Free Right Where I Belong by Krista McGee

eventually have to take the job available to her. And Natalia felt that job was from God, and the more Addy told her about TCS, the more confident Natalia felt that it would be a great place for Maureen.
    “I just signed my contract,” Maureen spat out as she sat on the couch and placed a pillow on her lap. “I am getting paid about a third of what I made starting out in your father’s company. But there won’t be any raises here. No promotions. Nothing. All my education, all my experience, everything goes out the window.”

    “Maureen.” Natalia sat next to her, wanting to scream at her for not seeing the opportunity she was being given but knowing that wouldn’t help the situation. “You are trading one set of gifts for another. And you’ve always told me how much you love the Spanish language and how terrible your high school Spanish teacher was. What was her name? Señora Manzeloswi?”
    “Midzowanski.” Maureen smiled in spite of herself. “She was pretty bad. She couldn’t even pronounce half the words in our Spanish 2 textbook. ‘HO-la, chih-cahs,’ she’d say. She wouldn’t even try to speak with a Spanish accent. It was awful!”
    “But you have been exposed to true Spanish.” Natalia grinned. “From the Mother country. You can teach these poor American kids correct pronunciation, proper grammar. You’re like a missionary to the monolingual!”
    Maureen reached over and hugged her. “Oh, Natalia, I don’t know what I’d do without you here. I’m sorry I haven’t helped you very much. I feel like our roles have reversed. You’re the mother and I’m the child. I’ll get better. I promise. This is just so much harder than I thought it would be. All of it is so much harder.”
    “We’ll get through this, Maureen. And I, for one, am quite relieved that you’ll be at school with me. You can protect me from awful things like chicken fried chicken.”
    Both laughed. Natalia had not enjoyed the southern food, but, thankfully, Addy was very understanding. In fact, she had called later that night and offered to take Natalia to a local Spanish restaurant.
    “It’s supposed to be the real thing,” Addy promised. “Infact, it’s called a tapas bar. When I told that to my uncle, he thought I said ‘topless bar’ and got this shocked look on his face.” Even Maureen had chuckled at that.
    “Tapas are very Spanish,” Natalia assured Addy. “They are similar to what you call appetizers, except you share them with a whole table and that is your meal. If this place is really authentic, we can even get some chorizo. That’s my favorite!”
    “What’s chorizo?” Addy asked.
    “Just wait and see.”
    “Oh, Natalia,” Maureen said, snapping Natalia out of her reverie. “I almost forgot. When I was in the meeting with Mr. Lawrence, he asked me about your community-service hours.”
    “My what?”
    “Students are required to have a certain number of community-service hours in order to graduate.”
    “What am I supposed to do?”
    “Anything that benefits the community,” Maureen replied.
    “Well, that clears it all up.” Natalia raised her arms in surrender. “I don’t litter and I go shopping. Isn’t that beneficial? I can go shopping a little more if that would help.”
    “Sorry, it doesn’t work that way. It has to be a service, like tutoring kids or volunteering at a community center. Oh, I know.” Maureen placed a hand on Natalia’s knee. “Little Brian said he runs an ESL program here. That’s English as a Second Language. He offers classes at the church. Most of them are Spanish speakers. You could help with that.”
    The thought of working with Brian was not unpleasant. But Natalia feared that working so closely with him every week might be difficult.

    “Well?” Maureen asked.
    “I don’t know. Let’s keep looking for other options. If I can’t find anything else, I’ll do that.”
    “Hmmm, where have I heard that before?” Maureen laughed.
    Natalia was so