Chapter One

I had three hours to think about how a nice girl from Barcelona, Pennsylvania, went from being Homecoming Queen to sitting on an airplane with a pound of cocaine taped to her body.

Perhaps this was a moment of clarity. I wasn’t sure. My heart galloped and thoughts raced ahead of the stampede. One wrong move and I’d be trampled.

Just before takeoff, a nun sat next to me. That was a good sign: Protection.

I suppose, if I have to start anywhere, and try to make sense of where I am, this story has to begin in my senior year of high school, when I was young, innocent, and teenage dramatic.

My life had become a mess. Sixteen perfectly planned years had gone from somewhat dreadful to a full-blown disaster. My mother, a '70’s version of a young Blanche DuBois, had shoulder-length dark hair, fine skin, delicate chiseled features, and called herself a “homemaker”; and my father, equally stunning in an Elvis sort of way (think Blue Hawaii), owned and operated a large Philadelphia “janitorial service”—which equals mob. On closer inspection, little is evident except their physical exquisiteness. These are two people who should’ve had a hot, sweaty, one-night stand, and never children. They loathed us, and reminded us often. Their fights were background music, keeping the beat, occasionally cymbal-ed by a breaking dish, or chilling screams. I’d sit with Shannon (my younger blonde-haired, long-legged sister) and Glenn (my geeky, dark-haired younger brother) in the family room watching TV as Real Drama erupted upstairs. The tension was moist. It made us feel kind of sick. And as their drinking got worse, so did the fights. Not even our closest friends would come over anymore. THUMP. CRASH. BOOM. We knew better than to go upstairs:

Mom, are you OK?

“Ru, I swear, I’ll kill you!” my dad screamed.

Our stomachs twisted in ulcer madness. “I buried the gun,” I said, stretching my long, curly hair straight.

My brother twitched, “Seriously?”

Yes, seriously, in the woods.

Glenn gnawed his nails and fingers until they bled. Shannon pulled and twirled her blonde hair unmercifully—the debut of a small bald spot sat at her crown. We huddled together on the heated flagstone floor, manicured, broken suburban kids watching Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color, and turned up the volume.

Anyone driving past our house would think us lucky, privileged, living the high life of 1975 suburbia—three-car garage, in-ground pool, two new Caddies in the driveway, the works. But our home was like our parents: beautiful on the outside. Inside was a corrosive, destructive force.

My dad started to stay away nights—and when he came back, we all fled to friends’ or neighbors’ houses. The turbulence quieted when he was gone. Near Thanksgiving, a man came to our door, late. My sister and I huddled at the top of the stairs and listened as Mr. Angryman detailed to my mother that my father was having an affair with his wife, and if my father knew what was good for him, he’d stay away, dammit, and if he didn’t know what was good for him, he might want to know that Mr. Angryman was packing.

Everything was coming undone; we could feel it in the air, like the way molecules change before a storm, or a leaf turns a blind eye to the rough weather ahead.

A good thing about my life…I had a best friend: Jodi Scarpello. We were California Dreamin’ chicks who had an appetite for living like we’d seen in the movies. Stuck between a Brady Bunch world on the outside, and a Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? world behind closed doors, we bonded. Jodi and I had become best friends after she transferred to our school from Scottsdale, Arizona, in the middle of our junior year. I was drawn to her eyes—the color of sky blue. She was wickedly funny and enviably confident. Innocent looking and sexy, with pin-straight, waist-long, strawberry-blonde hair, she had a Lolita vibe to her. When she smiled, her well-shaped, though thin lips, rubbed against her slightly crooked teeth. She had curves where my skinny body had none, and ultra white skin where mine darkened to light black in summer.

Jodi could have taken another bus to school but she trekked through woods, an open field, and four blocks of my neighborhood so we could ride together. Best friends did that. She loved Elton John, and I was totally into Joni Mitchell, Dylan, ABBA, Cat Stevens, and the more rebellious Velvet Underground, Stones, and Beatles.

