I ran my hand through the water, cold as ice, in the predawn gray. Milagra, lying flat on her surfboard, was just ahead of me, weaving through waves too small to notice. I followed her, aching for my moment. We waited. And waited. And then, the ocean took a breath. We rode it out, whooping at the top of our lungs until we were breathless.

Milagra looked drunk on adrenaline. “WOOO! Crys, how do you like mi novia?”

I laughed. She treated the ocean like it was her girlfriend. “Yup, I’m gonna miss her.”

She wrinkled her nose as she bobbed beside me. “Oregon waves are nothing like Cali’s though. El agua es una puta fria.”

Milagra only speaks the language of love when she’s in the ocean. “¿Verdad? Oregon’s waves can’t be as cold as Cali’s in the morning.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Just wait. You won’t know what hit you. You’ll be alright though. You’re practically a mermaid anyway.”

“Really? That’s kind of extreme,” I said, laughing then glanced at the sun streaked horizon. “I should head out. My dad’s already going to kill me for sneaking out this morning.”

As we turned our boards in the direction of shore, something caught my eye - a tail fin silhouetted against the pink skyline. It was gone before I could blink.

“Did you see that?” I asked Milagra.

“See what?”

“I - nevermind.” I shook my head. It was too early for hallucinations.

We didn’t speak until we splashed onto the sandy shore, still breathless. As we stripped off our wetsuits, she said, “I’ll miss this. Now I’ll have to surf with boys again. If you’re ever back in Santa Rosa, look me up.”

“Sure thing,” I promised, knowing I would never keep it.

~

Orange slices waited for me in the kitchen along with a pissed-off Dad. “Today, of all days, you had to go surfing?” he said as he wrapped the last of our dishes and put them into a box.

“Today is exactly is the day I needed to go,” I said, not looking at him as I walked into the kitchen and devoured the orange. “I needed to say good-bye.”

He paused from his frantic, last minute packing and softened. “To Mom or Milagra?”

“Both,” I said. The orange turned sour in my mouth but I chewed and swallowed anyway. It’d been two years since Mom drowned and her absence was still a gaping hole between us. “Why do we have to move again?”

“You know why,” he replied, renewing his frantic packing.

“But I like it here.”

He sighed but at least looked a little guilty. “I’m sorry, mija. I know it’s hard but it’s my job.”

I clenched my jaw then, reluctantly, growled under my breath, “What can I do to help?”

He handed me a broom and told me to start sweeping. Before the accident two years ago, Dad owned a busy antique shop in Vallejo, our hometown. After her death, he decided he couldn’t stay in the same place she died and sold the shop. Now he worked for an auction house as a roaming antique researcher. They procured cheap, old houses and Dad searched them for old letters, diaries, jewelry, etc, dragging me along with him.

By nine a.m., the apartment was swept and the car stuffed full with all our junk. I threw my backpack onto the floor and slid into the front seat.

“Ready for our next adventure?” He grinned and gave me a cheesy thumbs up.

I faked a smile just for him. “Sure thing, Dad.”

~

The setting sun followed our car as it climbed higher and higher up the mountain. Huge pine trees lined the curvy road, making me feel small and insignificant. Finally, we reached the gravel driveway of an old mansion that sat on a bluff looking over the Pacific Ocean.

“Bienvenido a nuestra casa nueva,” Dad announced with a sweeping gesture as he got out of the car.

“This is where we’re living?” I gasped and stood next to him in front of the magnificent but dilapidated house.

“Claro que si.” Dad grinned and flicked the brim of my Lakers hat, sending it tumbling behind me. “Instead of renting one of those cheap apartments, we’re living on the job.”

“Thank God,” I said, punching him in the shoulder before snatching my hat off the ground.

This was an improvement. For the past two years, every apartment we lived in had the same dirty walls, leaky faucets and broken windows. It was like the buildings grew legs and raced to our next destination. I ran through the front door, Dad just behind me.

