How Julie Met Her Best Friend

There are some fates worse than death. My life was proof of that. But I enjoy turning the knife on these idiots. For years I have been the weird one, and now I am avoided except by the brave or the brain-dead. Come to think of it, there aren’t any brave people in this part of the world.

“Hey Zack, yer sister still hiding? She got a boyfriend now?”

That was me. The morons speaking were friends of my brother Zack. Everyone in town loved my idiot brother. The easiest thing in the village was to get a boyfriend. Even my sibling, fat and stupid, had a girlfriend. Eventually they would get married. There was nothing else to do.

Vassalboro, our small Maine ‘town’, had a school with only 400 students, and it went from kindergarten to 12th grade. I was in my tenth year at that place. Vassalboro was a tiny village with no dentists, or lawyers and you had to drive 50 miles to see a physician. Heck, some of the people in town had no indoor plumbing or central heat. They were ugly for sure, as cavities were common, but tough enough for the unheated cold in their uninsulated houses in the harsh winter months. Now a thrift shop would have a hard time surviving on donations here. Did I mention it is almost always permanently overcast by October? Then the real cold sets in, right before the snow.

“Cold enough for ya?” That was the janitor at the school being sociable.

“For me, yeah, but assholes are the last things to get cold. So leave me alone, ya moron.” That usually keeps him from talking to me for a week or two. Small comfort, but I take it when I can get it.

I told you, I don’t do “sociable”.

So there I was, stuck in the land of the New England Rednecks and their many cans of beer. I clearly did not belong here. Most kids arrived at the school in a pickup truck if they weren't walking a few miles. The official dress was the coverall and even those were hand me downs. Mine was something, anything black and Doc Martens.

One day, Steve Wilkinson tried to puff himself up by asking why I wore black dresses no matter the weather. I said, “Well gosh. Why do ya dress like an overfed really dirty sort of handyman?”

“Now that’s just rude,” he said, staring at the ground. “Ya know my dad’s a handyman.”

I knew that. And he knew I don’t do “sociable”.

Worst for someone like me was that most of the people in the village liked it here. For a long time there were those who didn’t but they left after graduation. They’d say they were going to Boston or L.A. or even New York City. But over time there were less and less of those people and I guess I’m the last.

My well-adjusted parents were always glued to the tube. They worked together at carpentry, charged less than most and were known to do good work. What did it cost to live in our town? Not much, but no one had much, so that’s why everyone wanted them.

“Want a beer with us, honey?”

That was the closest they came to affection for me. My brother would say, “Hell yeah!” Together they would watch the Maine Black Bears lose. The ‘family’ liked that. I went to my room. Always. I never ever talked to them.

Sometimes they had to drive a long way for a job. But they didn’t mind. Once when I was younger, I traveled the 100 miles to Rockwood with my parents while they worked. They always left me in the center of town, ‘for a few hours’, which could be the rest of the day, and I would meet them at the library unless it was already closed when they finished at which time I would seek out the closest open fast food.

It was clear even as a child I had no interest, and was no good at carpentry. Hour after hour would pass. It didn’t take long to run out of magazines to read. Out of mild interest and boredom I finally asked the librarian in Rockwood “Hey, how old is Vassalboro?”

Her normally grim face lit up. She did not smile, but her eyes looked - odd - behind bright red horn-rimmed glasses . “Ya want to know?”

“Yeah.” Probably I was the only one who had ever asked. No one came in there except on a school assignment. Then genealogy was not popular in tiny towns along with any other intellectual pursuit.

“Ok. Maybe we got somethin’ for you here.” She went off to the collections and reference books and left me leafing through magazines again.

She was excited I guess. Anyway she took a while and after she looked in a few very old books, told me a summary of all she could find. That was fine with me.

“OK now listen a bit. Your town was named for William Vassal who settled it 260 years ago. He made his money in Barbados from slaves working his plantation. Anyway he was on the wrong side of the Revolution and ran off to England. They called it Green Valley, and they were all farmers back then which was not a good idea.”

Well I could have told her that, even back then, young as I was. But I liked the way the lady lit up when she told the story.

She went on, “I guess they knew about that from being raised in England, ya know. But after a while they found farming made a stark living. I mean they were tryin’ to farm this rocky soil and to tell you the truth, after the first few years most people left. But a very few people stayed. Maybe it was those that liked to hunt, or had some skills to make a living. But it was not good for farming.” She closed the book. “That’s about all there is to say.”

