But Sunny seemed oblivious to the effect she had on men. She wasn’t out to get one; in fact, she didn’t even like them. Ever since her rape, she told me, she’d been turned off to men.
I wondered, as I’m sure anyone else who knew her story did, why she wore such sexy clothing if she didn’t want to get the attention of men. It seemed like a contradiction. But no one, absolutely no one, could have accused Sunny of flirting or leading men on. She made no secret of her disdain for and distrust of them.
I, on the other hand, was crazy about men—especially older men. This had been the case for as long as I could remember. I was attractive but I paled in comparison to Sunny. Although my face was pretty, especially since my freckles had disappeared, I constantly battled with my weight, generally remaining about ten pounds overweight. Boys my own age seldom noticed me and the ones who did weren’t interesting to me. I thought they were immature and boring. Older guys often noticed me, but since I looked so innocent and wholesome, they seemed not to want to run the risk of tarnishing my virtue and getting into trouble. Little did they know how much I longed for my virtue to be tarnished. So there we were, two complete opposites: a girl who dressed like a bimbo but wanted nothing to do with men, and a girl who dressed like a schoolmarm but seethed inside with hot sexuality.
Meeting Sunny changed my life, not only because I had found a soul mate like Pam and no longer felt lonely but because of what it did to my daily routine. Instead of walking to school in the scorching heat or the freezing cold (it seemed that Bakersfield only had two temperatures), I was now picked up every morning by Sunny in her competition orange VW, and after school I went to her house instead of my dark, lonely apartment.
Sunny’s house was a large, rambling ranch-style home with a separate “wing” for the kids. After school her three siblings, Brenda, Neal, and Sean, all gathered in the kids’ den to play music, dance, and talk. I loved all the noises and energy of this lively bunch.
Sunny was the oldest and often acted more like a mother than a sibling. It was clear that all three younger kids looked up to her and respected her. All the siblings liked each other, in fact, and treated each other more like friends than brothers and sisters.
Sunny was especially fond of her brother Neal, and I understood why. He was adorable. He was twelve and entering puberty, and when I remember him today, I think of a young Leonardo DiCaprio with his wide open moon face and ready smile.
Sean was a different story altogether. He was a freshman in high school, tall and lean and very serious. He was gorgeous, with his dark curly hair and dark brown eyes, and he was probably a lady killer, but you never knew what was on his mind. He was more quiet and distant than the rest. You could see his pain.
Finally there was Brenda. Just a year behind me and Sunny in high school, she was petite and shorter than her siblings. She was very animated and engaging and I loved her right away.
The whole clan welcomed me into their home with open arms. We pantomimed to The Sound of Music, waving our arms around as we sang in operatic tones. Then we’d scream to “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones or “Don’t Bring me Down” or “The House of the Rising Sun” by The Animals.
I spent so much time with Sunny and her siblings that they began to feel like my family—the family I’d dreamed of having all my life. I started spending the night at Sunny’s house several times a week, partly because it just made more sense than Sunny having to drive me home late at night and then pick me up in the morning, and partly because we just loved being together so much. She had a tiny bedroom with only a twin bed but we managed to both fit on it, often spooning the way I’d done with Ruby, with one of us nestling up close to the other’s back.
Sunny’s mother was another Bakersfield mother who frequently “took to bed.” The reason for this, Sunny explained, was that she often had a hangover from the previous night’s drinking. In all the months I spent time at their house, I never saw her out of bed, but I also never saw her falling-down drunk like my mother.
When Sunny and I occasionally ventured over to the other side of the house to see her mother, all the brightness and joy of being around her siblings faded into darkness. We had to pass through the huge living room, which felt like a funeral parlor it was so sterile and quiet. The bedroom her mother shared with Sunny’s stepfather felt equally cold and lifeless. Her mother was nice enough, but our visits were short and I had no interest in getting to know her, since I was so angry with her for being an alcoholic like my mother. And after each visit, Sunny would seem distant and distracted.
