Belinda dropped the barely smoked cigarette. It fell a few inches from where I sat. “To ourselves, silly. And to the world. We can’t waste our gift. You can’t be nonchalant about something so important.”
I squinted up at her. Between her blond hair and the sunlight, I nearly went blind. “Enlighten me,” I said. “What is our gift?”
Belinda answered seriously. “Medicine.”
I rubbed at my eyes, wishing for dark and coolness. “That’s very interesting. I wasn’t sure. Do you have any other pearls of wisdom to drop in my lap?”
Belinda’s teeth disappeared. “You know what your problem is?” she said. “You can’t even carry on a simple conversation. You have no idea how to talk to people.”
She walked toward the swinging door marked Emergency, her blond hair swishing behind her.
I reached over and picked up the cigarette she had discarded. I held it for a minute between two fingers. Then I brought it to my lips and breathed in. I coughed hard, the taste of hot gravel on my tongue.
I’d come too close to being truthful with Belinda in that exchange. I’d almost opened up to her. I could feel the words pressing on the back of my throat, creating the same swollen feeling I’d had when I left Weber’s. I wasn’t even sure what I would have said, which was particularly worrying. I couldn’t afford any lapses of judgment.
The more Belinda knew about me, the more she had to use against me. The next thing I knew I would be telling her that I was in medical school only because of a conversation I’d had with my mother and grandmother when I was a sophomore in college.
I had come home for Christmas break, and my mother was on me about the fact that I had not yet chosen a major.
“I can’t decide,” I said.
Gram had been invited to dinner and had arrived an hour early. Since we were ordering food in, as usual, there was nothing to do but sit around. My mother suggested that we sit in the living room. Once we were settled, Gram in the low armchair, Mom and me in opposite loveseats, Mom decided this was an ideal time to have a discussion that was guaranteed to make me miserable. Even though Mom was annoyed at Gram for coming over early, she was obviously counting on Gram to back her up.
“What are the choices?” Gram said.
“Anthropology, literature, biology, or religion.”
My mother shook her head. “That’s just a list of the classes you’re taking.”
“No it’s not. I left off water aerobics and philosophy.”
“Why?” Gram asked.
“I don’t like to exercise, and I don’t enjoy philosophy.”
“Why don’t you enjoy philosophy?”
“Mother, you are veering off point. We’re discussing what major the child should choose and what she wants to do with her life.”
“Kelly, there’s no need to make everything so deadly serious. We’re just talking about Lila’s major. She already knows what she’s going to do with her life—Lila wants to be a lawyer like her grandfather.”
“That’s what I wanted when I was ten years old, Gram.”
“So? You had a calling when you were young, that’s all.”
I could feel the heavy history behind my mother’s and grandmother’s gazes. My grandfather was a powerful lawyer who threw his weight around in New Jersey politics. He had been respected by nearly everyone, but most of all by his family. For all the bad talk that has come out within the family about Papa since his death, his career and his professional achievements have only been polished and embellished. I knew that one of Gram’s greatest hopes was that one of the grandchildren would become a lawyer, since none of her children had. I also knew that with my top grades and studious habits, I was the best candidate.
But I wasn’t about to accept that burden. I was the smart, dependable grandchild, while Gracie got to have fun and sex, John got to smoke dope, Mary got to drift in and out of religious fervors, and Dina got to be a general pain in the ass. I wasn’t going to sign on for a career that would demand, by my grandfather’s precedent, that I be perfect for as far into the future as I could see.
I looked down at my nail-bitten fingers and finally spat out the truth I had been holding in for years. “I don’t want to be a lawyer.”
There was a silence, during which I stole glances at Gram’s face. I was relieved that, unlike in my imagined