“What?” I folded my arms at Greta’s call to me at eleventh grade lunch period.
“My, my, aren’t we defensive?” she shot back. I couldn’t tell she was trying to be friendly. “I was just gonna ask if I could sit with you, but if you’re gonna have an attitude, forget it.” She turned to walk away and I realized Greta was my only chance at having a friend at school.
“Greta,” I shouted after her. She turned around and scrunched her mouth to one side with snide skepticism. “I’m sorry. I just thought you were going to, I don’t know. I didn’t think you were going to ask to have lunch. I thought you were going to say something mean.”
She sat down and leaned toward me conspiratorially. “It’s so easy to think that way in a hellhole like this. I mean, have you ever met a bigger group of bitches than these girls?”
I could honestly answer that I had not. The reality was that I hadn’t met that many people in my sixteen years. We lived in a farmhouse with nine adults and ten kids, but other than them, I had little interaction with the outside world. We knew the folks who worked at the food co-op, and everyone who shopped at the Missoula Farmer’s Market where we sold produce, hemp macramé, beaded jewelry, and wool sweaters and hats that my mother made. When I say she made them, I mean she really made them—from shearing the wool, spinning it to yarn, and knitting it as she softly sang her favorite Cyndi Lauper songs. We were eighties hippies, after all.
So, in all honesty, I could tell Greta emphatically that no, I had never met a bigger group of bitches than the girls at the Academy. Greta was beautiful in a natural, not-trying-at-all sort of way. Other girls in our school spent a tremendous amount of time making sure their irreverently individual appearance received high marks from our peer fashion critics. It absolutely amazed me that many girls were allowed to highlight their hair, don leather pants, and have their weak chins reconstructed. Greta threw herself together like a girl who didn’t give much thought to her looks, and yet was still stunning. She has her Japanese mother’s straight black hair and thick lips, and also moss green eyes compliments of her American father, the chief of staff at Scripps Memorial Hospital. Greta always wore a blue hoodie with “La Jolla Country Day Soccer” in chipped white print on the back. Her hair was always combed and tied in a low ponytail. No one could see that she was pretty because she had an unfinished, tomboy look. But there was no doubt about it, Greta was the best-looking girl at our school. Today, she maintains the same low-maintenance style with a uniform of starched white button-down tops, simple black pants, and patent leather “roach stompers,” accenting the look with one of her dozens of artistic necklaces from her travels.
“So, new girl. You got a name?” shot young Greta.
“Mona.” I wasn’t sure if Greta was really being friendly, or if she was just taking inventory of the new, lowest level of the social totem pole. She was so blunt in her delivery. “So, what’s your story, Mona? Where’d you come from? What are you in for?” Greta was the first to confront me with the rumor of my drug addiction. I kind of liked the cachet of being the exiled tweeker, but then again, anything was better than the real story of my journey to Coronado, so I decided I’d be evasive with Greta and let her draw her own conclusions.
“You know, sometimes a girl needs a change of atmosphere to clear her head,” I said.
“Clear her head of what?” Greta shot.
“You know, stuff…”
“No, I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking,” Greta persisted.
“I don’t really want to get into it. I just thought I needed a change in scenery, and what better place than sunny Southern California?”
“You know what they’re saying about you, don’t you?” Greta asked. I shook my head and knit my brows, coaxing her to continue. “They say your parents kicked you out. Couldn’t deal with you anymore.” My heart took a five-story plunge. I hated this group of over-privileged nitwits. I had heard about my supposed drug problems. I was even amused by the ludicrous rumors. But my parents kicked me out? Not amusing in the least.
I saw my mother sweeping a spider up with a sheet of newspaper and gently escorting it out the door. Once she even argued that a grape juice stain had every right to permanently reside on the blouse she spilled it on. She said there was no point in trying to wash out grape juice, so she may as well think of it as a new design. She used watercolor paints and placed petals around the misshapen purple center of her makeshift flower. Fully functional clothing would never be discarded on our Utopian commune. Ants were “redirected” to the outdoors through strategically placed slices of lemon rind. But according to the know-it-alls at the Academy, my parents kicked their own daughter out of the house.
