Starry Eyes

She grins. “Aren’t you lucky I am?”

Actually, yes. I know that she genuinely wants me to be happy and would do just about anything for me. Joy is actually my stepmom. My birth mother died unexpectedly of an aneurysm when I was eight, back when we lived across the Bay in San Francisco. Then my dad suddenly decided he wanted to be a massage therapist and spent all the life insurance money on getting licensed. He’s impulsive like that. Anyway, he met Joy at an alternative medicine convention. They got hitched a few months later, and we all moved here to Melita Hills, where they rented out space for this clinic and an apartment next door.

Sure, at the ripe age of thirty-eight, Joy is several years younger than my father, and because she’s Korean-American, I’ve had to deal with genius observations from bigoted people, pointing out the obvious: that she’s not my real mom. As if I weren’t aware that she’s Asian and I’m so Western and pale, I’m rocking an actual vitamin D deficiency. To be honest, in my mind, Joy is my mom now. My memories of Life Before Joy are slippery. Over the years, I’ve grown far closer to her than I am to my dad. She’s supportive and encouraging. I just wish she were a touch less granola and chipper.

But this time, as much as I hate to admit it, her enthusiasm about the glamping trip might be warranted. Spending quality time outside of school with Reagan’s inner circle would definitely strengthen my social standing, which always feels as if it’s in danger of collapsing when I’m hanging around people who have more money or popularity. I’d like to feel more comfortable around them. Around Reagan, too. I just wish she’d asked me to go camping herself, instead of her mother.

The clinic’s front door swings open and my father breezes into the waiting room, freshly shaved and dark hair neatly slicked back. “Zorie, did Mr. Wiley call?”

“He canceled today’s massage appointment,” I inform him. “But he rescheduled for a half session on Thursday.”

A half session is half an hour, and half an hour equals half the money, but my father quickly masks his disappointment. You could tell him his best friend just died, and he’d pivot toward a meet-up at the racquetball club without breaking a sweat. Diamond Dan, people call him. All sparkle and glitz.

“Did Mr. Wiley say why he couldn’t make it?” he asks.

“An emergency at one of his restaurants,” I report. “A TV chef is stopping by to film a segment.”

Mr. Wiley is one my dad’s best clients. Like most of the people who come here, he has money burning a hole in his wallet and can afford above-average prices for massage or acupuncture. Our wellness clinic is the best in Melita Hills, and my mom has even been written up in the San Francisco Chronicle as one of the Bay Area’s top acupuncturists—“well worth a trip across the Bay Bridge.” My parents charge clients accordingly.

It’s just that the number of those clients has been slowly but surely dwindling over the last year. The primary cause of that dwindling, and the object of my dad’s anger, is the business that set up shop in the adjoining space. To our shared mortification, we are now located next to a store that sells adult toys.

Yep, those kind of toys.

Kind of hard to ignore the giant vaginal-shaped sign out front. Our well-heeled customers sure haven’t. Classy people usually don’t want to park in front of a sex shop when they are heading to a massage therapy appointment. My parents found this out pretty quickly when longtime clients started canceling their weekly sessions. Those who haven’t fled our desirable location near all the upscale boutique shops on Mission Street are too important to lose, as Dad reminds me every chance he gets.

And that’s why I know he’s upset by Mr. Wiley’s cancellation—it was his only appointment today—but when he leaves the reception area and heads to his office so that he can stew about it in private, Mom remains calm.

“So,” she says. “Should I tell Mrs. Reid you’ll go glamping with Reagan?”

Like I’m going to give her a definitive answer on the spot without considering all the factors. At the same time, I hate to be the wet blanket on her sunny enthusiasm.

“Don’t be cautious. Be careful,” she reminds me. Cautious people are afraid of the unknown and avoid it. Careful people plan so that they’re more confident when they face the unknown. She tells me this every time I’m resistant to a change in plans. “We’ll research everything together.”

“I’ll consider it,” I tell her diplomatically. “I guess you can tell Mrs. Reid that I’ll text Reagan for the details and make up my mind later. But you did well, Dr. Pokenstein.”

Her smile is victorious. “Speaking of, I better get back to her and take out the needles before she falls asleep on the slab. Oh, I almost forgot. Did FedEx come?”

“Nope. Just the regular mail.”

She frowns. “I got an email notification that a package was delivered.”

Crap on toast. I know what this means. We have a problem with misdelivered mail. Our mail carrier is constantly delivering our packages to the sex shop next door. And the sex shop next door is directly connected with item number three in my blueprint for a perfect summer: avoid any and all contact with the Mackenzies.

My mom sticks out her lower lip and makes her eyes big. “Pretty please,” she pleads sweetly. “Can you run next door and ask them if they got my delivery?”

I groan.

“I would do it, but, you know. I’ve got Mrs. Reid full of needles,” she argues, tugging her thumb toward the back rooms. “I’m balancing her life force, not torturing the woman. Can’t leave her back there forever.”

“Can’t you go get it on your lunch break?” I’ve already made the trek into dildo land once this week, and that’s my limit.

“I leave in an hour to meet your grandmother for lunch, remember?”

Right. Her mother, she means. Grandma Esther loathes tardiness, a sentiment I fully support. But that still doesn’t change the fact that I’d rather have a tooth pulled than walk next door. “What’s so important in this package anyway?”

“That’s the thing,” Mom says, winding her long, straight hair into a tight knot at the crown of her head. “The notification was sent by someone else. ‘Catherine Beatty.’ I don’t know anyone by that name, and I haven’t ordered anything. But the notification came to my work email, and our address is listed.”

“A mystery package.”

Her eyes twinkle. “Surprises are fun.”

“Unless someone sent you a package full of spiders or a severed hand. Maybe you jabbed someone a little too hard.”

“Or maybe I jabbed someone just right, and they are sending me chocolate.” She steals a pen from the desk and stabs it into her hair to secure her new knot. “Please, Zorie. While your father is occupied.”

She says this last bit in a hushed voice. My dad would throw a fit if he saw me next door.

“Fine. I’ll go,” I say, but I’m not happy.

Summer plans, how I knew and loved you.

Sticking a handmade AWAY FROM THE DESK. BE BACK IN A JIFF! sign on the counter, I drag myself through the front door into bright morning sunshine and brace for doom.

2

* * *

Sitting on the corner of Mission Street, Toys in the Attic, or T&A as my mom jokingly refers to it—until my dad gives her his not funny, Joy ultradry look—is a boutique sex shop that markets itself toward women. It’s well lit and clean. Not skuzzy and filled with creepers, like Love Rocket across town, which has painted-over windows and is open twenty-four hours. You know, just in case you need fuzzy handcuffs at three a.m.