I thanked her and went out to get a burger - which believe it or not, they did not have in Vassalboro. While I was scarfing it down I started really wondering a bit. I went back to the librarian and asked her, “Did anyone come back to the town tryin’ to make anything of it? And wait, why’d the town change its name to Vassalboro?”

She looked a bit more in a different set of cabinets and after a long search found a microfiche copy of county records. “Well this is a bit different. It says your whole town was sold to some fella’ by the name of Oliver Johnson. I guess they must have been rich. But that was like 100 years in the past. The title also says they had some land out of town and built a home.”

“Can I see it?”

“Not anymore. I bet if it exists now it’s probably in ruins.”

“Ok . But why would a rich family come to our town?”

She shook her head. “I found some articles too. Seems Johnson got the idea in his head to make it a tourist town. He thought he could build hunting lodges of logs on the cheap with the local wood and stone. They would look like they were living rustic, but he knew how to make them for rich people. He wanted them comfortable, even luxurious on the inside.”

“Well he had a good idea.” I said. “We got plenty of trees and rocks. What happened?”

“Of course it doesn’t say straight out. But there are a lot more nice looking places to hunt, even up here. I mean if you’re not near the coast or a mountain why make the trip to some place that wasn’t either? But that’s just a guess.”

“So he gave up?”

“Seems like it’.”

Yup I thought. Even they got sick of the place and left. I thanked the librarian, who nodded and went back to her work. I never knew her name, and she never offered it.

I really liked her.

After a few hours my parents came for me, all sweaty and stinking. They bought me some french fries and then as always, stopped for a twelve-pack.

It’s been five years since I learned that my town had never changed. My redneck parents would’ve made our ancestors proud. They still drank beer, hunted and worked together on their carpentry as did their great grandparents. They were round pegs in a round hole.

They told me that they had seen the rest of Maine and if the world was like that, they preferred to stay right where we were, hunting on the weekends and getting drunk with neighbors they had known since they were kids.

In other words, I was born to congenital idiots.

Oh, did I mention my brother is as fat and stupid as you could ask? But he is the apple of their eye. Zack and his friends like to drive around on weekends and throw beer bottles from a car. They also make cat calls watching girls who would never go out with them. Disgusting - fucking disgusting.

I knew my parents didn't like me a lot either. I am pretty sure his friends hated me too.Which brings us back.

“Hey weirdo.” That’s what they called me for as long as I could remember - I guess I was different even as a little girl.

But as I grew older I learned to fight back. “Thanks for noticing. Ya want to fuck me?” I said this in a very loud voice. The boy would always turn red. I liked that. I could get the multitude of townie dicks to shrivel every time.

I was 15 and had to put up with at least two or three more years of this? I reconciled myself to the fact that until I leave I would never talk to anyone and would have no life or friends. Until then I was living, just waiting for the day when I could leave forever.

My teachers, deep down inside, knew it. So did my parents. Everyone who found themselves stuck here gave up on me long ago. The guidance teacher, Mrs. Bailey, was the one commanded to talk to me. She did her best.

“Try being nicer and maybe you'll find you're surrounded by friends.”

I said, “Fuck you - I do not want friends in this piece of crap of a school.” I think that was possibly the best thing I could say because after that she left me alone and I was never called into the office to ‘talk’ again.

Then Helena entered our lives.

She showed up in our school looking like no one ever in our town. This was a major deal to everyone else who had not yet realized that nothing happened in our town. Truth was, she was pretty unusual for our town. I mean no one ever settled there unless they married some townie from the next village over, which was pretty much the same as here. But Helena started that fall as a transfer student and she seemed to come from out of nowhere. She was nice to everyone too.

Unfortunately.

A chauffeur in a long black car from the 40s, like in a movie about the Mafia, came to pick her up after school and left her off in the morning. Though everyone in our village was excited - I couldn’t care less about her. She was just another student who would be the subject of gossip for a while.

But I had to admit, I liked that car a lot.

“Her clothes must’ve come from Portland, ‘cause they look really high class.” That was Charlotte Whats-her-name who was another idiot who thought that having seen Portland, she had seen everything the world had to offer. But she was right that her clothes had to come from somewhere else. Our town had only bargain and thrift stores.

