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Yesteryou Chapter 20

20.

The hostess’s name was Tess.  She and her own mom were incredibly close (not in a way that warms the hearts of witnesses, though; they accepted each other wholly and had unquestioningly relied on each other as a matter of survival at times, but neither one was expressive of affection, or enjoyed completely the traits of the other).  Therefore, she could not empathize with Molly’s situations, of searching for a mother's whose whereabouts were unknown.  Throughout her young life, Tess had had many friends who’d run away from home (a couple not surviving their adventures), and that was a narrative she instinctively understood; a child seeing no way to become important except by prematurely asserting what little personality the young person has so far developed.  Consequently, she couldn’t help but treat Molly like a mother who’d been fled from, and it made her feel sorry for her.  The awkward way Richard flirted made her feel protective towards him as well, so she spent most of the rest of the party taking bong hits with them and making plans for the next day, when she would call her ex-boyfriend who'd invited the possible Beth over, and then finding the possible Beth, Vivienne.  "I wish we were sisters," Molly told Tess at one point in the pretty, wrecked dawn of a summer day in Philly, apropos of nothing.  It was sweet to hear a thing like that.

In the morning light, George awoke, sore and depressed, and felt further saddened to see a stranger asleep on the couch, because he correctly guessed that Richard and Molly had met her last night and she would be helping them find Beth.  He wanted the event of finding her to occur in an environment of quiet and seriousness, without anyone peripheral to witness the rescue.

sadness

me and mom

yesterday i spent at least an hour encamped in my doctor's bathroom, shitting, throwing up and crying out a panic attack, a few minutes in a cab ride to the emergency room where i was born, had heart surgery and gave birth, and several hours lying down in an emergency room staring close up at the wall and waiting for imaginary dangers and real ones to duke it out inside my body.  as usual, today i feel more embarrassed than anything else.

more high school high art

there's something so embarrassing about these doodles of mine from junior high and high school that i've been posting on here lately (like the melodrama and how I made it look like this one was copyrighted in the title square), but sometimes i see some other girl's art from when she was  a teenager and it has so many similarities to things i've done, it makes me feel like "aw!  that's sweet and funny" or when i'm in a less charitable mood, feel jealous that i didn't share my similar thing w/ the world first. 

Yesteryou Chapter 19

19.

"Maybe she was my mom," Molly blurted out to the hostess.  "The lady that was here with fireworks.  Maybe it was Beth." 

"Oh, honey," Richard reasoned, "I don't think so."

"What, why not?  Isn't that why we're here, because you though she might be in Philly?  She loves fireworks.  She let me set them off," something Molly never would have thought to ask Richard for permission for.

"Wow," interjected the hostess, "You're tying to find you mom in Philly?  It could totally be this woman.  She kind of looks like you, actually.  Her name was Vivienne, I think.  Is it her?"
            "My mother's name is Beth, but she'd probably make up a name like Vivienne for herself.  What does this woman look like?"

            "Sweetie, she doesn't even have the same name, and I don't think she'd say she was from L.A.  Your mom hasn't lived in L.A. for few years now, she'd probably say she was from Arizona.  You're from L.A.  You're my little Angelino."

            But Molly sensed that her mother had been in this place earlier tonight, she could picture her looking at the animals on the mannequins' apron pockets.  She told Richard, "Dad, she's probably totally out of her mind right now, she's probably lying about stuff to people because she's going crazy," and to the hostess she repeated, "What did the woman look like?"

Yesteryou Chapter 18

18.

George, Beth and Molly bought a box full of fireworks one weekend years ago, the weekend before the 4th of July.  It was illegal to set off fireworks in L.A. County because of the potential for fires in such a draught-ridden tinder box of a city, so they went to a town right outside the county line to buy the fireworks, and they bought a lot:  Flying Spinners; Fountains Cones that shot up green and pink sparks; Ground Bloom Flowers; Parachutes; Roman Candles; smoke grenades. They ended up not using more than a few sparklers the night of the 4th, though; they just weren't in the mood.  But a few months later, Josie was spending a Saturday night over at Beth's with Molly, and the three of them were feeling particularly exhilarated that night.  It was a deliciously warm night, and each girl, woman, felt particularly young, immortal practically, and Beth burst out happily, "Shit, Molly!  We have fireworks!"  She could be so really charming sometimes. 

"Holy fuck, mom!  That is the best idea ever.  We have to set off every firework in that box right now, or I'll burst!” 

"You guys," Josie chided gleefully "we'll totally get arrested!  This is only like year one hundred of the great Los Angeles drought, fireworks are even more illegal than usual; remember all those ads about it around the 4th?  No way we're doing it.  The cops'll show up and we'll have to lie and say we didn't do anything, and it'll be embarrassing.  I hate shit like that!  I hate having to lie to authority figures."

            "No you don't!" teased Molly, tackling her, and Beth said, "Come on, you two lesbos, help me find the fireworks.  This shit's going down tonight!"

They set off every firecracker in that box, all the little cardboard tanks with the fuses at the end that, when you lit them, made the tanks shoot forward on their plastic wheels and spew wild sparks, all the cones that shot out sparks and the black cats and the Catherine Wheels, and when a police helicopter began circling overhead, the three women found the situation almost unbearably funny. 

"Well, promise to visit me in prison," Beth joked, but when there was an aggressive knock on the front door a moment later, they were all still feeling amused and excitable, but now also worried about getting in trouble.

"Yikes.  Um, you guys get in bed.  Close the bedroom door, though, promise.  I'll be bad at lying, if it's the cops, if I know you guys are listening in.  It'll make me nervous."

The knocking started again, and a deep male voice boomed "Hello?!"  It was a police officer, which actually surprised Beth, who though it was probably just her neighbor the unemployed alcoholic contractor, who she had sex with, only once, on a night when the Santa Ana winds and the brush fires in the hills nearby had made her restless, aroused.  But it was a cop who stood outside the door now, who told her that he’d received a complaint regarding something that sounded like fireworks being illegally set off, possibly in her back yard.     

            "Well, it wasn't me," she said indignantly, "Jesus, officer, I'm a grown woman, why would I play with firecrackers?" and of course he had no choice but to take her word for it.  Once the door was closed behind him, Josie and Molly jumped up from where they'd been crouching, in the narrow space between the wall and the living room couch, and simultaneously shouted "Boo!", scaring the hell out of Beth and making her laugh so hard, tears came to her eyes.  "I knew you guys weren't in bed like I told you to be, I just knew it.  I could practically hear your hot little breaths about to explode in laughter and get me arrested!"

God it was funny.  It was like one of the funniest things ever.