Finding Joy E-Book

Laurie Woodward

• Herausgeber: Next Chapter
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

My name is Joy, Joy Chappell. Over the top, I know, but my Mom wanted me to sound all innocent. And maybe I was, in my own way.

Can a car stealing, pot smoking, LSD tripping chick be innocent? I thought so.

Even though it was always on my mind. It, the thing we never talked about. It that Mom hid with Cover Girl and I lied to my friends about. It, making me dream that someday the light of hippie sun would shine down as we danced barefoot in meadows.

Naïve, I know. But when you're a kid you see the world through your own eyes. And when you're high to boot, everything is tinged with a soft mist, like an out of focus camera, and you trust people, thinking they just want to give you a ride.

Even with It, I never knew people were truly ugly until that night. I really thought the face inside was just a mask, one I could melt away with my Kodachrome soul. But I was wrong. And by the time I figured it out, it was too late.

I was seventeen, and I was about to die.

Leseprobe

FINDING JOY

LAURIE WOODWARD

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Acknowledgments

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About the Author

Copyright (C) 2021 Laurie Woodward

Layout design and Copyright (C) 2021 by Next Chapter

Published 2021 by Next Chapter

Edited by Lorna Read

Cover art by CoverMint

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author’s permission.

ONE

JOY

I was seventeen when the bong years came to a close. When the pipe’s gurgling water morphed from concentric circles on a pond, to a drowning undertow. Jolted from a Kodachrome dream of psychedelic turquoise, I struggled to the surface, back toward the beautiful light.

Why should you give a shit about another stoner kid inhaling her last? You’d probably think she was just another fuck-up doing something stupid. And you’d be right. I’d done a friggin’ factory of idiotic things during the bong years. From taking downers before chugging Coors, to sneaking the car out while my parents played golf, I’d churned out more stupid widgets than’d fill a Pakistani sweatshop.

But you know, every stunt made perfect sense in my daydreaming head. I’d work out the details on how bitchin it’d be when everyone saw me cruising through the park, tunes cranked, flicking Marlboro ashes out the window. Of course, I didn’t count on my uncle being there with his kids, or running out of gas two blocks from home.

Shit.

When I was seventeen, the sweet ambrosia of Hawaiian, Thai Stick and Columbian Red turned to bitter resin. The chamber’s glowing bowl flared and spat embers while I fought to stoke that dying flame. I searched both purse and pockets, but all of my matches had burned, leaving the rolling smoke withering to ash on my tongue.

That year, you could have changed my name to Naïve. Or Dreamer and Head-in-the-clouds-Hippie-Wannabe.

Anything but my real name, Joy Chappell. I know, it sounds like a holy-roller churchy girl. I guess that’s what Mom was going for when she named me. Wanted me to sound all innocent and shit. And maybe I was. In my own way.

How can a car-stealing, pot-smoking, LSD-tripping chick be innocent? If you were born in the 1960s, like me, you’d know. All around, there was this message of optimism and hope saying that soon people were going to come together in love and peace. From the films where smiling hippies lived off the land, to songs like All You Need is Love, to news broadcasts about people taking to the streets in brotherhood, the Utopian message rang out.

Even Mom, with her Vote for Nixon button, teased beehive hairdo and miniskirts, started to speak of women’s rights and stopping the war in Vietnam. But it was the teenagers I met that had the most profound effect on my idealism. They told me that by the time I grew up, the world was going to be a far-out, fantastical planet where all we had to do was sing a few songs and smile for bursting cannon balls to become rainbows.

And I believed every freaking word.

So here I was, a kid certain that someday the light of hippie sun would shine on all our faces as we danced barefoot in meadows. I had so much faith in this dream that I thought, if you can really talk to a person, get them face to face and bare the beauty of your child soul, you could soften the hardest of hearts. When I was really little, I even believed that if I told the President to stop the war, he would. He’d just look in my kid eyes and make peace.

Naïve, I know. But when you’re a kid, you see the world through your own eyes. And when you’re high to boot, everything is tinged with this soft mist, like an out-of-focus camera, and you trust people, thinking they just want to give you a ride.

