Honey Girl

by Lisa Freeman

  GIRLS DON’T SURF.

  That rule really bugged me, but I wasn’t about to say anything, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell them that I surfed Waikiki when I was little. I remembered what Annie Iopa told me about what happened to girls who were stupid enough to surf.

  4. The fact that I knew how to surf was my fourth biggest secret. It was another one I would take to the grave.

  Every day it was the same, that first week in the lineup. I’d pretend to wake up and uncoil my hair from around my face. Claire thought I was cute, but Rox wasn’t sure. I could tell by the way she looked at me when I rolled over, retied my top and lit up. The Lisas, Jenni, and even Suzie talked to me. But Rox just watched and listened.

  The other lineup member who barely gave me the time of day was Mary Jo. She was furious about missing my initiation. Seems she went looking for me. I don’t know how we didn’t see each other, but making a Leo feel unappreciated was the worst thing I could have done. No matter what I told her, no matter how many times I apologized, she was still ticked off.

  At the end of the day, I didn’t get anything like a quick kiss goodbye from Rox but I did occasionally get a nod. That was always a relief. I was sitting at State Beach by the lineup. I knew exactly what I needed to do next: keep my eyes low, continue to be selective when I spoke, collect the cigarette butts I smoked and zip them up in a baggie, walk home for another meatloaf dinner, and figure out how to get Rox to like me.

  5. I like looking at pictures of naked women. I started reading Playboy in my Uncle Mike’s guest bathroom when I was eight. Uncle Mike never used the guest suite on his estate. It had a giant bedroom with cashmere blankets everywhere and a zebra skin rug that lay under a pair of vinyl-ribbed chairs that were fun to spin around on. The bathroom had an oversized Jacuzzi tub for Japanese investors and all of his friends who were getting divorced. There were scented soaps and flat edge razors and white seal hairbrushes. Every month the new issue of Playboy was added to the big stack he kept in that woven rattan basket next to the toilet. Stealing centerfolds from the magazines might not have been the smartest thing to do, but there was no time to second-guess myself before I left. It’s not like I could walk into State Liquor and buy one. What would I say?

  “Hi, I’m fifteen. Can I have the newest issue of Playboy, please?”

  I took the December 1971 magazine with my favorite centerfold from his special rattan basket. I stuck it in a Cosmopolitan that had Lauren Hutton on the cover. No one on the planet could ever know I liked Playboy. I would even tell myself that I just liked the dirty cartoons, Little Annie Fanny, Joe Namath’s Pub Cologne ads, and the Vargas paintings of girls in garter belts and top hats. Sometimes I’d even pretend to read one of the long interviews with people like Roman Polanski or Francesco Scavullo. Like most guys out there, I whipped through the Field and Stream pages and past the giant Remington Shaver ad to get to the centerfold.

  I had the same fantasy every time. Michelle Porter, a.k.a. Miss December, was from Wisconsin. I loved her wavy blonde hair and long eyelashes that were painted on the picture with a crow quill pen. The way they were done gave her eyes a come-get-me look. I never got enough of the way Miss December posed for the camera.

  I really liked the white haole girls. There was just something about a girl who hid from the sun that got me going. Just like Miss December, the other centerfolds were perfect, all airbrushed and smooth. They looked edible, like peach lollipops.

  Afterward, I’d lay still, peaceful and sleepy. Thinking of nothing. The nirvana lasted just a few minutes and then the pictures seemed creepy, and the topless women seemed like dangerous informants, spies and blackmailers who would tell everyone I was a Funny Kine girl. I’d die if that ever happened. My lust turned into paranoia, and I crawled away from them sideways like a crab. I quickly shoved the centerfolds into their hiding spot inside the Cosmo cover, put my flannel nightgown back on, washed my hands, and ran to my room. As fast as I could, I opened my sleeping bag and stuck the magazine inside next to the pickle jar of my dad’s stash. I looked every which way to make sure no one was watching even though I was alone. I tossed everything quickly to the top shelf of my closet and promised myself I’d never look at a Playboy again.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  t-surfers rule

  I hated Jean more than Hitler.