Inside, I felt along the wall until I came across a switch. A chandelier blazed to life, revealing a grand foyer with stained, cedar floors coated with a thick layer of dust. With a quick look around I saw a second-floor balcony that circled the rim of the foyer. On the left side of the stairs were twin archways. Rich, chestnut double-doors took up most of the right side of the foyer.

“Mija, look over here,” Dad said. I followed him into the first of the two archways and entered a parlor. It was empty except for a few dusty side tables, some folding chairs and a cobblestone fireplace that still retained some of its former glory.

We wandered through the next archway and found ourselves in a large dining room with floor to ceiling windows. Although it was getting dark, I could still make out the mountains and a slight glimpse of the ocean through the windows.

“This is amazing,” I breathed.

“I know. Check that out,” Dad said, pointing up at the balcony that looked over the dining room.

He walked through a door at the end of the room that opened into a huge kitchen. An old, cast iron stove dominated the room, still gorgeous in spite of the cancerous rust. It contrasted greatly with the modern white sink, fridge and marble countertops.

We crossed back through the foyer to explore the room behind the oak double-doors. Tall shelves overflowed with faded books and Dad immediately went to inspect them. My eyes, however, were drawn to the window and the sparkling ocean beyond it.

After tearing myself away from the view, I ran up the creaky stairs, leaving Dad to fawn over books. I peered into each of the six bedrooms, looking for the one with the best view. Most were shabby except for one that was unusually clean. Some realtor must have attempted to show it off.

The best part though was the perfect view of the ocean and the huge rock sticking out of the water like a giant haystack. The room even had a window seat that jutted out and made you feel as if you were suspended in midair.

“Mija, ¿Dónde está?”

I jumped and ran back to the top of the stairs. “Up here.”

“Ven aqui, come get your stuff out of the car.”

“Sure thing,” I said and threw my leg across the banister. Just as I started to slide, I thought I heard a bird’s shrill squawk.

“If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet. I tell you the truth, it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.” Matthew 10:14-15

I was not a religious woman, but that story always stuck with me. It was my weapon, my last resort. I used to daydream that if I ever went to a town and they pissed me off, I’d give them my best godfather chin scratch and dust off my shoes. Then once I turned around, lightening and hellfire would obliterate the town as I walked off into the sunset. It was comforting to think that if it ever came down to it, I’d have that kind of power.

As I got a little older, I began to think that kind of cursing didn’t just apply to towns but individual people too, like in The Color Purple. Celie cursed the fuck outta Mister. Basically, she dusted off her shoes and walked away like a boss, just like those prophets in the Bible.

Then something happens when you grow up. You think you’re gonna be all-powerful, all-knowing and make all the right decisions. But it seems to me you lose power when you grow up. Your time’s no longer your own. You got a boss to answer to, a mother to please - suddenly it ain’t enough to be cute and pretty - and a man to keep. Eventually, you got kids to take care of but I’m avoiding that next phase in my life. It felt like all my power was being sucked dry.

I had a come to Jesus moment the day before my 30th birthday. I was sitting on the couch with thoughts racing through my head. I remembered my old preacher telling us Jesus started his ministry at thirty years. Here I was, thirty years old, with nothing started.

I was supposed to be something by now right? Instead here I was, someone’s secretary where the most important mission I had was to make sure I picked up her dry cleaning on time. I was supposed be to something. Instead here I was, worrying about making dinner for a man named Mr. No Job and Hanging with the Guys All Night. I was supposed to be something. Instead here I was, working for a “feminist” white lady who’d refused to give me a raise for the past two years. I, Marijane, was supposed to be something. I was supposed to be something.

So I sat there on the couch all night. I didn’t make dinner for Mr. No Job who complained about being hungry as fuck then finally walked out when I didn’t move. I didn’t prepare Ms. No Raise’s presentation for her board meeting tomorrow. I didn’t eat. I didn’t sleep. I didn’t do anything except think about what my something was.

