The Starfish Sisters: A Novel(53)
Not that my dad is fighting. I think he’s going to marry Mrs. Armstrong. They’ve been all moony lately and I wouldn’t be surprised to see a ring on her finger sometime soon.
Also, you won’t be seeing Joel this summer anyway. I thought I told you that he’s going to Seattle to stay with his dad this summer. He really doesn’t want to but his mom insists, so he has to. He left already, the last day of school.
So it’ll just be me and you, like old times. But there’s something fun going on—I made friends with these hippies in the house behind the church. There’s five people who actually live there, but a lot of others who come over. I really like a girl named Mary, and her boyfriend. They’re so nice, and Mary is teaching me to macramé. They also have KITTENS! Five of them. One is the sweetest little baby you ever saw, black with a half-white mustache. He gets into things so bad. Mary’s brother is so sweet and nice, named Victor. He has blond hair that he wears in a braid and he knows how to do this very intricate beading. He taught me to make earrings, which of course I have to hide.
I miss you. Can’t wait for you to get here. Two weeks isn’t that long. We still have the whole rest of the summer.
From Joel
June 3, 19—
Dear Suze,
This is my new address, so you can write me whenever you want. All the time. I’ll write you, too.
My dad wants me to get a job, so I’ve been applying at all kinds of restaurants. I think I might have a job as a dishwasher at a fish house, which wouldn’t be so bad.
This is short because I feel so bad about this, about us getting caught and it was totally my fault, and now you’re stuck in Blue Cove without me and I hate that. Don’t let your dad hurt you.
Write soon,
Love,
Joel
June 10, 19—
Dear Joel,
It was my fault as much as yours. I hate this, too, but everything will be okay. We’ll write letters all the time and I’ll try to call you from Beryl’s house. It will be okay, truly. I’m so glad your mom didn’t tell my dad. He would LITERALLY have killed me.
Phoebe will be coming in a couple of days and that always makes me so happy. If you’re not here, I also don’t have to feel so worried about how she’ll take it that we’re together now. She’s had a crush on you forever. Which you know, but I don’t think you’re as worried about hurting her feelings as I am. It’s going to break her heart and that makes me feel like a rotten friend, but I also don’t know how me & you could have not fallen in love. We are SOUL MATES. I really believe that. I could look all over the world and not find anybody who was as right for me as you are.
Do you want to read the same books, maybe? That’s how me and Phoebe keep talking sometimes. I’ll read whatever you want. Also, you can tell me whatever you’re thinking and I’ll do the same. Or tell me about your day, from getting up to going to bed.
A dishwashing job sounds like fun. You’ll make some money, and I know you like to be with your dad sometimes, so you don’t have to act like it’s all terrible. I know it isn’t. My dad wants me to get a job, too, but I’m not cleaning hotel rooms. I mean, how gross! Maybe I’ll see if I can find somebody who will hire me to wait tables. That wouldn’t be so bad. I’d rather work in one of the boutiques and sell tourist stuff, but I can’t wear my normal clothes all the time downtown or my dad will see me. And who would hire the yokel girl with her stupid dresses hanging down below her knees?
A bunch of hippies moved in behind us. They’re going to fix up a school bus and go on the road, drive down the coast to Baja, maybe all the way down to Patagonia (which I thought was someplace else entirely, but is at the southern tip of South America). That would be fun, wouldn’t it? Maybe we can travel like that when we get out of school. Hitchhike in Europe.
Speaking of which, Phoebe is going to Italy with her parents. I’m SO jealous! I’m trying not to be, but I would kill or die to go to Europe, and she’s whining about it. She just doesn’t get how lucky she is, I swear.
Anyway, everything is really going to be okay. Trust me.
Love you lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots. Write back RIGHT AWAY.
Suze
June 16, 19—
Dear Suze,
My dad got me up early to help him in his garden, at 6 am because he says that’s when the best garden things happen. I don’t like getting up early but it was nice out there, for sure. Lotta birds singing and tweeting and all that. Worms and slugs all over (worms good, slugs bad). My dad puts out little dishes of beer for the slugs and one of the things I do is empty the ones from the day before and add new beer. He buys beer just for this, since he doesn’t drink and sometimes I want to steal a beer for myself, but he’d notice.
After the garden, we eat breakfast. Toast and eggs and coffee, which I like. He goes to work and then I have time to myself. I walk around the neighborhood or read or sometimes do push-ups and sit-ups because it’s kind of boring. All that time and nothing to do. There’s a bookstore a few blocks away—it’s a big place, with two floors and a bunch of used books in the basement. I found a paperback of THE DRIFTERS by James Michener for a quarter and I really like it—a bunch of people traveling around Europe and Morocco. I’d love to do that—like you said. Hitchhike around Europe with our backpacks. Let’s plan that for after we graduate.