Her friend Evelyn, some-other-whats-her-name said, “Well, she wears those fancy bracelets and rings of diamonds which might even be real, and we know they certainly aren’t from this town. Her earrings look like real gold.”

“Must be some custody arrangement that landed her in this town.” After a while that became the general opinion.

I was not intrigued and not surprised. My only thought was, if she has so much stuff and if it were me, I would have sold them to get a bus ticket out of this town long ago. I never thought a second more about her.

Of course from that first day everyone in the high school wanted to sit with her. She was beautiful. In our town that wasn’t hard: she had all her teeth and they were very white.

Hell even some of the creepier teachers eyed her longer than they should.

But Helena passed by the few tables of girls our age who loved her clothes, and boys who looked at her with big lustful eyes. All of them would have been glad to have her sit down. She was fast on her way to achieve what I considered the undistinguished honor of becoming one of the most popular girls in the school.

I always ate by myself. The last thing I wanted was to hear pointless goddamn banter or put up with gossip. Remember - I don’t do ‘sociable’.

But to my surprise and great annoyance, Helena walked straight to me, and asked very politely if she could join me. I was confused as I was sure by now she had heard I was a pariah. I was genuinely offended as I had worked hard to achieve this. She was not helping. Anyway I really had nothing to say to her and as I said, did not want the attention. So my first reaction was to pretend I didn’t hear her. She sat down anyway and started talking.

“Hi,” she said. I made no response. However she didn’t seem bothered at all. She just continued in her chipper way. “That English teacher is really boring, isn’t he?”

I tried my best to make sure she would never talk to me again, but what could I do? I responded in an abrupt way, “Yeah, they all are.” Then I was silent.

But it didn’t work. “You like this school?” she continued. It was like nothing could put her off.

Maybe being polite was her stock in trade. I didn't understand, I didn't care: I was annoyed. Being alone at noon didn’t bother me. She did.

“ No, I do not. Why are you talking to me, anyway?”

“Why not? You have smallpox?”

“No.” That surprised me, and I almost cracked a smile, but I was determined that she wouldn't break the ice. I slammed my hand on the table and said. “Okay, ya want to make small talk? Al-righty then! Where ya from?”

She just kept that dumb frozen smile on her face. “Well I guess I’m from all over.”

“Is your dad in real estate or something? You look rich and only a real idiot would have a lot of money and choose to live here and go to this school. Don’t your parents want to send you to a boarding school? They must both have shit for brains. Maybe they think they can sell summer homes to rich friends. Good luck on that in this shitty town.”

I could feel all eyes in the cafeteria on the two of us, and that was pissing me off even more.

She remained calm and almost cheerful, “My situation is something like that.”

I was really frustrated. I had never encountered someone like her. “Well let me save you some time. This place makes the rest of the world seem great.”

For a moment I thought I had prevailed and there was silence. I mean how could she ignore my insults? But after a few minutes she went on. “What do you do at home?” she asked in her chatty and cheerful tone. Was she retarded?

“Oh my god! I stay in my room and play video games. By myself. Key words: By. My. Self,” I said in a very loud voice.

“Do you like to walk in the woods?”

I gave up. All I could do was open the sack from home to bite into my peanut butter and jelly sandwich. “Wouldn’t know,” I told her. That much was the truth. In the winter my sport was to try to stay warm by bundling up like an Eskimo. I never went in for sports, summer or winter. I stayed at home no matter what the weather outside.She just grinned.

Then the bell rang. Thank God, I thought.

The thing that was really strange to me was that Helena seemed to be normal with the other students, not weird or retarded like she was with me. It was odd. In fact she was becoming very popular. Not only was she beautiful but she seemed to know what everyone was thinking. She gave presents to the girls and always knew what was wanted and truly appreciated. By and large it seemed she ignored the boys, but some of them seemed to be able to buy more parts for their cars or showed up with a new gun in their truck’s rack.

She sat with me again the second day. I was silent for the first ten minutes. We only had half an hour. Then I finally asked her, “What would it take for me to make you stop sitting with me?” She just smiled and ignored the question.

Well to make a long story short, despite doing my best to make her unwelcome, she sought me out the next day and the next. No matter what I said, no matter who else wanted her at their table, or how I tried to get rid of her, every single weekday Helena would sit with me at lunch. Apparently she just wanted to talk.