  The taste of last night’s dinner—ham salad with gherkins and mayo—moved from my stomach up to my mouth. It was stupid of me to try to be like Dad and actually drink the Daddy-tini this morning. For some weird reason, I thought it would bring him closer. Drop the wall that separates the living from the dead and make it possible for me to feel him close. I should have known better than to actually swallow let alone gulp the whole thing down. I had to hold my nose. The vodka burned my throat. It was so hot. Not like frying pan grease, but like liquid horseradish. Like Agent Orange torching an explosive reaction deep in my gut. When I drank it, I imagined my dad standing in our old kitchen giving me a thumbs up.

  I was drunk. Somehow I made it to State, plopped myself against the wall outside the volleyball courts, and smoked half a pack of Larks before dawn. My legs wobbled when I tried to stand, making me think the mixture of vodka and orange juice for breakfast wasn’t such a good idea.

  Any minute I was going to throw up. It was tearing apart my innards. How did Daddy drink this stuff every morning? Maybe I should have added some papaya or ginger. Maybe the protein powder and wheat germ made it easier to keep down. What was I thinking?

  I almost didn’t have enough time to stick my hand over my mouth and make it to the bathroom. There must have been a rule:

  Never barf in public.

  The only person who saw me was Lōlō. He and his scary dog were on the empty beach, roving from garbage can to garbage can, gnawing on tiny chicken bones. They watched me curiously as I ran past them, tying my hair up in a knot. A big whiff of Lōlō’s wet cardboard shoes and mildewed clothes was all it took for the barf to come up my throat. I could picture myself choking up Jean’s cooking all over the beach. I was in big trouble. The dog growled and looked like he was going to bite me. But that didn’t stop me from running.

  Beach bathrooms were hot spots for trouble. No one ever went in alone. But I had no time to check for freaks. There wasn’t even a second to adjust to the stink of the place before I lunged forward, slammed my knees on the cold, wet pavement, and stuck my head in a toilet with someone else’s piss in it.

  With my head in the porcelain bowl, I prayed to a god my father said didn’t exist. I puked out a nasty stream of Jean’s salad mixed with the entire mug of Daddy-tini.

  “Help me, Jesus,” I said as I puked again and again.

  The churchwomen on the big island would secretly pray to Pele. They said Madame Pele was so strong and mighty she could snap the world in two. But all I could think of was Jean’s little white Jesus and the words Deo Favente. I didn’t understand what that meant, all I knew was it was Catholic talk and I needed all the help I could get. I hated the way Jean’s church filled my brain with a stained-glass god, crucified in red, but I kept saying those two words anyway, over and over again, praying for some kind of divine intervention.

  My mother’s god liked it when you kneeled and prayed. I figured it was a good time to repent since I was already down there. I said, “I’m sorry, Jesus. I went to second base with Ben Keameka, and I stole his sister’s double strand puka shell necklace. I’m sorry I broke Mr. Iokepa’s ukulele and blamed it on Vickie Tanaka. I’m sorry I called Vickie a Daikon Fatty Leg Girl and told everyone in the third grade she ate her boogers.” Every jolt and heave made me pant and bend lower. I looked down at my purse and saw the Band-Aid box at the bottom.

  “And I’m sorry Jesus, once and for all, I faked out Jean and took my dad’s ashes. I’m sorry for everything.”

  I held onto a rusted pipe and waited for the next wave to hit me. I waited a minute but nothing happened so I leaned my head against the stall door and slowly stood. I
had to get out of there. I balanced myself and stepped over the garbage that covered the cement floor: a comb, half a cockroach lying belly up, and a ripped Jack of Diamonds. My eyes had adjusted to the darkness. All around me, on every wall, the words t-SURFERS RULE were written in bold, black letters. The felt-tip graffiti made me sway from side to side as a light bulb flickered on and off. I examined each cinderblock, wondering who “t-surfers” were.

  Everything was spinning ’round and ’round. Thinking made my head feel like it was one of the pegs in the ring toss on King Kamehameha Day. That was my favorite holiday. But before I could start thinking about Hilo Hattie, who I loved, and the Tapa Room’s fruit-packed Shirley Temples, I heard some girls coming.

