Bringing New Friends Into The Mix

At home things were going well. My brothers were now in 8th grade and fifth grade, and I was a senior in High School. Upstairs lived my grandparents (my mom's parents), who we had brought a two family house with 8 years before. There was always some drama surrounding my Grandma and my mother with money and other things that I didn't really understand. My mom would always try venting to me ad start rambling off all these numbers, but when she would start mentioning dollar amounts my mind would just automatically tune her out. Thankfully, for my sake, my mother also had her girl friends who she could vent to. It's interesting seeing the different personalities of all of her friends. There is always drama going on with each of them. They had all met each other through other friends, although my mom and her friend Melissa had been friends since they were in the second grade together. I always found it interesting when someone in her circle of friends would try to bring in another person to the group. Her friend Summer brought over to the house her friend Ella. Before bringing Ella over Summer gave us the background story about Ella's life. Ella had been adopted from a family who lived out in California, and did not have a very easy life. She made it out to Jersey because when she got married she moved with her husband to Jersey to be close to his family. The marriage didn't last long before she got a divorce. She had become very close with Summer through a mutual friend. Since Ella didn't have any family out her or anything she would spend a lot of time at Summer's house. She would frequently spend the night at her house since Ella lived in Elizabeth which is not the safest neighborhood. When Summer brought Ella over I was excited. I thought it was going to be awkward because Summer warned us that Ella is a very shy person. When she walked in she didn't look like how I expected her to. Summer told us that she was Muslim, but she looked more Jewish. She had dark hair, and light skin, and she didn't wear a scarf or anything. She got along with everyone very well, but I thought it was funny how she hung out with us kids most of the time. She was pretty down to earth and easy to talk to. Once she left of course all the girls  huddled together and started talking. I over heard them talking and I couldn't believe when they said that Ella was a lawyer. I wouldn't have guessed. She was quiet, and down to earth. Not loud and show-y like I would expect a lawyer to be. Meanwhile my mom took the opportunity to introduce to the group, my best friend Paula's, mom. She too was quiet, she kept to herself. Being that she was from Kenya she had a thick accent, which sometimes made her hard to understand. She tended to keep to herself at the get togethers, but after awhile started to warm up and join the conversations. As time went on Ella and Paula's mom became part of "the girls". They planned a trip for us all to go to Virgina during that summer, but they didn't know the drama that it would include....