Yeah, I never knew people were truly ugly until April 7, 1981. The night I peered into the tunnel of darkness.

You know, I really thought the face inside was just a mask. One I could melt away with my Kodachrome soul.

But I was wrong. And by the time I figured it out, it was too late.

I was seventeen and I was about to die.

TWO

KYLE

My half-sister’s an idiot. She says I’m Mom’s favorite, which isn’t true. I just don’t mess up like she does. I mean, if she would just think once in a while, maybe she wouldn’t be grounded all the time. Or if she planned, she might have some money, and wouldn’t keep begging for me to break into my savings

But I didn’t put a Strongbox Secret Cash Box on my Christmas list for its name. I wanted a piggy bank that looked like a vault, so I’d think twice before pulling money out. I’m not inserting coins in the slot for no reason, I have big plans. A Black Knight Sidewalk Skateboard with Cadillac wheels that will make me king of the streets.

And I’m almost there. So far, I’ve saved $7.43. Just $2.56 more and I’ll have the $9.99 I need. Then Kyle Wright will be like one of the skater boys, cruising over sidewalks till I hit Wheeler Hill. I’ll be perched at the top waiting for that light to turn green. Then, with a quick kick, I’ll jet down that asphalt wave, and the only sound will be the wind whooshing past my face. I won’t hear slamming doors or Mom crying.

It’s all stupid Joy’s fault, anyhow. Stupid head. If she hadn’t screeched, “You’re not my father, you can’t tell me what to do,” Dad wouldn’t have had to put her in her place. I mean, you just can’t have a seventeen-year-old talking like that.

Then Mom wouldn’t have tried to get between them. And Dad wouldn’t have hit her instead of Joy.

He didn’t mean it. I know, ‘cause he came back later with a big bouquet of flowers for Mom. Said he was sorry.

Dumb Joy. Dumb name. Doesn’t fit her at all, since all she seems to do is tick off everyone, arguing with her stupid hippie stuff. Doesn’t she realize the hippies are gone? Move on already and get a brain. And keep your hands off my bank.

THREE

JOY

Now, I don’t want you to get the idea that my life is just one endless suck-fest of green donkey dicks. I had all kinds of happy times. I had grandparents and cousins I got to visit every summer, a field nearby my house for awesome fort building, tons of books and, for a couple of years, a best friend who stood by my side. Until…

Well, we won’t talk about that right now.

From fifth grade on, Cheryl Silva and I were like two eggs in a nest; we both loved Donny Osmond, Tiger Beat magazine, and rainbow sherbet. Of course, I liked a cherry on top, which Cheryl thought was overkill, ruining the perfect blend of pastel colors.

Cheryl talked like that a lot, acting like an expert on art because her mother sometimes took her to the park to paint. But it never bugged me, I liked learning from her.

She was the kind of friend who would tell you when you had chocolate pudding on your face. The kind that finishes your sentences. The kind that makes you giggle until your sides hurt.

And when she listened, she was the kind of friend that looked in your eyes and got you.

Not that I told her everything. I mean, I’d hint at some of the bad stuff but couldn’t say it out loud. That’d make it too real.

So instead, I told her old stories of when I was little. Like one day in sixth grade we were in her room, listening to Only a Moment Ago on The Partridge Family Album when I got to thinking.

“You know, Cher, only a moment ago we were little kids.”

“Yeah, fun times, huh?”

“I don’t know. I hated grownups always saying children should be seen but not heard. They told us to sit quietly, hands folded in our laps, while they talked about important things like, like...”

“The electric bill?”

“Exactly. Or if they should buy a new vacuum cleaner or not.”

“And,” Cheryl giggled, “the perfect way to swish the toilet.” She held up a pretend toilet brush. “Sani Clean is the best potty scrubber in the world. Your bowl will sparkle with this amazing brush!”

Chuckling, I nodded. “Adults are boring. I mean, can an adult bike with no hands, steering by sheer will like you do?”

“Or do about a million cartwheels and round-offs on the front lawn?” Cheryl added.

