Three Weeks Later

"How could I send letters home If nothing can come back?" I asked.

"Just write and stamp it, the drone will read what you wrote and I'll have a clerk with clearance feed it through a handwriting to text translator then check for errors and put it in the mail: easy!" Lucy said with a both enthusiastic and dismissive hand waive.

I was honestly tempted to go right then, but I try not to make unexamined decisions.

"I'll need some time to think about this," I said, and Lucy smiled while she stood up.

"You have until a month after graduation," she said, and showed me out to a waiting staff car.

"How was you interview 'Peaches'?" My Mom asked in her deliberately thick Japanese accent. Mom actually speaks flawless and un-accented idiomatic English, has since before she married dad and moved here in 1996, but she talks like a late nineteen-forties war bride because she and dad find it hilarious. I don't get WHY, even all these years later, it still makes them crack up, but it's been that way since I was born. I thought about replying in my own, heavily American accented, Japanese, but decided to stick to English for now.

"It went well, I got two thousand bucks just for signing the NDA to hear the pitch and I think I might take the job. Can't say much more than that, but I would have to be away from home for a very long time, which is why I might not accept after all..."

Mom made a humming sound in her throat and asked, "They have internet there?"

"No, not even phones. I basically couldn't communicate at all."

"Why you leave me and you father so soon? They must be offering GOOOOOD money, huh?"

"I'd be able to send home 5k a WEEK." I explained.

"Phew-eee! You dad don't make so much and he senior manager for all the Toyota dealerships in whole tri-county area! They offer good health benefits?"

"Not really, the place I'd be going is kind of backwards, they can barely do dental there, but I'm getting dangerously close to breaking the NDA..."

"OK, OK, just one more, how long you have to decide?" Mom asked.

"A month after graduation, but they said I could start tomorrow morning if I want."

Again mom made that humming sound and with a little giggle dropped the fake accent. "If you want your old mother's advice you should finish out the school year, get your diploma, then take the job the day after graduation. This sounds like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!" Mom said, and went back to making dinner.

"When's dad going to be home?" I asked, and mom smiled.

"He called and said he was leaving Greenhill twenty minutes ago. Should be home within the hour." Mom said as she added the peppers to the wok. Tuesday nights were "Seasonal Stir Fry" at my parents house... Still are probably.

Dad was home with a minute to spare on the hour, and though he stormed in in a foul mood as soon as mom said "You home late!" he broke into a grin and started to chuckle.

"Sorry Kiki, the traffic in town was horrible, haven't seen it this bad outside of Christmas or Thanksgiving in twenty-five years!"

"It OK, come, eat! Food hot!" Mom replied and dad sat down at the head of the table almost the second his shoes were off.

"Komadori have very good job offer after graduation! Hush-hush, no say much, and be gone long time no talk, but pay Great!" Mom said calling me by my Japanese name. (Komadori is Japanese for 'Robin'.)

We rehashed what I had told mom when I got home and dad came to much the same conclusion. "You finish school Robin, then take the job. You'll be sending home more every week than I make, and if you're not saving at least 3/4 for yourself you're not as smart as I think you are."

I wrestled with the decision for another three weeks, but then Jason Carmichael, (someone else I'd dated,) let slip about my condition at a party and my life became pure Hell. It wasn't the teasing that got to me, though that was BAD, it was when a bunch of homophobic jocks tried to **** me and said they would cut my cock and balls off and "make me a real woman". I was outnumbered five to one and though I put up a good fight I didn't really stand a chance.

Thank God those sheriff's deputies drove by when they did and tazered everyone or I would probably be dead. I spent the rest of the school year working from a hospital room in protective custody, but THEY spent it in JAIL. (In Centerville you DON'T want to get brought up on an attempted **** charge, Judge Martin has TEN daughters and five granddaughters: so far...)

The third night in the hospital I called Lucy. She didn't answer of course but I left a voicemail. All it said was, "This is Robin, I want the job."