Under Her Care(27)
“You did?”
She gives me a huge smile, and for a second, the little girl from the pictures in her childhood home flashes on her face. “I really wanted to go. Like, really wanted to. I love the school, but I also love California. I always have. Ever since I was little. We used to go to Disneyland every year when I was a kid, and I pretended I lived there.” She giggles, then covers her mouth like it’s embarrassing to laugh in front of me, or maybe she’s just trying to be hard. “Whenever I was off by myself, waiting in line somewhere to get cotton candy or a snow cone, sometimes even the bathroom, I would tell people that I lived there. I was always like, ‘Hi, I’m from Los Angeles.’” Her eyes sparkle with the memory. “It just felt so glamorous.”
“Why didn’t you go?”
Her smile instantly fades. “Genevieve wanted me near home.” She catches my eye. We both know she’s committed a cardinal sin—southern kids never call their parents by their first name. There’s nothing more disrespectful. “I begged and begged to go, but she refused, and I couldn’t move her. Not even a little. So I just decided that I wasn’t going to let her stop me, and I’d go no matter what.” She has the same fiery look as Genevieve when she gets upset—eyes laser focused, jaw set. “I booked a flight and packed my suitcase. I was all ready to go. Then, the night before I was supposed to leave, Genevieve came into my room and told me that I was free to go to UCLA. I could get on a plane in the morning and fly across the country if that’s what I wanted to do. She kept saying, ‘That’s fine, that’s fine.’” She mimics Genevieve’s voice almost perfectly. Anger clouds her features at what she’s about to reveal next. “But she let me know that if I went, I was going to be on my own. She wouldn’t pay my tuition.” She leans across the booth. “Not only wouldn’t she pay my tuition, she’d also cut me off from any access to my trust fund and all of my credit cards. I would truly be on my own.”
“Really?” I can’t imagine doing such a thing. What parent would hold their child back from UCLA? Ole Miss is a great school, but it pales in comparison to UCLA.
“Really,” she says definitively, letting out a frustrated sigh. “I literally had zero dollars to my name. UCLA’s tuition is over forty thousand dollars a year, and I didn’t qualify for any scholarships or financial aid because Genevieve has too much money. I would’ve had to work like eight jobs to survive, so I didn’t go.” She lets out a bitter laugh. “You know what’s really messed up, though? She’d already accepted my admission to Ole Miss on my behalf before she threatened to cut me off. While I’d accepted my spot at UCLA and been setting things up there, she’d secretly been doing the same things for Ole Miss. She’d registered me for all my classes, set things up for the dorm, and even filled my meal card. She knew she planned to give me the ultimatum all along. And the worst part?” She looks away before continuing the story. This is where it must really hurt. “She knew that I wouldn’t go because she’d already paid the tuition for the first semester at Ole Miss. That’s the thing about Genevieve that you probably don’t know—she always gets what she wants.”
Ole Miss is only a three-and-a-half-hour drive from Tuscaloosa. I understand the need to want your daughter close, but just because I understand it doesn’t make what Genevieve did right.
“Is it going well now that you’re here at least?” I ask, always looking for the silver lining.
“Yeah, I like it just fine.” She shrugs and leans back against the booth. “Ole Miss is a good school, but it just feels like I went on to college with everyone that I went to high school with, except now we all live together and don’t have curfews. Some people love it. But that’s not what I’m trying to do.”
I can’t help but laugh because I was one of those people. I went to school with the same three hundred kids through high school and only made it as far as Tulane for college. “Sounds like you and Genevieve don’t get along so well.” I use her way of referring to her mom, hoping she’ll notice I’m respecting where things are at with their relationship.
She snorts. “That’s the understatement of the year.” She twirls the straw in her water glass.
“What happened between the two of you? Besides the fact that she forced you into going to a college you didn’t want to?” It was a nasty move for Genevieve and incredibly selfish, but it’s a pretty privileged problem to have. It’s hard to feel too sorry for her when I’m pretty sure the red BMW parked outside in the parking lot is the one she pulled up in.
“I can tell you exactly when everything changed.” She grips her water with both hands and peers at me intently. “After I quit doing pageants.”
“Why’d you stop?” She looked like a natural in all the photos. Just like her mom. Chin up. Chest out. Shoulders back. Toes pointed. All that posture was gone when she walked in the door today. She doesn’t hold herself like a former pageant princess, but you couldn’t miss it when she was younger.
“Genevieve started putting me in pageants when I was three. I was little Miss Wee Tot in Mississippi my first year. Miss Wee Tot, can you believe that? Like, how is that even possible? But anyway, I was. I earned the sash or the crown or whatever it was called back then. It’s been so long I can’t remember.” She fiddles with the necklace around her neck. Her fingernails are chewed down to nubs. “It was fun when I started because it was just me and Genevieve doing our thing. We spent our weekends traveling all over the place to different pageants and competitions. I liked getting my hair done and all the makeup because it felt like I was playing dress-up with my mom all weekend long in fancy hotels, you know?”