“They sure can’t shimmy up a tree in eighteen seconds flat.”

“You could before I ever met you.”

You should have seen me. I thought I was Tarzan, bare-chested, wearing cut-offs like a loin cloth.

“You still think you are,” Cheryl teased.

I made fists and pounded my chest like a gorilla. “Barefoot, I’d dare anyone to go as high as I could.”

“Climbing higher than me. That’s for sure.”

“One day Kyle tried to follow, but I climbed higher, teasing him. Come on, Ba-by. Can’t you even climb a few feet?”

“I bet your mom didn’t like that.”

“She was in the house. But I do have to give my little brother props. He stuck his tongue in his cheek and reached for the next branch. But it was too thin and bent.”

“Little kids are dumb. Everybody knows you have to have a branch as big as your arm or it’ll break.”

“That’s what I said –‘Pick a thicker one, stupid head’ –beforeI grabbed the next branch. Now I was really high, up where the tree gets skinny and you can see all over the neighborhood.”

“Next to that weird singing lady’s back yard where she practices opera all the time?”

“Yeah, while my parents roll their eyes. Even a few houses over into Cathy’s yard, where they have a wooden hot tub that Mom says people go in nude. Never did see any naked people, though.”

“You would look.”

“Whatever. From up there, I could see as far as the golf course next to our neighborhood. It looked like a big green ocean.”

“And what did my friend with the overactive imagination become then?” Cheryl asked. God, she knew me.

“I was a sailor battling waves in a storm, of course.”

“I can just hear you shouting, ‘Ahoy matey!’” she said, grinning. “Sounds fun.”

“It was until stupid Kyle called up saying he couldn’t reach. ‘Stop being a little baby’,I said.‘Sure, you can. Stretch!’”

“Encouragement. Good.”

“I don’t know why I was helping him. All I ever hear is how amazing he is. How perfectly clean his room is. Or how great his kindergarten report card was next to mine. How he never spilled his milk during dinner. ‘Why don’t you act more like your brother, Joy?’”

“Can relate. Why did you?”

“Yeah well, he is kind of adorable, when he isn’t being so annoyingly perfect. But don’t tell him I said so.”

“Never.” She jerked her head toward her baby sister’s room. “Little brothers or sisters, should never know when you think they’re cute.”

“Totally. They’d use it against you.”

“Forever,” Cheryl agreed.

“He tried, chanting to stretch over and over again. I watched, cheering him on.”

“I’m guessing this doesn’t have a happy ending.”

“He’d forgotten to leave his toes on a lower branch and reached too far for his stubby little arms. I tried shouting, ‘No, not that way, there’s no…’ But I was too late. He tumbled down and started bawling his head off.”

“Did you get in trouble?”

“Mom appeared immediately and scooped him into her arms. ‘Joy Marie Chapel, what’s wrong with you?’ she yelled, rushing my crying brother into the house.” I sighed. “Didn’t follow.”

“You were better off in the tree.”

“Yep. Where I wouldn’t be seen or heard.”

FOUR

IRIS

Joy was splayed out in a beanbag, curling her toes as she turned the page of another book. What’s she reading this time? Probably another of my horror novels that’ll give her nightmares. Hard to believe an eleven-year-old would like such frightening stories.

Silly kid. I should tell her to pick something more innocent and age appropriate, like Willy Wonka or The Wizard of Oz. Taking her to places where magic still exists. Unlike her home. I started to point that out, but the picture in Glamour magazine took me back to my own magical time.

And I remembered the note.

Meet me this afternoon at the Villa Motel, Room 14.

I’d blushed when I read what Mr. Wright had slipped onto my desk. Smoothing my hair, I pulled out my compact and checked my lipstick, feeling warm in a way I hadn’t since Alan left.

Stop it now, I thought. He’s married and your boss.

But he looks like Steve Mc Queen on the screen…

I’d never even called him by his first name, for God’s sake. And what about his wife? Isn’t she some waif of a thing that’s always at his beck and call? Maybe she doesn’t love him. She never comes around. But if she does, I’d feel terrible.

