He kneeled down next to her, and Flo opened her eyes and sat up.

  “Did I just faint?”

  “Like a drunk on a Saturday night,” Joe said.

  Joe left me to tend to her while he tried to get the money back from my failed camping experience.

  Even Zoe didn’t look at me the same after that. Our parents were one thing. They were weird. But Zoe should have understood. When we went off to college, Zoe decided that it was best that we weren’t roommates so that we could “start being individuals.” We ran in different circles and I hardly ever saw her.

  It’s now 6:12 and I need to leave the party for a breather. I go outside and the eagle from earlier is sitting on a beam on the deck.

  “What do you want?” I say.

  “You need me,” he says. “Let’s get ou
t of here.”

  “I can’t. I’m at my 30th birthday party.”

  “Let’s go.”

  “Where?”

  “My place. You’ll like it.”

  Once again, I’m in the air. I dangle from his beak by the slimming black blouse I bought especially for the party. I worry it’ll get stretched out, but I start to feel light and weightless and cool. My mind is clear.

  We arrive at a nest of tightly woven pine straw and twigs, and somehow I fit. I don’t know if I’ve shrunk or if he and his home are just much larger than what you’d expect.

  “I’m going to teach you to fly,” he says.

  “What for? Walking and driving have been working perfectly well for me.”

  “Flying will make you better than everybody else.”

  “Who says I want to be better than everybody else?”

  “It’s obvious by the way you looked when you were skydiving. You were happy.”

  I don’t know how to respond. I’ve never considered myself as wanting to keep up with the Joneses. I’m usually the one Googling communes to live on so that I could be away from it all. Away from the marble and stainless steel.

  “Flying’s simple. Just flap your arms and take off.”

  “If you haven’t noticed, I don’t have feathers and a beak. I wasn’t made for this.”

  “A beak. What’s a beak got to do with it? You don’t know anything.”

  “My point exactly.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll catch you if you fall.”