I remembered how my father looked the last time I saw him, closing the door of the school bus and giving me a thumbs-up as if their road trip to the capitol for a nuclear disarmament rally would actually make a bit of difference. As if a few thousand hippies were 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 Jerry Garcia stood in the corner beside a framed newspaper article about a group that burned sage to ward off evil spirits at the San Diego Convention Center the day after the 1996 Republican National Convention ended. On the menu, house specials were crammed together like commuters on a New York City subway.
The woman from the pictures emerged from the kitchen like smoke. She introduced herself as Judy the Beauty in a pack-a-day gravelly voice that was an inviting combination of boldness and warmth. “You’re Mona, oui?” I nodded my head. She had a New York Jewish way about her, but I imagined Judy took on snippets of foreign languages in her everyday speech depending on what type of mood she was in. Some days, it very well may have been Yiddish; others French. “Greta is running late so get that little tushie in here and grab a seat while I pour us a fresh cup of coffee,” Judy offered. “Welcome to the Big Kitchen, where everyone’s a friend,” Judy said, motioning to a bearded man at the counter. “Ain’t that right? If you don’t act right at the door, we don’t let you in.”
The beard smiled. “Good eggs this morning, Judy.”
“What are you talking about?! I’ve got the best cook in the world. Buenos huevos every morning, oui?” Judy turned her attention back to me as she led me out to the patio through the kitchen.
Rather than hiding from the world like I did, Judy was constantly seeking a connection with people. Silence that was the soundtrack of my life was as intolerable to Judy as an empty coffee cup. She scurried about refilling sturdy mugs with coffee and dead air with chatter. I was amazed at how comfortable she seemed at having all eyes on her while I could barely keep from blushing from just her attention.
“Do you want to see where Whoopi signed my wall?” Judy asked.
The Big Kitchen was like a huge game of connect-the-dots, from the people in the photos, to the celebrity graffiti, feminist posters, to the bizarre painting of the restaurant without its roof and children playing with it as a dollhouse. Trying to piece together what it all meant seemed futile, compelling, and oddly comforting. The smell of sizzling bacon, coffee, and something buttery sweet was beyond compelling.
“Um, okay,” I said, game.
None of the cooks seemed especially surprised to see Judy taking a customer through the kitchen. High on a dingy yellow wall, Whoopi Goldberg demanded in black Sharpie pen, “Don’t paint over my spot, goddamn it!”
“Why did Whoopi Goldberg write that on your wall?” I asked.
Judy smiled, raised her eyebrows, and peered at me over her down-tilted wire-rim glasses. “She didn’t want me to paint over her spot,” she said slowly, as though I should have read more into her answer than I could. “And she felt pretty strongly about it.” When Greta arrived, she gave me a bit of background on the Big Kitchen. Not only did she swear the place had the best biscuits and gravy she’d ever tasted, but that Judy was something of a political entertainment muse. Whoopi Goldberg worked there as a dishwasher while she was homeless in San Diego. Sheri Glaser, another performance artist, also did time as a waitress at the Big Kitchen. Lily Tomlin and Pat Schroeder came to the phone personally when Judy Forman called. She led the sage burners to the convention center after the GOP convention, then called the media for film at eleven.
“What has you distraught?” Greta finally inquired after our meals had been delivered.
“I’m not. I’m thrilled, actually. I quit my job,” I said, recharged and remembering my impulsive move.
Greta took a deep breath, signaling that she was trying to not react. She placed her fingers against the edge of the table gently, as though she were about to play piano. She leaned in and smiled. “Tell me everything. How did this come about? Do you have a plan for what you’re going to do next?”
“I’m not entirely sure what I’m going to do,” I began. “This happened so suddenly. Larry started talking about a buyout option, and two hours later I’m here taking a few vacation days, and Monday I start my two-week transition out the door and on to I don’t know what. I do know one thing for sure, though.” I paused for dramatic effect. It was so rare I had news to report, much less a life-altering announcement.
Grandiose announcements were made every Monday morning at our office break room. Nancy once went to a weekend workshop to reprogram her attraction to abusive men. Fred announced he was an alcoholic and attended his first AA meeting after he woke up on a bench in Balboa Park one Sunday morning. And most recently, Sandy announced that she got married by Elvis in Vegas. I’d seen plenty of the dramatic pause; I just never had a use for one before.
