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FOUR FAMILIAR TONGUE
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SHE IS BY BIRTH an American, and her family is one of the most distinguished of the tiny Californian town she lives her. Her ancestors had been for many years professors and doctors, and her father has filled the role of mayor with honour and reputation. He is respected by all who knew him for his integrity and indefatigable attention to public business, from the funds raised from the summer carnival to the way to improve the pink-painted hospital in town. He passed his younger days perpetually occupied by the affairs of his country; a variety of circumstances had prevented his marrying early, nor was it until the decline of life that he became a husband and the father of a family.
As the circumstances of her surname's reputation illustrate the reason for her character change, she cannot refrain from relating them. Susannah Mary Adams, the third and final child of Alfonse and Catherine Adams, is nothing like her family, with the exception of the light blonde hair. It's been a year since her wishes for something more than the cookie-cutter nuclear family led her towards her group of friends — her true family — and since then the difference between her and her relatives has gone from just thoughts to appearances.
Susannah doesn't wear any rouge on her lips. Maybe some mascara or eyeliner, but she sees no point in this. Over the summer she had an argument with her parents, and ended up spending a fortnight — this is what Holly calls "two weeks" — with the friends she made at the end of the last school year. Sophomore year. Holly calls this, "fifth year."
Her friends have this sick house a little while out from town, and the legend goes that the leader of their pack, the better Alphonse, got the house off of his mother, an old Hollywood starlet that had to escape from the hustle and bustle of "the industry." Sometimes he'd talk about his mom around the campfire, the makeshift one made next to the once-pool now-pond, ever since the chlorine stopped working and algae moved in. She doesn't know if he likes his mom.
They all detest the image that the sixties gives out — the bright colours, the excitement, the idea of something better being just beyond the corner. The only good thing that the sixties hacked up in it's vomit is The Beatles. (Holly likes their stuff a little, but her dad's obsessed. Like. In love. Infatuated. Obsessed.) But a minor hiccup in their group's life — thanks, Derek, what a dick — means that Susannah's back home with her dad the mayor and her mom the school principal. Back to the bright colours and the excitement and the idea of something better being just beyond the corner.
What's the point in optimism? Keep your head in the present. Only losers bored of their lives want to dream of the future, of making their millions or living at DisneyLand. She thinks that's why her family and her old friends were so drunk with optimism, because what else can they look forward to? A decent(—ish) job with a decent(—ish) salary with a decent(—ish) husband and decent(—ish) kids, called something like Vera, Chuck, or Dave.