My other love was tabloids. The National Enquirer was my Old Testament. The page with the big blue dot amazed me, the wish page, where thousands, maybe millions of wishes were granted every day. The instructions were simple: touch the blue dot, make a wish, and it would come true. It took less effort than praying.

When I was five, I started staying at my grandmother’s on weekends. The cozy city row house was where I first saw the National Enquirer. My grandmother adjusted her new teardrop-shaped, crystal-encrusted glasses and pulled me next to her on her moss-green couch. She smelled like Nivea cream and sugar cookie dough. I loved her so much! She touched the blue dot. I touched it too. “You’ll soon have good luck!” And that night before bedtime I got lucky: five cookies with hot chocolate!

After my grandmother said prayers and tucked me in, I took the Enquirer from under the covers, hopped out of bed, crouched down on the hardwood floors under the nightlight and perused the TRUE AND AMAZING photos of alien babies, half-humans in cages, a girl with a gorilla’s head, and the fattest man in the universe.

My mother often repeated that only trailer park trash reads that kind of crap and, somehow, that tidbit of information excited me even more. So, I prayed to the Enquirer gods and asked that my wish be heard above the trailer park trash wishes and granted immediately. Please make my family sane. I loved trashy tabloid stories. They took me out of life’s mess and into another world. The tabloids were devoted to making ordinary people soar above their insignificant lives. They breathed rapt amazement into every sentence on the paper amphitheater. The talentless and minuscule became giants. How much food do you have to eat to weigh 1,300 pounds? Why don’t we see frontal close-ups of the aliens? I wanted to photograph the strange and bizarre things in the tabloids. I could see them, imagine them. The strange and bizarre held me spellbound.

Fantasy offered a much-needed escape, and there I imagined myself the oldest, never-seen daughter of Morticia and Gomez Addams. I was convinced there was another, unseen child. Gomez was far too amorous. I morphed into Monday Addams, the firstborn, troubled, dark child of the clan. I ironed my cinnamon-colored curly hair straight and dressed in black. I was creating a vibe, a signature of my essence, and I liked it dark. After doing the black thing for two years, my mother, in a moment of bourbon excess, intimated that it was part of the reason my father had left.

Throughout my life, her words would extinguish the smallest embers of hope.

***

With the money earned babysitting the bratty Bennett kids, I bought my first Kodak Instamatic and discovered I had an eye for taking pictures. I didn’t snap pictures of trees, smiles, or sunsets; no, not when there was a pool of our dog’s chunky vomit on the back patio. In black and white, the vomit close-ups resembled the surface of the moon with its holes and tiny peaks of variegated gray tones. Regular pictures had a twist: The large fruit centerpiece on the dining room table was sentenced to death. Covered with ketchup, a ripped sheet, an old Halloween wig’s stiff black hair peeking out from the decaying perishables, a doll’s eye poking out of an indistinguishable rotting apple, and my own head partially covered and bloodied, my moment had come. My left arm inched out; my right hand snapped the pictures.

DEATH ON THE DINING ROOM TABLE.

My next roll was the inside of my brother’s mouth. He always had an unusual amount of saliva that bordered on revolting. The shots were pretty scary and resembled a dark, alien world. For a moment, I saw my future.

I fast became a camera jockey, a photo buff, ready to reveal the world as I saw it. I took photography in school and learned about developing pictures, themes, and art. So, with great enthusiasm, I continued this hobby. I was starting to find my way, my talents, and even though things inside my house were weird, I’d be leaving for college soon and the possibilities that awaited me were infinite: Dr. Harrington, Professor Harrington, Photographer Harrington, New York-Times-Best-Seller, Feather Harrington.

When my mom saw the dog vomit pictures, she was convinced I had ripped off the shots from a book. “Very Margaret Bourke-White, but you have to start taking your OWN pictures. Don’t copy.” Now that was praise.

With her nose in Redbook she asked, “It’s a holiday. Could you please not look like you are going to a funeral?”

***

It might have been a holiday, but everything in our house had changed.

EVERYTHING.

