PURSUING THE VICTORY
I finally got fed up with my job and quit early in February after receiving my income tax refund check. Tina figured that meant I would go along with her Alaska plans and promptly made plane reservations for both of us for the first of March. She gave notice at work she'd be leaving, but I decided to look around for a different job.
There weren't many. Most of them were dead-end jobs no better than I'd had before. The one possible exception was a job I heard about from a friend — a position in the office of a local Buick dealership. I applied and set up an interview with the business manager, a Mrs. Felton, for that Friday.
When I awakened on Thursday, I felt the weight of uncertainty would smother me. There seemed to be a growing fear deep inside me. I had only one prospect left, and that was a long shot. I couldn't stay in California by myself. Nor could I go to Alaska with Tina. I was stuck with choosing the lesser of two evils.
No nearer a good solution after an eternity under the covers, I finally forced myself to get up. Pulling on my Central High cheerleader jacket, my most faded blue jeans, and a pair of sandals, I walked out of the apartment, climbed into my car, and began to drive. I had no idea where I was going. I just had to think.
My car and my mind wandered for over an hour, until I was ready to give up and go back to the apartment. And that's just about the time I noticed a roadside sign indicating a church ahead — of the denomination in which I grew up. I hadn't been to church in ages except for Christmas Eve, when I'd been so drunk I'd slept through the service.
There's no one else to talk to, I thought. I can't go to Uncle Tim and Aunt Martha; they'll just talk about responsibility, perseverance, and things like that. They won't understand the total picture, my loyalty to Tina or to my dream. While I debated with myself, I followed the arrow on the sign and pulled to a stop in the empty parking lot.
I sat in my car for a few minutes, reluctant to follow my crazy impulse. But something seemed to be drawing me into the building. I finally opened the car door, walked into the church office, and asked the secretary, "Is the pastor in today?"
A few minutes later I sat in a book-lined office, looking across a cluttered desk at a kind-looking, gray-haired stranger and wondering what in the world to say.
"My name is Becky Jacobs," I began. "I'm from Chicago, Illinois, but I've been living out here for about six months now. I haven't been to church very much in recent years, and I'm going through a very confusing time in my life."
The man nodded slightly. "What is it that's troubling you?"
I explained my basic problem — that Tina was going to Alaska and I hadn't been able to tell her I couldn't go. I explained that I'd quit my job and that California now looked as bleak as the North Pole. I told him about the interview scheduled for the next day and about the plane reservations we had in two weeks.
I poured out my confusion there in that quiet office, and I almost begged him to make some decisions for me.
When I finished, the minister sat for a few moments in silence. Then he kindly looked into my eyes and said, "Becky, if you go to that interview tomorrow, I believe God will speak through that woman."
The man's words stunned me. He's joking, right? What does he mean? How could God speak to me through a woman I'd never met before? My mind pictured a woman at a desk, her lips barely moving, with a deep megaphone voice booming out, "Becky Jacobs, don't go." I nearly grinned at the absurd image.
But as I said good-bye to the minister and thanked him for his time, my curiosity was beginning to work. I knew no matter what, I was going to that interview.
"We'd be glad to have you come and worship with us on Sunday," the minister said as he walked me to the door.
"I'll think about it," I told him. But I knew I wouldn't.
That same night, only a few days after I'd quit my job, one of the girls I'd worked with called and asked me to stop by for a good-bye party. Pam was my age and a real wild character. Her idea of a friendly going-away gesture was to have a few hits of LSD.
I had always steered clear of hard drugs. But she said it would be a great high, so I took what looked like a small piece of granular sugar candy, which Pam peeled off a strip of wax paper. Then we sat around her apartment waiting for the LSD to begin to work
The hallucinations came so quickly they scared me. When I looked at my hands, I didn't see any fingers. I tried to pick up the phone to call for help, but the receiver kept falling out of my hand as if there really were no fingers. It's just a bad trip, I told myself. But the terror didn't go away. Why can't I see my fingers?
Everyone else at her party must have had just as wild a trip as I did, because when the drug eventually wore off, the apartment was a mess. Someone had been violent enough to break up two of the chairs. I was glad my roommate hadn't seen me like that.
I vowed never to take another hit of LSD as long as I lived. The lack of control scared me more than anything I'd ever experienced before.
I can't go on living like this. I told myself when I woke up the next morning in Pam's apartment. And that realization was one more reason to go to my interview.
Five minutes in Mrs. Felton's office at Pride Buick wiped away weeks of indecision: I wanted the job. As Mrs. Felton looked over my resumé, I felt glad I'd decided to wear the conservative navy-colored suit my mother had sent me. I'd never had it on before — too stuffy-looking for my taste, but obviously not for Mrs. Felton.