A week later, Mr. Wright cornered me in the hall leading to the office’s restroom. “Hello, beautiful.”

“Excuse me.” I dodged right, trying to scoot past.

He extended an arm across the door jamb, blocking my entry. “When are you going to let me take you away for a weekend? We could drive up to Monterey. I know this little motel.”

“Mr. Wright,” I interrupted.

“Ron.”

“Ron, please stop. I can’t,” I said with my mouth, but my body betrayed me. I leaned forward, feeling the warmth of his chest. It would feel so wonderful to be pressed up against it.

I shook my head. Think,Iris. Joy’s not even two and that asshole Alan is never going to pay child support. You need this job.

I knew the score. Married men had been hitting on me since I was sixteen and scooping ice cream at the Thrifty Drug Store. All they wanted was to play around, and once they got off, they’d drop you. I’d been smart enough to stay away from the wolves, but I’d had a girlfriend at Thrifty who had to go away and visit her aunt in Idaho for several months after getting involved with one.

And Alan had left a hole so deep, I couldn’t find my way out. Only saw the darkness. No sky or clouds, barely took care of Joy. It was like I was dead.

I’d fought to claw my way out of that grave and vowed never to let any man return me to it.

“Never say never,” I mumbled.

“What, Mom?”

Did I say that out loud? “Nothing. I just noticed that pants are flaring more now. But I couldn’t wear them. They’d make me look fat.”

Joy giggled. “You never look fat, Mom. Except when?” She raised her eyebrows twice.

I knew what she wanted. Her favorite face. “I don’t know…” I teased. “My hands are tired today.”

“Come on. Please?”

I looked at the clock. Ronny wouldn’t be home for two hours. I curled a lip and then slowly raised my hands to either side of my head. Pressing my palms against both cheeks to smush my face into a Marshmallow Puff Lady, I said in a clown voice, “My mommy’s name is Chubby.”

Joy giggled. I deepened my voice.

“My daddy’s name is Chubby. And my name is Chubby. And when I smile…” I paused to draw out the part the kids loved best. I smashed my lips together and puckered before saying, “… it goes like this!”

I started to bare my teeth, but it wasn’t necessary. Joy was already kicking up her feet and roaring with laughter. Her chubby little toes curled again like when she was little.

God, she’s growing up. Starting to get curves. Not as much as I had when I was eleven, but I think she takes after her father’s side of the family. All straight edges with flat butts and small chests. Unlike me. I’m a winding road with so many curves, I don’t know where one begins and the next ends.

She’s worried about growing but I think she’s fine. I know the other girls in her class are more developed, but I’m glad that she’s late going through puberty. I started at ten and look where that got me. Pregnant at nineteen, married to a gas station attendant who could barely afford our tiny apartment.

When I complained about the mice gnawing on the bread or ruining another box of Corn Flakes, he’d tell me, “Don’t worry, baby, I’m going places.”

Oh, he went somewhere all right. Straight out the door to his new life.

Thank God for Ronny. I know he has his flaws, but he loves me. I know it. Look at our house. On a cul-de-sac in The Estates, with all new appliances and shag carpet. Had it built special. Ronny made sure to get the newest and brightest. Nothing used for him.

Alan still can’t get his act together enough to pay child support. Or visit Joy. Poor kid. She keeps waiting, thinking he’ll come. But the asshole stays away.

Her face is changing, too. She still has baby cheeks that fill up like balloons when she smiles, but there’s a hint of cheekbones now. I also noticed a thoughtfulness in her green eyes, like she’s taking everything in and analyzing it. More so than I ever did.

And he’s missing it all. Idiot.

FIVE

JOY

I know, you’re wondering when did the Bong Years start? And I’m getting there. Just let me tell my story in my own time, okay? Catalina comes into it a lot, so you might as well know about my first summer there…

“Don’t forget to floss,” Mom cautioned.

“Yeah, those braces weren’t cheap,” Ronny grumbled, in that grouchy-grouch voice.

In the middle of a hug, Mom stiffened almost imperceptibly before smoothing my hair, something she hadn’t done since I was eight.

