The Tribes of Palos Verdes Read Online Free

the piano keys too hard. I pick up an empty cellophane package and show it to Jim.
    â€œMom ate another whole bag of Oreos today,” I say. “I found this in the trash.”
    â€œDon’t act like a poor person, Medina,” my brother says, sighing as he turns up the volume. “Only poor people count how much food there is.”
    â€œYou don’t care how she acts. Even if she eats like a pig!”
    My brother throws the channel changer hard against the carpet and yells, “If you talk about it, it’ll make it worse!”
    As I pick up the dislodged batteries, I breathe hard and concentrate on inserting the shiny shapes between the nest of wires. My brother leans over, gently taking the channel changer away, folding the batteries exactly into place.
    â€œSorry for throwing it at you,” he says, then makes a frog face that usually makes me laugh. When I don’t even crack a smile, he twists me into a half nelson, tickling me until neither of us can tell if I’m laughing or crying.
    I don’t say anything to my mother about the Oreos. Instead I throw away all the junk food in the house, but my mother grabs her car keys from the foyer, leaves the house, and returns later with a stuffed brown sack. She smiles at me and toasts me with a can of chocolate Yoo-Hoo.
    She says, “Yoo-Hoo, skinny, Yoo-Hoo, I see you.”
    *   *   *
    In my mother’s checkbook ledger, there are hundreds of checks written out to Ralph’s Market, sometimes more than one a day. My father looks through the ledger, shaking his head, pounding his fist on the table.
    He tells Jim and me to go to our rooms, but instead we hide behind the door, cupping our ears to its wooden skin. My mother yells at my father. She says she wants to leave Palos Verdes before the sound of the waves drives her crazy.
    â€œThat’s what you said about Chicago wind and Michigan snow, Sandy. Verbatim.”
    My mother cuts him off, tells him he better find us a nice, normal place to live before it’s too late. She insists it’s the waves that are the problem.
    â€œYou promised to get the eating thing under control, Sandy. You said you’d stop the visits to the fridge at night.” My father puts his palms together reasonably. “I’m concerned about your health!”
    â€œOh yes, my health. ” My mother smiles. “I’m sure that’s the real issue here.”
    â€œHeart disease is something I know a thing or two about, Sandy.”
    â€œYou don’t care about my health, Phil, you care about my cheekbones.”
    As he walks out, she calls out to him.
    â€œI know a thing or two about cheekbones.”
    *   *   *
    I’m lucky it isn’t winter yet, that’s when the waves get big in Palos Verdes. The waves are small and swashy now, two feet, perfect to practice on. For the first hour, I concentrate on pushing myself upward as the wave is in motion. Only the third time I try, I stand up and ride the wave to the shore, wobbling but not falling. When the wave ends I know I’ll always be a surfer. I know I’ll be trying to catch that feeling for the rest of my life.
    Jim is stronger, he pushes his body easily upward. But my balance is a little better, I stand up faster, and stay up longer once I catch a ride. I practice every day, even when the local guys paddle out but Jim goes back to shore, embarrassed, swimming fast.
    My plan is to be good by December. It’s hard to imagine riding big winter waves that tower over my head, but I try to see myself dwarfed by water, zooming across on the diagonal, the lip closing down behind me.
    My father gave me a magazine article about a famous woman surfer in Florida, Frieda Zane. She says the only way to get good is to forget you’re a girl, and surf like a man, aggressive and fierce. She says to hang around with better surfers as much as possible, study the way they stand and