After my father left, my mother started smoking. She tried to hide it, but we knew. The times we were together as a family with Barry, like holidays and birthdays (half days were about all he could stomach), had evaporated to memories, and we were faced with fast-food dining and all of the information that should have been kept from kids. Barry would tell us how sorry he felt because we had to live with Ru, our mother—the manipulative bitch—and Ru was sorry that Barry—that cheating bastard—was still on the planet. I’m sparing you the brutal scenes that built walls of insecurity and messed with our heads big time.

Ru stopped cooking. She took a liking to Valium. The blue pills. So the three of us—Glenn, Shannon, and I—began a diet of Pop Tarts and Spaghetti-Os. But being the oldest, it was my job to take care of my siblings, so I cooked for us—oatmeal and toast, canned foods and toast, eggs and toast, hamburgers on toast, or my favorite, Campbell’s tomato soup and grilled cheese. Our Thanksgiving dinner was cheese omelets and toast. But every Friday, our housekeeper, Mrs. Brown, cooked dinner. It was the only real food we got.

Before I go on with my story, I should mention here that I’m not normal. As a child, I made numerous trips to Children’s Hospital where they monitored my brain. Sometimes I just “stared into space” and because of this, I swallowed tons of pills. Pills, my mother explained, would make me better.

Around age seven, I asked my mother why we spent time at the hospital. Ru wiped the creases on her black pedal pushers, bent down, took me in her arms, and said, “Honey, the doctors are looking at your brain because it’s special.” SPECIAL! I thought about that word and heard applause. Yes! The people at the hospital treated me special. They wired my brain while I lay on a table. They told me to relax, then breathe fast, then stare at a strobe. The whole process reminded me of the movie Frankenstein, and how the nice doctor—dressed in the same white lab coat as the people looking at me—tried to give the monster a brain. It made me feel weird. Different. Exiled.

Ru smiled at me and whispered, absolutely earnest, “I always knew you’d be special. You were born on the same day as Elizabeth Taylor. But about these tests, I don’t want you to tell anyone about them … not ever.”

Elated, I carried that secret like a first-place trophy. Whatever separated me from the usual and ordinary would be protected and revered.

Years later, I would find out that I was epileptic, and that was a bad word in our house. But in reconstructing my life, and the process of deconstructing my parents’ insanity, the library acquainted me with a host of famous epileptics. Trust me; there are hundreds…my favs: Socrates, Plato, Lewis Carroll, Gershwin, Beethoven, Martin Luther, Poe, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Truman Capote, Neil Young, Vincent Van Gogh, and Richard Burton!

When friends asked why I took pills, Ru would interject, “Allergies!”

BARCELONA GIRL ALLERGIC TO THE WORLD.

***

Jodi and I did everything together and knew each other's secrets. Example: Everyone knew that Jodi dated Dell, a stringy-haired, lean, pimply poet, but no one knew that she secretly had a crush on, and had already shared a kiss with, Mr. Gibson, our pervy, middle-aged math teacher.

And a major element that sealed us in a small, isolating bubble was the fact that we were the only kids in our class whose parents were divorcing.

We decided to escape—it seemed the perfect plan—and secretly we believed with the innocence of our sixteen and eighteen years, that if we got away and came back from our adventure that the bad dreams might be over.

We planned a switch. We’d done it before. I’d tell my parents I’d be at her house, she’d tell her parents she’d be at mine. The plan was in motion. That Friday we would become women of the world. “Let’s blow after second period. We’ll get into the city early, and totally soak up the scene and head home early Sunday. They’ll never know,” I beamed.

We talked on the phone, planning this expedition like two women readying for a safari, pioneering uncharted territory. Jodi had thirty dollars and I boasted forty-five.

“But,” I said, “the whole idea is to do the Village thing, and we need fake IDs. I mean, if we don’t have them, we might as well stay here and suffer.”

And it was true, but who could we ask? Who did we know in the Barcelona underground to get us this kind of connection?

There was a gang—well sort of a gang—the Barcelona Hardguys, leather jackets who’d spit if you said hi to them. Suburban gangsters of puberty.

