Xhenet Aliu - Brass

“Ah, crap,” your mother says, looking up at you. “We’re gonna need another chair.”

“I’ll stand,” you answer.

You don’t stand. You end up on a twenty-five-dollar Office Max office chair that rolls away from the table every time the anchors of your feet lift off the floor as you reach for another crescent roll.

“I just don’t understand where you put all that food,” Mamie says to Greta. “You haven’t stopped eating since you walked in the door.”

“It’s Christmas,” your mother says. “Let her enjoy herself.”

“You’re like that hot dog–eating lady who weighs about ninety pounds. Do you just hollow yourself out so you can eat once a year?” Mamie says.

“First you tell me I’m too skinny and then you won’t lay off me for eating. What is it that’s going to make you happy?” Greta says.

“I am happy. What makes you think I’m not happy, just because I’m concerned? Would you be happy if I wasn’t concerned?”

“Yes,” Greta answers.

“So how’s work?” Robbie asks Greta. He’d assured you and your mother that his own family’s holiday dinners had primed him for whatever the Kuzavinas family would dish out in addition to food, but he’s been sitting at the table silently throughout dinner, responding to every line of conversation with the same weird, tight smile that makes him look a little Botoxed, as if he’s an out-of-work talk-show host instead of a gainfully employed community college instructor.

“It’s great. Last week a patron stabbed himself in the stomach in the bathroom and then came to the reference desk asking for help putting his intestines back in,” Greta answers through a mouthful of candied yams.

“Oh, that’s disgusting,” Mamie says.

“You have to say that at the dinner table?” your mother says.

“I’m the only one still eating,” Greta answers, looking truly a little pleased with herself. “And Robbie asked.”

“Vet?” Robbie asks. “Homeless?”

“Both, probably. You know how it is, it’s a public library. Part daycare center, part VA hospital, part sex shop for middle-aged moms who don’t want to pay the fifteen bucks for their own copy of Fifty Shades .”

You sometimes almost forget that Greta is a librarian, because you think of her so exclusively as Greta, as if that is itself an occupation: buzz-cutted, lesbian bar–hopping, get-the-fuck-out-of-Dodger. Her apartment is the kind of place where there’s only room to sit on the floor, which is dingy enough to be the last place you want to sit, but she goes to parties in breathtaking lofts owned by rich people who dress like poor people and raise organic chickens on their rooftops. When rent and student loan payments eat her paychecks three hours after she receives them, she makes do on slices of Ray’s and appetizers made by chef friends who’ve been on TV and don’t even make a thing of it, as if being on TV is something as natural as having a thigh gap. You admire her so much it hurts.

But you’re just her kid niece, she reminds you, when she asks, “So, Lu, have you sent in your college applications yet?”

Instantly you regret stuffing down that last crescent roll.

“Yeah, a couple weeks ago,” you lie.

“Exciting,” she says. “Where did you apply?”

“Western Connecticut State University and, you know, NYU,” you say.

“And where else are you going to apply?”

“What do you mean, where else ?”

“That’s it? Two schools?”

“A reach and a safety. That’s what the guidance counselor said to do.”

“Yeah, a reach and a safety. What’s wrong with that?” your mother asks, not rhetorically.

“You’re going to listen to a guidance counselor?”

“That’s their job. Yeah, we listened to them,” your mother says.

“Please, the guidance counselors here basically just feed people into the military. Why do you think they offer the ASVAB instead of SAT prep at school? And the kids who can’t pass the military fitness test get pushed into Mattatuck. No offense.”

“None taken,” Robbie says.

“Some taken,” your mother says. “I went to Mattatuck. What’s wrong with Mattatuck?”

“She owes a whole lot less on her student loans than you,” Mamie chimes in.

“I’m sorry, I know that sounded douchey. I’m just saying that it’s not what you want for Lulu, right? And Lulu, it’s not what you want, right?”

“No,” you say.

“No,” your mother echoes, though she seems to be waiting to be told whether or not she answered correctly.

“Well, why not? Why do you think everybody has to go to some name-brand college?” Mamie says.

“Because the people who run the places we all work for send their kids there, and they never think to call them name-brand colleges.”

“Those people. Who even wants to be one of those people?” Mamie says.

“We should want Lulu to be one of those people,” Greta says.

“I do,” your mother answers. “I think she can be one of those people no matter where she goes to school.”

“Anyway, they shove college down all these kids’ throats nowadays, and yet half of ’em don’t know how to work worth a damn. They don’t know how to do anything without Mommy and Daddy holding their hand,” Mamie says.

“I never have to worry about that,” you say, but nobody seems to hear it.

“We’re just doing what we were told to do,” your mother says. “I mean, how many applications is she supposed to send out?”

“That’s up to Lulu. Five or six, maybe? Did you look into any other places?” she asks you.

You don’t respond. It’s what happens instead of saying no, which is the real answer, which you figured out recently was the wrong one, and you feel a bit like Greta has ganged up with NYU and Margarita to remind you of what an idiot you’ve been. In truth, your criteria in selecting NYU had been, in this order: location; having heard of it; and it not being Columbia, an ivy where in a million years you wouldn’t have dreamed of applying. You hadn’t let yourself consider what would happen if you weren’t admitted to NYU, since you never really considered the other option an alternative. Western Connecticut isn’t really a safety, it’s a freebie, a school that practically guarantees admission to anyone with a high school diploma and the willingness to drive I-84 west at least a few days a week.

“I wish you would’ve told us this a little bit sooner,” your mother says, looking first at Greta, and then turning to Robbie. “You, too. Aren’t you supposed to know about this stuff?”

Robbie looks deeply embarrassed, and is clearly regretting turning down Christmas in Bay Ridge, where the meal would be served cacciatore style and suffused with the kind of Italian-mother guilt to which he had long ago become inured. “I mean, I’m happy to answer any questions, but I didn’t want to overstep my bounds. She’s not my,” he begins, but doesn’t finish what obviously doesn’t need finishing.

“Daughter. I’m not his daughter. It’s not his job,” you say. “And it’s not Greta’s job, either, and it’s not a stupid guidance counselor’s job.”

“No, actually, it is a guidance counselor’s job,” your mother interrupts.

“No, actually, not really,” you say.

“Are you telling me I’m supposed to have done everything? I am one person, if you haven’t noticed,” your mother says.

“No, you weren’t supposed to have done everything. You just decided to,” you say.

“Really,” she says, though there is emphatically no question mark at the end of it. “I decided to make both of our lives as difficult as possible.”