going to change Ronald Reagan’s mind and get him to think, “Well, what do you know, this peace-through-strength thing really is a bad idea. Now that you mention it, why don’t we just give peace a chance?” Laughably, the girls at the Academy cast my father as a pinstriped CEO of an electronics company who sent me to the finest rehab programs for teens.
“My parents didn’t kick me out,” I told Greta through my gritted teeth. “I had to leave Montana, but it’s not what you think.”
“Then educate me.” Greta smirked. “Are you running from the law? Shady past? Ex-boyfriend with a vendetta? And what’s the deal with the freaky hair?”
“I don’t know what it is that makes you think that just sitting down next to me and asking rude questions entitles you to hear my life story, but I can tell you right now, you are sorely mistaken,” I stood up with my tray and no particular exit strategy. “I think you’re a very nosy person and I don’t like you one bit.”
I really don’t remember how we came together after that, but I do recall that by spring we were best friends. By senior year, we were inseparable, doing homework together by telephone and spending weekends pretending to be tourists at the Hotel Del Coronado. I loved looking at the photographs of Marilyn Monroe and Jack Lemmon from when they filmed Some Like It Hot there. I’d run my feet across every inch of the hotel’s deep red patterned carpet hoping to soak up some sex appeal Marilyn left behind.
* * *
Greta convinced me to join the girls’ soccer team at the Academy and tried desperately to get me to apply to colleges out of state. A therapist-in-the-making, Greta considered me her personal project, always trying to get me to explore what was best for my personal development. At that age, however, she lacked the maturity to help me truly discover what was best for me, and simply imposed her agenda of what she thought I should do. Her heart was in the right place, but the reality was that she had the wisdom of a teenager. Within three days of hearing about how I came to live with Grammy, she had my entire future mapped out, including what issues I needed to work through and how I was to do it. I never needed to figure out who I was. Greta was always there to do it for me. Perhaps that was a cheap shot. Greta is a truly decent person, but it was tough being the source of her frustration when I dared to disagree with her often-hurried analysis of my life.
When Greta left for Texas to attend college, I was free to continue my quiet pursuit of nothing at UCSD. I received an engineering degree, but otherwise camouflaged myself into the wooded seaside campus. I remember the first day of class when I noticed how many kids attended the school. It wasn’t like the Academy, where we graduated sixty-one girls; at the university, students bustled about everywhere. No one seemed to notice me, or the intoxicating scent of eucalyptus leaves drooping from countless branches overhead. This was the perfect place for me, I thought. My momentary sense of peace in having discovered my personal Valhalla was interrupted by guilt over the fact that I was both relieved and saddened to have lost my best friend to the Lone Star State.
Chapter 3
I found a parking spot across the street from the Big Kitchen, a three-room breakfast joint in Golden Hill. Greta said that on weekends there’s an hour-long wait for a table, but on a Wednesday morning at eleven-thirty, the wooden screen door was motionless and the bench outside sat empty. The crisp December air was still and dry. Directly outside the door was a three-foot wooden coffee cup, brightly painted, reading: small world, big kitchen.
The dining room was cluttered with thousands of snapshots stapled to the walls. Beside them hung handmade posters, postcards from around the world, and autographed pictures of comediennes with a woman with a tie-dyed dress and salt-and-pepper wavy hair. A large cutout of
“My parents didn’t kick me out,” I told Greta through my gritted teeth. “I had to leave Montana, but it’s not what you think.”
“Then educate me.” Greta smirked. “Are you running from the law? Shady past? Ex-boyfriend with a vendetta? And what’s the deal with the freaky hair?”
“I don’t know what it is that makes you think that just sitting down next to me and asking rude questions entitles you to hear my life story, but I can tell you right now, you are sorely mistaken,” I stood up with my tray and no particular exit strategy. “I think you’re a very nosy person and I don’t like you one bit.”
I really don’t remember how we came together after that, but I do recall that by spring we were best friends. By senior year, we were inseparable, doing homework together by telephone and spending weekends pretending to be tourists at the Hotel Del Coronado. I loved looking at the photographs of Marilyn Monroe and Jack Lemmon from when they filmed Some Like It Hot there. I’d run my feet across every inch of the hotel’s deep red patterned carpet hoping to soak up some sex appeal Marilyn left behind.
* * *
Greta convinced me to join the girls’ soccer team at the Academy and tried desperately to get me to apply to colleges out of state. A therapist-in-the-making, Greta considered me her personal project, always trying to get me to explore what was best for my personal development. At that age, however, she lacked the maturity to help me truly discover what was best for me, and simply imposed her agenda of what she thought I should do. Her heart was in the right place, but the reality was that she had the wisdom of a teenager. Within three days of hearing about how I came to live with Grammy, she had my entire future mapped out, including what issues I needed to work through and how I was to do it. I never needed to figure out who I was. Greta was always there to do it for me. Perhaps that was a cheap shot. Greta is a truly decent person, but it was tough being the source of her frustration when I dared to disagree with her often-hurried analysis of my life.
When Greta left for Texas to attend college, I was free to continue my quiet pursuit of nothing at UCSD. I received an engineering degree, but otherwise camouflaged myself into the wooded seaside campus. I remember the first day of class when I noticed how many kids attended the school. It wasn’t like the Academy, where we graduated sixty-one girls; at the university, students bustled about everywhere. No one seemed to notice me, or the intoxicating scent of eucalyptus leaves drooping from countless branches overhead. This was the perfect place for me, I thought. My momentary sense of peace in having discovered my personal Valhalla was interrupted by guilt over the fact that I was both relieved and saddened to have lost my best friend to the Lone Star State.
Chapter 3
I found a parking spot across the street from the Big Kitchen, a three-room breakfast joint in Golden Hill. Greta said that on weekends there’s an hour-long wait for a table, but on a Wednesday morning at eleven-thirty, the wooden screen door was motionless and the bench outside sat empty. The crisp December air was still and dry. Directly outside the door was a three-foot wooden coffee cup, brightly painted, reading: small world, big kitchen.
The dining room was cluttered with thousands of snapshots stapled to the walls. Beside them hung handmade posters, postcards from around the world, and autographed pictures of comediennes with a woman with a tie-dyed dress and salt-and-pepper wavy hair. A large cutout of
Similar Books
Dry as Rain
Gina Holmes
Eternal Life Inc.
James Burkard
Saving Henry
Laurie Strongin
Tales From Earthsea
Ursula K. Le Guin
First Time For Everything
Aimee Carson
Worth Winning
Parker Elling
Aimez-vous Brahms
Françoise Sagan
Out of Position
Kyell Gold
Cowboy Heaven
Cheryl L. Brooks
A Summer In Europe
Marilyn Brant