The sky was starting to turn gray and I still hadn’t moved. My stomach begins to grumble in time with the bird’s wakeup call and still I sit there. I think about Jesus in the desert for some ungodly amount of days and wonder what he did that whole time besides starve. The preacher never said.

Mr. No Job comes home somewhere between drunk and hungover. He sits on the chair opposite of me, blurry eyed and confused. “You ain’t moved yet?”

I just blink at him. Jesus didn’t talk to nobody except the devil. I decided Mr. No Job would do. “Nah, Mr. No Job, I ain’t moved.”

“What’s that you calling me?” He seems less hungover now and more drunk.

“Mr. No Job.”

“Woman, why you calling me that? You lucky I ain’t Mr. Wifebeater.”

I laugh, then wonder if laughing is allowed in the Desert. Mr. No Job was a lot of things but violent wasn’t one of them. “No, you’ve never hit a woman or a man either come to think of it.”

Mr. No Job glares at me. “What you tryna say?”

“Nothing,” I tell him honestly, “Nothing at all.”

He mutters for a while, slipping more towards hangover. “You sat on this couch all night?”

“Yeah.”

He shakes his head at me. “Woman, you crazy.”

I don’t answer him this time. It takes too much energy to talk to the devil.

“Is there any food?”

“Sure.”

“You made something?”

“Nah, I’ve been sitting here all night remember? Go make it yourself.”

He mumbles and shakes his head some more. “What you good for then?” The words are almost under his breath, like he meant them but didn’t mean for me to hear him.

I answer anyway. “I don’t know.”

“Know what?”

“What I’m good for.”

He shakes his head. “You don’t know huh.”

“What are you good for?”

“Huh?”

“How do you make my life better?”

He laughs. “Girl, I give it to you good.”

I think about it. Hard thrusts that leave him sweaty and me waiting for something to happen, only it never does. “No,” I tell him, speaking the truth out loud for the first time, “No you don’t.”

He startles and shakes and stutters. “What you mean, woman?”

“I mean you don’t give it to me good.” Sometimes, you have to spell it out for people.

He stares, like I had said the most outrageous thing he’d ever heard. “What you know?”

“I’m there with you ain’t I? I should know then. It’s my body you coming inside of. But that’s all. Nothing happens for me. Nothing.” I’m feeling frustrated now, like having to explain two plus two over and over and they still not getting it.

He looks mad now, swearing under his breath, and I’m tired. “What else you do for me?” I ask.

“Man, this is stupid. I look good don’t I?”

I look at him now. The nice full lips, brown skin and dark eyes, they were all his. The faded haircut, diamond stud earring, Timberlands, blue jeans and nice t-shirt were all shit I bought him with my no-raise-in-two-years income. I think about all the money I wasted on this man. “Yeah, you look good because I made you look good.”

“Marijane you trippin.”

Suddenly I was Marijane. I wasn’t woman no more. “So what if I am.”

He rubs his eyes. “Aight I’m going to bed. Come find me when you back to normal.” 

Then he gets up and stumbles off to bed.

I stay on the couch, digesting his words and the way he said my name, Marijane. Suddenly, the air feels hazy and the room spins. I stagger up, trying to break through the clouds threatening to choke me. I couldn’t sit here no more. I had to be something. I wanted to be something today besides thirty.

I jump into the shower and stand under the hot water. I feel cleansed. Baptized. I didn’t bother using Dove. My skin felt raw and reborn when I finally get out. Can a woman enter her mother’s womb again?

I walk out naked as a newborn and grab my suitcases out the closet. Mr. No Job lay snoring on the bed and did not hear me as I surveyed my overflowing closet. I pull on a long, green dress and stuff my feet into some flats. I begin to fill my bag with clothes, jewelry and shoes.

I pick up a scarf I hated and the light material feels heavy as a rock. I drop it and take only what I loved. I finish sooner than expected.

