Alex and Norma are teenager together in Whit Pine Bay. Will they still find each other 'before all the bad things happened?'

First of all... I have to explain that I knowingly fudged EVERYONE's ages. I'm setting this in 1993 and so on because I remember it better and can draw from that memory better than if I set it in 1990.

Also, it's 1993. Not many people had home computers or CD player, DVD players or streaming anything. It was a lot different. I'm drawing a lot of this story on my own experiences as well as the life Norma would have lived.

Also, I changed her mother's name to Fanny instead of Francine. I thought about calling her Frannie but didn't like it.

Hope you enjoy this. I'll return to TSCB soon. This is just a break and it's fun.

Before all the Bad Things Happened

1.

~ 1993 ~

~ "Now come on." Fanny said brightly. "You have to admit this is beautiful, Norma."

She glanced hopefully at her daughter with a bright and cheerful smile. The smile she wasn't used to showing. The smile that had been forgotten for so long.

Norma Calhoun glanced at the view. The trees and arctic beaches looked impressive. Like something she'd seen in books about maidens waiting for a lost love to come back from a sea voyage.

"Yes. It's beautiful." she said sullenly. "I'm so glad you forced me to move here. In the middle of the night."

"Don't be like that." Fanny said quickly. Unbothered by her moody, sixteen year old daughter. "This is going to be a fresh start for us. Everything's going to be good, Norma. You'll see."

"We've never lived this far north." Norma said and slunk lower in the passenger seat. It felt odd to have spent so much time with her mother alone in the car like this. They had driven five days strait from Florida to Oregon. It wasn't enough that they drove out to California with the sunny beaches, but then they went north. Away from the sunshine, away from the warmth and bright shiny people.

"Why couldn't we just stay in San Fransisco?" Norma asked petulantly. "Everyone seemed so nice."

"They're nice to people who have money." Fanny said bitterly. Her face suddenly becoming gray and washed out of color. Then, as if a cloud had lifted, she was smiling and happy again.

Norma was used to these moods. These erratic episodes of depression where her mother would stay in bed all day and rarely move. These were followed up by the enviable wild rushes of energy that were like a hurricane. These moods uprooted everything and set the whole family on edge, not knowing what to expect from her.

Norma's mother had finally done it. For real this time and not just talk when she'd been drinking. She'd finally left her husband and taken Norma off in the dead of night. Ray Calhoun had left for a job in an oil field and Fanny had crept into Norma's room hissing at her to pack a bag and be quick about it.

At first, Norma wasn't sure if they had been evicted or not and wished for the hundredth time her brother Caleb was still there. That Caleb was there to take control. To rain their mother's wild moods into check and calm her down by being funny and charming. Norma didn't shine for her mother like Caleb did. It was almost like they didn't care for each other and were forced to be together. As if Ray and Fanny Calhoun had taken the wrong baby home from the hospital sixteen years ago and Norma was meant to be raised by decent people.

Still, she didn't argue about leaving the old, dilapidated trailer with it's leaky roof and a seldom working toilet. She was always ready to pack up a leave. The family as a whole had a system for their erratic, gypsy like migrations. They had good boxes for dishes and the small but essential record collection and stereo. They had only a few clothes which were worn till they were broken down and next to useless. The essential clothes they had to pack. Norma herself learned to pack light. One box had to contain the childhood memories she couldn't bare to throw away, the portable tape deck Caleb had given her last year on her birthday and the dozen or so mixed tapes they had recorded off the radio.

They had quickly piled everything into the old Chevy and left the trailer they had called home completely trashed. As usual.

Norma hated leaving a place like that. Garbage not taken out. Broken down furniture left for their landlord to deal with. Her mother was an inefficient housekeeper even when she was in a good mood and Norma had grown weary of trying to clean up after her and the rest of the family. Housework was endless and thankless. There was no point to it when no one appreciated it.

She'd asked about her dad. Did he know where they were going? Did Caleb? He was still in the Army and how would he find them?

Fanny had laughed manically.

"Baby girl, WE don't even know where we're going." she had said happily.

So, they drove all night. Slept in the car and only stopped for bathroom breaks and to buy gas. It was uncomfortable and frightening but when Norma saw the Pacific ocean for the first time, it felt like a dream.

"You know, Norma Louise." Her mother had said sounding calmer now that they were thousands of miles away from anyone and anything familiar. "We can start over here. We can be whole new people here."

Norma doubted it. She doubted everything her parents had ever promised her and Caleb. They forever promised to get them a real place to live. One where packs of wild dogs didn't terrorize the trailer park and she wasn't too embarrassed to have friends over. They promised that everything would be good before and she'd believed it for a long time. Then Caleb left for the Army two years ago and things seemed to fall apart even quicker. Norma hadn't realized it, but her older brother had done a lot to ensure things went well in the house. He worked an after school job so he and Norma could buy groceries when their mother couldn't get out of bed. He diverted their parents wild tempers so that Norma wouldn't be in their way.

