Page 3 of Falling for Carla
CARLA
I woke up before my alarm. Not typical college student behavior, to be so excited for the first day of classes, but I had my reasons. This was the first day of my final semester at Berkeley. I was finishing up my graduate degree in criminal justice before I applied to the LAPD academy. It was competitive, but I was beyond ready.
Turning over, I picked up my phone and switched off the alarm. Then I cranked up some music to get my day started.
I was twisting my hair up and I stopped to look at my mom’s photo. It was a picture of us from my sixteenth birthday, not long before she died. We were ‘all dolled up’ as she called it, with our hair and nails done, going out to tea at the Plaza. It was just the kind of fancy thing she always planned for me, and she reminded me how much I’d loved her reading me Eloise when I was little.
Her gorgeous smile, her vibrant dark eyes that were like mine, and all the energy and life in her—I wondered why she had liked sad songs so much. Maybe she had seen it coming from a mile away and known there was nothing she could do to change things. Maybe that was why she had surprised me that day, not with the keys to a sports car, but the number of a bank account, savings she had set aside for me since the day she found out she was pregnant with me.
“So you can go your own way. I want you to live your life, baby girl. Without getting caught up in your father’s business. You’ve always known your own mind, and I want you to be able to chase your dreams without asking anyone’s permission,” she had told me.
She had left me way too soon. I brushed my finger across her smile in the picture frame. Nothing would’ve made me happier than to have her back again, to have her here to see me graduate in a few months. I was going to make her proud.
I knew she was with me no matter what, and that she’d know I was doing exactly what she had wanted for me—chasing my own dreams and making my own way. With her support and love helping me from beyond the grave. I sighed and turned off the music. I was wiping away tears and I didn’t need to start the day and the semester with crying. It just never got easier, living without her.
Enough of getting emotional. I got dressed and put on some mascara, stepped into my sandals. Then I sat down on the bed to put my necklace on, the gold cross my mom had given me when I was confirmed at age thirteen. I wore it every day. It was simple and tiny, not like the one my dad gave me in front of everyone at the party after church.
That one had been diamond encrusted on a platinum chain. My mom had beamed happily in the picture of the three of us that day, but she’d given me the plain, pretty cross that had been hers as a child later when she came in to say good night. It wasn’t a secret. We didn’t keep secrets from my dad because his organization had eyes everywhere. Anytime I’d come close to cutting class or getting in trouble as a kid, my phone would ring, and my dad would be on the other end.
He knew I was up to something because he had people watching us, for our safety he claimed. We all knew how that had turned out, him keeping us safe. Still, we knew better than to try and hide things from him—a bad grade, a fight with a friend, the time I got detention for having my phone out in class—it was better to confess up front than to let him find out and then question you when you knew he already had the information and he was just toying with you.
Even though his business and his network were shrouded in secrets, we had never had any privacy from him. As far as I knew, the only one she ever managed to keep was that bank account she had slipped money into for seventeen years a little at a time. I was grateful for it, but I wished so much that things had been different, that we had been able to escape together.
I sat there holding the little gold cross in my palm, my lips pressed together, just stuck in the storm of grief that gripped me all of a sudden. Just then, my roommate Brenda popped her head in my bedroom door.
“You ready to go to campus?” she asked. Then she paused and I felt the mattress sink as she sat down beside me. “Hey, you okay?”
I nodded, “Yeah. I am. Thanks.”
“Your mom was really pretty,” she said, following my gaze to the framed photo. “Even though I never met her, I know from you talking about her how crazy she was about you, and how proud she’d be right now. You’re doing this, and all on your own. She’s looking down on you and she’s so proud of your accomplishments, Carla.”
“Thanks,” I said again, leaning my head on her shoulder, “you’re the best.”
“I know,” she laughed. I hugged her and then stood up and shook off my sad mood.
“Last one to the car has to give up control of the radio!” I said and we jostled and raced out to her car like idiots, laughing the whole time.
She beat me there because I was wearing flip flops and she had on her Vans. If I wasn’t afraid of tripping over my sandals and biting it on the sidewalk, I could’ve been faster than her, I told myself as I tucked a stray curl behind my ear. This was going to be a good semester, and I was going to graduate and get into the police academy just like I planned. I was keeping my eye on the ball. No distractions.
“Can you believe we’re almost done with school?” Brenda asked. “I’m excited but it’s weird, too. I’m so used to living like this, not really in the real world. Just go to class, do the assignments, do laundry, hang out with my friends…”
“Isn’t that what the real world is like? Instead of class you go to work, and then hang out with friends or do laundry. If that’s not what it’s like, I want a refund, because I did not sign up for 24-7 work and no play,” I joked.
“Girl, they don’t take returns or exchanges. It’s suck it up, buttercup time once graduation rolls around,” she said wryly.
“Speaking of rolls, we should get those awesome spring rolls again soon.”
“Oh, from the place that doesn’t do Door Dash? Those were totally worth it. Remind me some night when I’m not in my sweatpants already,” she said.
“I’ve got Advanced Criminology. What class are you in this morning?” I asked.
“Uh, can’t you tell by how I’m dressed? I’ve got Takedown.”
“Babe, it’s not called Takedown. It’s Safety and Ethics in Offender Apprehension. I had it last semester, remember?”
“Yeah, but I’d rather call it Takedown. Sounds more badass not to mention ethics.”
“You should tell them that when you go on interviews. Ethics aren’t badass enough,” I quipped.