Free The Tribes of Palos Verdes by Joy Nicholson Page B

hide money from my father.
    â€œIf we’re not smart, we could lose the house,” my mother explains, sitting on a low ottoman at Jim’s feet.
    Jim likes sitting at my father’s desk, opening the mail, drinking coffee. He’s nervous about forging my father’s signature on bills, though. He practices with tracing paper, looping the P over and over until my mother says it’s just right.
    When I can’t stand surfing alone anymore, I ask Jim to come with me, to forget all the secret papers. He shrugs and says he can’t hang around with me all the time like he used to. He has important things to do now.
    â€œMom needs me to help her out,” he tells me. “She’s been having trouble with the bank, and she needs my help fixing things.” He folds his arms and talks about checking account balances.
    â€œYou don’t know anything about money,” I say. Then I apologize, telling him maybe I better learn, too. He shakes his head. He takes off his sunglasses, looking me in the eye.
    â€œShe heard you talking to Dad the other night. She heard you tell him she was a monster. That really made her cry.”
    â€œI didn’t say anything about her.” I shake my head violently, feeling a rush of cold air down my spine. “I didn’t, I swear.”
    Jim puts his glasses back on. He picks at his nails.
    â€œI’m not going to let you get away with talking about Mom like that,” he says, leaning way back in my father’s chair. “She’s not tough like you are, Medina.”
    Later I hear my mother moving down the hall. Her steps are heavy, decisive. She stops outside my brother’s room and knocks on his door.
    She says she can’t fall asleep. She wants him to sit with her for a while.
    *   *   *
    In the morning, the guys let Jim line up first so he can get a few sets in before our mother wakes up. As soon as he sees her yellow bathrobe in the bay window, he gets out of the water to make her breakfast and bring it on a tray into her room.
    All the guys stare at my mother’s yellow shape pushed to the glass. They talk behind our backs one day when they think we can’t hear.
    â€œHave you checked out Mrs. Mason? Pushin’ two fifty for sure.”
    â€œFuckin’ A!”
    â€œMy God, she used to be a model or somethin’. No wonder Mr. Mason left her.”
    â€œMaybe that’s why Medina’s so skinny. Mrs. Mason eats all the food.”
    After that, Jim stops surfing at all in the mornings, so my mother won’t come to the window. He stays home to have breakfast with her, as much cinnamon toast as he wants, warm and sugary. Sometimes she even lets him stay home all day from school to help her.
    My mother says Jim is her little man now.
    â€œRemember how close we felt in Joshua Tree? That’s how it’ll be every day.”
    Jim makes a joke. “Can we drink beer again?”
    My mother looks both ways, grins mischievously. Then she nods yes.
    â€œJust don’t tell anybody,” she says, pulling an imaginary zipper across his mouth.
    *   *   *
    When Jim finally comes surfing with me, we go to a new place, P-Land, on the other side of the hill. P-Land is named after the Petersons, one of the oldest families in P.V. They used to own all the land on the north side of P.V. until they sold it to the government in the sixties. From the top of the cliff, the water’s surface looks like a perfectly frosted cake, smooth ridges one after another.
    Even though he won’t admit it, Jim brought me to P-Land because he doesn’t want my mother to watch him surf the bay. He knows she’ll come to the window and the guys will stare. Lately she’s been following him everywhere. Whenever he goes out to surf, she pouts and asks him how long he’ll be.
    At P-Land we see an old green Volkswagen bus parked in the shade of a eucalyptus. An old guy, maybe