"Lorelai, Rory it's so good to see you." My grandma said and mom signed. In situations like these I usually relied on her to interpret for me. "Come in. Come in." my grandmother said. We walked in and the inside was just as grand as the outside. It wasn't overly lavish but it wasn't exactly modest either. I could see grandma talking so, I looked over to see mom signing "Take off your coat and hand it to the maid." I did as instructed but when I handed my coat to the maid I saw a look of pity in her eyes.
We were walking into the living room and mom signed "Richard they're here." I saw my grandpa sitting on the couch reading the newspaper. He looked up and saw me he said something I looked over and mom signed "You're tall." Then he asked how tall I was "I'm 5'7." I signed and mom said for me.
The dinner was going relatively OK until my grandma mentioned something about my dad. I only see my father few times a year and the relationship between my mom and dad is strained. Then mom stopped interpreting for a moment she took a deep breath then signed "Rory can you please go into the kitchen for a minute?" "Yeah, sure" I replied.
I went into the kitchen and took out my hearing aids and I wondered what they were arguing about. Then I remembered with the usually argued about the fact that my mom got pregnant at 16 and ran away from home. Not to mention the fact that she didn't get married. There's also the fact that she worked as a maid to take care of me when I was little and the fact that we've lived in a potting shed. But my grandparents don't know about the potting shed so that couldn't be it.
Then everything made sense what we're doing here why mom insisted that we come. She may not get along with my grandparents and wouldn't ask them for anything for herself. But she would ask them for something if it came to me. That's when it made sense she asked them for the money to pay for Chilton.
The ride home was silent and full of tension it was full of unanswered questions. When we had finally arrived at home mom looked exhausted. I finally built up the courage to ask her the question I already knew the answer to "They're paying for Chilton, aren't they?" "Yeah they are." she admitted. "We're going to have to go to dinner for a long time aren't we?" "I'm sure the buffet at my funeral will be the last one." Mom said trying to make a joke out of it.
I went to bed that night and it seemed that time had just skipped to Monday morning. I woke up and it took me a minute to realize that it was my first day at Chilton. I dashed up the stairs to wake my mother up. I shook her until she looked at me and signed "What is it?" "It's 7:30!" I exclaimed. "No, it's not." She denied. I picked up her alarm clock and pointed at the time. She started talking and it looked like she was saying 'no' over and over. "I can't be late for my first day of school." I signed to her. She told me to wait down stairs for her so I did. When I was downstairs I remembered to put my hearing aids in.
When she came down the stairs she was dressed like a rodeo cowgirl. "When did the rodeo come to town?" I signed to her. "All my suits are at the cleaners." She signed rushing me and herself out the door. She sped the whole way to Chilton up but we stopped if to look at the building for a moment amazed at its size. Then we quickly rushed into the building and waited for our meeting with the headmaster. When we were called in we were very surprised to see my grandmother talking with the headmaster.
There was another woman in the room she had blond shoulder length hair and blue eyes. She was the first to say anything or sign rather "My name is Maureen Collins and I'll be Lorelei's interpreter." I was surprised by the fact that she used my real name no one calls me Lorelei. That's right my mom named me after herself she thought it was a very feminist thing to do, I just think she had too much Demerol when she was in labor. "I actually prefer to be called Rory." I signed to her. The meeting went by pretty smoothly if you exclude everyone's silent shock over my mom's wardrobe choices. Eventually everyone left and the only people in the room were me, Maureen, and headmaster Charleston.
He began to talk to me about my career aspirations and how difficult Chilton could be. The one thing he said that stuck with me was "It will be tough here. This school is very competitive but that's how we train you to be. It may be especially tough for you considering your deafness and you'll probably want to quit. I won't lie to you almost everyone in this school is expecting you to fail." "Excuse me headmaster but I have every intention of proving you all wrong." I said almost defiantly. "Good this will definitely be an interesting couple of years Ms. Gilmore." Headmaster Charleston said like he was looking forward to a battle. When the meeting was over I left his office and the battle began.