lasagna

“Riley! Charlie! Get your asses over here!” my mother yelled to me and a toddler.

My mom is… well, to put it one way, she’s a complete a-hole. Excuse my language, but she cusses at us all the time (even at my 6-year-old sister), throws tantrums like she’s a toddler, and has even thrown a pan at me before. No joke.

But at the same time of her being on the leaderboard of worst moms ever, she’s extremely… well... For example, she gets really angry if I curse, even a minor infraction like “hell” or “damn.” I didn’t get a phone until I was 14, and I won’t get cell service until I’m 15. She’s super controlling about phones and stuff, and monitors, like, everything that exists on my phone. Who I text, what I text, what apps I have, what I’m posting on Instagram (the only social media she allows besides Pinterest), what photos I have saved, and way more.

Not to mention my door is a literal curtain.

“Coming!” I scream back from my room. I hop up off my bed and push through my curtain, walking down the hall to our, how do I put this, crusty kitchen.

“Why does it smell burning in here?” my little sister, Riley, waddles in like the friggin penguin she is.

“Why does it smell like something’s burning?” my mother snarls at Riley. “Use correct grammar, you damn kid. No wonder you got held back in kindergarten.”

“Jesus, Mom, wanna be a little more rude to the 5-year-old?” I roll my eyes, “Plus, she didn’t get held back because her grammar. You know that too. She got held back because-”

“You shut your damn mouth, girl,” Mom waves a spatula at me.

“Whatever.”

“Learn some manners, Charlie, or I’ll give your custody to your dad.”

Now, I don’t know if it actually works like that, that you can just transfer custody at the flip of a switch, but the threat of living with my great ol’ pops was enough to make me shut the hell up.

“What’d you make, Mom?”

“Lasagna.”

“Yummy!” Riley squeals, stomping her bare feet.

Mom ties her hair up in a bun. “Siddown,” she commands, and Riley and I take our seats at our scratched-up kitchen table.

Mom sets the pan of lasagna in the center. As we scoop up some and slop in on our paper plates, I glance at Mom. I do have a question for her, but I don’t know how she’ll react.

“Hey, uh, Mom?”

“If you’re pregnant or need birth control, I’m kicking you out.”

“Oh, uh, that’s- that’s not what I was gonna- that’s not what I was gonna ask.”

“Then what were you gonna ask, Charlie? C’mon, let me hear it.”

God, she can be so difficult sometimes.

“Well, I was just searching online the other day, and well, you know how I don’t wanna go back to public school?”

“Yeah?”

“Um, well, I found this school that’s really close by. Like, I could probably bike there. And I’ll be able to drive soon, too, of course. It’s an art school, called the Academy of Creative Arts. Imaginative, I know, but it looks absolutely amazing. I could take theatre classes, Mom, you know I wanna do that in life.”

“Though I don’t approve.”

“But Mom, if i made it onto Broadway, I’d be rich. You know how much Broadway actors get paid?” Mom stares at me and doesn’t reply, so I answer for her. “$30,000 to $700,000! That’s crazy!”

“Only $30,000?” my mom sighs.

“Mom, but that’s not the point. The point is this school. I really, really wanna go.”

“How much is the tuition?”

“Um… if I remember correctly, around um… around $20,000 a… year…”

“Jesus Christ, Charlie, that’s insane. You’re not going.”

“But Mom!”

“Once you have your own money, you can pay for that damn school. You probably won’t make to Broadway anyway, so best find something else. You could be a director. That’s pretty cool, huh?”

“Mom, I don’t wanna be a director. I wanna be an actress.”

“I hear that new show is calling for people to audition. Go audition for it. They need teens, I think.”

“Mom, I wanna act on a stage.”

“Acting in front of a camera, acting in front of people. It’s still acting. Deal with it. You’re. Not. Going.”

“Mom!” I yell.

“Charlie! We cannot afford that damn school. Now shut your damn mouth and eat your damn lasagna!”

“Whatever, Mom. I’m not hungry.” I stand up to leave my then I’m stopped by something smacking against my head. Was it Mom? Riley? A strange man?

I turn to see, and then see a spatula on the floor. “Did you just throw a spatula at me, Mom?”

“Do not leave the dinner table like that again, young lady!”

“Mom, listen!” I yell. 

“Charlie!”

“Mom, I get it. We’re poor. I get that. I’ve come to terms with it. It’s fine if I can’t go to that school because we can’t afford it, but don’t say that my dreams aren’t worth it. That what I want isn’t optional because the pay could potentially not be good. Don’t do that, Mom.”

“I’m just trying to get you to be realistic.”

“I don’t wanna be realistic.”

“Well, that’s just damn stupid, Charlie. You need to be realistic in this world to survive. So get your damn mind together and figure out a reliable career path!”

“It’s my life! I’ll do whatever I want!”

“Oh, so you’re gonna go smoke a joint with your friends underneath a highway because you can do whatever you want?”

“That’s not me, Mom! That’s you!”

“Stop yelling at me!” Mom screams.

“Stop yelling at me!” Riley repeats, holding her hands to her ears.

“Charlie, this is it. Conversation’s over. Go to your room.”

I walk up to the table and grab my lasagna plate. “I didn’t get my lasagna.”

“Go!”

“Fine!”

I storm down the hall to my room, slamming the door. No happy endings in my family. Like, ever. I’m used to it by now. 

Freaking art school. Freaking being poor.

Freaking lasagna.