Two years earlier, our neighbors Eileen and Robert Goode were robbed while vacationing in Atlantic City. I just happened to be on our roof that summer night, escaping the verbal hurricane raging between my parents (this was at the height of their drama), sitting there minding my own business, when I heard glass break next door. “Goddammit-to-fuck.”

Moving closer, maneuvering with great difficulty toward the Goode’s house, balancing on the gable of the roof, I saw a flashlight tremor inside. The two figures were blurred until the light hit Johnny Wallen and something made him look out and our eyes locked. Far off, sirens popped in the night and the voice croaked, “Let’s beat it.”

They trotted out the back door of the Goodes' house loaded down with stolen booty.

Patrol cars careened down our street. The Goodes' new alarm system certainly was a hit. When I looked back, Johnny disappeared into the woods. Police cars squealed to a stop; cops poured out, weapons drawn. They shined spotlights on the Goodes' house. I slithered back into my room and was questioned, “You see anything out of the ordinary?”

“Nope.” The officer gave me the once-over—the long black hair, thick spider mascara’d eyes, black clothes, and black lipstick. Acting scared, feigning tears, I raced to my room.

That was two years ago. Things changed a lot in two years. Ru, semi-recovered from the divorce, was now dating Stu, a beefy Italian guy who had “connections.” Barry, who was sleeping with his secretary, had all but written us off. It was time to pay Johnny Wallen a visit.

I walked to Mister Grocer and bought a Tab and a pack of cigarettes, not because I smoked but because it was the cool thing to do. I saw him immediately: thin, dark, and handsome in a rough sort of way, leaning against his red Camaro with a cigarette hanging at a forty-five degree angle from his lips, hands stuffed in his worn Levi pockets. I nodded, walked to the back of the store, and waited. We faced one another about two minutes later.

“Hey.” He was a man of few words.

“Hey. I was wonderin’ if you could help me.” He nodded. “I, um, need two IDs.” I handed him a piece of paper. “Information’s on here and I need it by Friday. I don’t know what it costs. Is this enough?” I offered two limp fives.

He turned his back and I heard him say, “It’s on me, babe.” It was the first time a guy called me babe. It was also my first illegal trade—it would not be my last. Three years later Johnny Wallen would be shot dead while robbing the Newtown Savings and Loan.

***

Somewhere around 9 PM, armed with IDs that made us twenty-one and backpacks that were too heavy, Jodi and I hitchhiked north on US 95 and were picked up by the tenth vehicle we saw, a G & R moving van going all the way to New York City. We climbed in and sat in the spacious cab. “This is so cool. Thanks a lot,” Jodi said. I perused the inside of the truck, taken aback by the size of the cab, the bed in the back, the smell of beef jerky, old beer, and fresh coffee.

The driver, Gus, stubbly black beard, was dressed like a hunter, red cap and all. He was an overweight old guy in his late thirties, with shocking tufts of black hair on his knuckles. Gus had a partner on this haul, Mohammed, a beautiful, wiry, Afro’d black man who had the most stunning square features and green eyes, though for most of our journey, he wore shades. Gus called him Ali. “Why’re y’all goin’ to the city?” Gus drawled. “It’s jus’ a dirty ol’ shit hole. Don’t ya think, Ali?”

“You runnin’ away?” Ali asked matter-of-factly.

“No,” I assured him. “We want to experience life on a totally open level—like in the city. We’re running away from cultural poverty.”

“City’s ‘bout as closed as ya can git,” Gus went on. “Prejudiced assholes, rich motherfuckers, an’ tons of faggots.”

“Well,” Jodi enthused, “we want to meet them.”

“You’s fucked up,” Mohammed said and we all laughed.

Gus had worked for United Van Lines for years and told us about all the traveling he’d done, crossing the country thirteen times, even helping Marlon Brando when he ran out of gas outside of Vegas. Mohammed reluctantly revealed that he had come back from Vietnam where “a white ass and a black ass is a dead ass. Bullets don’ know no discrimination.” He possessed a stoic, wired stare on his soapstone face. Sliding a pocketknife and a piece of wood from underneath the seat, he started to whittle. The silver dagger caught the light of passing cars as slim shavings fell on his lap.

