My Year with Eleanor by Noelle Hancock Read Free Book Online

reason. But my parents had been so skeptical about the entire Year of Fear project. I thought the absurdity of the trapeze class might warm them to the idea.
    There was a fluttering in the background and I knew my dad was flipping through the Wall Street Journal, which he’s read front to back every day for the last twenty-five years. (When he found out what paper Matt wrote for, my dad sniffed, “Well, I hope he’s not one of those elitist liberal kooks. That paper’s full of them. See, what I like about the Journal is that they’re not biased.”)
    â€œDid I catch you at a bad time?” he drawled. “Busy trainin’ for the ice capades?”
    â€œI’ll have you know, I’m at a coffee shop, working on a freelance article for a magazine.”
    â€œHave you thought any more about law school?” he asked. Leave it to Dad to dive right in. “Now that’s job security right there. You could make $300 an hour writing wills.”
    â€œAnd then I would die of boredom, which would have an agreeable symmetry.” With my free hand, I started massaging my temples to ward off the headache that always followed this debate. My dad was a businessman, specializing in fiber optics, whatever that means. When I was a kid, he was always dragging me to the office to groom me for corporate life. I’d usually pass the hours Xeroxing my face. Once he’d realized I wasn’t destined for business, he latched onto the idea that I should be a lawyer and hadn’t let go for two decades.
    â€œWell, I think you should consider moving out of that city and coming home to Texas.” My parents viewed my living in New York as if I was studying abroad or on some kind of caper. I sensed they were awaiting my return to “real life.”
    â€œNew York is my home,” I said firmly.
    â€œWell, it’s an awfully expensive place to live when you don’t have a full-time job. How much are you payin’ for that apartment these days?”
    â€œBye, Dad!”
    I laid my head down on my keyboard and banged it a few times, causing jfkdjfkdjflkdjfdlkjfdlksjfdlsjf to jump onto the screen. When I went to delete it, I saw that I had an e-mail from my friend Bill. It contained only one line: Want to rage in the cage with me this weekend?
    â€œExcuse me?” I wrote back. “Are you challenging me to a steel cage match?”
    â€œClose,” he replied. “I’m going shark cage diving this weekend. Sharks are on your list of fears to conquer, right?”
    I hesitated. Sharks are a long-held fear of mine stemming from a 1986 home screening of Jaws . The ocean, I’d suddenly learned, was full of beasts that killed indiscriminately and with musical accompaniment. Warily, I clicked on the link Bill sent me. It was a website for a shark cage diving company called Happy Manatee Charters. It was hosting a two-day expedition this very weekend. The boat left on Friday morning and returned late Saturday afternoon.
    Since taking that first step off the trapeze board three weeks before, I’d taken on one fear a day, per my mission, but they’d been small victories, things that I would’ve let slide before, but not under the new Eleanor Roosevelt administration. I’d sent my salmon back at a sushi restaurant for being too fishy. I’d called up my credit card company and asked it to lower my interest rate, and after speaking to four different supervisors, they finally agreed. Matt and I had gone to a sold-out movie and were pleased to find, in the packed theater, one row that was completely empty except for a single college-aged guy sitting in the center. Apparently, he’d been sent ahead as a representative for less punctual friends because when we went to sit down, he called out smugly, “This entire row is saved, bro.” We turned to keep walking up the steps; then I stopped.
    â€œNot anymore!” I declared. Over the guy’s