{"id":4761,"date":"2016-11-18T13:25:29","date_gmt":"2016-11-18T20:25:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/annleemiller.com\/?p=4761"},"modified":"2016-11-18T13:30:06","modified_gmt":"2016-11-18T20:30:06","slug":"village-vamp-muddied-soul-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/annleemiller.com\/2016\/11\/village-vamp-muddied-soul-2\/","title":{"rendered":"A Village, a Vamp, and a Muddied Soul"},"content":{"rendered":"
\u00a9 David Coleman | Dreamstime Stock Photos<\/p><\/div>\n
I pedaled faster, away from my stepfather\u2019s El Patio Restaurant, darting a glance over my shoulder. My fingers clenched the money pouch with three hundred and six dollars against the handle bar.<\/p>\n
Two p.m. sun cooked my scalp and shoulders.<\/p>\n
I pumped harder, my progress bogged down by the thick humid air that blanketed Stuart, Florida. I slowed as I navigated the roundabout onto Ocean Boulevard. The weight of the bills and change and responsibility nearly veered me off the curb.<\/p>\n
How many fourteen-year-olds waitressed breakfast and lunch, counted money, filled out the deposit slip, mopped, locked up, and delivered the profit to the bank? None, probably. But Mom and Ralph went out of town for their anniversary, and here I was.<\/p>\n
I shoved the bag into the bank night drop and exhaled a gust of relief.<\/p>\n
Dad had monitored my every move, but when we left him in Miami Mom turned me loose, believing I had great judgment.<\/p>\n
My \u201cgreat\u201d judgment had muddied my Catholic soul. I threw away a kiss on a boy whose wavy, white-blond hair entranced me for thirty seconds. I ditched Dad as deliberately as Mom had, and I did it all over again\u2014every time I saw him. I snuck into R-rated Clockwork Orange<\/em>. I shuddered and my bike slipped off the sidewalk into the sandy gravel beside Ocean Boulevard. Violence and the face of the unredeemed sociopath flashed through my mind. If I could cleanse my memory with bleach and a scrub brush, I would.<\/p>\n
Mired in the sand and gravel, my wheels bogged to a stop. I straddled the bike, hiked it back onto the sidewalk, and pumped toward our empty house.<\/p>\n
My version of Hilary Clinton\u2019s village-needed-to-raise-a-child had been left in Miami after my parents\u2019 divorce\u2014stay-at-home dad, almost-a-nun maternal grandma, St. Hugh\u2019s Catholic School, and a cadre of communal dock parents on Pier 1.<\/p>\n
In Stuart, Mom acclimated to a new husband. She worked full-time at Martin Memorial Hospital. She raised eight-year-old R.J.<\/p>\n
I ran a little wild.<\/p>\n
I never saw myself as \u201cat risk.\u201d But maybe I was.<\/p>\n