Sunny sometimes talked about her mother’s drinking problem and how it affected her siblings, but she didn’t complain openly like I did about my mother’s drunken rages. What we mostly talked about was how we couldn’t wait to get out of Bakersfield. Sunny was actually graduating high school six months sooner than the rest of our class so she could start at Bakersfield Junior College early, and we talked about moving to LA or SF and starting a life filled with adventure and fun—a life as different from Bakersfield as it could be. Sunny wanted to be an airline stewardess and I wanted to be a nurse or a teacher, the only two professional jobs I knew were possible for women at the time.
Even after Sunny started junior college, she still picked me up in the morning and drove me to school. But college was difficult for Sunny. She found it hard to study with all her siblings around, and studying at my house was difficult because my mother’s drunken rages were increasing and the blare of the TV always filled the house. We tried studying at the downtown library but it closed at 7:00 p.m.
When I shared with Yvonne the difficulties Sunny and I were having finding a place to study, she offered to let us use her apartment on the nights when she had scheduled meetings. Sunny and I were thrilled. Yvonne lived downtown, so we left the library when it closed and went right over to her apartment three times a week.
One night, after we’d been studying for a couple of hours, I got tired and started looking around at Yvonne’s apartment. Much to my delight, I found a liquor cabinet stocked with all kinds of alcohol, including after-dinner drinks. I started tasting the various aperitifs to see which one I liked. Sunny didn’t have any interest in alcohol—in fact, she stayed away from it, saying she’d had enough of alcohol from experiencing her mother being drunk.
I didn’t hear her come home, but suddenly Yvonne was standing right behind me, watching as I drank down another mouthful of alcohol. She’d caught me red-handed.
“What are you doing, Beverly? Is this how you thank me for my hospitality?” she said gruffly. “I trusted you—treated you like the adult you say you want to be treated like. Now get out of my house. You’re not welcome here anymore. Sorry, Sunny, you’ll have to go too.”
I was mortified. I felt like I had been struck by lightning. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t speak. All I could do was stare first at Yvonne, then at Sunny.
Yvonne had been nice enough to offer her apartment; she’d trusted me enough to leave us in her apartment while she was out. And this was how I’d repaid her. What was wrong with me? I felt so ashamed of myself. I’d tried so hard to get Yvonne to like me, to become a special person in her life like she was in mine. Now I’d ruined it. Sunny and I had lost our study place and it was all my fault. Worse yet, I’d lost Yvonne’s trust.
I could tell Yvonne was disappointed in me, but she never threw it in my face. In fact, she never brought it up again. But I worried that she would never trust me again, and even that she hated me.
I wished I could learn to think before I acted. And I wished I understood why I kept disappointing the people I loved—why that part of me that needed to break the rules kept rearing its ugly head.
chapter 36
Sunny was always up for an adventure. Like the time we were at Hart Park on Easter Sunday afternoon. The place was packed, and as we drove around in the VW, guys would hang out the windows trying to get Sunny to pull over. But she just ignored them, as usual.
&n
bsp; On this day, we parked along the main road to watch people drive by. Two guys on a motorcycle stopped just ahead of us and parked. The guy driving came over to talk to Sunny. She chatted a little but made it clear that she wasn’t interested. The guy kept pestering her to go for a ride on his motorcycle, and Sunny kept saying “no way.” Finally, she said, “Why don’t you let me drive your motorcycle?”
The guy just laughed, but then he realized she was serious. “Are you crazy?” he asked. “Why would I let you do that?”
I don’t remember what Sunny did—if she batted her eyelashes or just said something that convinced him—but all of a sudden she was out of the VW, sitting on the motorcycle, and beckoning me to join her. I got on and away we went.
