Avery
Avery
September 2019
I s this what it means to be a woman? To be nearly thirty years old and still afraid to say what you want in life? Or, at the very least, what you don’t want? Sometimes, Avery thinks, one of the hardest things in life is, simply, to sit with yourself and allow yourself to be . Listen to your instincts. Admit that you don’t always know how to move forward. Or, rather, that you think you know how to move forward but are afraid to take that first step.
Avery is not the scaredy-cat type. It’s not like she has to make life-or-death decisions in order to get by. Hers is not that kind of life. So she wasn’t afraid to negotiate her salary and conditions at the law firm. She wasn’t afraid to suggest the firm hold two staff meetings a week during the lunch hour to avoid consuming billable client hours in the morning. She wasn’t afraid to say to the partners that it would be more cost-effective to offer the staff a catered meal on those occasions. To build morale.
Ultimately, Avery had gained respect by daring to point out that the partners were wrong in assuming that their administrative staff, working as they did for some of the top lawyers in the country, would be satisfied merely with the prestige of it. The attorneys expected good incomes and benefits for their own efforts. Why shouldn’t their staff have a nice meal on the company? More vacation days to compensate for the lunchtime work. More money, period. Thoughtful compensation would yield greater productivity, she argued.
So Avery has not been shy about speaking up. And when it came to it, she wasn’t afraid to cut her losses with Henry and drive away in their rental car alone.
What does make Avery nervous is the thought of admitting what she wants now. She has been changing her mind about a number of things. She thought she wanted Henry. Thought she wanted a child with someone like him. Thought she wanted to make partner at the law firm above all else. But now, after thinking she was done with school for a good while, she knows she wants to go back to university.
Avery can see herself picking up another degree. Switching careers and going back to her original professional interest. Avery did a major in psychology before going to law school. Studies show that older university students tend to be focused and successful because they know what they’re trying to achieve. But the fact remains that Avery is afraid to no longer be the person people expect her to be.
Avery suspects she would sound like a green Miss America hopeful if she were to tell her parents that she is insatiably curious about people, about what makes them function. About what helps them to heal. She is afraid to say that she believes she has a calling and that this calling is not what consumes most of her working hours now. She wants to be brave enough to say to her parents, I could help people. I could still make you proud of me.
She finds herself wishing she could talk to someone like Ebby about this. Someone who must be accustomed to not quite fitting other people’s notions of who she is. She wonders, should she go back to calling her Ebony? Does she still get to think of her as Ebby if they’re no longer talking? Not that there was an official rift of any sort with Ebby. Avery simply drove away the last night she saw Ebby without saying goodbye. In fact, she has nothing against Ebby, per se. It’s just that Avery doesn’t know what she would say to someone whose very existence has dashed her hopes, however misguided, of a meaningful relationship with Henry.
Avery is sorry, in a way, that things ended as they did between them. She and Ebby might have been friends, under other circumstances. But she can’t see how a real friendship would have been possible had Avery continued to see Henry. And now that she is not with him, a friendship feels just as unlikely. Avery cannot shake the image of Henry, that final night at the cottage, hands on Ebby’s shoulders, trying to get her to look at him.
The way he bowed his head toward hers. The way she, so clearly, struggled to resist looking up.
Those two have a kind of history that Avery never did have with Henry. Avery sees, now, that no matter how messily things ended between those two, it had begun with love. Henry had loved Ebby. And, it seems, Henry now regrets having left Ebby. Probably, it is beyond the scope of Henry’s imagination to consider that Ebby is not likely to take him back. But it is clear to Avery. Because the problem between Henry and Ebby wasn’t about affection or attraction. It was about the kind of man that Henry had been with Ebby. It was about Henry letting go of Ebby when he should have done whatever it took to hold on to her.
Sometimes, when a person comes around, it’s simply too late.
