I can’t take it any longer. “No! Wait! Stop!” I insist, now overwhelmed with shock and trying to hold back feelings of complete embarrassment. This is way too much information for me. I feel strange, almost violated, and I am kind of angry with Harriet for showing me any of this stuff.
“He’s a movie star!” Harriet breathes. “There’s lots more, and he always brings me a poster from every movie ‘cause I’m such a big fan,” she discloses candidly. “You’ve never heard of him? Really?”
“No, no, I haven’t. Really,” I admit in a low tone, shaking my head. “I’ve never seen one of those movies, and I don’t know anyone who does.”
“Well, it’s a secret.” She suddenly sounds uncomfortable, and she looks over both shoulders. “Promise you won’t tell anyone about this. It’s kinda my thing, you know.”
“Yeah, uh, I promise,” I assure her, even though I’m not feeling very loyal to her thing. “Don’t worry.” I close the closet door on Harriet’s fantasy.
Inside, I am numb. That person on the posters—who is that? I mean, I realize it is John, but it doesn’t seem like the same man I met here, the manager. This whole scene is totally bizarre and, as tough as I act on the outside, I know this is completely over my head. Now I am convinced that staying away from John emotionally is the smartest thing to do.
As I suspected, with Marty gone, Dad and Harriet are an item. It seems sure that Marty won’t return, and they get hot and heavy. It doesn’t make any sense to me, knowing Dad’s big story about Pen Ci and Jack coming to the States. But he is obviously into his own thing, and communication with him is distant at best right now. Maybe he thinks I’ll tell Harriet about them, or maybe he is afraid he’ll get in trouble for being an unfit father. I don’t know, but our relationship is much different than it was in Florida. Does he know, I wonder, about Harriet’s closet shrine to John? And if he does, does he care?
The worst part about their new relationship is that Harriet is getting less friendly and more motherly. The closer she gets to Dad, the more she begins trying to act like a parent to Terry and me. Because I still live under her roof, she questions my whereabouts and gives me lists of chores. She and Dad stick together like glue, and I am jealous.
I only get a little of Dad’s time, when Harriet is at work. All we talk about anymore is the VA hospital and how he refuses to have another operation even for cosmetic reasons. “If people don’t like the way I look,” he cries defiantly, “then they can look the other way!”
When Harriet gets home after work, she and Dad slip off immediately to her room to get stoned, leaving me to fend for myself. I head to Terry’s next door and hang out until late at night. The next morning, as usual, Harriet questions me about where I have been most of the night and what time I got in.
“She can’t tell us what to do,” Terry and I insist resentfully when we are alone together. This is simply unacceptable. Nobody can just walk in and try to replace our mother. Not after what we’ve been through. We both miss our mom, even with all the problems we had with her. Though Dad refuses to talk about her, we write her regularly.
In truth, Harriet feels sorry for us. John feels sorry for us. Everybody feels sorry for us. We are two young teenage girls: one with an older, dubious boyfriend, and both with a disabled father. We would be homeless if Harriet weren’t providing us a place to stay or if John and Sharon weren’t giving their permission. Harriet knows that. Food is scarce for us. Harriet shares what she can, but it is never enough. Juan brings home extra hamburgers from work, but still we look as if we never eat. We’re as scrawny as little sticks. The tenants in the courtyard agree we are a family that needs help. The few elderly renters in the middle cottages act nonchalant as they bring us extra servings of food from their dinner tables. John gives us gardening jobs, insisting to Sharon that he doesn’t want to do the work himself—but in actuality, he wants to help us.
School will be starting soon, and we need an address in order to enroll. I can’t wait to meet new friends my age and get some relief from the oddness of this courtyard. At least we aren’t fighting in the streets like before, I think thankfully. But I worry I won’t be able to handle the California school system after such a horrible education in Florida.
To top it all off, with Dad and Harriet definitely close, I feel as if I’ve lost my newest best friend. I’m jealous, but trying not to show it. I keep to myself around the two of them, especially since Harriet’s been in her motherly role.
I rely hard on my poetry; it keeps me sane. Sitting in a corner on the porch or leaning up against one of the back cottages by the garages offers me a tiny place to find the quiet I need to write. Being alone and writing seem the best way for me to release my emotions and process my spinning, whirling life of change.
John often walks past me as I am writing, on his way to his van or back to his cottage. When he sees me alone, he only nods and walks by, respecting my quiet. I appreciate that he understands my need for privacy and find out later that he spends his own quiet time writing poems about his private thoughts and dreams.
John’s brother and sister-in-law, David and Karen, live in a back cottage with David’s stepson, Jamie. David, a tall, thin, dark-haired man with a dark goatee, is rarely seen outside; when he is, he’s in his pajamas and robe and only out to get the mail. “He has epilepsy,” Harriet told me once, “and can’t work.” Karen is a stocky woman with light blonde hair, small facial features, and thick legs. Her son, Jamie, is seven and her spitting image. Both in their late twenties, Karen works as a secretary for a temp agency in Glendale to support them while David takes care of her son at home. Sometimes, I see John go briefly in and out of David’s, laughing loudly as he leaves the cottage, but never do I see any of them together outside. It seems strange to me, but I don’t really give it much thought.
I am sleeping on the pullout couch by myself now, and I stay next door at Juan and Terry’s until after Dad and Harriet go to bed. Late at night, I eat whatever I can find in the refrigerator by myself. Sometimes if there are leftovers from a meal Harriet has made, I sneak portions of food over to Terry through the back door.
Dad calls John the “Candy Man.” He makes regular evening pot stops at Harriet’s and then at Mike’s. His constant companion, a brown Samsonite briefcase, is loaded with candy bars, gum, sodas, and cigarettes for Terry and me. He knows my favorite brand of smokes is a good Marlboro Red, and he just happens to always have a pack handy. The whistling of a cheap spaghetti western tune floats through the courtyard. John bangs the door to the cottage open and stomps in, briefcase in tow. He snaps it open and pulls his corncob pipe and plastic film container from the clutter of crumpled True Blue cigarette packs and his silver flask. Dipping his finger into the container, he grabs a small bud, stuffs it into the pipe, and lights it with a snap and crackle.
Drawing deeply, he smiles and walks over to Juan first and nods as if to ask if he wants some of the sweet smoke, but he doesn’t wait for a response. John turns the pipe around, puts the cob end into Juan’s mouth, and blows a long, hard shotgun into his face. He walks over to Terry next, takes another deep pull that nearly chokes him, waits for her to nod, then blows out the smoke for her to inhale. He turns to face me. I feel my face burn as he bends closer. John doesn’t wait for my okay. He fixes his eyes closely on mine and sends a slow stream of smoke into my mouth. My eyes roll back as I cough back my breath. John stands up, pleased with himself, and throws his things back into the briefcase. Grinning from ear to ear, he takes a sweeping look around the smoky room, laughing his way out the door.