  I stumbled toward the sink and checked my face in the cracked mirror to make sure that nothing disgusting was stuck to it. No matter who was coming in, they could never connect me to the mess I left in the second stall. I slammed a Fireball jawbreaker into my mouth and let my hair down. Filaments of dust were caught in the light. It was officially morning.

  I leaned over the sink and watched through my hair as four girls entered, offering broad, toothy smiles as if to say “we bite.” Hopefully I’d be nothing to them but a blur in the corner. I knew they weren’t locals. They were chewing bubble gum and cracking it on their back teeth. They had frosted white lips, blue mascara, and wore Cherokee cutoffs with towels wrapped around their shoulders. Even though I didn’t know them, I still had to find a way to tap into my coolness. If I was lucky, I’d be written off as a freaky deaky dealer and left alone.

  There was no time to waste. I put some primrose oil on to cover the stench of puke on my pink scarf. I didn’t remember getting dressed and had no idea what I was wearing. I looked down into the mirror and saw my blue checked blouse and the gray wool skirt I wore to my father’s viewing. I couldn’t believe I was wearing a skirt. That was so unlike me. It made me look so girly and cute. To improve this doofus outfit, I rolled up the skirt to make it shorter and unbuttoned the shirt, then tied it up to let my belly show. That helped. Thank God, I had my bikini on underneath and my lucky rabbit foot was still attached.

  I had to get home for Jean’s morning checkin call. That was the drill when she worked nights. So no matter what, I was going to be home by nine fifteen. I had to hose off to make it seem like I’d just woken up and was on my way to the beach.

  From the size of their big butts, I could tell these girls were from the Jonathan Club, a Republican, white-men only kind of place. If any girl got in there, it was just because her dad belonged. I had heard Rox and Claire dishing JC Girls when they thought I wasn’t listening. They said they were pudgy, stuck-up little wannabes who brought way too much stuff to the beach. Even in the dim light, I saw an oversized radio and a backgammon board sticking out of their fishnet bags. No one in their right mind brought board games to the beach. That was total Kahala Hilton poolside behavior, but I guessed these rich bitches were trying to play down their privileged lives by using the public bathroom. They were amused by the gritty décor and the graffiti’d walls, but stopped dead in their tracks when they looked into the second stall. One by one, they pinched their noses, winced, and groaned in disgust. They leaned away and turned their faces in my direction.

  I was almost out the entrance when, one by one, out of the corner of my eye, I saw them disappear into the open stalls. They were commenting on the graffiti, cackling as they tried figure out who or what “t-surfers” were. They had nasal, whiny voices and sounded so pathetic that for a moment I almost felt sorry for them. Some seagulls were screeching, fighting over a bag of chips the JCs had dropped. That was really lame. Trashing a beach wasn’t cool.

  I slipped my shades down and tried to walk casually without swaying. I could hear the girls’ voices echoing from inside the bathroom as I turned toward the parking lot.

  “Who the hell are the t-surfers?”

  Obviously the JCs didn’t know the rule about no foul language, but then again, it seemed on the mainland, girls could swear as long as long as no guys were around. I realigned my hair in the wind, took a deep breath, and started to haul.

  If I was lucky, I’d get across PCH before the Dawn Patrol even got out of the water. No one would even know I had been to State.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  t-surfers In Retrograde

  I’m not much into the solar system thing or stargazing. I don’t bother breaking down the zodiac into planets and houses or strengths and weaknesses. Like I said, I just read Sun Signs and the astrology column in the newspaper. That gave me the information I needed. So I knew that yesterday Mercury went into retrograde. It does that for three weeks a few times a year and that’s when everything goes spazzy.

  Looking at the ground, there was no way to miss the two shadows looming a few feet in front of me. Out of nowhere, Rox and Claire were coming down the stairs. I backed up and tried to distance myself without running. I could hear their leather flip-flops clicking closer. I bent into the sand like a soldier dodging sniper bullets and made my way back to the bathroom. I stood flattening myself against the wall, palms opened wide, and waited.

  The girls’ bathroom was at the furthest end of the parking lot under two thin palm trees. There used to be three, but one burned down. To give the place privacy, a mauve peek-a-boo cinder block wall curved around it, blocking it from the rest of the beach. Some back stairs connected it to the parking lot area, but everyone entered from the State side.

