Wild Child: Girlhoods in the Counterculture by Chelsea Cain Read Free Book Online

I remember these things the way some people remember a drunken relative or an abusive parent. With fear, with avoidance. But running only makes the past easier to find you. It is better to stay still and let history wash over you and cleanse the pain.
    ‘Everything is dangerous’ my father told me. ‘Trust no one.’
    The year Summer and her family moved in was the worst. I broke promises. I told lies. I kept secrets. I woke with tummy aches and headaches from fear of discovery. Sometimes it is easier to be caught and to deal with consequences than to escape. For the prison of your mind holds no escape, and your heart does not forget.
    Everything is dangerous, my father said. Trust no one.
    How then shall I trust you?

    It was July 1979, the year before Reagan and voodoo economics, the year before my cousin Ken bought his first suburban house, the year my mother returned to work full-time, the year I started babysitting my two younger sisters and taking on more and more responsibility around the home.
    Summer and her family, a group of vagabond hippies, moved into the house at the end of the block. ‘Renters,’ my father told me. ‘Just as bad as criminals,’ he said. Of course, they were not to be trusted.
    Curious as any eight-year-old, I spied on the new neighbors. I crept up to the front window and peered into the living room. Nothing telling of what evils awaited me there. The room was empty except for a tattered brown recliner and a standing lamp. Not even a TV. The house seemed lonely, sad. A little lost. I didn’t think about it anymore until school started and the bus picked up one of the new neighbors, a tall, thin girl with stringy golden-brown hair and dreamy eyes. She wore floral and tie-dyed dresses and open-toed sandals even in the rain. She smiled and laughed a lot at things other kids did not find funny. She did not curl her hair or wear jeans when everyone else thought it was cool. When kids called her names, she made a sign with her hands. ‘Peace and love,’ she’d say.
    I was enchanted.
    She was a year older than I was and every bit as mysterious as her name. Summer. A promise of warm weather and clear skies and swim parties and suntans and lazy afternoons at the beach. When she waltzed by the playground, her long hair drifted like seaweed. On the jungle gym bars, she was the only girl unafraid of swinging upside down with a skirt on and letting the boys see her cotton underwear. There was a lack of inhibition about her, an I-couldn’t-care-less about the judgment of others, a spring in her step. Everything about her, from her unkempt hair to the silver beads on her wrists, spoke of magic. When she confided in me that she knew witchcraft, I believed her.
    I grew to trust her like I trusted my sisters, implicitly, without words.
    One day, Summer invited me over to her house after school. ‘I can show you my record collection,’ she said. When she smiled, I knew I would say yes, even though I knew the answer from my father would be no.
    But I was still my father’s daughter, honest and obedient, eager to please. I asked him when he got home from work. He took me aside and closed the door to his bedroom and said, ‘I don’t want you playing with that girl. She looks like a tramp. I bet her parents make her walk the streets at night. She’s not a good influence for you or your sisters. I do not want you going to her house.’
    My mother offered a compromise. ‘Invite her over here to play.’
    But I wanted to see her record collection. The color of her room. The width of her bed. The closet that stored her clothes.
    A week later, when Summer asked again if I could come over, I said yes. I did not tell her my parents forbade it. It was my first lie, my first secret, and the power of it burned in my stomach like a hot fist.
    I jumped off the bus and headed across the street and into the empty living room of Summer’s home. A warm sweet scent arrested me. Summer grabbed my hand and led me down