I was completely at a loss.

That was the way it went for a few months. I became very grudgingly used to her. She was always cheerful and this greatly irritated me at lunch.

Then one day in the first half of October she asked me out of nowhere, “Do you want to see where I live?”

Well to tell you the truth the answer was no, but I wanted to see the inside of that mafioso-looking car. So despite my persistent lack of concern for her house, or life or anything else personal about her, I said, “Yeah, why not.”

“You can come with me today if you have nothing else to do.”

The truth was I never had anything planned. All my chores which I had done since I was ten came down to making dinner for my parents. That took 15 minutes because they liked SpaghettiOs and that sort of thing. I think they would hardly notice if they had to microwave their food themselves. Maybe they would miss me a little for the wash up. But they never used pots. It was all microwave bowls and plastic spoons.

Wait, they might be glad I went home with someone. That was the only black cloud.

I could not even understand her asking. I had never become her friend. She talked more at me than to me. But I said I would go and she positively glowed with joy. I mean really she seemed to light up as though by agreeing to meet after school I had made her the happiest person on earth.

Anyway that very afternoon we got in her rare and really expensive big car, and that part did not disappoint, believe me. The car was sort of square and old fashioned, but had very gothic tinted windows with black leather seats, wood panels on the doors and a wooden dashboard. It was a kind of interior that had not been seen in decades. No one makes luxury cars like that anymore. It must have cost a fortune.

Then there was the chauffeur. I was never fond of any sort of uniform. It marked you out as a second class toady. But nevertheless as a rich person I expected a chauffeur in an employee uniform.

Well he did not look like a driver. Instead the man had on an expensive suit that made him look like someone from the last century. His clothes were cut to be rounded and looked seamless, tailored and I noticed his nails were manicured. He wore a vest and a hat. I had never seen anyone in this coverall town with anything that resembled it. The material of the suit alone would be absolutely priceless.

Helena looked at me with confusion for a minute, sensing my mood, and then as if she read my mind a look of comprehension came over her face and she started to laugh. “Oh, you were expecting a chauffeur? No, this is my father.” She smiled but later I recalled that she never even gave me her father’s name. He tipped his felt hat, maintained a blank expression and said nothing.

We drove in silence which was okay with me. But after driving past the village limits 15 miles or so, I became edgy and said,“ Why would you even come to our school if you live this far out? We’re way the hell out of town. Are we close now, because I have things to do at home.”

She said nothing, but smiled. This time it was less retarded, more of a smirk. Then after a minute she said, “No you’ll want to see this.” She was dead wrong about that. I had seen the car. I mean that was all I really wanted to do.

My anxiety increased. Usually I made other people feel this way. There was a chance that I was scared for nothing, however this was becoming creepy.

Suddenly I felt myself losing control. Wherever they were taking me was too far to feel ‘normal’. I had not wanted to go home with her anyway.

I called out, “I want to stop now. Take me back.”

Helena was totally calm. For the first time she said in a firm voice, “No, I think you should stay. We're close to my house.” I became really frightened now.

She was unchanged. It was the same as in the cafeteria. I said nothing more as the car turned down a dirt road and continued into the woods. What good would it do? I considered jumping from the car and into the woods. But I was frozen.

Then after about five miles by my reckoning, at last we stopped. Even if it was not her home, it was such a structure as I would never have thought existed near the town even if it was hidden. I couldn’t understand. How could everyone in our crumbling, decrepit town have missed this? I would have heard about it long ago from everyone including my own family.

Even if it was not huge and imposing, I was relieved to see that she had an actual house. I was beginning to suspect she and her father were taking me deep into the woods to do something physical, vile and evil like killing me in perverse ways. The thought crossed my mind that maybe I was the kind of victim they were looking for. I mean, no one would miss me, neither my family or the school for sure.

She smiled and said, “Welcome to my home.” My mouth dropped. Even I had to admit it was a really huge and beautiful mansion. It appeared to be everything anyone I knew could dream of, lovely, huge and inviting.

It was a short cold distance from the frigid Maine weather outdoors which today was unusually cold, only in the 20s, to the imposing door. Helena pushed it open. There were no locks and no servants. Inside it was warm. That was peculiar. The staircases were cold marble, the floors too. I figured they must have had central heating and being rich on this cold day, they turned it all the way up.