I trusted Sunny without hesitation. I believed she knew how to drive a motorcycle and would keep us safe. She started off nice and slow but as soon as she was out of sight of the owner, she sped up. I held on for dear life as she raced around the crowded park, passing one car after another, coming dangerously close to smashing headfirst into oncoming cars. Then we rounded a corner too fast and the motorcycle careened out of control, flip-ping us both in the air.
Blood was pouring out of a deep gash in Sunny’s leg and she had a road burn that looked like a fiery red exclamation point. I was shaken up but not hurt. I don’t know how fast we were going, but it was clearly too fast. I considered myself lucky to walk away unscathed.
Almost immediately a curious crowd gathered around us. Someone yelled, “Call an ambulance!” and it all became murky after that. Sunny needed stitches for the gash in her leg, and since she’d been wearing shorts, the scrape on her leg started at her ankle and went all the way up to her knee, leaving a huge scar that remained on her leg for all the years I knew her.
My mother had finally saved up enough money to buy her first car ever, a used pale green Oldsmobile. I suspect my uncle Kay had something to do with talking her into buying a car because I had never heard her say she wanted one. In fact, she seemed to have been fine without a car all those years.
Mom didn’t know how to drive, so Uncle Kay was teaching her. She was scared to death to parallel park and Kay came back extremely frustrated each time they went out to practice.
Right after she’d bought the car, Sunny came over. She made a big deal about us finally having a car. She told my mother she loved the color and would really like to give it a spin. My mother was reluctant at first, but finally agreed under two conditions: 1) she wouldn’t let me drive, and 2) we wouldn’t go downtown. As soon as we got a few blocks away from my house, Sunny stopped the car and turned to me. “Okay, now you drive,” she said. Before I could respond, she got out of the driver’s seat and came around to my side.
“But we promised my mother I wouldn’t drive,” I said, not budging. “And I don’t have a driver’s license yet.”
“Since when do you do what your mother tells you do?” she said, opening the passenger side door. “You’re never going to learn to drive if you don’t practice. It’s harder to start out with a stick or I’d let you drive the VW. Come on.” She pushed me over to the driver’s seat and got in.
We drove for a while around the neighborhood, and then she said, “Hey, drive me to the library. I need to pick up a book for a class.”
I did as she suggested, even though it was downtown, the very place my mother had told us not to go. I don’t know why I didn’t just say no to her, but I didn’t.
When we got to the library, the lot was full. Sunny said, “Okay, this will be a good time for you to practice parallel parking. Park between these two cars.” She pointed to an open spot right out front. With her giving me instructions the entire time, I managed to get in the parking space without touching the bumpers of the other cars. The entire time I was doing it I was petrified, but when it was done I felt good knowing I could do it.
Sunny ran in and got her book and was out in a few minutes. I waited in the car. Now it was time to pull out of the parking space. I backed up a little, following Sunny’s directions. I turned the steering wheel and inched forward. I backed up again and pulled forward very slowly, turning the wheel the whole time.
“Okay, you’re clear, go ahead,” Sunny said.
I inched my way forward.
“Okay, you’ve got room,” Sunny said. “Go!”
I hesitated. It didn’t look like there was enough space between me and the car in front of me.
“Go!” Sunny yelled. “Go!”
I put my foot on the accelerator, and because I was so nervous from Sunny yelling at me, I pressed too hard and crashed into the car in front of me.
I was horrified. What had I done? I got out of the car to see what damage I’d caused. The entire front of my mother’s new car was smashed in. I felt sick to my stomach. My mother’s beautiful car—the car she had saved up for years to buy—was ruined. And worse, I’d been the one to ruin it. I thought I might throw up.
The guy who owned the car I hit came out and inspected the damage to his car, a new Cadillac. There was hardly any damage, just a little dent in his bumper.
I wasn’t angry at Sunny for telling me I was clear when I wasn’t; I was too worried about what my mother would say and do, and too ashamed of myself for breaking her rules and ruining her car. And I had Sunny up on a pedestal. She could do no wrong.