Avery remembers hearing a door slam that last night at the cottage before Henry trudged into the guesthouse. She figured whatever he and Ebby had talked about hadn’t ended well. On the other hand, Avery has been questioning her own judgment in getting involved with Henry. For Avery, finding a way to get close to Henry had been a bit like her quest to go to Yale Law School and get on the partner track at a corporate firm in Connecticut by age thirty. She had decided that Henry was her goal and that she was going to make it work with him.
Avery had told herself that Henry would be different with her. That he would be more considerate. And, in a way, he was. That last night in the guest cottage, after Avery had finished yelling at him, Henry pulled Avery by the hand and sat her down next to him on the sofa. He stroked her arm and apologized for any embarrassment or disappointment he had caused her. He explained that he had tried to embark on a relationship too soon after Ebby. And then he said the thing that, looking back, now, Avery can see was an act of generosity on Henry’s part.
“Avery, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to give up the chance to be with you.” On that note, Avery stood up, grabbed the keys to the rental SUV from the kitchen table, slung her handbag across her torso, put her tote bag on her shoulder, hooked the straps of her beauty case over the handle of her wheeled suitcase, and, above that, the elastic bands of her travel pillow. She would have preferred to hear that it never would have been a go with her. That she hadn’t been his type to begin with.
“No, Avery,” called Henry. “Please, don’t do this. Maybe I just need some time.” Henry followed her around the room, his voice getting louder. “Can’t we talk about this?”
Avery felt a half smile cross her face. A kind of tenderness warmed her chest. But no. Avery was not an overly proud person. Still, she had more pride than that. With a shake of her head, she pulled open the front door and walked away. Henry called her name as he followed her out the door but then stopped in the middle of the yard. As Avery loaded the trunk of the SUV, she congratulated herself on the efficiency of the baggage and travel accessories that she had put together for the trip. She got behind the wheel without looking back.
But having enough self-esteem to walk away from Henry doesn’t mean Avery doesn’t have her issues. Avery still needs to be cared for. To be admired. To be supported. She knows she’s been lucky. At home, Avery has always been cared for, admired, and supported. And she doesn’t like imagining a world in which she might have to do without those things.
You don’t spend all that time, plus your parents’ money, going to Ivy League institutions and finishing two degrees only to say, Sorry, I changed my mind, and expect your parents to say, Okay, fine . Especially not when they’d gone to the very same schools themselves. Avery was a legacy student, and in her parents’ minds, this comes with a sort of reputational responsibility to the previous generation. In Avery’s case, the previous two generations.
Avery doesn’t need her parents’ support, at this age, to embark on a new course of study. She is not short on cash. What she does want, though, is her mom and dad’s approval. Because this is part of who Avery is. This is why Avery, waiting for a train to Versailles, is still unsure of how to tell her folks that she has rented a two-room attic apartment in a suburb of Paris. She wants to tell them about the wooden floors and all that light. She wants to tell them not to worry. She wants to hear them say, Are you sure that’s what you want? And she wants to be on a video call, so they can see her smile when she says yes.
She has told her boss. This morning, she wrote an email to tell him she’s taking a leave of absence from the law firm. Potential career killer, she knows. But she needs to figure things out. When she gets back to the apartment, she clicks on the links she’s been saving in a Word document. Links to graduate programs in psychology. Links to information on the GRE testing required of applicants. She stretches her legs out on the velvet chaise longue and props her laptop on her thighs. The chair is cobalt blue with gray piping. The flooring is a gray herringbone oak. The doors to the terrace are filled with handblown glass panes. This room energizes her.
Before wading into the GRE instructions, Avery clicks on a news site and checks the headlines. Maybe she should have gone to a real estate site instead, because all she can see are people in trouble. She reads about student protests and a boycott. Xenophobic attacks. A double bombing. The hottest September on record. The French say their honey production is down because of the impact of global warming on bees. The scientists say the planet is in trouble, just look at the bees.
Avery stands up, walks over to the window, and looks outside. She watches as bees float above a bank of lavender. In this little corner of this garden, there appears to be some hope for the bees. Avery goes back to her laptop and sits down. Now, where was she?