She had a firm handshake. Perfect nails. Not a hair out of place. Everything about her, from her ramrod-straight posture to her expensively tailored suit, proclaimed her personality, even before you heard her precise, clipped speech. Here, I thought, is the most sophisticated, professional woman I've ever met. And despite her obvious, no-nonsense personality, I instantly concluded I wanted to work for this lady.
When she finished reviewing my application she commented on my surprising amount of experience for someone so young. Then she asked some questions about the details of my former jobs. I tried to answer in as mature and professional a voice as I could.
But I nearly lost my cool and and screamed in surprised delight when she concluded the interview by saying, "I'd like to offer you the job, Rebecca."
Everything began spinning in my mind at once. "Could you wait and let me start in two weeks?" I asked, explaining that I felt responsible for getting my roommate moved out of our apartment and to the airport since I owned the only car.
"Two weeks will be just fine."
My decision was made. All that remained was to break the news to Tina.
I didn't have any time to ease into the subject. The minute she got home after work that evening, Tina asked, "What happened at your interview today?"
I took a deep breath and answered. "I took the job. I start the second of March."
She didn't say a word, but I saw the "I-knew-it" look on her face and felt her silent anger.
"I'm sorry," I said, "but try to understand. I can't go to Alaska. I couldn't ask my parents to fly me home. I just can't go. And this job is too good to pass up."
"Sure, being a company switchboard operator is a great career!" Tina quipped sarcastically.
"Mrs. Felton told me the switchboard thing could be very temporary. The company is getting a whole new computer system when they move to their new location in four months. There's a chance that I'll be moved up then."
"You gotta do what you gotta do," Tina said. But the tone of her voice didn't convince me that she meant it. I could feel a wedge growing between us.
We never had an out-and-out fight about my decision. We didn't have to. Tina and I had always been able to tell what the other one was thinking. From the very start, that night we met in the military bar, there had been a closeness, an instant bond between us. And that closeness had grown stronger and stronger — until Alaska cropped up. Now I could feel the coldness widening between us.
I didn't even sense any appreciation for the fact that I'd arranged my schedule so I could help her move out and drive her to the airport. When departure day finally came, we shared a few nostalgic tears at the boarding gate, but the feelings had changed. The good-byes and good lucks could not cover the rift between us.
Driving back from the airport I realized that, in spite of the hurt I felt at Tina's anger and alienation, I couldn't help envying her big Alaska adventure. Maybe I should have gone. No, I was excited, too, because I was embarking on a new adventure all my own. I just knew I was going to find victory in my new job at Pride Buick.
I determined to change my image completely as I started my new job. I would wear a dress or skirt almost every day, and nylons, even though I hated them.
Aunt Martha and Uncle Tim acted very pleased at my decision to stay in California. I gave up my apartment and accepted their gracious offer of a place to stay until I found another roommate, but I began to wonder if Aunt Martha wasn't out to change my image! She expected me home in time for dinner every night after work, and curfew was eleven o'clock.
The rules would have grated on me if I hadn't been so excited about my job. Within the first few weeks Mrs. Felton began to increase my responsibilities and compliment me on my hard work. Only a month or so after I started, she cosigned papers so I could purchase a brand-new car from the dealership. She obviously liked and trusted me, and I vowed to keep that trust.
Not that I gave up my good times. I exchanged my pattern of daily binges and all-night bashes for the after-work cocktail hour at nearby bars. (By this time I had doctored my birth date on my California driver's license so I could pass for twenty-one instead of twenty).
I spent much of my drinking and party time with new friends from the dealership who were single and about my age. They talked a lot about love and sex, and what they said intrigued and confused me. I had always thought of love and sex as one and the same thing. Not so, according to my friends. And they seemed to know a lot more than I did on the subjects.
While I had kissed a lot of boys, and a number of them had probably gotten me drunk with the sole intention of lowering my defenses, the truth was that I had never gone all the way with a guy. As old-fashioned as it sounded, I somehow had managed to maintain my dream of saving myself for the one man who would be my forever true love. But as I listened to my experienced California friends talk about their sexual exploits, I began to think maybe I was foolishly naive. They really convinced me that everyone did it.
My new job not only gave a boost to my professional status and social life, but it also produced a blond California surfer — John, a mechanic who worked at the Buick dealership. For a week or so he stopped to say hi whenever he walked by my desk. Then one day he asked me out. We had a good time, and he asked me out again. Within a few short weeks we became a regular twosome.
Every evening we went to a bar or his place until it was time to get back to Aunt Martha's. We'd take coffee breaks together, and he even arranged his lunch hour to coincide with mine. We'd go to a nearby pizza place and split a pitcher of beer with our lunch. Since he had great connections for quality marijuana, we'd often share a joint in his car before we headed back to the office.