Inside was as impressive as outside. The furniture was beautiful, elegant, timeless and and seemed a bit like it was curving into the room. It was probably custom built for the house. Nothing was out of place and the decorations too, seemed to blend into the matching architecture. The rooms were fitted with large wide windows which though they were doubled against the cold, were still too big for Maine, where keeping in the heat was a real concern.

But the strangest thing, and I was ready to believe it was an illusion, was that everything, the floors, the walls, the furniture, seemed to glow like jewelry without the sun. It was an unearthly but beautiful look.

Helena said, “My parents liked the sun reflecting on the bright snow so they used phosphorescent material on the upholstered furniture and painted just about everything else with a glowing varnish. I hope you like it.”

“Yes.” It was beautiful but otherworldly and oddly disquieting.

Then I noticed that we seemed to be alone. Once again I became secretly agitated and did not enjoy quiet. In fact the most eerie thing was that there was now a profound silence that seemed to exist all around. Despite the huge house and lawn being all in perfect condition, I could see no servants, or siblings, friends of the family or even her, as yet unseen, mother. The chauffeur who had been introduced to me in the car as her father, was nowhere to be seen either.

Come to think of it, no one from our village worked here. The house and what little I had seen of the grounds, were all beautiful, shiny, clean and orderly. Everything seemed to have been attended to recently.

She smiled as if she was delighted that I liked her home, and as usual ignored me when I pointed out we were alone. “Then stay for dinner. There will be no one but the two of us.”

“Don’t you eat with your parents?”

“No. They eat together elsewhere.”

That was a bit too strange for me. This whole event had been weird. Finally it was me who said, “Okay, this is beautiful, but it seems no one is here.” It was an involuntary compliment.I would like to stay, ya know, but no - I have to go home and cook for the family.” It was a new me, I had been intimidated into being polite! I was overwhelmed and amazed, but I was also scared.

“Stay,” she said forcefully.

“No, I have to leave right now.”

Then suddenly she made it all much worse.

“You know your family isn’t going to notice. They can cook their own SpaghettiOs and weenies. That was what you were going to make for dinner, wasn’t it? Afterward they can wash the dirty dishes and dry them alone without your help. What is there to cleaning four bowls? It takes 5 minutes or less.”

It was all true, but I had never told her or anyone at school anything about my life. “How do you know that?” For years I made it a point not to talk to anyone who had a mouth about anything that could be repeated at all.

I fought the sudden impulse to run.

But she answered me in a matter-of-fact way, “Oh I see everything. I even know they don’t want you at home.”

I told myself perhaps she was guessing. I had shown that I was clearly unhappy, and the rest she could guess. All I could see was that I was always rude to her. But this was going too far and too weird for me to sort out. I wanted to go home.

I gave in to my panic and ran out the door.

I did not know but it had become much colder. It must have dropped a few degrees while I was in there and it was already colder than usual for the time of year. It never did that until the end of October. That would be two weeks yet. I had a jacket, but it was just a padded windbreaker, and it was not warm enough because I had only counted on walking out of the school and into the family truck.

But I ran the five miles to the highway in under an hour because I was scared. I listened the whole time to make sure she didn’t try to follow me in that big car. For sure I was worn out and freezing when a truck stopped for me on its way to Presque Isle. I was never so happy to see a smelly alcoholic in my entire life.

I didn't tell him anything of what had happened for fear I would sound like a crazy person. Nasty words were fine, but not insane. He let me off at the school which was on the main road anyway. I drove the second family truck from the school to my house. Even I wondered if this had really happened. In fact everyone in town would say I was out of my mind.

My parents were both at home. It was evening. No one turned away to ask me why I was late or what I had done. Just as Helena said, they didn’t seem to notice me when I came in, though I made no unusual effort to be quiet. They never looked up from the television.

“Fuck it,” I said. I could see from the sink of dishes they had eaten without me. They were totally engrossed watching college basketball with Zack and drinking.Well if they were going to ignore me I would leave the dishes to them too.

Suddenly I realized how tired I was. I guess I was too weirded out to think about that until then. I went straight to my odd poster covered room. It had sheets for curtains and an unmade bed on which to fall asleep. My room was not a beautiful place, but it was my safe space and quite comfortable for me. I slept heavily because I was totally worn out. I even had one of those dreams where you think you are in some happy reality.