I go in the kitchen and take the pans and china that’d been passed down from mother to daughter. Only my photo albums and world map make it into the bag from the living room. When I had finished, everything I loved fits into three bags. I am almost ready.

I take out a piece of paper, an envelope and stamp from the kitchen drawer and wrote a letter to my landlord. I give my thirty days’ notice and a forwarding address for my security deposit. I add that if he sees anyone in the unit past this date, they were trespassing and should be removed immediately. I drop my keys inside, seal it and stick it my back pocket to put in the office dropbox on my way out. Then I kick, grunt and carry my bags outside and drop them outside the door.

I stare back into the home that had not welcomed me, where my words were never heard. I lift my foot and brush off invisible dust with my hand. I imagine fine fairy dust settling over the threshold, cursing the apartment and all its contents forever. I brush the other foot off for good measure, making sure the curse reaches Mr. No Job. Then I haul away my three bags and loaded them into my sedan. The rising sun warms my back as I drive away.

Two Weeks Later

The red box matches my red painted nails and high heels. It had been too long since I’d had my nails, hair and eyebrows done. I even smile as I walk back into my old workplace, something that I hadn’t happened since my interview.

The other secretaries tutted and crooned as I begin filling the red box with the contents of my old desk - my day planner, my kitty calendar, all my notebooks, my colorful pens, my comfortable flats and my “Secretary: the one thing standing between one’s workplace and sheer, utter chaos” mug. I pause, the mug still in my hand, stuck on the word ‘thing’. When had secretary become a ‘thing’? I sit the mug on my now empty desk facing outward to the whole office. I wouldn’t need it anymore.

I give my work friends hugs and promises to keep in touch. Just as I pick up my red box, the door to my old boss’s office opens and long, slim legs walk out followed by hunched shoulders and head buried in some folder. She barely looks up at me. “Is that you Marijane?”

“Yeah it is,” I tell her, readjusting the box on my hip.

Her lips become almost invisible and she gives a little huffy harrumph, as only white people know how to do. “I’m surprised you had the nerve to show up here after disappearing unannounced.”

“I’m sure you got along fine without me,” I say smoothly, glancing back at my desk to make sure I didn’t forget nothing.

She lowers her folder and really looks at me. “I went against my better judgement and hired you with no bachelor's degree or any real experience. I think I deserved some kind of notice.”

Everybody goes silent. I want to laugh and cry and run. But I don’t. I stand there looking at her, wondering if this is how Moses felt standing in front of the red sea, stick in hand, waiting for it to part.

“Do you hear me, Marijane?”

I pop my box up into a better position. “Sure, I hear you. I been hearing you for the past two years now. ‘Go get this Marijane’, ‘Pick up my dry cleaning Marijane’, ‘Break in these shoes for me Marijane’, ‘Get my coffee Marijane’. That was all well and fine until I realized I wasn’t getting paid the same amount as all the secretaries, even the ones who started after me.”

“You don’t have a degree,” my old boss says, crossing her arms.

I look around the room at the other secretaries. “Who here got a bachelor’s degree?”

One woman in the corner raises her hand. Everyone else looks around, mildly curious.

“I actually have an associate’s degree, yet I found out awhile back that I started at the same pay level as someone without a degree at all. And you, a feminist always harping on about the gender wage gap, refused to give me a raise two reviews in a row. So yeah, I’m leaving.”

Their eyes swiveled from me to my old boss like we were on daytime television. Boss lady closed her folder. “Perhaps if you had worked harder -”

This time, I laugh. I throw my head back. I cackle. I am a witch who’s caught a snake with her bare hands. I am Jesus, renaming Pharisees as hypocrites. I am done. “Bye, Ms. Never Gives Raises to Black Women.”

I walk away with my red box, red nails and red heels. I stop at the end of the hall, lift up my right foot and dust it off. I lift up my other foot and do the same. And then I don’t look back.