Misty (Wildflowers 1)

"'You lied to me,' Mommy said shaking her head like it was something she could never believe.

"'Everybody lies in this house,' I snapped back at her.

"'You watch your mouth,' Daddy yelled.

"'You lied to me,' I retorted. 'You said you weren't going to be home and that's why I couldn't spend the weekend with you.'

"He looked guilty, caught. He glanced at my mother and then turned back to me.

"'My plans changed. That happens sometimes, Misty, but it doesn't give you the excuse to do what you did,' he said and then he returned to the familiar battleground with my mother. 'Do you realize what she's up to these days, Gloria?'

"'She's got the perfect model of morality to follow,' my mother said, glaring at him 'Look how you live. Look what she sees whenever she visits with you. What do you expect she'll turn into? What can I do?'

"They got into one of their worst battles and I went up to my room. At least for the moment, they were directing their venom at each other instead of me. After Daddy left, Mommy came up to see me and asked me what I had been doing and how long I had been doing it.

"She acted very hurt. I was making a fool out of her, hurting her, making things more difficult for her. Everything was her, her, her. Daddy had done the same thing earlier, telling me how my behavior was only going to make things more difficult for him, him, him.

"Of course, Mommy wanted to know who the boy was. Who were his parents? Where did they live? That seemed to matter more than anything. I refused to tell her anything about Lloyd and she ended it by grounding me for a month. I was to come directly home after school every day and spend all my weekends at home. She forbade me from having phone calls again, but this time she surprised me by calling the phone company and having my line disconnected.

"I don't think I ever felt more miserable. Lloyd blamed himself. He told me he should have known better and expected it. Later that week, about Wednesday, I think, Mommy found out who my boyfriend was. Clara Weincoup's mother had told her. When I got home, she was waiting for me and went into a new rage about my slumming.

"How could I go around with someone like that? Didn't I have respect for myself?

"Maybe my boyfriend isn't rich and his parents don't live in a big, expensive house, but at least I can enjoy being a woman,' I shouted back at her, and she turned all red.

"She chased after me demanding to know exactly what I had meant. She kept it up until finally, in a rage myself, I blurted out the things Daddy had told me at that first lunch when I asked him why they were getting divorced. She turned a shade paler than the dead leaves on Doctor Marlowe's oleander bushes out back. I thought she was going to faint. Her mouth opened and closed without a sound coming from it.

I really got frightened. She had to take hold of the back of a chair to steady herself.

"Then, she just turned and walked out of the room. We never said anything more about it, but later I found out she had called her attorney who had called Daddy's attorney. There was a serious threat to go to the judge to end Daddy's visitation rights with me.

"Everything just seemed to be getting worse and worse. Early the following week, Lloyd got into a bad fight at school with another boy. When Mr. Levine tried to break it up, Lloyd hit him and he was expelled. I found out late that afternoon. Darlene couldn't wait to tell me.

"'Your boyfriend is in big trouble," she said and described what had happened at the gym. She and the others gloated. It seemed to prove they were right about me and Lloyd.

"But I said, 'Lloyd was right about you! You're all a bunch of Beverly's. Go to hell!' I screamed at them.

"I ran away from them and after school, I went to Lloyd's mother's apartment, but no one was there. I was very depressed and disappointed. My phone was still disconnected. How would he call me? I was hoping he would come to my house, but all that day he didn't. I tried calling him on my mother's phone when my mother wasn't watching, but there was no answer.

"I hated being in school the next day. I failed a math test. I hadn't even cracked open the book to study for it. The girls were talking about me constantly. I stayed in the bathroom the whole lunch period rather than sit in that cafeteria and be under their laughing eyes. I was inches away from cutting class and going to look for Lloyd. When the final bell rang, I shot out of the building and went to his apartment again. Again, I found no one there.

"My mother wasn't home when I got home. I sat in my room, brooding, when all of a sudden, I heard the sound of a motorcycle and looked out the window to see Lloyd pull into our driveway. He sat on his motorcycle and beeped the horn, and I ran out to him.

"'Where have you been?' I cried throwing myself into his arms. 'I went to your apartment two days in a row.'

"'Just been riding around,' he said, 'thinking. I stayed at a friend of mine's place in Encino and finally made a big decision,' he said.

"'What decision?'

"'I'm leaving California,' he told me and my heart fell.

"'Leaving? Where are you going?' I asked.

"'Anyplace away from here. I got a cousin in Seattle who owns a garage I think I'll go up there and work for him awhile and just see how it goes.'

"'What about your mother?'

"'She practically threw me out of the house,' he said, 'when she found out I was bein' thrown out of school. She said I'm too much trouble for her. She can't handle me anymore. It's making her old and sick.'