Spaghetti Tuesdays, Part I

Working for the family business was important to me. It was something I needed to do. After all, each of my siblings had spent time in that house on the corner of Prince Street, brimming with hand-written records and myriad cartographical treasures. I had to complete the circle. And the time had come.

I'd quit my BigLaw job [which is exactly what it was - a job - because it certainly wasn't any kind of career I'd imagined]. I wasn't yet pregnant. My father's staff had trimmed to himself and one assistant. The one assistant was my brother. I figured I wouldn't have much trouble fitting in. [I was right.]

So, over dinner at a seafood place where, week after week, Mike and I met with my parents for Sunday Dinner Specials [nevermind that the only menu item I could stomach was Chicken Parmesan], I announced that I'd be joining his little outfit, just as soon as I could pack up my desk and burn my monthly train ticket [tickets, really, because getting to work involved two trains and a subway].

My father could rip up the business cards he liked to hand out about town because they had my name [chosen, of course, by his lovely, departed mother] under the fancy logo of a firm whose name he'd never correctly pronounced. I was now in the family business.

I don't think he was disappointed. Probably because he still had a box of my sister's business cards on his desk, and her name was in larger print anyway. He shrugged and got up to fetch a plate full of shrimp cocktail from the salad bar.