It was still dark, probably three AM, when I awoke to find the beautiful, well dressed Helena who had apparently followed me home, sitting on my bed. I was suddenly terrified, at the end of my rope. This was not the lunch room. There was no place else to go.

“Are you crazy?” I screamed at her. “How did you get in?”

I was in survival mode now. I gave a glance toward the knife I had in my nightstand drawer. I no longer cared if anyone believed me. This was too strange. Let them put me in juvenile or the mental institute but I had to get her away from me. .

As usual she was eerily calm. “Do not scream. You need to listen to me.”

Strangely, I did both. What she said was no longer insane. It was as though I was listening for the first time.

“Do you know why I ate with you every day in the cafeteria? Have you ever wondered?”

“Yeah, always.”

“Because I could feel your hate. You love no one. But you hate your teachers and you hate the other students. You hate your brother and your parents.”

I sat up. How did she know this? “Who the hell are you?” I seemed to be going out of my mind. I did not know what to believe

“Once my father owned this town.”

“What? It was owned alright, but over a hundred years ago by some flaky upper crust fella who thought he was going to make some money. Oliver Johnson.”

“I am Helena Johnson, his daughter.” It was as if everything I said made me look like a babbling infant but it was she who made no sense.

“No.” I shook my head. “I may be a crazy bitch, but that is impossible. You are not going to convince me you are the long-dead Helena Johnson. Someone in town, maybe my brother’s friends, put you up to this in order to make me look like a fool.”

She ignored me, and stared at the foot of my bed. “I hated the people in the town with good reason. They were fat, had missing teeth, and were stupid. The people in town today are pretty much the same and they disgusted me back then. But I also hated my nasty family. Mother was unpleasant to everyone including me. She gave orders to the servants, as though they were scum created just to fulfill her every wish. My overbearing father told me what to do and think. He wanted a real lady but that was not me. I wanted to leave but I did not know how. Then one day it came to me that there was no way out but one, and I killed myself.”

“What?” I didn't believe her.

“Yes. Now father is my slave. Poetic justice. Don’t you think that’s appropriate?”

“You’re talking crap.” I was simultaneously furious and terrified. “You looked this up. Fuck not funny, I want you out. If you continue tryin’ to make me believe you’re a ghost from the last century and shit, I’ll scream.”

Helena remained unaffected and even cheerful. “No you won’t.”

“You think I am lying?”

She shook her head. “Don’t you get it? No one but me knows or cares where or what you are. They won’t miss you when they find out.”

“Find out what? That I‘m a lesbian?”

“Well, yes that, but this place, your home, is an illusion. You have already died of exposure in the woods around my house. That truck driver was just a delusion and a dream. By the way so am I and have always been. That’s what my father wanted to change. And by the way, I love you. There is nothing you can say to change that. I know you completely.”

Suddenly I was back at her house in the woods. It was the same winter snow. Only this time it was warm. Helena was standing right behind me.

“I was alone for a long time. I've been gone over a century, I think. But then I found you. We love and we hate the same way. I came here just to find you at the right time.You know we don’t see things the way regular people do. I can hear thoughts and feel what others are experiencing.”

“I know the school is small, but there are, like, bunches and bunches of people. How did you know when you found me, if you had no idea what I looked like?”

“I felt you.” She chuckled. “You are so like me. We are wanderers and I was lonely - so are you. Your need, called out to me.”

I was confused and for a minute did not know what to think. Then I asked her, “What do you want from me?”

She was very pretty. I suppose she was more beautiful than me.“That we live as lovers.”

Helena kissed me and for the first time I could remember - no, the first time ever - I felt love instead of anger.

She was right. I belonged with her.

So as it turned out, I never would leave that town. She wasn’t lying. But I could hear everything, just as she could. It was actually very entertaining once you got used to it. At school no one asked about me. They did ask about Helena. Later the gossips decided I had killed her and run away. There were whispers of lurid love triangles and we still laugh about that.

I also heard my parents talk about me.

“She was a funny one,” my mother said after the police left. “Aunt Midge was the same. She hid it though. She had a sweetheart in Bangor.”

“Do ya think she’ll come back?”

“God I hope not.”

THE END

Bio: Alice Gordon has a PhD in Experimental Psychology. She lives in Stone Mountain, GA, with her husband and two out of seven children.

E-mail: Alice Gordon

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