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thank-you, showing the meat drying in lurid strips from the farmer’s roof. She’d rushed to the bathroom in tears. He’s starving to death! Lyle wanted to shout. Of course he’s going to eat it! Most infuriating of all was her mother’s optimism: whenever Lyle said she disliked someone, her mom looked at her with her eyebrows pinched into a V, head cocked to one side as if she were draining an ear. “You don’t really hate that person,” she’d say. “You just have different values.”
    But Lyle did hate people. Hating people was one of her biggesthobbies. Just last night, in fact, she’d started a list of things she despised:
People who call old women “cute”
People who talk about dead relatives as if they’re happier now
Anyone who refers to herself as a “chocoholic”
DBCs (Dumbshits in Baseball Caps)
The adjective “hot” for anything except weather
People who use the term “110%”
Song titles with numbers in place of words
People who own Smiths records and don’t know the lead singer is gay
Volleyball
Convertibles
Bob Marley
Anyone who uses the word “ganja”
Dogs small enough that they shiver when they take a dump
People who look at you funny when you use the word “ingratiate”
People who order in Spanish at Mexican restaurants (Mom)
People who say “Decisions, decisions” when looking at a menu
Bathroom graffiti that rhymes (“Wine me, dine me, 69 me”)
The Beach Boys
People who check their car for scratches before getting in
People who refer to little boys as “boss” or “chief”
Anyone who says the sentence: “And WHO do we have here?”
Volleyball (x2)
CALIFORNIA
    This last one she’d written in big letters and retraced again and again until the letters engraved several pages of her journal, fading gradually like a wound. She detested it, this land of Jeeps and joggers. The Golden State. What kind of stupid nickname was that? Perhaps it wasn’t supposed to describe the place itself so much as a fascist condition. If you weren’t golden, you had no right to exist. Lyle used to go to the beach when they first moved here, hoping she might get a tan like the Audras and Stephanies in herclass, her skin turning brown and luscious. She lay in a deserted corner of the beach, sweating and miserable, terrified someone from school would see her and notice how pale she was. A circus freak: the Whitest Girl in California. She was determined to stay until she looked like the other girls, the ones with butterflies of sand stuck to their asses, running into the waves and twirling around with a squeal. Instead she burned herself so miserably she couldn’t sleep. Her skin blistered and peeled off like Saran Wrap, leaving her whiter than before. After a month of suffering, she realized it was hopeless and gave up completely.
    She’d been bored in Wisconsin, bored living on the same puny lake her whole life, but at least she hadn’t felt like a freak of nature. She hadn’t cried herself to sleep because some DBC had called her Vampira at school.
    On their way out of Herradura Estates, Lyle’s mother pulled up to the guardhouse and its red-striped gate, which lifted magically as they approached. She brought the car to a stop in order to say hello to Hector, the new gatekeeper. Lyle waited with mounting dread as her mother rolled down the window. Please don’t speak Spanish, she thought. Please don’t please don’t please don’t please don’t please don’t.
    â€œHola,” her mother said in a cheerful voice. “Cómo estas?”
    â€œBien, bien,” Hector said, smiling through his mustache. He looked vaguely amused, as though doing his best to conceal the fact that he spoke perfect English. “Y usted?”
    â€œ Nosotros estamos yendo a la shopping mall.” Her mother actually said “shopping mall” in a