“How old’re you?” Gus asked.

“…We’re both twenty-one … and can prove it.” Jodi’s comment was met with laughter. “You think we trippin’? An be straight—we’s haulin’ yo ass.” Mohammed never looked up when he spoke, but he had a point.

“I’m, like, almost eighteen,” Jodi bragged. “And she’s sixteen.”

Gus sniffed. “You girls got a place to stay there? Ya know anybody?”

No, but we would know the city, we assured him.

The radio played and we relaxed. I lay in the roomy cab using my lumpy backpack as a pillow. My eyes felt heavy. David Bowie’s "Rock ‘n Roll Suicide" allowed me to tangle with remembrances of months ago. Images and feelings rode the tide of bumps and potholes. I figured that if I told these guys I was Homecoming Queen, they would peg me as a liar for sure. I drifted, thinking about Aaron, my tall, lean, dark-haired, Broadway-loving, show tune singing, homeroom buddy who took me to the Homecoming dance after I found my devoted boyfriend, Stephen, with Lucy Whitman in his car after school, his lips locked onto her nipple.

It’s a hard loss, the first love, and it wasn’t all his fault. Sealed in my room, suffering the breakup, I touched his high school picture, using all of my self-control not to draw scars and stitches on him. Ru opened the door and announced, “It’s two o’clock on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. It’s the day of the dance and you’re still in bed? Get up! You’re not the first or the last person to get hurt. You’re young. Wait till you feel what it’s like when you are older. It gets nothing but worse!”

The look on her face made me a believer.

The Dark Side of the Moon played on the stereo as I readied for the dance.

Ru pleaded with me not to iron my hair or dye it black. Just this one night. So, my curly mane cascaded like sprouting weeds down my back. Having applied L’Oreal’s Pretty Peach lipstick, Bonne Bell Blush, and gold shadow (my eyes are gold. It’s the one authentic, different, even beautiful thing about me.) to complement my black Liz Claiborne gown, I was good to go.

“My God! You look absolutely alive!” Ru exclaimed, from my doorway.

When I made my entrance down the staircase, Aaron commented a little too enthusiastically, “Wow! You look so different. I mean, you look great!” Did I?

Aaron had movie star looks, yet always looked like he had just gotten out of bed, and tonight was no exception. His tux looked battered, his hair messed, but he was sexy.

Ru, who still glowed from winning the Miss Pennsylvania Pageant twenty-two years ago, snapped pictures. “You were born on the same day as Liz Taylor. And tonight you look just like she did before she cut her hair in National Velvet.” She stepped back, eyed her creation, and declared with the enthusiasm of a crazy game show contestant, “Born on the same day as Liz! That’s got to mean something.” Liz was the one thread that identified me, that gave my life meaning to Ru. The day, February 27, was Ru’s shared moment with celebrity. All of her hopes that I would amount to something other than the ordinary teenager that stood before her were rooted in my fate with Liz. “Not only was she born on the same day as Liz, but they were born at the exact same time,” Ru spoke to Aaron like the Queen Mother. “There’ll be nothing less than an extraordinary life for her!” As she clutched her idea with nervous, threaded fingers, I was certain Ru needed more of whatever she was taking.

 

The Dance Committee had transformed the Barcelona High School gym into a “Night of Love.” Gone were the bleachers, basketball hoops, and lingering scent of body odor. In their place was a German garden—a place no one on the decorating committee had ever visited—yet, it was paradise. Streamers hung from the ceiling. The art committee detailed scenery that gave it the quality of an old black-and-white movie backdrop. A long table with refreshments and flowers was at one end, and opposite was the dance floor and stage, where a local band, The Angels, played.

Jodi and Dell had saved our seats. Jodi looked resplendent in her gold ensemble—even her nails and eye shadow sparkled.

“Oh my God!” Jodi beamed. “You look so colorful!”

“I’m in black,” I said.

“This black looks brighter.”