“Okay.” I started to say ‘I love you’ but somehow the words got stuck when an older girl, a teenager in a baby-blue Catalina Island Camp t-shirt and white shorts, walked by. I take it back, she didn’t walk, she full-on floated out the terminal doors before joining the crowd on the dock.

Mom’s gaze followed mine as she led me outside. “Maybe she’s one of the counselors.”

“Lucky Joy,” Ronny said, getting an eyeful.

Take a picture, why don’t you? I thought, rolling my eyes.

I’d imagined this island camp to be pretty cool when I opened my Guess Who’s 11? birthday card and the brochure fell out. But now, looking at the teens with their hair sun-streaked and strong, tanned legs, I started to realize that this was going to be way cooler than playing with my Malibu Barbie set.

“Barbies, for an eleven-year-old?” Cheryl had teased when she saw me pushing my Country Camper over the lawn last week.

“So?” I’d said, parking the van under a rose bush and pulling Barbie out from behind the wheel. I brushed her hair with one finger and held her up to my flat chest. Cheryl was right but, even though she was my best friend, she still didn’t understand about becoming. Instead of a stupid shag cut, so short people thought I was a boy, I got to have long, silky hair. My boring green eyes turned aqua behind sunglasses and no pimples stained my smooth, peachy cheeks. I had a great husband, Ken, and we loved our daughter Skipper so much that we took her on all of our camping adventures.

“Joy Chapel?” The pretty blonde counselor called my name off a list.

“No more than two shots of whisky a night, kiddo. They won’t let you sail with a hangover,” the winking Ronny said, loud enough for others to hear.

“Oh, Ron,” Mom giggled, slapping him gently with the back of her hand. She loved his I’m-in-public-so-act-charming voice.

With a half-smile, I looked down at my white legs. Not even Malibu Skipper I thought, as Mom gave me a little push toward the gangplank where kids were filing onto the boat.

But in a few minutes, it didn’t matter; I was in the bow with the June sun on my face. I placed my hand on the rail feeling the engines hum as a girl around my age came up beside me. “Hey,” I said.

“Hi,” she replied, in a shy kind of voice. Then she wrinkled up her nose. “San Pedro stinks, huh?”

“Guess it’s pollution from all these ships,” I said, trying to sound all mature.

She nodded and grabbed the rail next to me as The Catalina Express sped up. I noticed her long curls rippling in the wind like the choppy waves below us. I wish mine did that, I thought running a hand over where my hair stopped just past my neck. Definitely growing it out this summer. Don’t care what Mom says.

The thick smell of engine oil soon made way for fresh ocean air. Here, the captain really let it rip. The keel hissed over the water, parting the deep blue behind us in a big, foamy V. I put my hand over my chest in the same shape and felt my heart beating slower and slower. Noticing how it got quieter the further we were from shore.

The spray tickled my skin as the island grew bigger on the horizon. I like that word. Horizon. It was on my sixth-grade vocabulary list when we read The Call of the Wild and I kept imagining dogs mushing toward a snowy wall that always stayed twenty feet away.

“That’s the Isthmus,” said the girl, who was named Bethany by the way; Bethany Wallach. She was a real Jewish girl, the first one I’d ever met, or even heard of. My parents didn’t do church or talk religion much, so she had to explain to me about the Old Testament and the New and Jesus being a prophet, not God, to the Jews. I didn’t really see the difference until she told me about them celebrating Hanukah instead of Christmas and getting presents for eight days.

Now I really was jealous.

I followed the line of her finger to the small bay peppered with all kinds of yachts that probably belonged to TV stars or millionaires. A short pier led to a few buildings on shore.

“That’s our camp?” I asked.

“No, silly. We’re going to take the shuttles.” She jerked her chin toward the pier, where four flat-bottomed boats that looked like the ones on the Jungle Cruise at Disneyland were docked. There, a few men, with deep lines and tanned skin so leathery it could have lined Mom’s purse, held out hands to help us board.

