Patti Smith. She’s obviously never been scared of anyone. There’s this anger in her voice, this soul, that’s like nothing I’ve ever heard.
I never knew I could be angry. I’ve always been too busy being scared. I’ve been keeping this inside so long it feels like I’m about to burst open and leave nothing but a puddle on the carpet where I used to be.
But that’s bullshit, too.
My aunt and uncle and Anita Bryant and all the rest of them—they want people like me to be scared.
Well, I’m through giving them what they want. Tomorrow, I’m going to the record store and buying every Patti Smith album they have.
I’m getting out of this place, Harvey. Even if I only manage to do it in my head.
Peace, Tammy
Wednesday, June 8, 1977
Dear Diary,
I should’ve known today would be terrible.
I’m writing this in study hall. I barely managed three hours of sleep last night, but it’s the last day of school, so classes are a joke. Mom always says teachers run out of energy the first week of May.
I still have to keep up with my friends, though, and I didn’t realize how tricky that would be without sleep.
“Guess where I went last night?” I asked Rhonda on our way out of English as we wound through a hall full of kilted, giggly girls.
“You’ll never believe where I went,” she said, instead of guessing. We cut through a contingent of freshmen and looped across the small chapel to the bathroom, the one hardly anyone goes to. It’s the best place to talk without the whole school hearing your every word. “After we closed, Craig took me to this dive bar down on Naples. I thought I’d get chlamydia just from walking in the door, but it turned out he knew all the guys there, and they were great. They bought me drinks all night and I got so wasted.”
By the time she was finished telling me all that, I was in a stall, halfway through peeing. I always have to charge to the bathroom after English or I’ll burst.
“That sounds fun,” I called through the stall door. Rhonda and I used to hang out all the time, but now that she’s going out with her boss, I only see her at school.
“It was, but I still feel kind of drunk. That’s okay, though. No one will notice on the last day of school.”
I stepped out of the stall and went over to wash my hands. The bathroom door swung open. Rhonda and I both went silent, but it was only Diane and Jennifer. They’d been in English with us, too.
“Did you say you’re still drunk from last night?” Diane asked Rhonda as she pulled a cigarette and a matchbook out of her purse.
“Yeah. Craig and I stayed out until really late.”
“You and Craig.” Diane laughed. “Do your parents still not know?”
“Hell no. They’d only ground me for the rest of my life.”
“They need to relax.” Diane struck the match over the sink. “He’s not that much older than you.”
“I know! My dad’s seven years older than my mom. Craig’s only five years older than me, but you know they’d never listen if I pointed that out. They’re total hypocrites.”
“Our parents think it’s still the fifties or something,” Jennifer called from over the door of the stall I’d just come out of. “We’re all supposed to stay virgins ’til our wedding nights.”
Diane and Rhonda laughed. I laughed, too, a second too late, but I don’t think anyone noticed. I’m a virgin, and as far as I know so are all my friends, but things are changing faster than they used to.
“What our parents don’t know won’t hurt them.” Rhonda fluffed her hair. She’d asked the hairdresser for bouncy Farrah Fawcett-Majors curls, but she’d wound up looking more like Janet from Three’s Company. “They can think I’m a virgin when Craig’s walking me down the aisle if they want.”
We all laughed again, but I can’t picture Rhonda marrying Craig. Or really,