Stephen and I locked eyes from across the room. Even from a distance, I felt myself drowning, pulled under, completely stupefied. “He’s an asshole. Don’t even think about him,” Jodi comforted. “His tie is pink like her dress—they look like a couple in drag. And I never noticed until tonight, but he has a unibrow!”

“Do you think her dress is gross or what?” I strained.

“God, she’s awful. Barbie on acid. He’ll never find someone like you.” Good friends will say anything. “Don’t cry. You’ll mess your mascara. I’m telling you, she looks like white trash next to you. She puts out. They don’t call her nutty slutty for nothing.” Jodi snapped her compact after a perfect inspection and blotted her lips on the coarse brown toilet tissue. “Hey, they’re announcing the queen soon. Just wait and see … You’re gonna win.”

The restroom was jammed and wrecked, stinking of perfume, cigarettes, and Boone’s Farm Apple Wine but we secured a stall, split a cigarette, and sucked downed a bottle of Binaca.

“Com’ere,” she urged, arms open, “one for good luck.” She gave me a bear hug and we fixed our hair, leaving the smoke-filled dungeon just as someone threw up.

Names were called and the court took their places onstage. The lights felt hot. My heartbeat quickened, and the room fell quiet. Sweat covered my skin like suntan oil. I sipped for air. Everything was getting smaller, darker, and I felt sick—my color waned.

My whole reason for winning was because my EX-boyfriend was the captain of the football team. I knew it. Everyone knew it. It was humiliating. After all, I was more of a bohemian queen whose friends were stoners and freaks, nerds, hockey players, and well, anyone.

AFTER BEING CROWNED QUEEN IN THE SURPRISE ELECTION OF THE CENTURY, I wanted to leave.

My request song was “Moon River.” And in the spirit of Holly Golightly, I took to the floor, closed my eyes, and danced as if I were in the rain with George Peppard.

***

Aaron and I didn’t drive to the shore after the dance. He’d been drinking Dell’s whiskey all night, so we opted for a special place—an out-of-the-way, almost scary place: Whiterock Quarry. Aaron parked on a gravel road that billowed sinister dust into the headlights. On this night, the moon was detailed in triplicate like a Warhol litho in the still waters below. Our silence felt awkward. “I come here a lot,” he finally said. I moved closer; his right arm draped over the seat, his fingers brushed my shoulders. The sound of our noiselessness filled the car. The Procol Harum tape finished and we both bowed forward to change it. Our heads bumped, his hand brushed against my forehead and in several seizure-like moves, a tilt here, an adjustment there, our lips came together. Abruptly, he stopped. “What’s wrong?” I wanted to know.

“Nothing…” A moment…then, his hand cupped my chin, his kiss was soft. I opened my eyes; his were closed. He started to unzip my gown.

“Even though we’re just friends we should, maybe, make out. You wanna take off your shirt?” I urged. He shook his head no, and the magic of the moment faded.

“Look,” he stammered, “It’s just ….”

“Aaron, are you a virgin?”

He lit a cigarette and passed it over to me. “I mean, it’s cool,” I said, “Hey, you know, aside from a finger being in the wrong place at the wrong time, I am too.”

He smiled and moved closer. “You have great eyes. I mean, you should wear less makeup.” This time our lips meshed, his kisses traveled down my neck, and I started to unbutton his shirt and, again, he pushed my hand away.

“I’ll go first.” I slid the small spaghetti straps off my shoulders and exposed my strapless bra. Slowly, I unbuttoned his shirt and we moved toward one another. As he turned to place the clothes in the backseat, I saw the welts and bruises that malignantly tattooed his back. In complete silence, our eyes discussed and my hand reached for his.

“You’re beautiful to me, Aaron.”

We didn’t talk; just sat back and drank and, a little tipsy, we headed to the water. We climbed the rocks in an exhilarating real-life king of the hill, chugging vodka from a canteen and relaxing on a large, cold, black rock. The chilly air was no match for our buzz. “You know,” I said, almost spooking myself, “it’s rumored someone was killed up here, and that a real ghost, like, hangs out here. Last summer, Kelley Yates’s brother was swimming right over there with his loser buddies and something pulled him under. I swear on my mother. Next thing you know he’s screaming and goes down. The losers dove in and finally got him out. And you know what? When they dragged him to shore and he stopped screaming, they noticed the bruises on his ankle. Bruise marks from a human hand.” I’d scared myself shitless.