When about half an hour later we finally chugged around the bend, my heart just stopped. Here, a row of palm trees skirted blue canvas-roofed cabins in a bay with waters so quiet, the littlest angel must have lived there. Surrounding it all were mountains topped with eucalyptus, ironwood and sage bushes.

Wow!

This paradise was going to be home for a whole month. And Ronny paid for it? Maybe he wasn’t such a jerk, after all.

Over the next four weeks I learned to sail, canoe, kayak, and my favorite, rowing, because no matter how many circles you went in, it felt like you were going somewhere.

There were day hikes to the top of Miller Hill and moonlit sneaks to raid the boys’ camp. I sang goofy songs in the mess hall and tear-jerkers around the campfire. And of course, I bowed at the feet of my cabin counselor, Gail and the others as they imparted teenaged wisdom on stuff like Vietnam, equal rights, and saving the Earth.

One morning during cabin cleanup, Gail lifted a conspiratorial eyebrow and waved us over to her trunk. Thrilled with the attention, we all gathered round her like little chicks ready to gobble up handfuls of feed. When she held up a tattered scrapbook and warned that the contents were secret, our heads bobbed bird-like as we promised not to tell. She slowly opened it to the first page, where glued-in photos of her marching for Earth Day sat at odd angles with stickers and concert tickets.

On the next page, she unfolded a flyer for a women’s march and said, “We stopped traffic for blocks during this one. Cops came, billy clubs raised. Thought I’d get beat but they were just being jerks hoping to scare us off.”

My jaw was on the floor, but my mind was on what I’d do later. Just before lights out, when we were supposed to write letters to our parents, I’d pull out the little diary Grandma had given me, unlock it with the tiny key, and pour all these moments onto the page.

By the end of the week, I had filled the diary and started using binder paper, folded in fourths and stuffed inside. When no more fit in the diary, I resorted to hiding these secret scribblings under the flowered panties at the bottom of my trunk, figuring no one would look there.

Not that they were anything too crazy. Just the stuff I dealt with every day. Like how come I looked like a pancake from the side, barely with nubs, and only a few wisps of hair on my privates like the nine-year olds in the gang showers, when most of the other girls in my cabin had a fistful of curling hair and Barbie boobies? Or why did the older counselors laugh when I asked what a tampon was? And how come some of the girls from Palos Verdes whispered that they didn’t want Bethany, a Jew, to be part of their skit at the Talent Show?

Lots of questions, but no real answers. Except maybe how different I was. How others gabbed and squealed while I struggled to find the words.

I marveled at how easy it was for girls like Sydney and Erin. How witty comebacks and one-liners just rolled off their tongues.

But I couldn’t even remember jokes our counselor had just told. Most of the time, I was too lost in dreams to keep up with the other kids. So, I just smiled and pretended to get their jokes. All the while wondering, what the heck did I just miss?

Still, I managed to change a bit in that month at camp. And it wasn’t just how my shag cut now touched my shoulders, or how the blonde forearm hair showed against my tan like wisps of cotton. I’d memorized protest and peace songs that I mimicked in poetry that I shyly shared with my counselor, Gail. She later took me up to the boar pits to tell me how mature she thought it was. That I should keep writing because I had some real talent. I thought she was just being nice, but nonetheless I stood taller when she said it.

In those four weeks, I began to see the life beyond pretending. In those four weeks I started to become.

And some things just didn’t feel right anymore.

I knew just what I’d do when I got home. I would pull out each one of my Barbies and seat them in their Country Camper, making sure to stroke Skipper’s hair one last time before sliding the little plastic door closed. Then I’d give the RV one big push and watched it roll to a stop.

Before putting it all into the Good Will box. And walking away.

SIX

IRIS

I hardly recognized the girl that stepped off the boat. Could that tanned kid twittering away with other girls, wide grin showing the gap between her teeth, be my daughter?

Not trusting my own eyes, I raised my hand in a tentative wave.

“Stop making a spectacle of yourself,” Ron hissed under his breath. He wrapped an arm around my waist and dug his fingers into the soft flesh under my blouse.

