I’m six and the wind is wiping through my fingers as we drive through the orange groves in our old, once red van. It’s 1984 and one of those perfect weather days. It’s the type of day where you could spend all of it outside. Summer has just passed, which means the humidity isn’t as bad, and occasionally a breeze will come through and blow my hair around. We’re on our way to the Grant’s today. I love the way dad drives to get us there, down an old dirt road through what seems like endless rows of orange trees spanning each side of the road. Orange blossom sweetens the air as if you weren’t suppose to smell anything else, and there isn’t a cloud in the bright, blue sky. Going on this drive, to the Grant’s, always makes it seem as if we are driving in another world. A world far away from the trailer park.

At the end of the rows of orange trees, dad turns the van right and we are suddenly transported away from the orange groves and into the woods. Orange trees turn into towering cypress and oak trees older than you and me, their branches reaching out towards you, covered in Spanish moss. A bit further down this dirt road, an old metal gate marks our arrival. I am sitting on my hands, excited, in the van as dad gets out to open the gate. I love coming over to the Grant’s, they have two boys just as ma and dad have two girls. I’m the oldest and their son, Luke is their oldest, we’re best friends. Well, he’s my best friend at least. I don’t like many of the kids in our trailer park.

Dad gets back in the van and we slowly roll into their property. I’m ready to get out and run to the house to play with Luke and eat some of Ms. Shirley’s food. Don’t get me wrong, ma is a good cook, when she cooks, but Ms. Shirley, I think she could sell her food in a restaurant.

“Jeannine, did you hear me?” Frank asks.

Just like that, I’m back in the conference room on the top floor of our building over looking a concrete jungle.

“Sorry,” I reply, apologizing for getting lost in my daydream.

“The briefs, did you bring the briefs?” he asks.

Grabbing the pile of manila folders I organized earlier this morning, I hand them over to my boss. “Thank you,” he says, looking sternly at me. I feel my cheeks flush and look around at the table full of other men. Right now, I’m the only woman in this room. The firm has two women on staff, me a paralegal, and the front desk woman, Gwen, who only answers the phone and passes out the mail each day.

That day at the Grant’s, I was thinking about, was one of many. I haven’t seen Luke since my third year in college. We took different paths after high school, he stayed outside, doing god knows what, or maybe he is off working somewhere. I don’t know. But that’s what I traded, life outside, running through the woods, to sitting in a conference room at Blue Cypress Litigation in Orlando. I was the first and so far only one in my family to go to college. Ma and dad didn’t go to college. It turns out ma…well, when I was younger I thought the whole world of ma. I always thought she was someone important, because well, ma was never home. The times she was home, she slept, sometimes she did the laundry, but mostly slept. Then she was never there. Younger me assumed ma must be important, had to handle big things, and needed to be somewhere else other than home. Turns out though, ma was just a waitress at a twenty-four hour diner off the highway. Dad stayed with Emma and I when we were home from school. On the weekends, dad went to the coast to work on boats. So, usually it was just Emma and me figuring life out as kids in the trailer park. I eventually learned that was pretty typical for any other kid in the trailer park.

I went to community college at first, after high school, not believing I was smart enough to go to a regular four-year university. Most of the other girls…or any other kid for that matter in our trailer park didn’t have dreams of college. But, I did and I was smart enough, smart enough to get a scholarship and finish my bachelor’s degree at a university.

That was dangerous though, dreaming of what life could be like with a college degree and getting out of the trailer park. I would spend my time day dreaming when I was younger, like I was getting paid to do it. Imagining myself as someone important, who I thought ma was all those years ago, someone with the resources to do something with my life. I could go live in the city and buy a house, get away from neighbors being five feet away, hearing their cars roll up and down the gravel lots at all times during the night.

It is dangerous to dream, because I’m here, now, in the city, at a large law firm as a paralegal, and life isn’t like what I thought it would be. It’s a bit lonelier.

“Ok, team, we have two weeks until Anderson’s trial. Please review the briefs Jeannine prepared, and send any suggestions my way,” Frank announced, passing out a manila folder to everyone, but myself since I kept a copy before giving the stack to Frank.

We are working on another bankruptcy case. Our defendant was adamant on not settling out of court, which typically isn’t the wisest thing to do. He believes Blue Cypress can win for him in court. We’ll see what happens, I suppose. Frank is Blue Cypress’s Partner Attorney and has represented many bankruptcy cases over his time. Frank is an old snow bird, moved down to Florida from New Jersey in the seventies, and stayed. During my transition from community college to university, I moved out of ma and Dad’s trailer into a studio apartment and got a job as an office assistant at a different bankruptcy firm, again being one of the only women in the building.

Law intrigued me and I know I could be good at it. I liked the idea of fighting for what was right.

After graduating, I applied for lots of different opportunities. All of these opportunities were outside of Yeehaw Junction. That’s right, Yeehaw Junction. It’s a real place. We live in between highways of people going places, to every other direction but Yeehaw. Not much is in Yeehaw, we have a motel, gas station, and lots of swamp to get lost in. Though, instead of sharing that I grew up in an unheard of named area and getting wide-eyed looks, I just tell everyone I’m from Kissimmee and then they think I grew up at Disney World. Working in law is tough enough as a woman, I can’t also be from the middle of no where.