  Since when did Rox and Claire start sneaking onto the beach? It wasn’t even 7:00 a.m. Was there some kind of girl convention going on I didn’t know about? I checked around the corner. Rox and Claire were digging a hole under the stairs, scooping out wet sand and tossing black markers into it.

  “No one will look here,” Rox said.

  They clicked their Styrofoam cups of coffee together and at the same time said, “Cheers.”

  So they were the t-surfer artists?

  Even still, getting busted for trolling State so early wasn’t an option. Neither was getting caught by Rox and Claire for spying on them. Both held fates worse than death.

  Rox and Claire headed toward the bathrooms. I was jinxed. They were coming directly toward me. My head felt like it weighed a hundred pounds, and the back of my throat was raw. Please Jesus, help me, I pleaded in my head. I was trapped between the local goddesses and the JC big butts. There was no escape. I took a deep breath, pretended to be greasing up even though the sun had barely broken through the morning fog, fluffed my hair, and readied myself to BS them.

  Claire cocked her head in my direction. She wore a hematite pink tube top and drawstring silk striped pajama pants that made her look like a butterfly when she moved. But Rox was the full-on eye catcher. She wore a yellow muslin see-through shirt that blew tight against her body, showing off her golden skin and serving as the perfect backdrop for the double strands of plastic jade beads hanging over her breasts. Rox loved necklaces and wore them to the beach on important days. The Lisas had told me to pay close attention to what color Rox was wearing. It gave away her mood and tipped off the lineup as to what kind of day it would be. If she was wearing a necklace, look out. That meant something monumental was going to happen. From the looks of Rox that morning, something really important was going down, and I was right in the middle of it.

  Rox stopped dead in her tracks and almost fell out of her bikini when she saw me. She put her hands on her hips and waited. I raised my finger to my mouth and smiled, shifting my eyes toward the bathroom. Rox understood my signal but crossed her arms tightly across her chest, pushing her boobs almost under her chin into her pissed-off pose again. No one told Rox to be quiet. I stood on one leg with the other knee bent, leaning my back against the wall as the JC Girls started ranting again about who the “t-surfers” were. They were breaking a rule that everyone but them seemed to know:

  Never talk in the stalls.

  Rox stiffened and walked toward me. Claire moved closer, too, poked me in the arm
, and silently shrugged. I cupped my hand around her ear and whispered, “Jonathan Club.”

  “Who?” Rox asked.

  “The Jonathan Club Turkeys,” Claire answered. She continued, looking at me. “You know the only good thing about the Jonathan Club is that it’s restricted.”

  That meant no black people or Jews. For the first time in my life, I worried about being too tan. Just when I thought I was beginning to understand how ruthless Claire was, she lowered the bar even further like in the limbo game, making it almost impossible to shimmy under it with her.

  Rox was busy admiring her reflection in my shades as she mouthed the letters “JC” with a questioning look. I nodded. Then we smelled the pot wafting out of the bathroom vents and heard the JC Girls talking loudly about the t-surfers. Rox put her hand on Claire’s shoulder. Both of their mouths opened as they looked at each other and started to howl with laughter. Rox began acting like a spaz, mimicking the intruders in the bathroom who were still talking. She shouted, not caring how loud she was, “t-surfers? t-surfers?”

  Claire jumped up and down as she watched Rox goof on the girls, laughing so hard she spit like a human geyser into the air. Then Rox grabbed Claire with such a force they fell butt-first into the sand, tears streaming down their faces. The smell of Noxzema and Ban Roll-On steamed off them as they collapsed into each other’s arms singing together, “t-surfers.”

  I wondered what was so funny about the “t-surfers.” I stayed cool, but when the JC Girls stormed out of the bathroom, I stepped back a bit.

  One of them, wearing an ankle bracelet made of tiny Nepalese bells, hit a wet spot on the cement and slipped. Another girl reached out and tried to save her, but then they both went down hard. The two girls behind them tripped over them. The girl with the anklet had an elbow skinned to the bone and her friend’s knees were bleeding. Rox and Claire were oblivious, rolling harder in the sand gasping for air.