Heidi's Guide to Four Letter Words(5)

I wasn’t passionate about my work, and that made me sad. Shouldn’t you love what you do when you spend more time at work than you do at home with friends and family? I spent four years going to school, another year getting certified, and then taught on my own for two years. And I can’t remember one single moment during that time that I was absolutely confident this was what I was meant to do. So many of my childhood memories are filled with my mom talking about her day at work. The excitement on her face, the animation of her entire body as she told us about a particular lesson she was working on, her hands waving around while she bounced on the balls of her feet. I wanted that for myself. I wanted to be excited.

But then I feel guilty when I think about my father. He worked as an electrician for more than thirty years. I know he didn’t particularly love his job. There were no animated conversations at the dinner table about a light fixture he installed. But he still went to work every day. He showed up without complaint no matter how much he might have hated his job, because that’s what his generation was taught. You went to work so you could pay your bills, put food on the table, and keep a roof over your family’s heads. It’s what I was taught. And here I stand, completely rejecting the morals they instilled in me.

I am the absolute worst.

“When I was Heidi’s age, I was footloose and fancy free,” Aunt Margie sighs with a wistful smile, pulling me out of my thoughts. “She’s young, she’s smart, and she’s got some money saved to keep her afloat for a while until she figures out what she wants to do. She doesn’t need to be married and popping out babies. If I had her adorable face and cute little figure, I would have kissed a lot more handsome men than I did back in the day before I settled down with Harold; mark my words. As soon as I met Harold, I had to hang up my necking in the backseat of the car shoes.”

“Shush now, Margie! We don’t talk about that,” my mom scolds, quickly looking around to make sure no one heard.

Aunt Margie leans in close to my ear and whispers, “It’s true. I had necking in the backseat of the car shoes. They were red leather platform wedges and they drove the men wild, let me tell you. I still have them in my closet if you want them.”

I feel my cheeks blush and I laugh uncomfortably, shaking my head at her.

Then I think about Laura Newberg and the red stilettos she had on the night she went on her date with Brent and I wonder if I should take my aunt up on her offer. My mother interjects before I can even gather up the nerve to maybe ask her what size the shoes are.

“Can we please get back to discussing the important matter at hand? Heidi needs a job. A teaching job. She can’t just be unemployed. That’s not how we raised her. Children need to be self-sufficient. She needs to earn her keep by making an honest living, and there’s nothing more honest than being a teacher. What are we going to do about this, Margie?”

I hate that everyone is always talking around me when I’m standing right here. Being my parents’ only child, I’ve always felt the pressure of being the perfect daughter and never straying from the path that made them happy. My job gave my mother something to brag about to her friends. It put a big smile on my father’s face whenever he’d ask me about my lesson plans. But ever since I started feeling so blah about my job as a teacher, I wondered what my life would be like right now if I’d thought more about what made me happy when I planned out my future. Would I stop letting people talk about me like I’m not even here? Would I have told Brent by now that I have a crush on him? I doubt I’d be so bold as to mention the… you know… thing in his pants or… what I wanted to… do with it, but who knows? If I would have spoken up years ago, told my parents that I wasn’t sure if being a teacher was the right path for me to take, who knows what kind of a woman I’d be right now? Well, now it’s time for me to take charge of my own destiny. I already took the first step of making a decision without consulting my mother about it first. Now it’s time to take the second. Telling her about it.

“Mom, I need to—”

“I haven’t made Lou my tuna hotdish yet. Maybe that’s the problem,” she muses.

“I actually have a—”

“If you’re going to make him anything, make him your lutefisk with bacon,” Aunt Margie adds, interrupting me again. “That’s how I always get Harold to say yes to anything,”

“There’s no need to—”

“You remember Sherry, from high school? Her daughter, Melanie, the poor thing who had scoliosis and trouble pronouncing her Rs. She became a big shot lawyer and moved to New York. Broke Sherry’s heart, it did,” my mother says with a shake of her head, resting her hand over her heart. “She moved back to Waconia a few months ago. Lives in that big house out on Hilliard Road with her husband who started some sort of investment company. You remember that house, the one with the white siding and blue shutters with the koi pond and fountain in front?”

Aunt Margie makes the “speed it up” motion with her hands, something I’ve always wanted to do when my mother goes on one of her long-winded tangents before she finally gets to the point of her story.

“Anyhoo, I ran into Melanie at the grocery store the other day after I stopped by the doctor to get a refill on my bursitis medication. There was construction on County Road 10, so I had to take 102nd Street to Little Avenue. She’s got the most adorable little boy named Carter who she just put in Sunday school, so I’ll just have a little chat with Pastor Bob and that will fix everything.”