The timer goes off on the oven, punctuating her comment. Ignoring her, I pull the gorgeous flatbread out. It looks like it belongs on the cover of a magazine and smells like a miracle. My stomach growls loudly.
But Mom doesn’t care. She stomps to the living room, Perrier in hand and confronts my dad.
“Jim, your daughter is at it again, talking about cooking this and cooking that. Will you tell her that no child of ours is going to work in food service? I swear, what will make her appreciate us? Talk some sense into Macy, will you?”
But my fingers move quickly, and I slice some flatbread, putting it onto a plate. Fortunately, my dad ignores me as I pass, heading up the stairs and into my room. Funny the difference a few days make. They were so happy to see me when I got back that they threw a party. Now they can barely look at me. My grades were bad this semester, so that probably didn’t help. And now I’m – gasp – cooking. Whatever will they do with this daughter who’s such a disappointment?
Defeated, I look around my childhood bedroom. I’m a simple girl. I really am. I like to read and I like to cook. I’d be so happy just doing those things. Well, and maybe some other things, now that I’ve been introduced to the Morgans.
Because they’re a part of my plan.
I’m not as dumb as people think.
I’m not clueless.
Because I want a baby.
A real one, cuddly and cute.
It won’t be easy because how many teen girls want babies? In fact, it’ll be damn hard because an infant is a handful and then some.
But I know what I want.
It’s just that what the world wants for me is different.
Starting with my parents. Holy hell, my mom would blow a gasket if I suggested having a baby at eighteen. But honestly, I’ve always loved the idea of holding a child to my breast, suckling milk. I can imagine the smell of the child, the feel of its tiny hands wrapped around my fingers. It makes my belly ache with longing.
And what about college? That’d probably be done for, at least. Who can juggle feedings around the clock with studying, exams, and term papers? Not me, that’s for sure.
So conventional wisdom is I stay in school, graduate, get a fast-track career and land in the CEO seat after twenty years of slogging away.
Too bad that’s not what I want at all.
Not even close.
But one wrinkle. You have to have a man to have a baby. Sure, there’s artificial insemination, but no sperm bank will take me seriously. Eighteen year old naif? Teen with no money, no prospects, no job? Please, I’d have a better chance of landing on the moon.
So yeah, I need to do it the regular way. And for that, it means a boyfriend who enjoys home and hearth as much as I do, who wants a woman to mother his child, to make his meals, to keep his house. I want those things almost more than going off to culinary school. I’d love to create food, but I can do that for my own family. I can share my recipes with the world in written form. My dream is to figure out how to mix these wants into something real.
My parents love me, I know they do, but their dreams aren’t mine. I don’t want to be a disappointment to them, but I also know I can’t follow this path they’ve set out for me. But if I do what I want – if I get pregnant and choose to be a homemaker – they’ll probably never speak to me again.
So what to do?
There are no good choices.
All possible outcomes seem bad.
After all, I had a high school friend, Eliza, who got pregnant when she was sixteen. She was actually pretty excited about it and her boyfriend asked her to marry him. I thought it was really sweet, but my mom called Eliza a slut and a know-nothing, talking for weeks about how hard-working people’s tax dollars would be wasted on welfare for this little teenage whore and her spawn.
Clearly, I wasn’t allowed to hang out with Eliza anymore after that. But it’s not wrong to have sex with someone you love, right? It’s not wrong to have a baby, even if you’re young? But tell that to Marsha. She went on a tirade about how women should keep their legs closed until they finish college and get started on their careers. She’s very big on women having their own income and legacy. I get that, but I also don’t think that’s for me.
God, Marsha is so weird. At this point, I even wonder if my dad ever gets laid. Not that I need that image in my head. It just seems to me my mom has very specific ideas about sex and they probably aren’t that creative or fun.