This is me being on a roll, feel happy -- or something.


"Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh. My. God!", Kathy's sudden appearance next to me behind the school where I usually hid when I wanted to be alone -- she had found out about this spot early on in our friendship though, so it wasn't much of a hiding place anymore -- made me jump, and I cursed out loud while I started picking up the papers for my math test I had been going through.

"What?!", I snapped, startling Kathy just as much as she had startled me, and she looked offended, "God, sorry - but you scared the shit out of me, Kathy."

"Oh, boo fucking hoo", She rolled her eyes but then cracked a smile, "You will never guess what I just found out about!"

I furrowed my brows, "What?"

"Tony, Stacy and Jay are going to be on the cover of, wait for it...", She paused and I wanted to hit her just so she'd tell me, "Skateboarder Magazine!"

For a moment I just stared at her, my mouth gaping in surprise. Of course I had known the Z-Boys were getting popular, heck, they were even starting to get famous - but the cover of Skateboarder Magazine? That -- that I had never imagined could happen.

"Oh my god, are you serious?!", I immediately dropped my papers onto ground, and got off the tipped metal trashcan I was sitting on, "That's amazing!"

"I know, it's like... God, I don't even know what to do!", I had never seen Kathy this happy before, and it was contagious.

Soon we were dancing around, holding hands and spinning in circles while we chanted 'Skateboarder Magazine' over and over again. At that moment, neither of us knew what was going to follow, hell, we were only kids. If you grow up and live in Dogtown, sure enough you'd grow up tough enough to withstand most things - but at that moment, both of us were naïve enough that when the disaster came, we couldn't have been more unprepared in our life.


A few weeks passed, and everyone was boiling with excitement for the upcoming Skateboarder Magazine cover. It was like everyone was in a bubble of happiness, nothing being able to burst it. Jay had never been in a better mood before, at least during the time I had lived in Venice. And he had his birthday coming up as well, so I understood him.

"Hey, has either of you seen the pink icing?", All of us girls were cooped up inside Blanca's kitchen, all of us meaning me, Kathy, Blanca and Thunder Monkey, who I had recently discovered was Blanca's cousin.

I threw Blanca the tube of pink icing from where I was sitting on probably the only spot in the kitchen not covered by anything pastry related. The kitchen was a mess, no really, it was a disaster. There was cake pans, measuring cups and flour strewn all over the place, and Blanca's little brother's running in and out of it trying to steal some cake and icing all the time. On the counter was a sheet cake with a wobbly and homemade version of a Skateboarder Magazine cover - the Z-Boys cover to be exact.

Blanca's grandmother was dancing and singing along to the Sonny and Cher song on the small TV, and we'd sporadically join in during the chorus of songs, dancing around the crowded kitchen.

"Sid's house is bigger than the Playboy Mansion, but he's not snotty", I heard Kathy say to Thunder Monkey while she shamelessly nudged her with her elbow before turning to me and Blanca, "Right?"

We burst out in a fit of giggles while Blanca tried to concentrate on squirting out some of the pink icing on the cake. We had all seen Sid's house in the Valley, and the other boys always tried to convince him to talk his dad into letting them drain the pool so they could skate it. Sid's dad would have nothing of that "crap" though, he despised that Sid hung out with us. It wasn't much of a surprise though, because Sid was rich, I mean, he was really rich. He was our complete social opposite.

"Okay, it's done!", Blanca exclaimed as she dispensed the last click of icing onto the cake, screwing on the cork again and we all surrounded the cake, applauding Blanca for her work.

That's when Blanca's grandmother entered the room again after a moment of having left, carrying a Polaroid camera in her hands and told us in Spanish to pose for a photograph. Of course I still didn't understand anything of the foreign language, but it wasn't hard to understand what I needed to do.

"¡Sonrían!", She called out, "Smile!", and I didn't even have to force a smile for once.

We stood in the kitchen posing with curlers in our hair, and slips covered with icing and flour. But fuck it, we were happy.

"Quick, go get ready", She then ushered us out of the kitchen, "Quiero un fotografía cuándo usted está todo vestido arriba también!"

Hurrying into Blanca's bedroom without any hesitation we pulled off the slips and brushed off any flour that had gotten on our skin. Apparently we were going for a Chicana style, which I had no idea what it meant even though Kathy tried explaining it to me. All I got was that I had to wear feathers in my hair and a ridiculous halter top in white faux leather that barely went down to my bellybutton.

Blanca's grandmother took one more photograph of us together after we had finished getting dressed. We had teased our hair after removing the curlers, and I had forced down several bright colored feathers inside a headband I had pulled down to my forehead. Our lips were painted red, and while in the car Thunder Monkey drove -- she was eighteen -- we shared a bottle of cheap Tequila.