I figured as long as I was careful and Mrs. Felton didn't find out, my lunchtime highs wouldn't hurt anything. While I continued to be concerned about my image, John was worth the risk. He was a little on the shy side and so cute — everything I'd wanted in a guy. I could hardly believe my luck, but I couldn't shake the nagging fear that he might drop me in a minute if someone else came along.
I felt proud to introduce him as my boyfriend when we ran into my friend Pam one night in a Monterey bar. She seemed genuinely pleased to see me again, and we renewed a friendship that included barroom rendezvous once or twice a week.
I liked Pam's wild and unpredictable personality. She could drink almost as much as I could and always seemed to have a connection for a smorgasbord of drugs. And while I stuck to my vow to never again mess with LSD, I did try speed and liked the rush I got from it.
So my new image was pretty much a nine-to-five facade. My private life was far from the conservative, professional picture I tried to paint for Mrs. Felton, or for my aunt and uncle. Not one of them ever gave any indication that they suspected the truth.
Until the night I almost blew everything.
I had stopped at a friend's after work and drunk some wine. Then I remembered I'd promised to meet Pam at Tia Maria's, a bar down on Monterey's Fishermen's Wharf. But on the drive across town, I began to feel so nauseous that I decided to head back to Aunt Martha's and go to bed. So I took the shortcut home.
I'd had enough to drink so that everything looked a little blurry, but I was having no serious trouble driving until everything went black. My car crossed the boulevard into the oncoming lane and smashed head-on into a parked vehicle on the far side of the street.
When the sirens awakened me, I didn't know where I was or what had happened. People were screaming. Blood covered the front of my jacket. Paramedics pulled me out of my car, lifted me onto a stretcher, and loaded me into an ambulance for a fast trip to the hospital.
I was lucky. Though my new car was a wreck, I received only a few minor bruises and a severely cut lip.
I was just as lucky on another score: The police who were following the ambulance to the hospital to get my statement received another emergency call. So by the time the doctor in the emergency room came to release me and send me home, the police hadn't arrived.
I didn't want to call my aunt and uncle and have them learn I'd been driving and drinking and had a wreck. So I called a friend from work — an older woman named Rose — who picked me up within minutes and drove me to her house. When the police finally located me to fill out their report, so much time had passed that there was no point in a breathalyzer test. All they could do was cite me for reckless driving — a charge that carried a five-dollar fine.
When the police walked out the door, a flood of relief washed over me. What followed immediately was a tidal wave of embarrassment — and guilt. What will I tell my aunt and uncle? Worse yet, what am I going to say to Mrs. Felton? She's been so good to me. She worked it out so I could buy my car with no credit rating.
I simply lied to my aunt. I told her I had been in an accident, that it had been the other person's fault, and that I was going to stay at my friend's for the night. I ended up staying there for two weeks and never actually living with Aunt Martha and Uncle Tim again. I'd been embarrassed by my wreck, and I didn't ever want them to find out.
Mrs. Felton was a different story. I had to call her the next morning to say I'd been in an accident and wouldn't be coming into work that day. Incredibly, she never asked for any details. She just told me she was happy I was going to be okay and to take care of myself until I could return. No lectures. No interrogation. Yet she must have suspected something.
Rose suggested that maybe I needed to cut down on my drinking, and I had to admit it might be a good idea. Determined never to let anything like this happen again, I decided I'd have to rebuild any trust I'd lost with Mrs. Felton by working even harder on the job and cleaning up my life outside the office. The first part was easy. The second proved more difficult.
For a week I didn't touch a drop of alcohol. But when my cuts and bruises healed and I went back to work, I began drinking again and was soon consuming as much or more than before.
I got my car fixed at the dealership with my insurance claim money. The mechanics recommended I sell it, so I did. I paid off the remainder of my loan and took out another loan to buy a small used car.
I stayed with Rose for a while, paying only nominal rent but trying to reciprocate by doing all the housekeeping and a lot of the cooking for her. Finally, Rose and I worked out a more permanent arrangement. She enjoyed having a roommate and I couldn't afford to live alone. Rose wasn't the kind of person I had looked for as a roommate. She was as close to mom's age as she was to mine. But I think I saw the quiet stability of her lifestyle as an anchor that could keep my own life under control. I wanted to begin a new chapter in my life.
And by the time I'd been working at Pride Buick for six months, Mrs. Felton asked me if I'd be interested in taking some management training classes. She told me she thought I had the potential to take over her job as business manager in three or four years if I was willing to work for it.
The promise of success never seemed brighter. I could almost see the victory that I'd been searching for for so long.