Immediately, I lowered my arm and clasped my hands in front me to look like the well-trained wife Ron demands. Wincing as his pinch tightened down like pliers and bowing my head, I peeked through my false eyelashes to see if anyone who’s important in Ron’s eyes had noticed my faux pas.

Nouveau riche mothers with flared jeans and glam tops flicked cigarette ash from their manicured nails, while the Beverly Hills elite in Perry Ellis skirt suits rolled their House Beautiful magazines into canvas bags.

But the only person that I noticed was Joy, whose high-stepping filly gait sunk to a slow shuffle. With every step, her wide smile folded deeper into a scowl.

I wanted to run to her, take her in my arms like when she was five and spin her around, but Ron’s hand was there. If I dared move, it would tighten on my waist like a spring-loaded clamp. I put on my half-smile placid mask.

“Hi, Mom. Hi Ronny,” Joy said, giving me a dutiful peck on the cheek before copying my clasped hand pose.

Ron greeted her with a grunt and had started to turn toward the exit when that actor from the Mary Tyler Moore show walked by, arm slung over his son’s shoulder.

Suddenly, the Ron that wooed me all those years ago appeared. Pivoting on his Ferragamo loafers, he lifted a rakish brow and trumpeted, “Who took my daughter and replaced her with a tan goddess?”

When the actor, Ted Kite, glanced our way, Ron squeezed Joy so tight I thought he might break her ribs. She stood there, arms stiff at her sides, lips pressed into a smile that never reached her eyes.

The next thing I knew, Ron was shaking hands with Ted Kite. After a boisterous joke or two about sending kids to camp, he swept an arm in our direction.

“My wife, Iris and this tanned goddess is my daughter, Joy.” He didn’t say stepdaughter.

While Joy stared at her shoes, I nodded politely and gushed how I was a huge fan. Ted’s chortling was cut short when Ron shoved a business card into his hand.

“If you are ever looking for real estate in Santa Juana, give me a call.”

Ted held it up like a mini-flag and said he had to go.

Ron shook his hand heartily and led us out of the terminal. Once we were all buckled into the Lincoln, he rolled up the windows and turned on the AC. But that cold air did nothing to dim the rage in his face.

“Did you have to fucking embarrass me?”

“What?”

“Your head bobbing like a plastic Jesus in a Spic’s low rider.”

“I was only trying to act how you want me to.”

“Looked like an idiot. You could have said something about my listings, but I should have known when I met you, you were just white trash. Take her out of the sewer, she’s still covered in shit.”

“I never was trailer trash,” I retorted.

I felt the heat before the sound. It spiced the cool air, a flashing palm burning skin with brutal piquancy.

My husband, father of the year.

SEVEN

JOY

I can’t remember when Mom married Ronald, I was only two. But I do remember my real dad coming around. And how he used to set me on his knee and start bouncing while singing, “She’ll be coming round the mountain” in a Johnny Cash voice. Imagining I was riding six white horses, I’d cry, “Faster, Daddy, faster.” And his leg would jiggle so much, I’d teeter before falling off in a heap of giggles.

Once, while rolling around in a fit of laughter, I looked past Dad at the popcorn ceiling and noticed a long crack from one side to the next. “Look, Daddy, a river.”

His tickle hands halted, and he froze, staring at that crack for the longest time. Then he lifted me off his knee, stood, and walked away. Kept right on going out the front door.

Pretty soon after that, I started riding a stick horse.

Dad sang, “We’ll all go out to greet her when she comes,” but he hasn’t greeted me in so long I can’t remember.

I wonder what I did wrong.

Anyhow, once, during a visit to Aunt Kay’s when I was supposed to be sleeping, I crept down the hall to listen to her and Uncle Mike rant about Ronald and Mom.

“Just call me Ronny, like Governor Reagan,” Kay mocked.

“Ronny, my ass. He thinks he’s hot shit because he drives a Lincoln and lives in The Estates,” Mike said.

“Did you see her face?”

“Again?”

“She tries to cover it up with make-up, but I know.”

“Asshole,” Mike said.

