Page 57 of Love at a Funeral and Other Awkward Conversations

“What?” he asks, as if I couldn’t read the thoughts written on his face. The same ones everyone else has too.

I preempt him. “I have no skills suitable for this economy. No one wants to hire a graduate from Columbia who can talk at length about the feminism of Virginia Woolf but can’t send a fax.”

He bites back a smile. “That can’t be true.”

I lean my elbow on the door. “I don’t even know why people send faxes anymore.”

“Can’t you be a teacher or something?”

“No, Mom, I can’t.” He throws me a sarcastic glare, but I continue. “It costs money to go back to school for any kind of degree, and I’m already drowning in debt. Plus, high school kids are rude.”

“What do you want to do?”

Thinking, I watch the trees and telephone poles zoom by outside of my window. “When I was real little, I wanted to be a TV game show host, like on Price is Right or something. I wanted to hold one of those long microphones.”

He lets out a squeaked, “Really?”

And I don’t know whether I should be offended or not. “You don’t think I’d be a good host?”

“Nah, I think you’d be a great host. You’re really fun when you aren’t trying to scare people away.” At a red light, he shifts in his seat. “You have a lot more to offer than you think you do. You’re smart.” He pins me with an impatient raise of his brow, as if I should know this. “Like, really, really smart. You’re able to speak about so many topics, have philosophical conversations.”

I wave his words away. “You make me sound arrogant.”

“Maybe you should be a little bit more arrogant. You don’t see yourself clearly, and it’s why you’re working at a restaurant that forces you show your ass every time you serve a burger.”

My skin heats at his chastising words, and it takes me a few seconds to recover from what feels like a physical blow. “Gee, thanks.”

He parks the car in front of a brick and beige-sided home then unbuckles his seat belt and grasps my hand. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it to sound like that, but I don’t know why you sell yourself short. You could do anything you want to, but you put up these walls. You pretend like you can’t do anything else, when I think you’re just afraid of trying.”

His eyes roam over me, and I don’t like the way he’s able to turn me inside out. I’m ashamed for what he’s accusing me of, but I also want to be the best of what he thinks I am.

“What are you so afraid of people seeing?” he asks, his thumb smoothing over my knuckles.

What am I so afraid of? Isn’t it obvious?

I’m afraid of this. Of someone looking deep into my eyes and seeing my heart. I’m afraid because when they do, they’ll find a withered and bruised lump of clay that’s been torn apart and mashed back together, kneaded and rolled to resemble a heart. Barely an imitation.

I’m afraid of him.

And he doesn’t care. He pushes on. “I see a woman who’s one of the strongest people I know, who cares deeply about her family, and who has been selfless at a time when she shouldn’t have to be.”

No.

He’s wrong. I’m weak and selfish, overly sensitive and filled with rage. It’s not pleasant to have this hurricane living inside me, and I don’t know how Vince can possibly think these things about me.

He forces me to look up when he tugs on a strand of my hair. “I know you don’t like being vulnerable, but you’ve been putting yourself out in the world through your posts. Do you read all the comments? Because I do. People love it. Imagine what you could do if you did it without a screen, if you really offered up everything you have.”

I shake my head. The idea is outrageous. He wants me to, what? Be some kind of motivational speaker? Writing a few words on social media on my phone is a lot different from what he’s suggesting. I’m not going to cut myself open to show the world how I bleed.

Nope. No thank you.

“Look, I don’t care what you do,” he says, letting go of my fingers. “I only want you to be happy.”

“What about you?” I snap. “Why aren’t you doing what really makes you happy?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Baseball. You had a scholarship. I saw you playing at the tournament. I can tell you love it. Anyone could. But you gave it up to be a funeral director?”

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