Seven Brothers of Sin

Just as my beautiful flatbread goes into the oven, my parents’ car pulls into the driveway. A few minutes later, my mom bustles in, chattering like a chipmunk about how good Liz Anson’s dye-job looked today.

“Real natural, don’t you think?” she asks. Then she sees me, “Oh, hello, dear.”

“Hi,” I say. “I’m just finishing up a flatbread. Are you hungry?”

Mom flits around the kitchen, dropping her purse on the counter and hanging her keys on the hook by the door. My father grabs the newspaper and heads into the living room, ignoring me.

“We ate at the club, honey,” she says apologetically. “I know you love to cook, baby, but there’s no need. It’s more important to get yourself through school to get a good job. Cooking takes so much time. It’s messy and a hassle, too. Why don’t you just eat out?”

The words stab me in the heart. How can she denigrate what I love?

“Yes, I’m well aware that you’d prefer I didn’t cook,” I say. “It’s my thing, though. In fact, I…”

“Don’t start this again,” Marsha warns in a low tone. “I’m not going to have my daughter slaving away in some hot kitchen somewhere, slopping out food like some lower-class servant.”

I shake my head, exasperated. It’s not lower class to cook. It’s a skill, just like any other, and underappreciated at that.

So I turn to face her, hands on my hips.

“Mom,” come my serious words. “I’m not going to be ladling globs of mac and cheese at the Country Buffet, wearing a hair net and smoking cigarettes between shifts. I’m talking about becoming a chef, creating recipes, working in a high-class restaurant. Possibly writing cookbooks or even having a show on TV. You think that the Pioneer Woman is low-class? She probably has more money than God.”

I was talking about my favorite home ec goddess, Ree Drummond, who has her own show on the Food Channel. I worship Ree, curvy and domestic with that flaming red hair, making her home a safe space for her husband and four kids. That’s what I wanted to be, but my parents aren’t having any of it.

“We’ve talked about this, young lady,” Marsha says, frowning deeply. “Stop it right now.”

And I sigh again. As usual, we’d reached an impasse. My dreams are just too different from what my parents want for me. My mother was a commercial real estate agent before she retired, picture perfect with a slick, dark-brown bob and acrylics on her fingertips. She thinks in blue and white – as in blue-collar and white-collar. And she wants me squarely in the white-collar realm. Food service of any kind, in her mind, is blue-collar. Not good enough for her daughter.

Plus, Marsha’s not the kind of mother who asks if I have a boyfriend every five seconds, which is nice, sort-of. But she desperately wants me to get ahead, and having a boyfriend would do the opposite, taking up precious time when I could be bettering myself.

As if to demonstrate, the woman pulls a Perrier out of the fridge and touches on one of her favorite subjects.

“Did you look into rushing?” she asks, referring to sorority pledge week. “Most girls rush their freshman year but I’m sure sophomore year is fine, too. I want you to get the most of the college experience.”

It’s more like she wants me to meet all the right boys and girls whose rich parents were in the Greek system as well. It’s totally not my thing, getting dolled up in thousand dollar frocks and painting my face full of make-up, while making fake chitchat with social-climbing ladies.

“Um, no,” I mutter, peering into the oven.

But Marsha can’t be deterred.

“Well, you’re almost a shoo-in for Phi Beta Gamma, since you’re legacy,” she says, referring to the sorority she was in, and my aunt and grandma too. “It should be a formality, nothing more.”

I sigh again. When will Marsha get it? Not too soon, evidently.

“Mom,” I say, exasperated, “I do not want to join a sorority. I don’t even want to go back to college.”

Marsha sucks in a shocked breath then.

“Macy Lynn Jones, that is not an option.”

My head shakes miserably.

“Why isn’t it an option? You know I want to go to culinary school. Why can’t I just go and become a chef and stop wasting money on a degree I don’t even want?”

But Marsha is horrified.

“You don’t even know how lucky you are, young lady,” she snaps, eyes narrow and boring holes into my frame. “So many kids struggle to pay for college and here we are, paying your way. Yet you don’t even appreciate it one bit.”

“I do appreciate it,” I cut in meekly. “It’s just that ….”

Marsha twists her head curtly.

“So stop acting like a spoiled brat. And stop with this incessant cooking. This is beneath you, Macy.”