movie star had asked her on a date. She was still in high school, taking care of her little sister since their parents had died a few years before, and she and my dad got married right after she graduated. He got a job with a development company in Ocean Valley, so they all moved out here, including my mom’s sister—my Aunt Mandy—since she was just a kid herself then.
Not long after that, my oldest sister, Laura, was born. She’s twenty-one now, and she’s married with a baby. Now she’s pregnant again. My next-oldest sister, Barbara, is nineteen and just got married in the spring, and guess what—she just told us she’s pregnant, too.
No one ever asks me when I’m getting pregnant, which I guess is a good thing. Once I made a joke about that at a barbecue and got grounded for a week. (Er…please don’t mention that in your report for the teachers.)
My little sister, Elizabeth, is fourteen, and my bratty brother, Ricky, is a year younger. Look up “spoiled rotten” in a dictionary, and odds are, it’ll have a picture of Ricky right next to it.
In case you couldn’t tell, my parents really wanted a boy.
Anyway, sorry for the long letter. I’ll try to keep my next answer more concise.
Yours truly, Tammy Larson
P.S. Was it awkward for me to say I’m sorry about your dad, since we don’t really know each other? If it was, then I’m sorry, again. Sorry for saying sorry, I mean.
Saturday, July 2, 1977
Dear Diary,
I’m not sure how to talk about what happened tonight. It wasn’t at all what I expected. I went back and reread what I wrote last time, about the night Peter and I went to that march, and… I just don’t know what to think now.
Maybe it will make sense after I write it all out. That’s why I’ve got this diary, anyway. Ever since I was a kid, there have always been things that only make sense once I write them down and read them over later.
We went to Castro Street again tonight, but it wasn’t anything like before.
“Tell me again why you wanted to come here?” Peter kept giving me curious looks as he parked the car. It’s an old junker with a mismatched paint job, and it’s got more dents in the bumper than I have fingers on either hand, but it’s all Peter can afford, and it’s our only way to get around the city if we don’t want to wait ages for the bus.
“I want to… I don’t know.” I shrugged and glanced in the rearview mirror. I should’ve worn lipstick. When we’d come up for the march I didn’t have any makeup on, but now it was Saturday night and I didn’t want to look like some little schoolgirl. “Get involved. Do something about gay rights.”
“Do what, exactly?”
“That’s what we’re here to figure out.” I swung open the door, trying to act bolder than I felt.
“Since when are you into gay rights, anyway?” Peter climbed out after me.
“I… I don’t know.” I blushed. The night of the march, I thought I’d finally found somewhere I belonged. I’d been wanting to come back for weeks, but I didn’t have the nerve to tell him that. “It’s no big deal.”
“Relax.” He tugged on the sleeve of my T-shirt. “I’m glad you had this idea. I’ve been wanting to come back.”
“Oh. Okay, then good. So, um…do you think that march we went to actually changed anything?”
“Nope,” Peter said. We climbed past pizzerias and coffee shops and stoned hippies on our way to Castro. “The Miami law’s still overturned. Anita and the fundamentalists are still claiming it as a victory.”
“The other night the news said other gay rights laws will probably get overturned now, too.” I sighed. “The way you expected.”
“Yeah. Sometimes I wish I weren’t quite so smart.”
I elbowed him. “They wouldn’t really do it here, would they?”
“They will if they can.”
“It would never pass. There must have been thousands of people out marching that