I knew what the make-up was covering. The same thing our perfectly mowed lawn and etched concrete patio did. The same thing shrouding our windows. Mom was just as skilled at curtaining her face in Cover Girl beige as she was in sewing flawless window coverings.

And we all pretended to believe that the marks beneath the foundation were just smears, places she hadn’t expertly applied the make-up.

Like today, when I got back from camp.

Yeah, if my real dad was here, he’d kick Ronny’s ass. Lay him flat. Wrap Mom up in his strong arms, (they were strong, weren’t they?) and whisk us away to a place beyond the mountain.

EIGHT

JOY

So, you might be asking how a girl like me could go from being a bare-chested little kid climbing trees on the golf course and screaming Tarzan, to smoking so many bowls her green eyes turned red? I don’t really know. It just sort of happened.

Well, that’s not exactly true. I did have a plan in mind before I started getting high. And it made perfect sense in my idealistic brain. Or so I thought.

It all started on the first day of junior high. My stomach was doing full-on flips as I combed my hair over to one side; it was then even longer than after camp, almost long enough to look like one of those movie stars in black and white movies. Veronica Lake or Lauren Bacall.

“You do know how to whistle, don’t you?” I said, making a kissy face into the mirror. “You just put your lips together and blow.”

“Joy!” Kyle’s voice seeped through the bathroom door into my movie dream. “Mom says you gotta hurry up or you’re going to miss the bus. And I need the bathroom. You’re not the only one who has school, you know!”

“Okay!” I started to call him a brat but then, remembering that I was now in junior high, decided to act more mature. I shoved the barrette haphazardly above my right ear and swept the door open. “You may enter, younger brother. And I bid you a glorious day.”

Rolling his eyes, Kyle shoved past me. With a low bow, he thrust his Mickey Mouse toothbrush in his mouth, flicked on the switch, and said, “Gwoorius day to joo,” between vibrating pulses.

“So mature,” I muttered, picking my new Scooby Doo lunchbox and Trapper Keeper binder up off the floor.

Nothing was going to get in the way of this day, not even annoying Kyle.

Mom sat at the kitchen table smoking a Virginia Slims while thumbing through a magazine. Their slogan was You’ve come a long way, baby, with pictures of the olden days when ladies wore long dresses. set next to today’s stylish tool-carrying women.

It reminded of the day I saw her open the latest Cosmo and whisper, “You’ve come a long way, Iris,” over and over. Her eyes had been fixed on the glossy page like one of the undead in the movies I’m not supposed to watch.

I’d tiptoed back down the hall and sat on my bed, rubbing my knotted stomach. My favorite book, The Call of the Wild, was lying open on the floral comforter to the chapter where Buck battles all odds in a frozen land. I tried to focus on the words, but my mind kept returning to Mom. In my imagination, she became Buck escaping a cruel master and trotting unbound in the Alaskan wilderness.

I wonder what she would look like with her teased hair flowing free, the snow lighting up her pretty face? She has the nose I wish I’d inherited and a wide smile that doesn’t come out much. She’s already one of the pretty mothers about the youngest of all my friends’ moms. But she’d be even prettier if she didn’t have that empty stare all the time. That I’m-somewhere-else look that makes me want to wave a hand in front of her and shout, “Wake up!”

Sometimes, when Ronny is going through a good phase and sales are up, he stops being like the master in The Call of the Wild and is actually pretty cool. Making jokes, slapping Mom on the butt, and kissing the top of her head.

Then I get to see her eyes light up like Christmas. That’s when I see the power her beauty has, why all the men in the stores are nice, and why some rumpled mothers make harrumph sounds when she walks by.

“Do you have everything?” she asked, never looking up from the page.

I waved my cool Scooby Doo lunch box. “Yep, made PB & J, got chips, milk in the thermos.”

She blew out a long column of smoke and watched it dissipate in the air. “Okay, get going or you’ll miss the bus.”

A dutiful kiss and a wave later, I was skipping down my street swinging Scooby’s gang in one hand. Right before the bus stop, I caught myself. “You’re in seventh grade. Be cool.”