When he'd left, he told her that he just couldn't take it anymore. Their father's abuse and he needed a way out. He'd just graduated and there was no reason to stay. He promised he'd come back for her but he didn't. He sent postcards with barely legible writing from Japan and Germany. Never eluding to when he'd come back and take her with him.

Now, it was just Norma and her mother. Alone on this road trip that seemed to have no end.

"This place will be expensive to, MOTHER." Norma said emphasizing the 'mother' she was now calling Fanny . She'd started calling Fanny 'mother' after Caleb left and she felt all alone in the world. Abandoned, forgotten, unloved.

"Well, every place is expensive, Norma Louise." Fanny said in a bizarre voice that made Norma think of Snow White from the old Disney cartoon. Something false and slightly terrifying. At least the wicked queen was real and didn't bull shit around. The wicked queen didn't care if other people liked her and somehow, that set her free. Norma wished she could be like that. Not caring if people thought she was nice or not.

"White Pine Bay." Norma said soberly looking at a faded wooden sign that needed painting.

"Must have gotten off the highway." Fanny said showing slight fatigue.

"Can we please get a motel, Mother?" Norma said bitterly. "I haven't showered in a week."

"You washed up at the Walmart and at those gas stations.

"Whores baths." Norma told her dully. "That last place was crawling with lot lizards and I hated the way those truckers looked at me."

She shivered at the thought of those fat, ugly men looking her over at the truck stop. As if all they had to do was give her a ten dollar bill and they could paw her and hurt her all they liked.

"What are lot lizards?" Fanny asked innocently. "Oregon doesn't have lizards. It's too cold."

"Hookers, Mother. Those old ugly women who were walking all over the truck stop? How could you not notice?" Norma said.

"Oh." Fanny said not losing her brightness.

"Mother, please tell me we're going to stop soon." Norma said with a weary sigh. "It's been a week now."

"Look at this place." Fanny said. Her voice changing the conversation and ignoring Norma's plea.

The car had turned out into a charming little town. A place untouched by time with clean store fronts and brightly painted exteriors.

"It's like something from a movie." Norma admitted.

An old movie where everything was picture perfect. Where all the towns people knew their lines and their marks. They strolled down sidewalks and went into cute shops. There was even a town square with some historic shipyard anchor in the center.

"We could live here." Fanny said calmly.

"With what money?" Norma demanded sharply. She knew they had nothing. Fanny tried to pretend that she'd somehow squirreled away a fortune so as not to look bad in her children's eyes, but Norma and Caleb had always known.

"Open the glove box." Fanny said and nodded.

Norma opened the glove box and found a bank bag.

"What the hell is that?" she demanded and refused to touch it.

"The four thousand dollars Ray made from selling." Fanny said proudly.

Norma didn't ask what he sold. The less he knew about her father's various job's the better.

"Dad's going to come looking for this money, Mom." Norma said in a conspiratorial whisper. Her stomach turning with the thought of what might happen when he came for them. "This is a lot of money. He owes people."

"Well, he doesn't know where we are, Miss Smarty Pants." Fanny said brightly. Her radiant and slightly manic smile back on her face. "Four thousand is more than enough to give us a fresh start and I say it's payment for all that man has put me through."

Norma saw the police car and her instincts took over. She eased down in her seat and spied on the local cops here. They weren't like the police at her trailer park. Always looking angry and ready to fight. These men looked friendly and almost casual. They had their sleeves rolled up and were talking with what looked like fishermen. They were smiling and didn't seem to notice or care about the two women rolling through town who didn't belong there. Who's very presence went against their picture perfect image.

"We could have used that money to get a motel, MOTHER." Norma said in annoyance.

"We don't want to waste it." Fanny said. "We have to make this last. "We've got college to think about."

Norma glared at her mother in silent furry. Last year, Norma had scored well on some test for college aptitude and Fanny had latch onto the insane idea that she was bound for a degree. Such places were naturally closed off for people like them. A university was a far off, magical world that she didn't understand the rules to. A place that only existed in movies. Where well groomed, well spoken, well loved girls went to study and meet their future husbands. It was a place far beyond Norma Calhoun's reach.

"Where are we gonna live?" Norma asked feeling all the energy bleed out of her at last. All this had been a fairy tale her mother had invented. One of her manic episodes that would lead to nothing. There was no pot of gold at the end of this rainbow. Her mother would promise the world and nothing would come of it. She wouldn't even apologize when things fell apart because she wasn't willing to work for it or had just lost interest.

"I mean," Norma said sadly. "You'll have to get a job. We'll have to find a place to live."

She doubted this White Pine Bay would have a trailer park handy. They didn't seem the type.

"It'll be okay." Fanny said with an easy smile. It felt like a real smile this time. "You'll see. As long as we're together, nothing bad can ever happen."