Page 48 of So Not My Type

“You know what?” Her mom squeezed Sophie’s knee. “I was just about to polish my fingernails. Let me grab the box.”

No, she wasn’t. Her mom never wore polish, worried it would flake into the food she was serving. But Sophie loved nail polish.

She excused herself to use the bathroom and go look in her childhood bedroom. Even though she moved out so many years ago, and her parents only had two bedrooms, they’d kept herroom almost exactly the same. There was a sense that any time she wanted to move back, she could.

Mixed emotions filled her as she scanned her room, noting the posters of the Ramones and Violent Femmes still hanging on with masking tape above the plastic bins used for a dresser. She closed the door and returned to the living room. The house made her both happy and sad. Familiarity brought comfort, but this was the end—her parents had reached the top of what they would do with their lives. And was this really a way to live? In a shitty, run-down home, with creaky floors and loud neighbors, while working at a diner and mechanic shop.

Towels and extra soap from the overstuffed linen closet fell to the floor as her mom dug around. A few grunts later, she grabbed a shoe box full of different shades and brought them to Sophie. “Pick one.”

Sophie scrummaged through half-crusted bottles and clearance price tags, and plucked out a deep, shimmery violet. She flipped her legs crisscross-style and held out her hand as the room filled with the stinging scent of nail polish. Gently, her mom guided the color across Sophie’s fingertip, and soon Sophie’s shoulders relaxed. “Remember the trainee I told you about? Ella?”

Her mom focused on swiping color across Sophie’s thumb. “Yeah?”

Why was Sophie nervous? She wanted to confess. Feelings, insecurities, thoughts gurgled inside like a shaken-up carbonated drink, and if she cracked it the tiniest bit, she’d overflow. The fact that she hadn’t even told Maya about what happened in the hot tub scared her. “I, uh.” She cleared her throat. “We’ve been getting along a lot better and working really hard on the new campaign.”

“That’s great.” Her mom pulled Sophie’s left hand onto her lap. “It’s always easier to get along with co-workers than not.Remember when we had that cook, Bob? Such a prick. And boy, did it make the days drag.”

Sophie remembered this guy, who had toddler-level emotional regulation and screamed across the kitchen on a whim. She blew on her right hand to dry the polish, stalling. “So, she’s George’s daughter, and I, we, uh, we are getting close. Like really close.”

Her mom stopped and stared, her brows scrunching together. “George the CEO?” After Sophie nodded, her mom took a breath. “I see.”

I see?That was all her mom’s response, and a fine thread wrapped around her chest and pulled tight. She knew exactly what her mom was thinking, because Sophie had thought the same. Her deeply held beliefs about money and privilege were not just something she picked up on her own. It was generational intolerance, passed down from her parents.

Sophie’s eyes flickered to the corner, passing from the torn fake palm tree that had been there since Sophie could remember, to the ratty blanket tossed over the chair her mom surely got at Goodwill, to the scratched-up wood paneling on the wall. “Why didn’t you and Dad ever do better for yourselves?”

“Excuseme?”

Her mom’s shocked voice hit Sophie hard, and she so badly wanted to retract the question. But, she had to ask. Her dad was the smartest man she knew. Her mom worked so hard, busting her ass on the regular to serve food. They could have done so much more with their life. Yet, they were trapped a step above poverty, and they’d always be there. She needed to know why. “I’m sorry… I’m not trying to offend.” Jesus Christ, she sounded terrible. “But why didn’t you get a different job? Or Dad? Or move from this place?”

Her mom now squinted and folded her arms across her chest. “Why would we?”

“Because…” How did she say this, without really sounding like the people she despised? Was she now the elitist, pigeon-holing her parents, putting them in a boxshethought they belonged in? “You guys could have done so much more. Had more things. Gone on trips. Bought a bigger house.”

The heat of her mom’s gaze bored into her, and Sophie’s insides burned.

“Why do you think your dad and I wanted a bigger house, or trips, or more things?”

Because wasn’t that what everyone wanted? Aren’t you supposed to strive for that while disliking the people who had it? Sophie glanced back at her fingers.

“Do you think you had a terrible childhood?” her mom asked.

Sophie shook her head. “No, of course not.”

“Tell me your worst childhood memory.”

The worst? How did she answer something like that? She scoured her memory bank, remembering when she sobbed on her eighth birthday into her Minnie Mouse cake. That whole year she had begged Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the tooth fairy, and even the God at the church her grandma attended that she would give up everything if she could go to Disney for her birthday. “I always wanted to go to Disneyland, and we never could.”

“That’syour worst memory?” Her mom scowled.

“I mean, I was left alone a lot, and I just didn’t have the things other kids did. I didn’t go to college, I couldn’t shop at the mall, sometimes all we had was mac ’n’ cheese for dinner.”

“You love mac ’n’ cheese.”

“That’s not the point!” Sophie exhaled a shaky breath, and her mom braced her shoulders.

After so many moments where the air felt tight and Sophie thought of the million ways to apologize, her mom pulled Sophie’s hand back into her lap and continued polishing.“Growing up, all I ever wanted was to go camping.” She finished swiping and twisted the cap back on the bottle. “It was my dream, but the idea of my parents affording a tent and the gas to drive to the coast was unheard of. That’s probably why we camped so much in the summers and made so many forts in the living room during the winter.”

Forts in the living room. How had Sophie forgotten that? She and her mom would destroy their space, piling blankets across the back of chairs, tying sheets to hooks her dad put in the ceiling, and pulling her mattress onto the floor. They’d prop themselves up on their elbows, eat through a bag of marshmallows, and read books with flashlights.

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