Another New Life

Chapter One

I’ve always been fond of the saying, “If something is to good to be true, it probably is.”

Or, how about “If you expect the worst, you won’t ever be disappointed.” That a good one too.

I wasn't born with this impending sense of doom in the pit of my stomach. I acquired it somewhere, but I can't seem to get rid of it. For the past ten years, I managed my life, but never lived it. I swayed somewhere between panic and numb, and the only way I managed to avoid full on nervous breakdown was by pounding away on a piano at least once a day.  

Imagine where my nerves were considering, I'd been on campus a week with no access to my lifeline until today. My new life was taking a bit longer to get used to then I hoped. Ha. Hope. That’s a new one for me.

As I crossed campus, feeling the anxiety dissipate, with the Music Hall in site. I exhaled, but the shriek of my phone made my chest tightened. I knew it had to be my parents. Besides my roommate, no one else had my number.  

I sat down on a concrete bench beside the door. The grass would have been more comfortable, but the solid, unyielding bench seemed a more appropriate place to have a conversation with Mom & Dad.  

I answered the phone.  

"Betsky," my dad yelled.

I pulled the phone away to avoid damaging an eardrum. At the same time, I cringed from the use of his invented nickname for me:  a clever combination of Beethoven and Tchaikovsky. He loved the idea of having a classical pianist for a daughter. I didn't have the heart to tell him, I related more to Rachmaninov and Bendel. Believe me, Dad doesn't know the different between Rachmaninov and Rumpelstiltskin.

"Hi Dad."

"It's so great to hear your voice," he said.

"Yeah."

"You are doing ok," Dad said. His tone made me uncomfortable. It wasn't so much a question, but a suggestion. Every sentence he uttered had an apologetic cadence to it, like every sentence ended in a silent, 'I'm sorry'.

He had things to be sorry for, but it didn't matter anymore.

"Miranda," Mom's fake compassionate voice she used on clients came crawling through the phone.

"Hi," I said.

"How are you? How's school? What have you done since you arrived?" Her questions came fast and quick, and she continued to speak without giving me a chance to answer. "I noticed you left a few things in your room. I was going to ship them to you, but then figured you'd be home for Christmas in a few months. You can get them then," she continued to speak. I pretended to listen.

At eighteen years old, my mother and I looked like twins. I'd grown into the spitting image of her, and it unnerved me. We both stood five feet seven inches tall. We had the same thick naturally wavy brown hair.

I pissed her off, a couple years ago, when I shaved the sides of my hair and left it long on the top and in the back. It's grown out since then. I figured looking weird because you were mad at your mother at eighteen made me seem like a child.

Silence filled the line. I hadn't noticed she stopped speaking.

"Hello."

"How's your roommate?" she said and paused this time to allow me to answer.

"She is fine," I said.

"Well, tell me about her, where's she from, what does she look like?" The interrogation started again.