When We Believed in Mermaids(56)
Sort of. Turned out the hostess gig didn’t pay as well as tending bar. She stepped down in atmosphere at the restaurant to get a bump in cash at the bar.
The one good thing was that the apartment was close to the mall, and we loved the mall. We had a swimming pool, where Josie and my mother could stop hearts by sunbathing and turning their skin mocha. It wasn’t that far to the beach, though we didn’t have a car, of course, so unless we could coax my mom into taking us there, we had to ride the bus. It was fine, just time consuming, and you had to be sure to get the bus back in time, which wasn’t always what you wanted to do.
When we first moved there, I was alone in a way I never had been in my life. Back at Eden, there was always someone around—my sister or Dylan or my mom or dad. Failing that, there were cooks and waitresses and musicians and delivery people. I had Cinder and the cats who lived in a feral colony in the coyote brush.
Cinder had died of old age only a few months before the earthquake. Dylan, Josie, and I had held a teary, earnest funeral for him and scattered his ashes over the ocean, then cried on one another’s shoulders until we had no tears left. He was sixteen, which we told ourselves was 112 in dog years, but it didn’t make it feel better. I’d never known a world without his constant presence, and I mourned him deeply. Our parents had been promising we could get a new puppy, but no one had gotten around to taking us to look for one.
Just as well, as it turned out.
In Salinas, there was only me in that bland apartment. By the time I got home from school, my mom was ready to go or had already left for work. Josie had been a party girl before the earthquake, but she quadrupled that in Salinas. I had a library card and used it whenever I could find a ride, but it was hard to get my mom motivated. Josie and I hung out at the mall sometimes but not often.
So I was alone. I read. And I watched a lot of TV. I probably saw every network TV show on the air during that time. I had to have the noise. I learned to bake while the television in the living room played The Wonder Years, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and my afternoon favorite, the soap opera Santa Barbara, which Josie also used to watch but wouldn’t deign to do anymore. I didn’t care. My life and family had exploded, but everything was the same in the soap, where Eden and Cruz were still living their up-and-down life. I baked. I cooked. I checked out cookbooks from the library and taught myself every technique I could find, making supper for all of us every day. Most of the time, the leftovers went in the trash after I’d had my fill, but I liked having the meals anyway.
Baking eased my loneliness in a way nothing else did, at least until I saved enough money for a modem and cheap computer, which didn’t come until a little later.
We lived there nearly five years. My mom made good money at the bar. I babysat for the single moms in the complex until I was old enough for a real job. Josie always had money, but nobody looked too closely to see why. Mainly, she devoted herself to becoming the slut of Monterey County, banging pretty much every guy who took her fancy, and they all did. Especially the bad boys, the leaders on the bad side.
And if Josie decided she wanted somebody, it didn’t matter if he had a girlfriend or didn’t go for white girls or what. She crooked her finger, and they came, on more than one score. She was incredible, a fantasy. Long blonde hair to her tiny ass, tanned limbs, tiny waist. She didn’t have much of a chest, but everything else made up for that.
Sometimes she kept a guy for a little while, a few months or maybe a couple of seasons, and then she’d move on to the next. I think that’s why a lot of them liked her, to tell you the truth. You couldn’t keep Josie Bianci.
I didn’t have much of a social life. I’d never really needed one, and as a too-tall, gawky teen with crazy frizzy hair, I was too self-conscious to be able to reach out now. My focus was on getting the hell out of Salinas and into college, out of this world and into one where I had some influence and understanding. I wanted order, clarity, education. I wanted to talk about Big Important Things, not the bullshit all my classmates seemed to want to talk about. Clothes. Boys. TV.
I missed my dad. I missed Dylan, who listened better than anyone in the world. I cooked a lot because nobody else was going to do it. I got a little fat because I wasn’t surfing much.
I was profoundly lonely.
When I finally saved enough for a computer and modem, getting online saved me. I made friends in newsgroups, found like-minded souls on Prodigy, an online service with message boards, and stumbled into a connection with a group of aspiring medical students who nurtured my growing interest and eventually helped me navigate the college application process and find the funds to make it happen.
I’m thinking about those days while I surf, only coming to shore when my driver waves at me. “The storm, she’s coming in. We gotta get back.”
Shaken out of my reverie, I follow the direction of her finger, and a big, ugly bank of clouds are gathering on the horizon. “Not good,” I agree.
Everyone is of the same mind. By the time I get changed and get everything dropped off, the sun has been devoured by the clouds, and a hard wind is pushing onshore. We listen to the cyclone reports on the way back to the CBD, and I ask the driver, “Is this something to be worried about?”
She shrugs. “Maybe. Sounds like it might be this time. You have food and water in your hotel?”
“Not really. Can we stop somewhere on the way back?”