I was so nervous on the way home I could hardly breathe. As we drove up in front of our apartment, I started feeling dizzy, and by the time I opened the front door I felt like I was about to pass out. I sat down on the couch and told my mother what I had done.
She immediately got up and looked out the front door. When she saw the front of the car, she turned to me in a blind rage. The look on her face was devastating. She looked at me like she hated me, like she despised me. Then she started yelling at me, accusing me of being selfish, of not caring about anyone but myself. She said there was something terribly wrong with me, that I was crazy and that she didn’t know what to do with me.
Sunny sat in silence while all this was going on. Suddenly, my mother turned to her. “And you’re just as bad, Sunny. You promised you wouldn’t let her drive. What’s wrong with you? You’re a liar. I can’t trust either one of you.”
Then in her typical fashion, she started worrying aloud.
“What does the other car look like? I don’t have insurance. I’m probably going to be sued or arrested.” I was in the habit of tuning her out when she started obsessing like this but Sunny was still there, looking very uncomfortable, so I stood and said, “I’ll walk you out to your car, Sunny.”
When I came back in the apartment, my mother had gone into her silent treatment mode. She didn’t speak to me for days, but for once I welcomed it. I figured my punishment could have been far worse.
Just as my mother was beginning to trust me again, I’d broken a promise—and destroyed her new car in the process. I had no excuse.
I didn’t tell my mother we had gone downtown because Sunny had insisted on it. And I didn’t tell her Sunny had told me I had room to pull out of the parking space. She didn’t like Sunny anyway, and that would just have caused her to dislike her even more. Besides, I blamed myself, not Sunny. After all, I didn’t have to go along with her.
My mother’s new car was totaled. I felt absolutely horrible about it, and about the fact that she had to pay for the man’s Cadillac to be fixed. Even though I’d only dented his bumper a little, they had to replace the entire thing, so it came to hundreds of dollars. Fortunately, the man was kind and agreed to have my mother pay him back over time.
It was a Friday night in the fall of my first year at junior college, and Sunny and I decided to “cruise” Chester Avenue. That was what most teenagers in Bakersfield did every weekend; it was a way to be out and about, see people you knew, and meet guys. But Sunny and I had never gone together because we weren’t that interested in who had what car or in meeting the guys cruising up and down the street. We usually preferred to just be in each other’s company
and talk.
When we pulled onto Chester Avenue, guys whooped and whistled at Sunny, motioning for her to pull over so they could talk to her. But she ignored them, as always.
We turned left into the parking lot of Stan’s Drive-In, a popular hangout and also the place where everyone turned around to go the opposite direction on Chester. Sunny drove through the parking lot and sat at the exit, waiting for traffic to pass so she could turn left and go back down the avenue. When the coast was clear she slammed on the gas, but instead of turning left she drove directly across the street and into a parked car.
I saw it happen as if in slow motion. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I yelled at Sunny to stop but it was too late. When the VW smashed into the side of the parked car, my head hit the wind-shield, smashing it into a spider web design. Both Sunny and I sat in silence as a crowd of kids gathered around us. I looked at Sunny and she seemed okay. She didn’t ask me if I was okay, even though my head was bleeding.
It was clear to me that she’d deliberately smashed into the parked car. For days afterward, I asked myself why she would do such a thing. Of course, I didn’t ask her about it and I knew she didn’t want to discuss it.
She’d totaled the VW, but instead of punishing her, her stepfather let her borrow his second car and we were back in business. Sunny acted like nothing had happened.
I began to see that I had become too compliant in our friendship. I had a big personality, and with most friends, I automatically became the leader. But Sunny had a confidence I didn’t have—the confidence born of a comfort with her looks and being accustomed to social acceptance, even admiration. And since Sunny was the one with a car, this gave her authority over where we went and when. I had fallen into the comfortable role of allowing her to take control.
Raising Myself Page 22