The canteen was passed again.

“Listen,” he said, “what happened up here was a suicide. Supposedly jumped from that ledge up there.” We both looked up to the high rocky plateau, jabbing itself into the moon. The water was still. It didn’t lap the shore or lick the edge as a lake does. It was deadly silent.

“But we’re alive!” He caught the moment, and we found ourselves jumping, screaming… yelling out wishes, incantations, mantras, as the wailing noises ricocheted through the quarry. Slipping on a wet rock, I sat deflated. “Come to my house and stay. We’ll meet in the cabana. Just hop the fence.”

Aaron dropped me off at midnight, beeped his horn obnoxiously, and circled the block to park.

***

After I changed, and pillow-stuffed my bed, I opened the window, crawled down the roof to a tree, and Pollyanna-style jumped to the backyard and entered the cabana out of breath.

Aaron sat on the couch where he’d arranged his tux jacket as a makeshift pillow, kicked off his shoes, and was humming “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly.” I interrupted, “It’s only loverly in the musicals, Aaron.”

“Nice pad.” I sat next to him and he stretched his arm around me, “I could get used to this. It’s peaceful.” He’d helped himself to some liquor, which we shared from the bottle.

“Anything but…when my dad lived here, it wasn’t.” The house still played echoes of Barry and Ru’s guerilla warfare hour. “Hey, if you ever want to get away from your house, just crash here. No one would even know, and you’d be safe.” I took a deep breath, “Why didn’t anyone warn us that life gets pretty shitty?”

Together, we fixed the pullout sleeper and fell into position. He removed his shirt and covered us with a mucous-green hand-crocheted blanket made by my grandmother. He rolled away, his welts inches from my face, a reminder of something so terrible I couldn’t imagine. The tips of my fingers made feathery motions through his hair and down his neck.

“Don’t tell anyone about me. About anything.” He spoke to the wall.

“I won’t. Ever.” I rested my head on a stiff red throw pillow and looked to the ceiling. “I wish I could go back to when my mom wasn’t screaming and before I realized how fucking abusive my dad was.” And then something… memories, tons of them filled me up, good ones too, and they traveled through my body, swelled, and stuck in my throat.

“Feather, we can never go back … that’s why it hurts.” His arm slipped around me.

As I held him, it struck me that we had been friends for five years. Friends.

When Barry left screaming, slamming, and screeching out the driveway—all the while shouting obscenities—I ran after him. He looked at me in the rearview mirror, our eyes came together in a moment that defied gravity, and he hit the gas. I ran. I ran until I couldn’t run anymore. It’s moments like that, that crystallize into stalactites in the heart. I had blabbered to Aaron, “My dad left … this time for good.” He knew about that before anyone. In a way, he knew the intimate business of my life….and I his. We had talked every day—sometimes just five or six minutes, but that was enough. He would explain away a scrape, black eye, and a broken arm. He educated me on his favorite musical, Hair. He showed me his doodles and drawings of curvy women in tiny outfits. And we shared our homegrown, ridiculous poetry.

Bump.

The aftershock of hitting a pothole rattled the cab and woke me.

I leaned forward and looked out the window. The lights of the city filled the windshield.

Frank Sinatra’s song played in the truck. “These little town blues … are melting away … I wanna make a brand new start of it in old New York … I wanna wake up in the city that never sleeps … to find I’m king of the hill, A-number one … top of the heap …”

“We gotta gas up in Bayonne, Ali,” Gus said rather loudly. I noticed Jodi swipe a hit from a joint passed by Ali.

“It’s up to you New York, New York…” The song played for us—every wish, every nuance, every dream perfected.

As we came over the bridge, New York City hummed and sparkled against the sky. I reached over and tugged Jodi’s hand. This was our adventure.

We had arrived.