Pause. “I know one thing and this is it. Are you ready to hear my news?” I asked, straightening my back and leaning in as if I had the biggest news in the world.
“By next Christmas I am going to be blissfully and disgustingly happily married to Adam Ziegler.”
The skin on Greta’s face dropped two inches. My announcement was like emotional Botox. I had no idea what she was thinking. The look of anticipation was replaced by one of vacancy.
“Surprised?” I tried to resuscitate the giddiness we shared ten seconds prior to the words Adam Ziegler coming from my mouth.
“Who the hell is Adam Ziegler?” she asked with annoyance and not an ounce of actual curiosity. “Before I moved back to San Diego, I specifically asked you if you were dating anyone and you said you weren’t.”
Out of sheer stupidity, I tried again to revive the excitement. “We’re not officially dating, but we’ve known each other for seven years, and I pretty much knew the moment I met him that he was the one, but I never had the guts to do anything about it. Now, I feel like I’ve got this second lease on life and I want to start a relationship with him. You know, get out there and take the bull by the horns?”
Greta was silent for a few seconds, then sighed pityingly. “I completely support the idea of taking life by the horns, but that doesn’t translate to marrying some guy you barely know. Mona, you have an opportunity to discover who you are and what you want from life, and all you could come up with was marrying your puppy crush? You have the time and the money to do absolutely anything, Mona. I hate to say this, but you’re a good enough friend that I will. This adolescent fantasy of yours is more than a smidge uninspired. You should be taking painting lessons in Paris, going to therapy, doing social work. Something, anything other than attaching your happiness to marriage to some guy you hardly know.”
The air left the room, which is difficult to do on an outside patio.
“Oh,” was all I could say. “I was—I am—excited about this, to tell you the truth.” I hoped she felt guilty for deflating me, but she didn’t react. “I’ve been to Paris, I don’t need therapy, and I’m not the most social person in case you haven’t noticed. And I do know Adam. I’ve known him for years.”
Greta snorted and rolled her eyes.
“I have known him for years!” I snapped.
“It’s not that,” Great retreated.
“Then what?”
“Mona, don’t take this the wrong way, but if anyone needs therapy, it’s you. You’ve been through a lot. I still can’t believe Caroline never sent you to a therapist after you came to Coronado.”
We each used the next ten minutes of silence to eat. With each chew, I started to grow more annoyed with Greta’s immediate condemnation of my plan. “I know I have a lot of choices, which I think rea
lly validates whichever one I make,” I began. “I’m not getting married to Adam because I need someone to support me, or because I’m pregnant. I want to marry him because I think being with someone as wonderful as him will make me happy.”
Greta dropped her expression and her fork at the same time. “Grow up, Mona,” she exasperated. “Why don’t you try making yourself happy first, then see if you still feel the need to marry a stranger. I try very hard to refrain from treating my friends like patients, but in cases where I see a friend on a collision course, I need to step in and say something.” Greta gasped as she realized her poor choice of words. “Mona, I am so sorry. What a horribly insensitive comment. I am so, so sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I said, insulted that she assumed I was so fragile that the reference would break me. “Stop apologizing, Greta. It’s fine.”
Chapter 4
The first sounds I heard were the clattering of kitchen pans and dishes, and the sounds of adults talking. My mother laughed and teasingly scolded my father for something I’ll never know. His quick retort earned an uproarious laugh from the rest. “Go wake up the kids, Mr. Hilarious,” she ordered. “Come on, Andy, I’m serious. We’ve got an hour to hit the road, and no one’s even out of bed yet.”
“S’Mona coming?” asked one of the guys. Freddy, I think.
My mother answered, “Her temp was normal last night, but we’ll see how she feels. Andy, wake the rest of the kids and I’ll check on Mona. Fran, you still okay with staying behind? I can stay back if you want to go.”
Francesca was legally only the grandmother of Leah, Maya, and Karah, but as the only person living in our house who had crossed the sixty-year mark, she was a surrogate grandmother to us all. She was the attending midwife for the six youngest kids in the house, including my two brothers. Francesca was the one we all went to first when we skinned a knee or got sick. So she was the natural choice to stay behind and take care of me that day.
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