way to make a difference.
Bear was an Iowa girl with yellow corn silk in her hair and auburn freckles sprinkled across her nose and cheeks. She was the oldest of eight children raised by a conservative preacher and his obedient wife who, when it came to looking after their offspring, were always, Bear said, “otherwise occupied.” Consequently, Bear had been a mother of sorts to her brood of siblings. She was mild and milky, patient and soft-spoken, with a slightly distracted air, as if she had early on begun retreating into her own world (with a placid crescent-moon smile on her face) as a way to cope with so many children constantly clinging to her floor-skimming skirts. Bear’s father had lately disowned her. Though she was a perfectly respectable nursing student, she also enjoyed reading philosophy and pursuing interests that were, he said, “ungodly” (astrological charts, chakras, dowsing rods, crystals, Kundalini yoga, etc.). Her mother echoed his disapproval, but she still sometimes sent Bear boxes of sugar cookies on the sly.
Raven had been orphaned at ten after her preppy parents, college sweethearts, died together in a paragliding accident off the rocky coast of Maine, her home state. She was shipped to California to live with her grandparents in Santee, a sleepy suburb east of San Diego where there was, she always said, “nothing happening of note.” She found her father’s old guitar in a closet and taught herself to play. Starting at the age of eleven, Raven made a habit of hitchhiking—instrument in hand—into the city so she could busk in front of a place called the Cue Club, where she spent all her earnings beating men three times her age at billiards. The “Santee Shark,” as they called her, deposited her pool winnings into a college fund she established for herself and was now paying her way through school. As a math major specializing in geometry,Raven knew the exact shape of the invisible triangle a billiard ball would trace atop a pool table when struck in a certain way, and the precise trajectory at which her parents had fallen from the sky.
Bumble was the son of a half–Crow Indian mother who had caught the admiring eye of his father, an uptight army officer, after she’d participated in the American Indian Movement standoff at Wounded Knee in 1973 and her picture appeared in the paper. Bumble was a self-described military brat who had seen most of the world before his father was finally stationed at Camp Pendleton. Having spent so much time immersed in army culture, he loathed conformity, uniforms, and short haircuts but had developed an obsession with all types of gadgets and gear. Friendships had been impossible due to the frequency with which he had been forced to move, but the greenish, glow-in-the-dark radiance of a GPS device picked from one of his dad’s pockets was always a comfort to Bumble (who had also been, he had once told me in confidence, “very fat”). He had hopes of becoming an engineer, but was floundering in college because it was, he believed, just another oppressive institution with too many rules and regulations.
Orca was always unafraid to speak her mind and had once boldly spoken her heart to her fourth-grade classmates when, during Show and Share, she had held up a framed photo of Susie, her towheaded second cousin from Georgia, and said, “This is the love of my life. I get crushes on girls.” After that, she felt she had nothing to hide. She dressed exclusively in slacks, vests, and bow ties, and often asserted that she was “handsomer than most guys.” With her curling black hair and arch smile, she was. After legally emancipating herself from her parents, who shared none of Orca’s sense of peace with her identity, she began supporting herself as a floral designer. (It was she who supplied Bear with the flowers she always wore in her hair.) When she wasn’t in her art classes atthe university, she worked at a popular flower stand in Leucadia, a
Bear was an Iowa girl with yellow corn silk in her hair and auburn freckles sprinkled across her nose and cheeks. She was the oldest of eight children raised by a conservative preacher and his obedient wife who, when it came to looking after their offspring, were always, Bear said, “otherwise occupied.” Consequently, Bear had been a mother of sorts to her brood of siblings. She was mild and milky, patient and soft-spoken, with a slightly distracted air, as if she had early on begun retreating into her own world (with a placid crescent-moon smile on her face) as a way to cope with so many children constantly clinging to her floor-skimming skirts. Bear’s father had lately disowned her. Though she was a perfectly respectable nursing student, she also enjoyed reading philosophy and pursuing interests that were, he said, “ungodly” (astrological charts, chakras, dowsing rods, crystals, Kundalini yoga, etc.). Her mother echoed his disapproval, but she still sometimes sent Bear boxes of sugar cookies on the sly.
Raven had been orphaned at ten after her preppy parents, college sweethearts, died together in a paragliding accident off the rocky coast of Maine, her home state. She was shipped to California to live with her grandparents in Santee, a sleepy suburb east of San Diego where there was, she always said, “nothing happening of note.” She found her father’s old guitar in a closet and taught herself to play. Starting at the age of eleven, Raven made a habit of hitchhiking—instrument in hand—into the city so she could busk in front of a place called the Cue Club, where she spent all her earnings beating men three times her age at billiards. The “Santee Shark,” as they called her, deposited her pool winnings into a college fund she established for herself and was now paying her way through school. As a math major specializing in geometry,Raven knew the exact shape of the invisible triangle a billiard ball would trace atop a pool table when struck in a certain way, and the precise trajectory at which her parents had fallen from the sky.
Bumble was the son of a half–Crow Indian mother who had caught the admiring eye of his father, an uptight army officer, after she’d participated in the American Indian Movement standoff at Wounded Knee in 1973 and her picture appeared in the paper. Bumble was a self-described military brat who had seen most of the world before his father was finally stationed at Camp Pendleton. Having spent so much time immersed in army culture, he loathed conformity, uniforms, and short haircuts but had developed an obsession with all types of gadgets and gear. Friendships had been impossible due to the frequency with which he had been forced to move, but the greenish, glow-in-the-dark radiance of a GPS device picked from one of his dad’s pockets was always a comfort to Bumble (who had also been, he had once told me in confidence, “very fat”). He had hopes of becoming an engineer, but was floundering in college because it was, he believed, just another oppressive institution with too many rules and regulations.
Orca was always unafraid to speak her mind and had once boldly spoken her heart to her fourth-grade classmates when, during Show and Share, she had held up a framed photo of Susie, her towheaded second cousin from Georgia, and said, “This is the love of my life. I get crushes on girls.” After that, she felt she had nothing to hide. She dressed exclusively in slacks, vests, and bow ties, and often asserted that she was “handsomer than most guys.” With her curling black hair and arch smile, she was. After legally emancipating herself from her parents, who shared none of Orca’s sense of peace with her identity, she began supporting herself as a floral designer. (It was she who supplied Bear with the flowers she always wore in her hair.) When she wasn’t in her art classes atthe university, she worked at a popular flower stand in Leucadia, a
Similar Books