"Half-breeeeeeeed!" I screamed along to the Cher song while leaning out the car window as we passed people on the sidewalk, I was already starting to get drunk from the Tequila.


The party celebrating the cover was being held in the Zephyr shop - where else? People were bolting in and out of the place, music loud and before we even entered, I could see Skip handing out copies of the magazine.

"They couldn't buy publicity like this!", I heard him scream, and I smiled.

Kathy carried the cake as we entered to a cheer from everyone, and we shook our hips to the music while singing along to it. I had tied a hip scarf over my jeans shorts, not much different from the type bellydancers wear, and the coins made lovely sounds while I moved. My eyes searched the place for Jay, but instead I saw Tony getting a bit too close to some Valley girl. Blanca apparently saw this too, because, before me and Kathy had a chance to react, she had yanked the cake out of Kathy's hands and was heading to the back patio, furious.

"Oh, Tony..", I mumbled and shook my head, even when everyone was happy, the drama seemed to pile up.

Kathy had disappeared after Blanca, so I took my opportunity to grab Thunder Monkey and go looking for Sid. He was in the locker room with a skater I didn't recognize, and was startled when we appeared, burning himself on the joint he was holding between his index finger and thumb.

"Ow!", He called out, but quickly tried to regain his posture, "looking cool".

Unfortunately, Sid was anything but cool. He was constantly nervous, a bit twitchy and didn't quite fit in with the rest of us.

"Have fun", I mumbled to Thunder Monkey with a smile, before dodging out, and pulling the blonde skater with me, leaving them alone in there.

I headed out to the back patio to get some cake, just in time to see Jay and Kathy intertwined in a conversation that immediately turned sour when Stacy appeared, completely freezing when he saw what was going on. I felt like someone had just stabbed a knife through my heart, and clenched my fists to not start crying. I hated this, I fucking hated having to do this.

Jay soon headed one way, and Stacy the other while Kathy was left standing there, a guilty look in her eyes.

"You know, you can't play with them both", I told her silently as I snuck up next to her, placing a piece of cake on a paper napkin, "It's not fair to either of them, Kathy."

What I wanted to say of course, was that I wanted her to stay the fuck away from Jay, but I couldn't, for obvious reasons.

"Whatever", She muttered with an emotionless tone in her voice before pushing past me and heading back to the party.

I stared down at the cut up cake and sighed -- the bubble had burst.

When I heard people chanting and screaming "girl fight", "psycho chick", and other bad words moments later, I immediately knew what had happened. I dropped my piece of cake back onto the surfboard where it had been placed, and nearly sprinted back into the shop.

"I worked two weeks at Market Basket, just to pay for this skirt! My brother's gonna scratch that neck, puta!", I got in there just in time as I saw Blanca launch herself at Gabrielle, a Valley girl without much clothing articles on.

Tony was just standing there looking completely mesmerized by what was happening.

"Get her off me!", Gabrielle screamed, and sure enough, soon Shogo and Peggy were pulling a cursing and kicking Blanca off her, "That girl is fucking crazy!"

Both me and Kathy glared at her and Tony, and we hurried Blanca outside to comfort her. It was over between her and Tony now, it was that clear.

"Yo odio le!", She cried out repeatedly between sobs as Kathy wrapped her in a hug, rocking her like you would do with a child, "I hate him! I fucking hate him, and his stupid whore!"

"We should get her home", I heard myself utter through my Tequila daze, and I went to get the keys to Thunder Monkey's car from her.

She was busy making out with Sid, and when I cleared my throat to alert them of my presence, Sid lost his balance and fell off the couch they were sitting on, making both me and Thunder Monkey burst into laughter.

"I need the keys to your car", I told her, completely ignoring Sid who looked completely terrified that I had walked in on them, "Blanca saw Tony and Gabrielle kind of.. something, and well, you can figure out the rest yourself."

Thunder Monkey made an 'O'-shape with her mouth, and handed me the keys while asking me if Blanca was okay.

"She will be", I shrugged before winking at Sid, "Carry on!"

Kathy was waiting with Blanca by the car, and I got in the driver's seat. I had only driven a few times before, I only knew the basics of shifting gear, and so on. Therefor it took ten times longer to get back to Blanca's house than it had taken to get from there to the party earlier.

"I can take it from here", Kathy told me awkwardly when I finally managed to park somewhat close to the sidewalk outside of Blanca's house.

We hadn't mentioned the incident from earlier since it had actually happened. I nodded awkwardly, and waited for Kathy and Blanca to get to the frontdoor before I started up the engine again. It took me just as long to get back to the party, but this time it was worse, because I had to drive in silence the whole way there. It left me time to think.