Free How to Cook Your Daughter by Jessica Hendra Page A

I did everyone would only laugh at me, just like they were laughing at her.
    That summer, for the first time since Heroin killed my parents’ friend, I became very aware of drugs. Sure, there had always been drugs around my family, but I began to make a real connection between what the grown-ups put into their bodies and the behavior that came out. I started to notice when the rolling paper appeared. Or when the coke was lined up on a mirror with a razor blade. The grown-ups would come and hover over whoever was setting up the drugs. The look in their eyes—the anticipation—reminded me of the look my father had showed me the night that he crawled into bed with me. And I would grow nervous. Why did they look like that? Why did it mean so much to them to pull smoke so deeply into their throats? And why were they sniffing white powder up their noses?
    After the smoking and the snorting, the music would switch from Brahms to the Beatles, and the volume would rise. Meals were put on hold. Often, the group would gather along the river, where everyone would strip and plunge in naked. Kathy and I never did. We would stay behind in the house, running upstairs to change into our swimsuits before joining everyone by the water. No one told us to put on our suits; we just preferred it that way. In fact, we wanted everyone to wear one. Nude adults were supremely embarrassing, even to kids like Kathy and me, who had grown accustomed to having their parents walk around naked. In this upside-down world, my sister and I were the uptight and responsible ones, the square, boring guests who sat in the corner of the sofa while the hip people partied.
    During these skinny-dipping sessions, I was especially concernedthat our neighbors might walk by. It was easy to see the stream from the road. Just a few low trees and bushes could obscure a direct view of the Hendras and their pals—and all their private parts—from the eyes of anyone taking an afternoon stroll. It wasn’t as if the stoned and naked grownups were quiet, either. They splashed and giggled and cursed almost as much as they did while playing croquet.
    I sat on a rock one afternoon, watching the red glow on the end of the joint that was making its way around the group, when I heard the familiar voices of Becky and Jeremy Bradford. They were closing on us fast, so I knew they must be on their bikes. I scurried up the river bank and looked down the road. To my horror, they weren’t alone. Walking behind the bikes were their mom and dad! Doug wore a white T-shirt and jeans, Connie a sleeveless, blue shirt and matching Bermuda shorts. They had clothes on and just plain old regular cigarettes between their fingers. And every step brought them closer to the spot where they would be able to see my parents sprawled out on the river rocks—naked, naked, naked with all their naked, naked friends. The bright summer sunshine streamed down like a spotlight, highlighting the sets of protruding breasts, the shocks of pubic hair, and—most disturbing to me—the dangling penises. They would see it all. There was no way they would just walk by. How could they with all the racket going on? Inside my head I was screaming, Shut up! Shut up! All of you shut up! But the splashing and cursing only seemed to grow louder. I began to pray: Please, Lord, don’t let the Bradfords see us. Please, oh please, don’t let the Bradfords see us ….

4.
LEMMINGS
    GOD MUST HAVE LISTENED TO RADIO DINNER BECAUSE he did me no favors that day.
    Becky and Jeremy saw them first. They stopped dead in their bicycle tracks, frozen, staring across the bank at the scene on the river rocks. I hid in the bushes, an instinctive but pointless reaction because, of course, my neighborhood friends knew that these were my parents. Doug and Connie came alongside their stunned children and followed their stares. Not knowing that anyone was on the road, my father, in a moment of terrible